Count the Votes Before You Get to the Senate Floor — by Dan Lynn
By Dan Lynn
One of my bosses at ADP, Brad Smith, had a saying I've carried with me ever since: "Count the votes before you get to the senate floor."
He applied it to business. When you're pushing a new idea, the worst place to find out where people stand is in the meeting itself. So before the meeting, you do the real work: go around, pitch your idea one conversation at a time, listen to the pushback, and build your support — so that by the time you walk into the room, you already know the outcome.
I used this everywhere, even for full company meetings. Before a big announcement, I'd go around and basically tell everyone what I was going to tell them. By the time I stood up in front of the whole company, there were no surprises left in the room — the objections had already been raised, handled, or minimized, one person at a time.
Here's why it works. Meetings are terrible places to persuade. When someone hears an idea for the first time in public, their first reaction becomes a public position — and public positions harden. But catch the same person one-on-one, and their objection isn't a stance. It's feedback. You can work with feedback.
And that's the part people miss: counting the votes isn't manipulation. It's respect. Nobody likes being surprised in public. And every one of those early conversations makes the idea itself better — by the time it reaches the floor, it's been improved by the very people who might have opposed it. Everyone has an ownership stake in the outcome.
The meeting was never the arena. The meeting is the ratification. The work happens before.
Questions this Key Learning answers
How do I build support for an idea before a meeting?
The author recommends doing the real work one conversation at a time: pitch the idea privately, listen to pushback, and build support before entering the room. These conversations show where people stand and help improve the proposal. By the formal meeting, objections have already been raised, handled, or minimized, and the likely outcome is clear.
Why is it hard to persuade people during a meeting?
The author argues that when people first hear an idea in public, their immediate reactions can become public positions—and those positions harden. In a private conversation, an objection remains feedback rather than a stance. Our analysis adds that people can reconsider privately without feeling that changing their minds means losing face before their peers.
Is talking to people before a decision meeting manipulative?
The author describes this groundwork not as manipulation, but as respect. Nobody likes being surprised in public, and early conversations give affected people room to question assumptions, raise concerns, and improve the idea. Those contributions also create an ownership stake in the outcome. The meeting then becomes ratification of a proposal already tested together.