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How to present to executives (2021)

266 points by alexzeitler 4y ago

fatnoah 4y ago
In my career, I've had the pleasure of being an employee that is presenting to executives of large and small tech companies. The advice given feels good to me, especially the "mistakes to avoid" section. Off the top of my head, I'd also add that "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. Knowing the audience is also very important. At one >$100B company, the CEO's questions were very much about the business side of things, while the CTO wanted to get deep into the business side AND the technical architecture. Side note, I had a boss that I hated for that meeting with the CTO. I did all of the work preparing the presentation and slides under the assumption I'd be presenting. My boss jumped in and tried to present and was stopped in her tracks when she was unable to answer a question from the CTO about who would use the product in question. I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Sweetest ten seconds of anticipation in your life. Great story!
  - phkahler 4y ago
    Yeah, don't jump right in and try to look smarter than them. Give them the opportunity (time) to look bad on their own with no answer. OTOH, helping them save face is also a good way to go if that's someone you want to work with.
    - strgcmc 4y ago
      Yeah, that kind of pause + coming in with the answer, is also nice because it can serve a dual purpose. It allows you to be both bad cop and good cop, all in one: you created some leverage over your boss by publicly showing the execs that boss doesn't know what they're talking about but you do, and you also helped save them from further embarrassment. Depending on future scenarios, you can play up either side of the interpretation. It's a nice quality of really useful political moves that they can flex and can be reused for multiple purposes (kind of like... good extensible/reusable software design).
- roflyear 4y ago
  Some people are awful. I had a CTO that literally hired me to be the fall guy for some things he implemented that went poorly (before I was hired). I wasn't even involved in those projects and he tried to get me to take responsibility for the fallout. I'm still at the company, he isn't!
  - fatnoah 4y ago
    I've since moved on from that company (in fact, I moved shortly after that event) but it has been gratifying to see that my former boss has not been promoted in the 6 years since, but that most of her peers have been promoted multiple times.
- tailspin2019 4y ago
  > "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. I totally agree. I think this is a major thing that experience teaches you. When you're young or inexperienced, you are naturally afraid of saying "I don't know". The more experience you gain, the more comfortable you tend to be saying that you "don't know" - in fact some of the smartest and well respected people I've worked with have been the ones most comfortable with saying "I don't know, but I'll find out"
  - mikehollinger 4y ago
    It’s a litmus test. And tbh it’s (if you want) a way to get more visibility or credibility because you can take the todo, then go back later and say “here’s the answer. If you want more detail I can go over it with you.”
  - thrwyoilarticle 4y ago
    They'd still prefer for you just to know the answer. This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme. People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know. This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier. The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all. If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.
- rfrey 4y ago
  > I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation. That sounds awful. Did you have to do damage control with your boss afterwards? I'm not sure how I would rescue that situation. (Ideally you'd have been promoted within an hour, but... ya.)
  - fatnoah 4y ago
    Short answer: no, I didn't. I essentially tripled down by having a followup meeting w/just, the CTO, and chief engineer of the company FOLLOWED BY a later 1:1 with the company's President of Engineering when I'd traveled to company HQ. That last meeting created a cascade of meetings that afternoon with EVP, then VP, and finally my boss. All but my boss were awesome and seemed to genuinely want to make things better, but I ended up giving notice when I returned home. Longer answer: I was already "done" with my boss and planning my exit. The company had previously merged QA and Dev orgs while preserving titles. Unfortunately, that meant that Principal QAE and Principal SWE both became Principal Engineer despite the fact that the promotion process was much slower for SWEs. The average Principal SWE had 15+ years of experience while the average Principal QAE had closer to 8. My boss was promoted just before the conversion and I came in as the head of engineering for an acquired company. I had substantially more IC and Management experience than my boss, who was a shameless self-promoter and really wanted to be seen as the savior getting this acquired company into shape. When it became apparent that we were vastly more mature than her org in our processes, operational excellence, code quality, efficiency, and performance, she had nothing to do. I got sick of the micromanagement and moved to being an IC, which is when I had the experience. That helped because I basically got left alone, but I already knew my career prospects were zero, so I took full advantage.
riskneutral 4y ago
Solid advice for presenting in general
hizxy 4y ago
Great advice but I disagree that “most executives aren’t awful”. Leadership is a hard and opaque role. More often than not the wrong people are promoted to management. Poor leadership is the norm, not the exception.
- roflyear 4y ago
