How to Get Your Boss to Say Yes to Your ideas?

Trying to do things differently or to do different things within an organization is hard. Being an innovator is not an easy job. Especially when you're innovating within a large organization (and you are not the boss) it is a long road. At the start of innovation, you need to inspire and to convince a lot of people that it's an attractive move for the company and has a high chance of success. When you present your idea, new business case or new technology to your boss you will get reactions like: "No, we have done it always this way...", "No, our customers won’t like that...", "No, let’s be realistic…", or "No, that’s for the future..."

Now what would be the real reason why your boss would say "NO"?

1. Your boss does not understand it.

2. Your boss does not like it.

3. Your boss is jealous.

4. Your boss does not benefit from it.

5. Your boss think it might fail.

So.......

1. Show it to your boss in a practical way. Ideas are still rather vague. Make sure your boss understands it by showing a prototype (or pretotype), a customer journey or other visualizations. Seeing it, is believing it. So show them how it's feasible. And present partners to co-develop it with if it's too complex for your own organization.

2. Show customers really benefit from it. The voice of the customer is your best support for a new concept. Connect customers as early as possible to your innovation project. Let them test concept statements of your new product or service and (in a later stage) prototypes. Use their enthusiast responses to convince your boss when he or she doesn't like it so much at first glance.

3. Make your boss co-founder of the initiative. In an organization you can never innovate alone. A new initiative needs a lot of fathers and mothers to survive a corporate culture. You need R&D engineers, production managers, IT staff, financial controllers, marketers, service people and salesmen to develop the product, produce it, get it on the market and service it. Therefore make innovation a real team effort from start to finish lead by a passionate innovation champion. Be sure to make your boss part of the team (and not member of the steering committee). In this way, when it is a success, your boss gets the credits too.

4. Show your bosses what's in it for them: make a business case. As innovator you should bring back new business not new ideas. Innovation for most people is a way to get somewhere. Show how your idea brings in extra turnover or reduces costs by which it helps your boss to realize his or her targets. Bring back a mini new business case: What will it bring us? What levels of turnover and profit margin will it get? What is the target group? How can we make it? Here's a format for a mini new business case to download.

5. Pick the right moment. Be sure to present your idea inside the box otherwise nothing will happen. As most of your superiors don't want to run any risk, your chances to convince them rise when you present an innovative initiative as the next logical step to take. If you do have a revolutionary idea, be sure to pick the right moment. Just wait until doing nothing is a bigger risk. Then your boss will say yes.

Remember: You can only present an idea once for the first time! Have the patience of a hunter.

Ps. Of course there are awesome bosses, which are real supporters of innovation. Let's praise them!

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Gijs van Wulfen published the Amazon innovation bestseller: "The Innovation Expedition". Order it at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

5 star review: "Here's just about everything you need to know about how to establish and then sustain an innovation culture" (Bob Morris; Amazon reviewer).

Picture credits: Visionello under creative commons on Flickr. Thanks Visionello.

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