Authoritay!

I have been put in a project of which I have no experience; I have oblique authority, and indirect responsibility over the 'resources' working for me now. I tell the programmers to do what I want to do, but my boss puts it in a different way that what I told them becomes wrong, but it gets done more or less the same way I wanted. I tell someone to do something, they tell me it is difficult. I can't control them because I am not their manager, so I resort to emotional appeals - "don't do this for me, do this for the company!", "it is a million dollar project, so help me get that deal". I stink :(