  100% correct. You are extremely lucky to get one good executive at a company nevermind several.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Who are the right people? Mind contrasting … - values? - characteristics? - abilities? - experience? - education? Best way to tell them apart in interviews?
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Maybe this is just because leadership is hard, and more people are needed in leadership positions than are capable of fulfilling the role?
  - roflyear 4y ago
    There are probably too many managers tbh
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      Leadership is not managing though. I think the problem is in conflating the two so the leading gets forgotten because most of the time is spent managing.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    Maybe the criteria for selecting leaders is based on connections as opposed to personal qualities.
- OrangeMonkey 4y ago
  In my career, I've met a single executive that I feel would not stab me in my face to further their own career (assuming it won't be found out or they could blame my stabbing on someone else). I think you are wrong. "Most executives arn't awful" - true. They are sociopathic.
HellDunkel 4y ago
Great advice. I have an executive/boss who is rather special. He acts more or less like a french aristocrat from the 17th century. His main focus is on chitchat. However, when the matter at hand is critical enough and i feel the need to step up he does listen . Most times i get my way but later on i will hear some blaming for the situation. I can live with that. Right now i need to start a serious conversation affecting the future of the company (small company, 50 people). I have a solution which involves intellectual property that i hold- i am not an employee, he is my client but treats me as such. How can i make it easier for him to align? Anyone who has been in a similar situation?
grvdrm 4y ago
This was a refreshing read, and a solid reminder. I'm working through an executive communication pickle as I write this. My (startup) CEO is a slide perfectionist who never likes any deck he sees the first time. And he's critical of decks in subsequent passes as well. I'm responsible for revising our company pitch deck with "fresh eyes" as I'm relatively new to the company. Have had to remind myself multiple times that his feedback is not bad, or wrong, or too critical, at least not 100% of the time. And instead that I should reason through how to integrate that feedback or find a way to meet somewhere in the middle while properly describing why I am choosing a different path. The learning process never ends!
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Perhaps unprofessional advice but having dealt with my fair share of perfectionist CTO's/VPs, when dealing with hypercritical types, if I have to deliver any creative output for review then my strategy is to add "low-hanging fruit" that I know will no be aligned with what they want or even small typos. That usually gives them something to focus on and then only what really needs to change will bubble up from their feedback.
  - _puk 4y ago
    Exactly this. I've found many CTOs/VPs that want to feel like they have contributed. Give them something to focus on and they'll generally not rip the rest apart. Same goes for designs, have an element in an odd color or font, and it'll be picked up and corrected. Without it you may find yourself redesigning huge swathes of the design.
  - retSava 4y ago
    Also called the Duck-strategy, point 5 on this list: https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
  - grvdrm 4y ago
    Fascinating suggestion. Let me toss a q back to you: when you work that strategy for a deck, do you subsequently send it first and gather feedback, or do you prefer to talk through it with that person? I've always preferred talking through presentation drafts as I feel the "talk-track" is the essential piece, not the particulars of the slides. But curious to hear what you've done in past or now
crispyambulance 4y ago
This is solid advice that I wish I had many years ago. I think it's particularly important not to blind-side execs with information they can't act on or process during a meeting (related to the "don't present a problem without a solution" tidbit in the article). Ironically, this is the stuff they _really_ need to know. The way you get around it is by having channels of communication which are outside of the formal meeting. These channels can be almost anything but the main feature is that they're safe for both you and the exec-- you don't have to have "a solution" and the exec doesn't have to make a snap-decision.
Tainnor 4y ago
> If you try to give a structured, academic presentation to that executive, they will be bored, and you will waste most of your time presenting information they won’t consume. Other executives will disregard anything you say that you don’t connect to a specific piece of data or dataset. And here I thought people become managers because they're actually great with people. So why does that imply that they should stop listening to their staff unless the staff can intuit their idiosyncratic communication preferences? IOW, the advice is probably right given current realities, and I agree in general that giving an outline before going into excessive detail is a good practice, but I also feel that if an executive wants something from their staff, they should tell them exactly what they need and be prepared to listen to the experts. It should be in their interest after all.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I have found more than one executive whose style is idiosyncratic but you don’t have to intuit it. They will interrupt, ask pointed questions, mansplain* and etc. to control the conversation so you fit to how they want to consume it. The problem I find is when in that mode they are unlikely to get the point because they don’t want to hear. They want you to say what they already want to hear. * not a pc word but it sums up perfectly the communication style I can’t think of a better one. Maybe condescending?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > not a pc word but it sums up perfectly the communication style I can’t think of a better one. Maybe condescending? As long as you’re insulting men, heterosexuals, white people or cis people you’re perfectly ok with the pc brigade. No need to apologize as long as you’re intersectional.
