The first step in effectively managing up is accepting that every decision in your company is made by the person who has the power to make that decision, even if he or she is not necessarily the right person or the best person to make that decision. If you can influence the key decision-makers in your organization, you can make a positive difference. If not, you will make much less of a difference. Once you make peace with these facts, you will become more effective at influencing up.

Following these three suggestions will also tilt the odds in your favor:

1. When presenting ideas to upper management, remember that it’s your responsibility to sell, not their responsibility to buy. In many ways, influencing up is similar to selling products or services to external customers. They don’t have to buy—you have to sell. Any good salesperson takes responsibility for achieving results. No one is impressed with salespeople who blame their customers for not buying their products.

While the importance of taking responsibility may seem obvious in external sales, an amazing number of people in large corporations spend countless hours blaming management for not buying their ideas. We can become disempowered when we focus on what others have done to make things wrong and not what we can do to make things right.

2. Focus on contributing to the larger good, not just achieving your objectives. An effective salesperson would never say to a customer, “You need to buy this product because if you don’t, I won’t achieve my objectives.”

Effective salespeople relate to the buyers’ needs, not to their own needs, in the same way effective upward influencers relate to the larger needs of the organization, not just to the needs of their unit or team.

When influencing up, focus on the impact of the decision on the overall corporation. In most cases, the needs of your unit and the needs of the corporation are directly connected. In some cases, they are not. Don’t assume that your superiors can automatically make the connection between the benefit to your unit and the benefit to the larger organization.

3. Present a realistic cost-benefit analysis of your ideas—don’t sell just the benefits. Every organization has limited resources, time and energy. The acceptance of your idea may well mean the rejection of another idea that someone else believes is wonderful. Be prepared to have a realistic discussion of the costs of your idea. Acknowledge the fact that something else may have to be sacrificed to have your idea implemented.

By getting ready for a realistic discussion of costs, you can prepare for objections to your idea before they occur. You can acknowledge the sacrifice that someone else may have to make and point out how the benefits of your plan may outweigh the costs. You may have spent years developing your functional or technical expertise. But by making a small investment in learning to influence up, you can make a large and positive difference for the future of your organization.

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An executive coach who has worked with more than 80 CEOs in corporations around the world, Marshall Goldsmith writes the “Ask the Coach” blog on Harvard Business Online and is a faculty member of the executive education programs at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

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The first step in effectively managing up is accepting that every decision in your company is made by the person who has the power to make that decision, even if he or she is not necessarily the right person or the best person to make that decision.

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