Managing Organizational Behavior 2nd Edition by Timothy Baldwin,Bill Bommer,Robert Rubin

Exercise 17

Selling an Idea to Your Boss
You have read a lot about the most successful companies and have picked up an idea you think would work well in your unit (operations) of the firm. Specifically, you think your department should go to an "open office" design whereby all the cubicles would be taken out and replaced with more modern collaborative workspaces. You have a host of good reasons why this would be a good idea for your unit, but your boss is a little old-fashioned and unlikely to buy into the idea. While she has always claimed she has an open-door policy and is "constantly on the lookout for good ideas," your past attempts have been met with comments like, "Interesting idea, we'll have to look into that," "Maybe sometime in the future we could do something like that," and "We don't have the budget for that right now, but it is a great thought."
If you really want to see this idea come to pass, how would you prepare to sell this to her? Where should you start? What would be some of the key factors to consider? Are there any tactics you should definitely avoid because they would be likely only to hurt your chances of her approval?