  - JauntyHatAngle 4y ago
    I think condescendingly explain is what you're looking for.
- willjp 4y ago
  I feel like this is a reality when communicating across any two domains. People have their own problems their mind is busy with, you have to optimize for the least attentive person. That said, this sales-pitch style communication is exhausting.
psi75 4y ago
> Everyone has worked with a terrible executive at some point in their career, but most executives aren’t awful. Almost all executives are outstanding at something; it’s just that often that something isn’t the topic you’re communicating about with them. I'll save y'all the time and tell you what that something is: climbing organizational hierarchies. Executives are good at becoming executives: glorifying themselves, stealing credit, shifting blame, pandering to superiors' weaknesses and petty idiocies. The fact that OP got this so wrong, and spaffed such ridiculous pro-employer bias on the page, discredits the rest of the treatise.
- rexreed 4y ago
  I agree, and a few other comments here also say that the call that executives are operational geniuses is far fetched. Most are sociopathic ladder climbers looking out for no one but themselves. Corporations aren't meritocracies - you don't work your way to the top by being better than anything other than working your way to the top. Organizations will also impose C-level hierarchies from other organizations they have previously worked at. So it's management by network and affiliation vs. by skill. For presenting to executives, my experience is: present quickly. Focus on what they personally care about, whether or not it's what the organization is (supposed to) care about. Get to the point. Repeat your point. make your ask clear. BLUF and BLAB. If you don't know what that means, look it up. If you're not clear about what you want, don't be surprised if you don't get it. Appeal to ego. Understand rivalry. People support what they feel like is in their personal best interest to support.
rjbwork 4y ago
Had a little bit of Deja Vu reading this. After I clicked around the site I realized it's because I read it in the book https://staffeng.com/book https://staffeng.com/book which the author of this post wrote. I was promoted to principal engineer earlier this year (first in my company) and felt a bit unsure of what exactly the role entails and what I should be doing. I still feel that way to an extent, but that book has been very helpful in clearing some things up, providing me some more solid footing, and generally spurring me to take initiative. Can recommend the book if you're in a similar situation, or aspire to be.
dctoedt 4y ago
> SCQA - Situation, Complication, Question, Answer I've found the SPUR agenda to be helpful: - Status; - Plans (includes 5W + H - who, when, what, where, why, how); - Uncertainties (includes explicitly identifying possibly-flawed assumptions & possible black swans); - Risks (includes identifying likely- and worst-case downside outcomes)
mikehollinger 4y ago
Missing from this (possibly it’s in the author’s book which I’ve not yet read but it’s on my list): For a certain level of discussion, the outcome might have already been set, and the meeting is a formality to make it so. So as long as the presentation isn’t a total disaster what’s said during the formal discussion is only refinement or finishing details on an already closed decision. If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked it out prior to the meeting. It’s not because the PowerPoint was awesome or the policy proposal is clever. I do this - when I’m working on something (if there’s time) I “run it by” the people who need to buy in. That helps refine the proposal or pitch, but it also helps do a couple of key things: 1. I can say “I ran this by Stan,” privately to some other folks, and truthfully say he liked it or didn’t and I took his feedback into consideration 2. I can hear what people don’t like and either change it or account for constraints they have 3. It prewires the audience. They’ve seen the material or heard it in brief. Some people are readers. Some are listeners. With this approach I can catch both and address them on their communication style 4. At the discussion I can say “I spoke with most of you here to get feedback from product / design / dev / support / ops etc and I heard... and the toll tax is paid to cross various bridges Importantly - the execs themselves can just have a conversation the week or day before and say “hey we have this problem. I need you to listen to ____ and get someone from your team to help.” That works because two months later the other party will say “Hey, remember when I helped you with the thing? I need you to help me with ____ because…” This sort of politics is normal. I’m literally doing it between and across companies on a regular basis. It’s a way to get stuff done, as long as its ethical and doesn’t violate various conduct guidelines and (edit) *its in the org’s best interests.* Most of the time for me at least it’s “can we just get X above the cut line and done by October? I know it’s in November but if it’s in October _____.”
- toyg 4y ago
