Stephen H Baum Leadership

I am compelled to post this note upon hearing this story from a senior executive of major public company. It is common at lower levels to observe people oblivious to presentations without being boss ready, but perhaps more common than we thought in the C-suite.

“I have a deck the CEO needs to digest. It is no risk management in our non-financial business. It is a wonky deck and I knew he would not want to go through it in the way he needs to just once. And I feared he would interpret my having it as if I thought our current risk management is deficient.

This time, I asked myself how to present this in a way that will most likely engage him, putting myself in his shoes. I wrote a cover page that said our risk management was pretty good but could evolve to a much better level over the next two years. I gave a short list of benefits of taking action and the (few) challenges in doing it. Then  I outlined the sort of topics that are in the deck. To my surprise, he like what I had to say, engaged over the cover page and insisted on going through the deck. I think he even liked the mental exercises the desk prompted.”

How many times do subordinates fail to think even briefly about how their upward audience might wish to see a presentation or hear a case for some action? How often do they fail to have an executive summary that is really short, sweet and irresistible to further questioning?

On second thought, even CEO clients have told me of their positive experience implementing my suggestion  that they take 2 minutes before each 1-2-1 with a subordinate to ask themselves “What do I want this person to feel, to believe, and to want to do” when we part company so what I want done gets done and in the right way?”

That’s my view. What’s yours? I am especially interested in hearing from people in small business on this one because many of their really good people are not specifically trained in management processes and approaches. small business brain trust