"I hear it from young professionals trying to launch their careers, mid-career managers navigating internal politics, and even senior leaders struggling to steer their organizations in a new direction. We like to believe that good ideas rise to the top, that if something is smart or right, people will naturally get behind it. But history shows that's not true. From antiseptics and cancer immunotherapy to Chester Carlson's Xerox machine, even the most breakthrough ideas faced fierce resistance."
"As the computing pioneer Howard Aiken put it, "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." Getting traction has less to do with persuasion or even the importance of the idea itself than it has to do with power. If you want your ideas to have an impact, you need to learn how to build influence."
People across career stages frequently find their ideas ignored. Breakthrough innovations often face fierce resistance or never emerge despite being smart or right. Traction depends more on power than on persuasion or the intrinsic quality of the idea. Power is the capacity to influence, control, or direct others' behavior or the course of events, and it takes multiple forms. Hard power is coercive and comes from control of institutions or assets, enabling actions like promotions, firings, and resource allocation. Leaders use hard power to set direction, exemplified by Steve Jobs directing Apple to make the iPhone.
Read at Fast Company
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