Bossing Around Your Ideas

Here’s some advice from bnet.com on how you can get The Boss to get behind your ideas.

Summary of their three-pronged plan for success…

1. Present multiple concepts in a fashion that makes the person in charge feel that the ideas originated (or were at least inspired) by them.

2. Allow The Boss time to peruse the options and choose the variation that most appeals to them.

3. Make them feel the selected option was sparked by their brilliance in some past (and perhaps mythical) conversation.

Let me add my own final point to bnet’s plan…
4. Update your resume and find a job where The Boss isn’t an ego maniac who makes decisions based on puffing themselves up instead of on the merit of the idea and what it will mean to the success of the company.

Why not try my 5-part approach instead?
1. Meet with The Boss to discuss the project for which you’d like to contribute an idea.

2. Come to a mutual agreement on the challenge itself (a problem well-stated is half-solved.) There’s no use spending time creating a proposal to increase the spending of existing clients if The Boss believes the problem is failure to convert prospects into new business. You need to both agree that the real solution is to increase sales.

3. Ask questions of The Boss so that you can incorporate the answers into your solution. If you ask “what’s the one thing that can’t be missing from a proposed solution?” and The Boss answers “it’s got to show weekly measurements to gauge success” — you darn well better incorporate those sorts of analytics into your concept.

4. Now go away for at least 24-48 hours before presenting your solution to The Boss. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t learn anything new in your conversation and your proposal is dead-on point right out of the box. You want The Boss to feel you’ve considered their feedback and included their perspective into your concept. Plus, I can just about guarantee that as your brain processes the conversation you’re going to come up with some improvements to your idea no matter how much you love it in its current form.

5. Present the idea to The Boss by reviewing your original conversation in order to bring them right back to the same page you were both on at the conclusion of your original meeting. Remind The Boss of both your original perceptions of the problem and the resulting agreed-upon problem statement. Be sure to hit each bullet-point of the 3 or 4 things you both agreed had to be in a proposed solution. Why? Two reasons — one, The Boss is working on a dozen other projects right now and probably hasn’t been dedicating the time you have to this single problem. And two, The Boss has had time to process your original conversation as well. It’s quite possible that between your first meeting and this one, that The Boss has changed the scope of the challenge on which you’re working. You may have come into this meeting with a brilliant plan to get current clients to spend more or to increase the closing ration of new business, but now The Boss might feel the problem revolves around the pricing of the product or service. You need to make sure you’re both on the same page and that the specs of the problem have not changed since you last spoke. If you’re both still on the same page, present your idea and seek approval to put it into action.

Now, here’s the REAL secret behind my process:
It works for selling ideas to ANY person — not just The Boss.