At GE, a senior manager told me something I dismissed at the time and use every quarter now: "If you cannot articulate why you would fund this initiative if it were your money, you have not earned the right to ask the company for it."

At GE, a senior manager told me something I dismissed at the time and use every quarter now: "If you cannot articulate why you would fund this initiative if it were your money, you have not earned the right to ask the company for it."

Years later, every proposal I write starts with that question. Half of them never get written. The other half land.

The discipline is in the test, not the answer.