Pick intangible factors that decision-makers are passionately commited to. Within the systems justification world, typical intangibles include customer satisfaction, employee morale, and better decision-making. Ironically, many executives don't consciously recognize the importance of intangibles even though their decisions actively reflect their usage. Carl Jung, renown Swiss psychiatrist and a peer of Freud, recognized the crucial impact of intangibles on our judgment process in his book, The Psychological Types , first published in 1923. Pre-eminent management guru Peter Drucker expands Jung's insights by arguing convincingly that intangibles, such as intellectual property, are the real strategic capital of the 21st century.
Information is the core component of true value.
For ammunition, consider two recent industry studies. Most surveyed firms did not realize a hard-money ROI sufficient to cover their total investment. As IDC research manager Mary Hartman explains, the key to success was linking. Convincingly tying a technology payoff to a deeply felt group goal melted opposition to the system project. Just as was done in the state example above, pick intangible factors that decision-makers are passionately committed to.