Your credibility and how you develop attunement is critical.
Remember, context shapes the communication. Alignment and
attunement are the key elements.
Perceived alignment with formal or informal corporate strategy is key.
Often the goal is not to get through all of your slides. The goal is to
add value to the thought process and focus the decision.
Know thy audience. As Drucker says, "People listen to you for their
reasons, not yours."
Don't think the presentation offers the only time and place to sell your
idea or influence a decision. Who do you need to talk with before the
presentation? Why?
Continually monitor how you are perceived and how your issue is
perceived before the meeting.
Know who will be helped and who will be hurt by your proposal.
Don't forget to educate and test.
Don't make the mistake of giving a managerial-level presentation to
an executive group.
Lead with the headline of your main point. Make sure it is relevant to
the audience. Master the art of framing.Test market your lead in.
Identify personal red flags.
Verbally draft questions and some test responses. Develop the ability
to think on your feet.
Confront your worst scenario. Make sure you have a strategy to cope
with it.
Plan on interruptions. Leverage them. Incorporate. Re-frame.
Synthesize.
Remember visuals are for the benefit of the audience, not the speaker. At
the executive level visuals must be strategic.
Don't spend all of your preparation time making and sequencing your
slides. At the executive level, spend time analyzing and pre-wiring the
context. Do your "due diligence."
Don't expect to have the full time allotted for you on the agenda.
Scope accordingly. Be able to adjust. Understand what must be on
the table. Be able to collapse your pitch to fit any time constraint.
The visuals you choose must help frame the issue and help focus the
thinking in the room. Think in terms of managing the attention in the
room moment to moment. Understand the concept of a "killer slide,"
visual strategy, and the issue of split focus.
Remember power dynamics are in play. Don't trump power.
Don't fall into the sequencing trap. Stay in tune with the developing
"logic path" of the audience. Control the discussion not the sequence.
Remember, "perception is reality."
Thinking on your feet is 99% preparation.
Add to your presenting skill set, strategy: positioning, developing
alliances, and managing perception.
Understand the executive mindset and filter and how rapidly it
changes; what it is tuned to; looking for.
Understand "executive paranoia." It is not about you. Don't take
it personally.
Analyze your audience and your presentation content in light of
diversity and global sensitivities.
In a leadership role, never forget the power of your personal "story"
or a vivid example from your own experience. Never use a story
unless you have perspective, can tie it to a point without stretching
too far, and have "verbally drafted" it to establish your own rhythm,
nuance and timing.
At the end of the day, as Tufte says, don't build a "data prison." Your
goal is not to get through your slide deck. Your goal is to manage the
decision-making and the discussion in the moment.