  > If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked it out prior to the meeting. This is old-school political practice: when it comes to taking decisions, you should go into meetings only if you know in advance what their outcomes will be. Going blind is a defeat in itself. > Hey, remember when I helped you with the thing? I need you to help me with Trading favours is an invaluable skill. A lot of people do favours for free and feel petty if they remind others at later date; figuring out a way to do it in a pretty neutral way, will help you a lot. Typically it's just about figuring out that it's not personal. For a great intro to the practice, the character of Rawls in The Wire is a decent model.
ftio 4y ago
This is great advice, but this article was not written for executives. I skimmed in 5 seconds until I spotted the SCQA bullets, Minto's Pyramid, and the bolded parts of Mistakes to Avoid. If there are other takeaways, I don't really care. This is how executives think. They have to — they're in meetings for nine hours straight, constantly context switching, needing to suss out who's bullshitting them and who's legit. One tangential thing: in any situation with an executive, one way to stick in their mind is to deliver little 'nuggets' of interesting information that they can quote to their peers or managers. Should be pithy, novel, and ideally surprising: "Did you know that 25% of users have been doing [totally unexpected thing] outside the product in order to [solve some problem we thought we understood]?" Don't expect you're going to be able to come up with these things on the spot. Prepare them. Keep 'em in the holster. You're welcome.
- rzzzt 4y ago
  It is tagged as "management" and "staff-plus", so most likely the intended audience is people operating on that weird boundary layer between management and engineering.
balderdash 4y ago
“The foundation of communicating effectively with executives is to get a clear understanding of why you’re communicating with them in the first place.” This is essential. I sit in these meetings with senior execs all the time in my role (mostly as neither the presenter nor one of key audience members) and I can’t tell you how often people presenting to execs make their lives hard! E.g. status updates on key initiative/project is delivered as a summary of all the work that’s been done to date, challenges encountered and overcome, detailed technical commentary, and piles of next steps and detailed charts, when all the leadership team wants to know is 1. Is the project on track? 2. What are the key milestones/ next steps 3. Where and what are future risk /decision points, 4. Economics/budget considerations
SnowHill9902 4y ago
Become an executive yourself. Then it’ll be obvious.
bmitc 4y ago
Interesting article, but I would suggest to the author changing the title to something like "How to present to people.", as at present, the title treats executives as some feudal lords that need to be specially appeased. Of course, job duties differ, but the advice the article gives is rather universal for any internal business/company/industrial presentation.
j6zauas4gz 4y ago
If anyone has any suggestions on resources for how to present to *lawmakers*, I would greatly appreciate it. Especially if they are willing to talk about how they target their messaging based on party / area of government. I've yet to find a good piece article or book that goes beyond platitudes, ideally with specific language that I can iterate on. A specific, concrete examble might be how to express "look I know you cant vote for this, but I suspect you are secretly with us, even if you wont say it during this meeting cuz you dont know us well enough to trust that we wont leak it, but can you at least get us meeting with x other lawmaker who might also agree with us, and is in more of a swing district but we cant get ahold of because they have a shit schedular that if they vote our way we can help them out in the primary?" I've been in the "part time citizen lobbyist" game for a while now and I suspect that just saying the above (even without the "we cant get ahold of" part) would be to much a specific / blunt ask. But none of my attempts at soft balling a "can you introduce us to X?" has worked thus far. And I am not sure if its just that I am an untrusted newcomer who needs to build up more relationships, or if its an issue with the language / tone, or if its the nature of the ask itself. I really wish there where more leaked audio recordings of meetings between lawmakers and hired lobbyists. that would be helpful.
karaterobot 4y ago
Telling a story is important, I agree with that. I didn't see my number one piece of advice, which is to tell them how the thing brings value to the company. They don't care if your button functions really well, they care that the old button was preventing people from completing checkout, and that problem has been solved. My number two piece of advice is to present way less information than you want to. A small fraction. They don't want all that context, they want a clear story that looks like the SCQA model given in the article. Also, they live in a world where people project confidence, not a world where people present both sides and talk about the uncertainties of both. Often this confidence is unwarranted, but that is utterly beside the point. While the real world is full of uncertainty, what most executives want to hear is "I have the solution to this problem, and I can make it happen".
- outworlder 4y ago
  > what most executives want to hear is "I have the solution to this problem, and I can make it happen". I guess that applies to most people. I'm getting flashbacks of Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho's State of the Union presentation. "I got a solution", followed by a simple, 3 point plan.
jbaczuk 4y ago
It also helps to understand their motivations and speak in terms that they actually care about. Things like revenue, customers, markets, resources. Hint: They almost never care about the engineering details.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

