When a good idea goes nowhere, it might not be the budget or the business case. It might be the culture.
You’ve done the work. You’ve spotted a real risk or opportunity. You’ve crunched the numbers, written the brief, maybe even floated it in a few meetings.
And the response? Polite nods. A couple of questions. Then… crickets.
It’s tempting to think the idea didn’t land because the story wasn’t sharp enough. Or because times are tight.
But sometimes, the problem isn’t the pitch. It’s that the people you’re pitching to live in a completely different mental model.
Take cyber security. Practitioners often see it ecologically, like tending a garden. It’s never finished. You need diversity, resilience, an understanding of the ecosystem.
Meanwhile, some execs see it as engineering, like plumbing. Install the right pipes and the water keeps flowing. Job done.
Same problem, different worlds. And if your organisation’s culture leans heavily toward engineered, hierarchical, linear thinking (the pipes), your carefully cultivated patch of strategic insight (your garden) might just wash away in the next budget cycle.
In my experience, organisations don’t fail to act because they disagree.
They often fail to act because they don’t even see the same problem.
And that’s where a lot of good ideas go to die: in the gaps between mental models, team cultures, and unspoken assumptions about what really matters.
So, if you’re hitting that weird resistance – not a no, just a slow, silent fade-out – consider :
– Who is meant to own this?
– How do they see the world?
– What language do they use when they talk about risk or investment?
It’s about meeting people where they are – understanding the frameworks they use to make sense of complexity, and translating your idea into that logic. If they think in terms of control and containment, show them how your proposal improves both. If they’re wired for risk reduction, speak to that. This isn’t manipulation, it’s navigation.
Because if your big idea lives in a different universe to the decision-makers, no amount of PowerPoint is going to get it through the wormhole.
BONWAG 