“I used to cringe when you had questions thrown at you by the Senior Leadership Team.”
That’s what Andy told Chris, a Senior Director I’m coaching who reports to Andy.
Chris is sometimes required to attend Andy’s meetings with the Senior Leadership Team because of his technical expertise. He answers the technical questions that Andy can’t.
Chris was expecting good feedback from the last meeting, but he certainly wasn’t expecting THAT. He said, “I’ve worked for Andy for a long time, I had no idea he was cringing.”
Andy told him, “Don’t take it personally. It happens with everyone who reports to me. They all make me nervous. I’m always afraid they’re going to say too much, go into too much detail.”
And, most importantly, “They don’t know when to stop.”
That’s WHY they get interrupted. They can’t read the room and can’t see they’ve gone on too long and lost the audience.
Senior executives spend their days listening to endless proposals and briefings. They sit through so MANY presentations, it TORTURES them to listen to presenters who don’t get right to the point.
I’m sure you watch YouTube videos. Have you ever watched one that took a long time to get to the point? You know that feeling you got? Did you ever fast-forward hoping they would get to something good? Did you ever skip out before the end?
Senior executives LIVE with that feeling.
It’s torture. There’s no other word for it.
I’m sure they would wish for a remote control that could fast-forward. And they would use it liberally.
This is how to stand out from this crowd in your executive presentations:
When you present to executives, strip off ALL the non-essential.
(At this point, the technical geniuses I coach usually gasp and say, “But it’s ALL essential!”)
It’s a process similar to distilling. When you distill a liquid, for example an essential oil, you boil off all the non-essential liquid until you’ve extracted ONLY the pure essence.
MUCH less quantity than you started with. ONLY concentrated substance. MUCH higher quality.
Concentrated. Focused. Impactful.
They love that.
In a presentation or a communication, what you’re boiling off are the non-essential words, ideas and sentences.
It’s a skill.
“Our team reviewed a tremendous amount of data and spent six weeks comparing competitor data during our market analysis to create our forecast for the next 12 months in order to develop the best strategy for our organization going forward, and let me share with you our recommendations.”
Should turn into:
The new market is growing 8% annually. Our competitors are two years ahead of us. We can expect to spend $400 million to enter the new market, and we estimate $2 billion new revenue after our first year – an ROI of 500%. We can also expect 8% revenue growth every year after that until at least 2025. I recommend that we put together a cross-functional team to create our strategy.
Several data points and your evaluation. Clean, concise, succinct. Focused.
Most importantly, it’s easy to understand. And it’s interesting.
It’s the ability to communicate in what’s called, “key messages.” Very different, and much more exciting than the boring, corporate “stream of endless details” executives endure every day.
I coached Chris on how to craft and deliver clear, concise and compelling key messages. And how to come to a CLEAN STOP. And how to deliver them with executive presence.
And then there he was, in the spotlight.
The CEO LOVED it. Leaning forward and nodding when Chris was finished. Andy let out his breath in a sigh of relief.
Chris told me this:
“The CEO was THRILLED about just getting the ‘key messages’ and LOVED that I came to ‘a clean stop.’ He said it was really easy to get what I was saying and he made QUICK decisions about moving forward, so Andy was absolutely thrilled.”
“Not only that, but since the meeting, one of the Executive VP’s has been reaching out to me for help. This is HUGE! Andy couldn’t believe it! He’s jealous! He said, ‘She’s never reached out to me for anything!’”
“And best of all, Andy told me, ‘I now feel comfortable putting you in front of the Senior Leadership Team.’”
“I have been flying high since that meeting!”
No doubt, Chris’s going to be invited back. And one day soon, they’ll invite him to join the group as a peer.
Key messages will transform Chris’s entire life. They can transform your life as well.
The best part is that these principles work in MANY contexts well outside the world of Senior Leadership. They even work at home.
Next time you want to “lecture” one of your kids, try a couple of key messages instead. Or if you feel, “My husband tunes me out,” that’s another time to put them to use.
If you want to be causative, if you want to have the power to create the outcomes you choose, key messages are one of the most important tools you need.
Put them to use and discover what the power to change your world for the better actually FEELS like.
Be the cause!