266 points by alexzeitler 4y ago

In my career, I've had the pleasure of being an employee that is presenting to executives of large and small tech companies. The advice given feels good to me, especially the "mistakes to avoid" section. Off the top of my head, I'd also add that "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. Knowing the audience is also very important. At one >$100B company, the CEO's questions were very much about the business side of things, while the CTO wanted to get deep into the business side AND the technical architecture. Side note, I had a boss that I hated for that meeting with the CTO. I did all of the work preparing the presentation and slides under the assumption I'd be presenting. My boss jumped in and tried to present and was stopped in her tracks when she was unable to answer a question from the CTO about who would use the product in question. I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Sweetest ten seconds of anticipation in your life. Great story!
- phkahler 4y ago
  Yeah, don't jump right in and try to look smarter than them. Give them the opportunity (time) to look bad on their own with no answer. OTOH, helping them save face is also a good way to go if that's someone you want to work with.
  - strgcmc 4y ago
    Yeah, that kind of pause + coming in with the answer, is also nice because it can serve a dual purpose. It allows you to be both bad cop and good cop, all in one: you created some leverage over your boss by publicly showing the execs that boss doesn't know what they're talking about but you do, and you also helped save them from further embarrassment. Depending on future scenarios, you can play up either side of the interpretation. It's a nice quality of really useful political moves that they can flex and can be reused for multiple purposes (kind of like... good extensible/reusable software design).
roflyear 4y ago
Some people are awful. I had a CTO that literally hired me to be the fall guy for some things he implemented that went poorly (before I was hired). I wasn't even involved in those projects and he tried to get me to take responsibility for the fallout. I'm still at the company, he isn't!
- fatnoah 4y ago
  I've since moved on from that company (in fact, I moved shortly after that event) but it has been gratifying to see that my former boss has not been promoted in the 6 years since, but that most of her peers have been promoted multiple times.
tailspin2019 4y ago
> "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. I totally agree. I think this is a major thing that experience teaches you. When you're young or inexperienced, you are naturally afraid of saying "I don't know". The more experience you gain, the more comfortable you tend to be saying that you "don't know" - in fact some of the smartest and well respected people I've worked with have been the ones most comfortable with saying "I don't know, but I'll find out"
- mikehollinger 4y ago
  It’s a litmus test. And tbh it’s (if you want) a way to get more visibility or credibility because you can take the todo, then go back later and say “here’s the answer. If you want more detail I can go over it with you.”
- thrwyoilarticle 4y ago
  They'd still prefer for you just to know the answer. This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme. People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know. This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier. The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all. If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.
rfrey 4y ago
> I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation. That sounds awful. Did you have to do damage control with your boss afterwards? I'm not sure how I would rescue that situation. (Ideally you'd have been promoted within an hour, but... ya.)
- fatnoah 4y ago
  Short answer: no, I didn't. I essentially tripled down by having a followup meeting w/just, the CTO, and chief engineer of the company FOLLOWED BY a later 1:1 with the company's President of Engineering when I'd traveled to company HQ. That last meeting created a cascade of meetings that afternoon with EVP, then VP, and finally my boss. All but my boss were awesome and seemed to genuinely want to make things better, but I ended up giving notice when I returned home. Longer answer: I was already "done" with my boss and planning my exit. The company had previously merged QA and Dev orgs while preserving titles. Unfortunately, that meant that Principal QAE and Principal SWE both became Principal Engineer despite the fact that the promotion process was much slower for SWEs. The average Principal SWE had 15+ years of experience while the average Principal QAE had closer to 8. My boss was promoted just before the conversion and I came in as the head of engineering for an acquired company. I had substantially more IC and Management experience than my boss, who was a shameless self-promoter and really wanted to be seen as the savior getting this acquired company into shape. When it became apparent that we were vastly more mature than her org in our processes, operational excellence, code quality, efficiency, and performance, she had nothing to do. I got sick of the micromanagement and moved to being an IC, which is when I had the experience. That helped because I basically got left alone, but I already knew my career prospects were zero, so I took full advantage.

