When the Right Idea Is Presented the Wrong Way

Years ago, I spent months developing a solution to a problem that had been frustrating our organization for a long time.

Across a large campus, we had dozens of different types of lighting fixtures and bulbs. Keeping replacements in stock was an administrative headache. Maintenance consumed staff time. Inevitably, some lights were always out. And we were spending more on electricity than we needed to.

LED lighting offered a potential solution, but most of the proposals I had seen required significant upfront investment.

Then I found something different.

A company would convert our lighting with no upfront capital investment. Instead, we would share a portion of the energy savings. They would also assume responsibility for maintaining the lighting going forward.

We would save money, reduce maintenance demands, improve the appearance and safety of the campus, and eliminate an ongoing operational headache.

I did my homework.

Actually, I did a lot of homework.

There were facility audits, meetings, research, site visits and financial analysis. By the time I presented the idea, I had anticipated just about every question I thought could be asked.

I had taken a complicated problem and put a ribbon around what I thought was a compelling solution.

And the idea was rejected almost immediately.

My initial reaction was frustration.

I had done the research. The economics worked. Others who reviewed the proposal saw its merits and even tried later to revive it.

For a while, I focused on why I thought the decision was wrong.

Eventually, I realized there was a more useful question:

Why had I presented the idea that way in the first place?

Because I knew better.

Knowing how someone decides

One of the lessons I've learned from spending much of my career as a CFO, COO and second-in-command is that knowing what a leader needs to know is only part of the job.

You also need to understand how that particular person makes decisions.

Some people want the recommendation first and the analysis behind it.

Some want choices.

Some want numbers.

Some need time to challenge an idea before becoming comfortable with it.

And some are more receptive when they participate in developing the solution rather than being handed a finished one.

I already understood that about this particular decision-maker.

Normally, I would have started with the problem.

We are spending too much time maintaining our lighting. We're stocking too many different parts. Lights are regularly out. Our energy costs are higher than they need to be.

Then I might have floated a possibility:

What if there were a way to convert the campus without making a major capital investment, and have someone else take responsibility for maintaining it?

Would that be worth exploring?

Maybe I would have been told to investigate it.

Maybe the idea would have been rejected anyway.

But if the answer were no, I could have learned that before investing months of work.

Instead, I became so excited about finding what I thought was the answer that I forgot what I already knew about how to present it.

I had done this before

On another occasion, I was preparing a recommendation for a significant capital project.

The funding was available. I researched the market, obtained multiple proposals, evaluated the alternatives and negotiated what I believed was the strongest combination of price, quality, service and long-term reliability.

I presented the finished recommendation.

The response was essentially: Go back and do better.

Again, I knew my audience.

Ordinarily, I would have brought the proposal forward before completing every last negotiation. I knew there would likely be a request to push harder, so I left myself somewhere to go.

This time, because I was convinced I had already found the right answer, I had negotiated as far as I reasonably could before presenting it.

I had confused having finished the analysis with being ready to make the case.

They aren't always the same thing.

When you are the filter

There is another dimension to this that took me longer to appreciate.

For much of my career, I have been the person immediately below the ultimate organizational leader.

People throughout an organization bring the number two their ideas, frustrations, requests, problems and proposals.

Part of the job is being a filter.

You ask the questions the leader is likely to ask. You identify what's missing. You strip away unnecessary detail. You help determine whether an idea is ready, and sometimes whether it should be brought forward at all.

You translate between the organization and the person who ultimately has to make the decision.

But when you're the number two, there is an interesting problem:

Who filters the filter?

Often, nobody.

There may be no additional layer between your analysis and the person who can approve it or kill it.

So you have to learn to be your own filter.

I haven't always gotten that right.

Sometimes enthusiasm gets in the way. Sometimes doing months of research makes us more attached to the answer we've found. And sometimes being convinced we're right makes us less attentive to how someone else needs to process the question.

It isn't about getting someone to think the idea was theirs

Understanding how someone makes decisions isn't about manipulation. It isn't about withholding information or maneuvering someone into believing your idea was theirs.

It's about recognizing that communication isn't complete simply because you've communicated.

If my responsibility is to help an organization make good decisions, understanding the decision-maker is part of that responsibility.

Does this person need a recommendation or alternatives?

Data or discussion?

The complete analysis or the problem first?

Do they want me to bring them the answer, or do they need to participate in getting there?

Learning those differences is part of learning to lead.

The best idea doesn't always win

I still don't know whether presenting that lighting proposal differently would have changed the outcome.

It might not have.

That's important, because the lesson isn't that every good idea will succeed if we package it cleverly enough.

The lesson for me was simpler:

I had made a good idea harder to accept than it needed to be.

I had spent months understanding the problem, the economics, the operational implications and the potential savings.

I hadn't spent enough time thinking about the person who ultimately had to say yes.

"Being right and being persuasive are two different skills."

And after years of sitting in the number-two seat, I've come to believe that the job isn't to get credit for having the right answer.

The job is to help the organization reach the right decision.