By Liz Ryan

"How's your day going?" asks a colleague, and I say: "Not bad."

"It's a bad day for me," he responds. "It has been 12 months since I started trying to sell the boss on my plan to restructure our client database."

"Twelve months!" I exclaim. "That's forever. What's the problem?"

"Well, every time I bring up the topic my boss says: 'Let's keep talking about it.' He always sounds positive," says my friend. "And then nothing happens. Two or three times over the past year, I thought we were about to move forward, and then everything stalled. Then he forgot about the whole thing until I brought it up again."

"I'm sorry to hear about that," is all I can come up with. But I'm curious. "What do you think is the problem?"

DISGUSTED LOOK.  "My boss is a flake!" says my friend in exasperation. "He has too many balls in the air. He can't stay on top of initiatives from people who report to him. He's a terrible manager."

"Aha," I reply. "So when there's so much competition for his mind-share, who wins? Someone must be able to hold his attention."

"Yes," replies my buddy with a disgusted look. "People who flatter him and let him make half the decisions as they're pitching their programs. They are the ones who get results."

"Fascinating," is my observation. "So there is a way to sell this customer."

"Customer? He's my boss!" is my friend's retort. And then I say:

"He's your boss, and your customer too. He has to buy your vision for your department. And when he tells you he's interested without moving forward, he isn't sold. The ball isn't in his court -- it's in yours. If you want him to move, you have to sell him. And you've just said there's a way to do that: Someone else has done it."

WHOSE FAULT?  "But it's his job to move forward on his managers' ideas," whines my friend. "Why should I spend the time?"

"Well, no reason," I say, "if selling the same customer unsuccessfully for 12 solid months doesn't bother you."

"So you're saying this is MY fault?" my colleague asks incredulously.

"I'm sorry, but that's the only way to look at it," I tell him. "Your boss will be as supportive of your plan as you make him, and no more. Just as the boss is responsible for selling his team on a vision for the group's future, so are you responsible for selling him on whatever grand schemes you're hatching. Why would he devote resources or energy -- or even allow you to invest your time -- in a program he isn't sold on?"

BLINDLY APPROVE.  "If you can't get him to see the vision," I continue, "why would anyone else see it? How could he give you a green light without truly buying in, and how can he buy in if you haven't brought him there? It's not his fault that he isn't sold. That would be like blaming a customer for not buying from you."

"But this is my boss!" rails my friend (I think he's still my friend). "He's supposed to champion me!"

"Well, right, he's supposed to champion the ideas that he understands and believes in," I reply. "He's not supposed to blindly approve every concept you put in front of him. That wouldn't be responsible."

"Well then," says my colleague, sulking, "he should have shut me down cold, without wasting 12 months of my time."

MORAL SUPPORT.  "A person could take exception to that notion of 'your time,'" I observe. "He's paying your salary. He has never turned down your plan, because a little bit of his mindshare is invested in it. You need to build out from there, and sell him all the way. The extra time is a gift. If you were selling a real, live customer, you'd be fired if you couldn't close him in a year. Or you'd decide he wasn't buying, and move on."

"Well, thanks for the moral support!" huffs my buddy.

"What good would I do you if I just said: 'You poor thing, your boss is an idiot?'" I inquire. "I'll bet your wife has already told you that a million times. That won't help you learn anything or focus on how to sell your boss."

"You're wrong about my wife," he says. "She's been saying exactly what you said. I just figured that she didn't know what she was talking about, because she's a physicist, not a businessperson."

KICK THE DOG.  The story has a happy ending. My friend got the message, started viewing his boss as a customer, and managed to get him engaged in his database restructuring idea. The boss, who had never hated the plan but who had also never made it a priority, was pleased to come on board finally as a big supporter. And he praised my buddy for his perseverance. "I'm so glad you got those kinks worked out of your plan," he would say to my friend, who would grin and respond: "Yes, the kinks. Thanks for your help on those."

As easy as it is to curse the boss and kick the dog when your ideas aren't accepted, it's far more effective to face the truth and focus on connecting with your customer. And if you find that course of action too frustrating, there's always the option to fire the customer by changing bosses -- that is, by changing jobs.

Of course, if your boss is a habitual plan-staller, then changing bosses would also amount to losing your No. 1 excuse when things don't go your way. But perhaps it would be worth it. It might make the difference between rafting the rapids and pushing on a slowly revolving door. After all, don't your great ideas deserve to see the light of day?