Have you ever struggled to convince your boss to implement a new tool that you believe will benefit your organization? Even though many companies push employees to be more innovative, new ideas are often put on the backburner due to a lack of support from management. This is particularly true for client-side marketing researchers dealing with roadblocks such as small budgets and limited access to the C-suite.
In the Quirk’s 2018 Corporate Researcher Survey we asked respondents to rate the effectiveness of a variety of ways to gain internal buy-in on new tools or methodologies. “Ability to demonstrate ROI” drew the highest percentage of “very effective” votes, followed by “demonstrating cost savings.” While effective, demonstrating ROI can be challenging. This was made particularly clear in 2016 when we asked client-siders about challenges faced by their departments. Not being able to prove the ROI of research was one of the top three situations labeled as “always” being a challenge.
So I was intrigued when a coworker sent me an article titled, “Pitching novel ideas to the boss,” which shares steps to gain traction when pitching novel ideas to management based on research out of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The research was conducted to look at what influence tactics improve employees’ chances of receiving positive assessments from managers when presenting creative ideas.
The findings seemed particularity spot-on for client-side researchers looking to gain traction with an innovative tool or methodology. Here is a summary of the three tips shared in the article:
- Ensure your idea is truly original. If it turns out it isn’t innovative, proposing the idea can backfire on you, potentially hurting your reputation.
- Make the idea more concrete. The researchers call this process “idea enactment” and say it helps busy managers “more readily visualize what is being proposed.” Be it a demo, prototype or PowerPoint presentation, your goal is to make it easy for stakeholders to understand your creative idea. For client-side researchers this could include a vendor presentation or an in-depth look at a case study.
- Create a strong pitch. The research specifically points to using “influence tactics” such as explaining the rationale behind your idea and offering to help implement it. The researchers say to “sell an idea in a way that helps your manager understand the implications of it.”
The tips above may not seem groundbreaking but they do serve as a solid reminder that there is power behind pitching well-researched ideas – even if you don’t have the ability early on to demonstrate ROI. If you’ve successfully pitched an innovative idea, I encourage you to share your strategies with your peers!
The research was conducted by Kathryn M. Bartol, a management professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business; Vijaya Venkataramani, management professor at Smith; Smith Ph.D. candidate Shuye Lu; and two co-authors from universities in China. The full report is based on two studies: a field study of 192 employees and 54 supervisors in a video game and animation company and an experimental study with 264 participants. You can find the full article on the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business’ Web site. https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/smithresearch/research/pitching-novel-ideas-boss
Check out more client-side insights in Quirk’s Q Report. The 2018 publication will be out in early September. https://www.quirks.com/tools/corporate-researcher-report