Of the three tools of the public-sector innovator, fuel — sponsorship — is the one that runs out first. And the most precious share comes from the top: that small group of people (president, general manager, board) with the power to legitimize a project and give it the political, economic and symbolic space to exist. To obtain it, having the right idea is nowhere near enough: you have to know how to sell it. And the first rule of that sale I learned in the field: to understand what to propose to the top, first understand what the top actually buys.
Never show up with a problem and no solution
Whoever runs a complex organization lives immersed in urgencies, constraints and criticalities. Bring them just one more knot to untangle, and the natural reaction is closure or, worse, indifference. Bring a problem together with its possible solution — concrete, sustainable, comprehensible — and you open space for listening, turning a complaint into an occasion for a decision.
At the first meeting where I proposed seriously tackling the rebranding of INPS, I did not arrive empty-handed: I had a fourteen-page document with me, concise but dense. It was not a list of grievances, even though the problems were recognizable between the lines. It was a path: what we could do, what advantages it would bring, how other large organizations were moving, and why we were already in a position to start. The top didn't perceive the rebranding as a new problem to manage, but as a ready-made solution to a problem they had perhaps always sensed, without ever having the time or the tools to face it.
The strategic narrative (and the details that kill it)
So what must that narrative say? Three things: where you want to go; why it matters to get there now — not for you: for the organization; why this project is the right vehicle. Only afterwards, if at all, do you get into tools and steps. Because at the beginning, details kill strategy: they slow the conversation, blur priorities, open the door to premature objections. How it will be done, with whom, in how long — all of that can wait until the vision has been accepted.
The vision, moreover, should be positioned where leadership is already looking: hooked to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time. If everyone is talking about simplification, talk about simplification; if the climate favours efficiency, equity or digitalization, hook yourself there. Not to chase fashions: because a project that presents itself as the answer to an already-recognized problem moves on ploughed ground. And there is an even more effective move: if you can contribute to drafting the strategic documents — multi-year plans, digital roadmaps, programmatic reports — do it. The most influential moment for a project is often not its presentation, but the moment when the official objectives it will later hook onto are being defined. Don't just propose answers: take part in building the questions.
Finally, the most delicate element: leadership must be able to resell that vision as its own, to use it to portray itself as an active agent of change. It may feel frustrating, but it is actually a great result: if a top executive tells the story of your project as their own initiative, they will very likely guarantee you all the support you need — their face is now on the line. Make your vision desirable, spendable, easy to adopt for those who decide. Even if the credit ends up shared. Or reassigned.
The four criteria of sponsorship
Sponsorship decisions are not based on how good the idea is, but on its overall strategic profile. A project is more likely to be backed if it answers four criteria:
Impact. A clear, tangible, possibly measurable improvement — quantitative (processing times, access, satisfaction), qualitative (fairness, simplification, transparency) or symbolic (owning a key or emerging topic).
Legitimacy. The project must not look like a personal initiative: even the most valid one, if perceived as "so-and-so's project", generates resistance across the board. Anchor it to recognized mandates, put multiple actors behind it, tell it as part of the institution's trajectory. Even if you invented it, it must not speak about you: it must speak for everyone.
Visibility. A tellable project is a sponsorable project: governance backs initiatives that can be presented as successes to citizens, media and political counterparts. Visibility attracts support and then protects it — it's the best insurance against abandonment at the first change of scenery. And if you have no results yet, sell the potential visibility: even the promise of a good story is an asset.
Contained risk. In the public sector, any mistake can end up in a parliamentary question: risk appetite is physiologically low. The answer is not to propose less innovation, but innovation compatible with the context, with a plan B ready — and ideally a plan C.
On visibility I hold a conviction I like to state bluntly:
A strong project is a project that can be seen — today or tomorrow, internally or externally. If it can't be seen, it doesn't exist.
As for risk, it pays to know its three faces: political (an ambitious project that fails becomes a target for criticism and exploitation — and the fear of "putting one's face on it" holds back sponsors even of excellent projects), organizational (touching consolidated power structures generates friction; a project can be blocked not for its content, but for the noise it threatens to make) and economic (variable costs, intangible benefits, uncertain timelines). The most effective antidote I know is pilots and incremental releases: test on a limited perimeter, with a limited commitment, and scale only afterwards. Sirio, INPS's design system, started exactly like that — minimal budget, first steps covered with the few resources available. The success of the first release made it natural, later on, to secure far more substantial funding. Without that first light step, there would have been nothing to scale.
Anatomy of a document that worked
Back to the fourteen pages of "Ipotesi Rebranding INPS" ("Hypothesis: Rebranding INPS"), because they are the practical application of everything above. In sequence: a cover whose very title conveyed that we were not asking whether to do the project, only when to begin; a section on what a rebranding is, positioning it as an established practice of organizations that evolve, not a creative indulgence; the why for INPS, hooked to the transformation already underway (new portal, text simplification, growing attention to user experience): the rebranding gave a coherent face to a process already in motion. Then the complete scope of work — mission, logo, palette, typefaces, tone of voice — to show this was no cosmetic restyling; the skeleton of the future brand manual, a recognizable deliverable comparable to the standards of large organizations; the narrative lever of history plus innovation — 125 years, "the history of the Italians": the rebranding didn't break with the past, it projected it into the future; the macro-phases with the proverbial "who does what", to dispel any perception of a leap into the void.
And then the synergies, where the proposal became irresistible: the approaching 125th anniversary allowed the rebranding to be presented as a natural extension of activities already planned — same investment, double return — and the ecosystem in motion (Sirio, the new portal, the services being redesigned under the national recovery plan) made it a piece of a puzzle rather than a foreign body. Visual closing: examples of great brands, from Fiat to luxury houses, that had simplified their identities. Not out of imitation, but to show a universal rule of evolution: updating yourself is a form of maintenance.
The document didn't say "we have a problem". It showed: we have a solution, others are doing it, the context demands it, we are ready to start. In a language and form suited to the top: concise, concrete, visual. That presentation was no mere slide deck: it was the trigger. The moment the idea turned into a mandate, and the proposal became an institutional project.
An uncomfortable truth
I'll close with the warning I wish someone had given me at the start: there are useful, even necessary projects that will never receive the support they deserve. Not every worthy project gets backed — but every project that gets backed knows how to place itself inside a recognized priority. Innovating also means reading the context and translating your initiative into the language of the strategies in progress. The top buys visions: show up with a vision worth buying.