They will dismiss an idea, saying: ''We tried that five years ago and it was a disaster.'' For the purposes of making a decision, they assume everything remains the same. They forget the circumstances which may have made the idea ''ahead of its time'' five years ago may have altered so the idea is now ''timely''.

Conversely, they will move forward with an idea, contending that ''it worked five years ago, it should work again.'' Again, they assume the world stands still. Tried and true ideas usually end up as tired and dead ideas if you make that false assumption.

I was reminded of this the other day by Julian Bach, the head of our IMG Bach Literary Agency, who told me this story when he was a young reporter at Life magazine after World War II.

Julian was having lunch with a Romanian refugee who had fled the Nazis. The young man was struggling for a living in New York City, selling souvenir programmes at the old Metropolitan Opera House at a time when the great impresario Sol Hurok was producing ballets.

It was a perfect Tuesday night in May. The Met was sold out. Two great stars were dancing. The young man sold most of his programmes.

The next week, again Tuesday night, with the same perfect weather, the same two stars performing the same ballet, the same sold-out Met, he hardly sold a programme.

The doors closed. The curtain went up. Hurok and the refugee were alone in the lobby. Showing Hurok the unsold programmes, the young man said he had no idea how to explain it.

''It's simple,'' said Hurok.

''What do you mean simple,'' said the annoyed refugee.

''It's a different Tuesday,'' Hurok said.

Keep this in mind the next time a client or boss or colleague shoots down your idea because it is the same as a previous failure, or supports an idea because it is the same as a previous success. Whenever you hear someone in business say, ''It's the same,'' count on it: they're wrong. It's always a different Tuesday. A SPORTS psychologist who runs sales training seminars for corporations told me about an experiment he tried on a group of executives. He took a dozen managers to a bowling alley to see how they would function in team situations. It is a standard ''game'' strategy that sales trainers love.

The participants reveal - and learn - a lot about their competitiveness, their ability to function in groups, even their preferences in team-mates and opponents.

But then the trainer tried something new. He set up the bowling in such a way that the executives could not see the pins they knocked down. As a result, their interest in bowling declined tremendously.

''They quit when they can't see the pins,'' the trainer said.

That is an important motivational lesson. The will to compete and win vanishes when people sense no one is keeping score, or keeping it fairly. That happens a lot more in business than people suspect.

Perhaps it is not a serious issue with a company's star employees, the men and women who bring in the big deals. They ''can see the pins'' in their sales projections and their pay cheques.

But it can be serious with a company's supporting players, the little people who do the thousands of little things that help the stars remain stars.

As a manager you have to help these people see the pins, too. You have to give them the overall picture and tell them what makes them significant in a way that takes into consideration more than their bottom-line dollar contributions.

For example, one of our executives came up with a publishing idea for one of our clients, the sanctioning body of a major sport. If he makes it happen, he will earn $20,000 for the client and $20,000 for us. In the overall scheme of things, it is a smallidea.

But I cannot let him believe that. That small idea may be the linchpin in keeping a whole relationship together that is worth several hundred thousand dollars to us. He should hear that repeatedly from me. Reminding employees they are making an impact issomething they never tire of hearing.