If you think you're stuck because "my boss won't let me," what's really happening is that she has decided that the answer to at least one of these three questions is no.

The goal is to go through the steps necessary for your colleagues to believe (because they want to believe). It's an emotional ticket you need stamped, not an intellectual one. Here's a partial grab bag of tactics that will work some of the time for some champions:

Ask questions, don't give answers. Please don't think you have to know all the answers. You don't. You just need the posture of a champion and the guts to ask hard questions. My first real job involved informally managing 40 world-class software engineers in a bet-the-company launch of five major new software products. Everyone knew that I couldn't possibly have a point of view when it came to engineering issues, so they were happy to have me kibitz. I spent my entire day going from one team to another, asking questions.

Ask obligating questions. Generally, it's a bad idea to answer objections. If you spend all your time answering one objection after another, sooner or later the people you're selling to will find an objection you can't answer. Better to answer the objection with a question. Keep working your way backward until you uncover the actual problem--not the symptom of the problem.

Then, before you try to answer the objection associated with the real problem, take two more shots. First ask, "If we can solve this problem, can you see any other reason not to move ahead?" This obligates the person to speak up or put up. It means that the objection you're going to tackle is the real problem, not a stalling tactic. Second, work to get them on your side. "If I could convince you that solving this problem was really important, how would you do it?"

Build a prototype. The first time you see Reebok Travel Trainers, or the Segway, or the iPod, or the Nokia music phone, you "get it." But until you see it and hold it, it's merely a concept, a flaky idea, something that may (or may not) happen. A prototype makes it concrete. To hold it makes it possible, makes it likely, and reinforces your role as the champion, the owner of the vision.

Prototypes also help us get over our desire to make it perfect before we start. If it's easy to make one prototype, it's easy to make a hundred. Each prototype gets better, more useful, more real.

Walk into a meeting with a key power broker. Announce you have a prototype in your case. That's all she wants to see. Now you have her. Take your time. Lay out the vision. Then let her hold it. Put it on her desk. Leave it on her desk!

As the days go by, people will pass by her desk, see the prototype, and ask about it. As each person gets more and more excited about this cool innovation, word spreads. It becomes a reality. All that's left is to actually make it.

3. I Don't Have Any Great Ideas (Don't Brainstorm, "Edgecraft" Instead)

The free prize is the element that transcends the utility of the original idea and adds a special, unique element worthy of more money and notice.

The way to find these ideas is what I call "edgecraft." It is a methodical, measurable process that allows individuals and teams to identify inexorably the soft innovations that live on the edges. It can be done quickly or over long periods of time. And you can even do it by yourself (I do my edgecraft in the shower. It has the added benefit of dramatically increasing personal hygiene).

Edgecraft is a straightforward process:

1. Find an edge--a free prize that has been shown to make a product or service (in someone else's industry) remarkable.
2. Go all the way to that edge--as far from the center as the consumers you are trying to reach dare you to go.

Moving a little is expensive and useless. Moving a lot is actually cheaper in the long run and loaded with wonderful possibilities. It's easy (but pointless) to open your store another 30 minutes a day. It's more difficult (but possibly a fantastic strategy) to open your store 24 hours a day. Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.

Brainstorming might create the occasional breakthrough, but edgecraft can inexpensively and quickly churn out lots of ideas--good ideas and sometimes great ideas. Ideas you can rapidly implement. If people aren't blown away, they won't talk about it. If they don't talk about it, then it doesn't spread fast enough to help you grow.

There are hundreds of available edges--things you can add to, subtract from, or do to your product or service. Here are a few to consider.