Get Your Ideas Approved: Job Skill #1: How to Get Your Boss to Approve Anything You Want to Do

A strong idea can stall before it ever gets a chance to work—not because it lacks promise, but because the person approving it has questions, concerns, and limited time. In Get Your Ideas Approved, Jon Spoelstra focuses on the often-overlooked skill of making a persuasive case to your boss, particularly when your proposal is bold or unconventional.

Make the case before you make the pitch

Spoelstra calls his approach “The Outrageous Approval Tool.” Rather than treating approval as a negotiation that ends in compromise, the book centers on preparing to present an idea as you want it to be carried out. The emphasis is on doing the work before asking for a decision: considering what a manager may question and being ready to explain the proposal.

From preparation to presentation

The chapter sequence follows the process through preparation, the pitch, and the response to objections. It also considers what to do after the first attempt, when to wait, how to think about risk, and how to use the approach in different settings. That structure gives readers a way to consider not just what they want to propose, but how to make the proposal easier to assess.

Beyond the first “yes”

Approval is not presented as a single conversation with a guaranteed outcome. The contents include chapters on whether the method always works, making it work for you, becoming the person who grants approval, and pursuing ideas when you do not need anyone else’s permission. The book also addresses work involving nonprofits and other causes.

For people with an idea waiting in the wings

This book may speak to employees, managers, and other professionals who want to put forward a new initiative but need to make a clearer, better-prepared case for it. Its practical focus is the path between having an idea and explaining it in a way a decision-maker can seriously consider.