Look, I can’t advise you to do one thing or another, but I’ll give you some career advice that has worked well for me: don’t ask permission. Most of the time, the documentation is out there on how to get what you want and you can do it yourself. I won’t have my work be wasted by someone else’s laziness. And if your direct report doesn’t like the idea, tell him you want to discuss it with his boss. Make your case to someone who cares. You have every right to make use of whatever tools will help you do a better job.

What does making your case look like? It looks like making PowerPoint presentations, detailing a cost(man hours, oversight responsibilities, etc), detailing desired results, showing what impact this will have on the team, showing how long it will take to train your average joe on using these scripts, showing how much time can be saved.

Your boss might be chilling because he’s waiting out the clock on his career. You’re not. Stand by your ideas, people will stand by you. But you will have to fight for your ideas, and you need to be comfortable doing that. I’m not saying it’s not hard, it is soul crushing to get your ideas shot down. But you can push through.