Jennifer had a problem. She was the program manager for the No. 2 business priority at a multibillion-dollar company, rolling out sustainability programs in manufacturing. But when she presented, she kept hearing: too complicated, too time-consuming, too costly. And she couldn’t figure it out.

She was a top-rated engineer, hand-picked to lead a CEO-mandated program. Sustainability had long-term margin impact—and with her modified approach could even bring savings forward into this fiscal year.

But whenever she gave an update saying, “I have a proposal to accelerate the sustainability program into this fiscal year,” she was told, “No.”

Her big barrier? The No. 1 priority: a businesswide enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrade that was monopolizing capital, downtime, and resources.

Jennifer’s response was to dig deep. It was clear her SVP didn’t see how both priorities could be executed at the same time. To bust his outdated beliefs, Jennifer doubled down on granular details and specific timelines.

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