Someone with direct access to senior leaders brings a fresh idea every cycle, each with its case and cost, and competes openly for attention and funding against older initiatives.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Every Monday the head of growth at a meal-kit startup, a year after its first big venture round, had breakfast with the chief executive, and used it. In March the pitch was a grocery marketplace, in April an AI meal planner, in May a corporate catering line. Each came with a one-page case: the market, the cost of a test, the metric that would decide it, and the date it would be killed if the metric missed. Each set out what it would take from the head of product's plan to cut subscription churn. The chief executive funded the catering test and the churn plan and turned down the other two. Catering hit its metric in eight weeks and became a business line, and the marketplace idea came back six months later with better data and was approved.
Why it works
Each pitch is novel, vivid, and tied to what senior leaders are thinking about, so new ideas look better than they would on paper. Older initiatives can look stale by comparison, and funding a new idea means taking something from them. The pitcher needs direct access to senior leaders and leaders with an appetite for new ideas. Competing on merit means each idea carries its own case, cost, and kill date, so the comparison with existing work happens in the open and leadership can close loops before opening new ones.
The thinking behind it
Herbert A. Simon Simon's Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World (1971) argued that in an information-rich world the scarce resource is attention, and most of the cost of information falls on the person receiving it. Senior leaders' attention is that resource, and a steady stream of vivid pitches competes for it directly with older initiatives. That is why the clean form attaches a case, a cost, and a kill date to each idea, and why portfolio reviews are the defense.
Daniel Kahneman Tversky and Kahneman's Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (1974) describes availability: people judge how frequent or probable something is by how easily instances come to mind. A pitch tied to the article the chief executive just read comes to mind easily, and a month-old proposal does not. A one-page case with a metric and a kill date puts both ideas on the same footing.
When it fits
Regular, direct access to senior leaders and a stream of genuinely promising ideas are the preconditions, in an organization whose leaders want new options. You need the analytical support to put a case, a cost, and a kill criterion on each idea.
How to use it well
Treat your access as something to keep, and earn it again each cycle.
- Bring one idea at a time, each with a one-page case: the opportunity, the cost of a test, the metric that decides it, the kill date.
- State the trade-off plainly: what existing work would lose funding or attention.
- Close loops by reporting results on earlier ideas before pitching new ones.
- Talk to the owners of existing initiatives before you pitch, so the trade-off is no surprise.
Accept a no gracefully and come back with better data. Your access lasts as long as leaders trust your pipeline.
What it costs and where it backfires
Leaders tire of a steady stream of new ideas, and the owners of existing work will see you as a distraction. If none of your ideas closes, your access will shrink. The move crosses the line when ideas are pitched mainly to pull funding from a rival's work regardless of merit, when costs or trade-offs are understated, or when earlier failures are hidden; that is misrepresentation, and leaders who notice will stop trusting anything you bring.
When it is used on you
Keep a list of the initiatives started in the past year, with their status, when a stream of new pitches is pulling attention from yours, and bring it to a leadership meeting. Reframe your work as something the new ideas depend on, and ask for a portfolio review before new funding.