I remember sitting in a planning meeting early in my career, watching a proposal I'd spent weeks preparing get politely acknowledged and then set aside. The feedback wasn't negative. People nodded. Some said it was interesting. But when it came time to allocate resources, the energy just wasn't there. My proposal went into the backlog, which in most organizations is where ideas go to die.
The thing that really stung? About eight months later, someone else brought essentially the same idea to the table. Different packaging, different timing, but the same core concept. And this time, it took off. People were excited. Resources materialized. Stakeholders who had been lukewarm when I pitched it were now championing it. The person who brought it probably had no idea I'd proposed the same thing before, and honestly, that wasn't even the frustrating part. The frustrating part was that I couldn't figure out what they did differently.
I could see the value of my original idea so clearly it felt obvious. But the organization felt otherwise. The resources needed to be used elsewhere. This happened more than once. At some point I started wondering if the universe was running A/B tests on my proposals and I was always in the control group.
When being right isn't enough
For a long time, I assumed the quality of an idea was what mattered most. Build a solid case, show the data, explain the benefits, and surely people would see the value. I spent time crafting detailed proposals with clear problem statements, technical approaches, and expected outcomes. Good engineering thinking. And sometimes it worked. But often it didn't, and I couldn't explain why.
What I've come to understand is that navigating organizational dynamics is complex, almost a bit of an art. There are currents in every organization: things people care about, problems that feel urgent, narratives that are gaining or losing momentum. An idea doesn't exist in a vacuum. It lands in a specific context, with specific people, at a specific moment. And whether it gains traction depends less on the idea itself and more on whether it connects to what the organization is already feeling.
This isn't cynical. It's just how groups of humans work. And recently, I found a framework that explains it remarkably well.
The tribe and its signals
I've been reading Tribal by Michael Morris, a cultural psychologist who argues that human behavior in groups is governed by three evolved instincts. Each instinct responds to a specific type of signal, and understanding these signals gives you a practical lens for why some ideas catch fire and others don't.
The Peer Instinct responds to prevalence signals: what most people are doing. When we see that many people already believe or practice something, we're wired to fall in line. This is the "everyone's doing it" effect, and it's not shallow or irrational. It's the mechanism that allows groups to coordinate without explicit instructions. Morris traces it back to the earliest human communities, where observing and matching the behavior of those around you was literally how survival knowledge spread. I've seen this play out in engineering organizations constantly. When a team adopts a new practice (say, trunk-based development), the first thing everyone else asks isn't "is this better?" but "who else is doing it?"
The Hero Instinct responds to prestige signals: what admired or respected people are doing. We look to the people we respect and emulate their choices. If a senior leader champions an initiative, it carries more weight than the same initiative proposed by someone without that standing. This isn't just office politics. It's a deep evolutionary drive to learn from those who've demonstrated success. Think about the last time a respected principal engineer casually mentioned a tool or pattern they liked. Half the org was using it within a month. That's the hero instinct at work.
The Ancestor Instinct responds to precedent signals: what has always been done. We feel a pull toward tradition, toward established ways. When something is framed as "the way we've always done it," it carries a weight that newer ideas don't automatically have. But here's the interesting flip side: when a new idea is framed as a return to founding principles or established values, it inherits that weight. Morris describes how Lou Gerstner turned IBM around by framing radical restructuring as a return to IBM's founding culture. The changes were dramatic, but they felt conservative because they were rooted in precedent.
The key insight from the book is that cultural changes activating all three signals tend to succeed, while those relying on only one or two tend to fizzle. Gandhi's independence movement worked because it had massive participation (prevalence), an extraordinary moral leader (prestige), and deep roots in Indian tradition like hand-spinning and salt-making (precedent). Occupy Wall Street had crowds and media coverage (prevalence) but deliberately rejected leadership and had no connection to historical precedent. Two out of three signals unaddressed, and the movement faded. Same energy, radically different staying power.
What this means for your next proposal
When I look back at my own failed proposals through this lens, the pattern is painfully obvious. I was building logically sound cases and sending exactly one type of signal: "here's why this is a good idea." Rational arguments, clear data, solid reasoning. But I wasn't activating any of the tribal instincts that actually drive group decisions.
Here's how I think about framing proposals now.
Send prevalence signals. Show that this isn't just your idea. It's a direction others are already moving toward. "Three other teams have independently started working around this limitation" is more powerful than "I think we should fix this." I learned this one the hard way. One of my proposals gained traction only after I stopped leading with the technical merits and started leading with "I've talked to six people across three teams and they're all hitting the same wall." Reference industry trends, competitor moves, or internal conversations that point in the same direction. You're not arguing that the idea is good. You're showing that momentum already exists.
Secure prestige signals. Find the people in your organization whose opinions carry weight and get them involved early. Not just as sponsors, but as genuine collaborators who shape the proposal. When a respected tech lead or a senior product manager is visibly excited about an idea, others pay attention in a way they wouldn't otherwise. This isn't about playing politics. It's about recognizing that in any group, certain voices carry more influence because they've earned trust over time.
Frame precedent signals. Connect your idea to something the organization already values. If you're proposing a new approach to reliability, frame it as a return to the company's founding commitment to quality. If you're suggesting a new team structure, tie it to a successful experiment from the company's history. The ancestor instinct makes new things feel safer when they're rooted in established identity.
The most effective proposals I've seen activate all three. They show prevalence ("this is where the industry is heading, and our teams are already feeling the pain"), prestige ("our most senior engineers and our VP of product are aligned on this"), and precedent ("this connects to what made us successful in the first place").
Your proposal needs a quest, not just a slide deck
There's another layer to this. In many ways, a project proposal needs to follow the archetypal hero story arc. Describe the current state (the ordinary world), articulate the problems and dangers out there (the call to adventure), lay out what the journey looks like (the trials), and paint a picture of what defeating the dragon and getting the gold looks like (the resolution).
But here's what I think makes the difference: these narrative elements need to tap into the tribal signals. The "current state" should activate the peer instinct by showing that many people feel the pain, not just you. The "call to adventure" should activate the hero instinct by connecting to what the organization's most admired leaders care about. And the "resolution" should activate the ancestor instinct by framing success as a return to core values or a continuation of what the organization has always stood for.
Imagine you want to propose migrating off a legacy system. Instead of opening with a technical architecture diagram (which is what I would have done, and did do, more than once), you open with: "Right now, seven teams spend roughly 30% of their sprint capacity working around limitations in System X. Our VP of Engineering has been asking how we can ship faster. And when we founded the platform team, the original charter said 'make the right thing the easy thing.' This migration is how we get back to that promise." That's prevalence, prestige, and precedent in three sentences. Compare that to my earlier approach, which was basically a well-reasoned document that said "this system is old and I think we should replace it." (Shockingly, that didn't set anyone's heart on fire.)
When you combine a compelling narrative structure with the right tribal signals, something powerful happens. The idea stops being your idea and starts becoming our idea. The proposal stops feeling like a request for resources and starts feeling like an inevitable direction. People don't just agree with it intellectually; they feel drawn to it.
What I wish I'd known earlier
Looking back at that planning meeting where my proposal was set aside, I can see what was missing. I had a strong logical case, but I was the only one pushing it. No prevalence signals (I hadn't shown that others felt the same pain). No prestige signals (I hadn't brought respected voices into the conversation early). No precedent signals (I hadn't connected it to anything the organization already valued). I was just a person with a good idea in a room full of people with competing priorities.
The person who resurfaced that proposal eight months later, whether they knew it or not, landed at a moment when more people were feeling the problem (prevalence had shifted), had the ear of a senior stakeholder who championed it (prestige), and framed it in terms of what the organization was already committed to (precedent). Identical concept, different signals, completely different outcome.
I don't think this means we should be manipulative about how we present ideas. Understanding how groups actually make decisions isn't manipulation. It's respect for the reality that humans are social creatures whose instincts shape their choices. When you align your proposal with the way people naturally process information and change, you're not tricking them. You're communicating in a language they're wired to understand.
Even then, it might not work. Organizations are complex, timing matters, and sometimes the context simply isn't ready regardless of how well you frame things. You can activate all three signals and still lose to budget cuts, shifting priorities, or plain bad luck. But giving your idea the best chance you can is always worth the effort, even if the outcome isn't guaranteed. The tribe has its own dynamics and interests, and they change over time.
The next time you have an idea you believe in, don't just ask yourself whether it's good. Ask yourself: does the organization see that others care about this? Do the people they admire champion it? Does it feel rooted in who we are? If the answer to any of those is no, you might have a great idea that's missing the signals it needs to survive.