riskneutral 4y ago

Solid advice for presenting in general

hizxy 4y ago

Great advice but I disagree that “most executives aren’t awful”. Leadership is a hard and opaque role. More often than not the wrong people are promoted to management. Poor leadership is the norm, not the exception.

roflyear 4y ago
100% correct. You are extremely lucky to get one good executive at a company nevermind several.
Terretta 4y ago
Who are the right people? Mind contrasting … - values? - characteristics? - abilities? - experience? - education? Best way to tell them apart in interviews?
Aeolun 4y ago
Maybe this is just because leadership is hard, and more people are needed in leadership positions than are capable of fulfilling the role?
- roflyear 4y ago
  There are probably too many managers tbh
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Leadership is not managing though. I think the problem is in conflating the two so the leading gets forgotten because most of the time is spent managing.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  Maybe the criteria for selecting leaders is based on connections as opposed to personal qualities.
OrangeMonkey 4y ago
In my career, I've met a single executive that I feel would not stab me in my face to further their own career (assuming it won't be found out or they could blame my stabbing on someone else). I think you are wrong. "Most executives arn't awful" - true. They are sociopathic.

HellDunkel 4y ago

Great advice. I have an executive/boss who is rather special. He acts more or less like a french aristocrat from the 17th century. His main focus is on chitchat. However, when the matter at hand is critical enough and i feel the need to step up he does listen . Most times i get my way but later on i will hear some blaming for the situation. I can live with that. Right now i need to start a serious conversation affecting the future of the company (small company, 50 people). I have a solution which involves intellectual property that i hold- i am not an employee, he is my client but treats me as such. How can i make it easier for him to align? Anyone who has been in a similar situation?

grvdrm 4y ago

This was a refreshing read, and a solid reminder. I'm working through an executive communication pickle as I write this. My (startup) CEO is a slide perfectionist who never likes any deck he sees the first time. And he's critical of decks in subsequent passes as well. I'm responsible for revising our company pitch deck with "fresh eyes" as I'm relatively new to the company. Have had to remind myself multiple times that his feedback is not bad, or wrong, or too critical, at least not 100% of the time. And instead that I should reason through how to integrate that feedback or find a way to meet somewhere in the middle while properly describing why I am choosing a different path. The learning process never ends!

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Perhaps unprofessional advice but having dealt with my fair share of perfectionist CTO's/VPs, when dealing with hypercritical types, if I have to deliver any creative output for review then my strategy is to add "low-hanging fruit" that I know will no be aligned with what they want or even small typos. That usually gives them something to focus on and then only what really needs to change will bubble up from their feedback.
- _puk 4y ago
  Exactly this. I've found many CTOs/VPs that want to feel like they have contributed. Give them something to focus on and they'll generally not rip the rest apart. Same goes for designs, have an element in an odd color or font, and it'll be picked up and corrected. Without it you may find yourself redesigning huge swathes of the design.
- retSava 4y ago
  Also called the Duck-strategy, point 5 on this list: https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
- grvdrm 4y ago
  Fascinating suggestion. Let me toss a q back to you: when you work that strategy for a deck, do you subsequently send it first and gather feedback, or do you prefer to talk through it with that person? I've always preferred talking through presentation drafts as I feel the "talk-track" is the essential piece, not the particulars of the slides. But curious to hear what you've done in past or now

crispyambulance 4y ago

This is solid advice that I wish I had many years ago. I think it's particularly important not to blind-side execs with information they can't act on or process during a meeting (related to the "don't present a problem without a solution" tidbit in the article). Ironically, this is the stuff they _really_ need to know. The way you get around it is by having channels of communication which are outside of the formal meeting. These channels can be almost anything but the main feature is that they're safe for both you and the exec-- you don't have to have "a solution" and the exec doesn't have to make a snap-decision.

Tainnor 4y ago

> If you try to give a structured, academic presentation to that executive, they will be bored, and you will waste most of your time presenting information they won’t consume. Other executives will disregard anything you say that you don’t connect to a specific piece of data or dataset. And here I thought people become managers because they're actually great with people. So why does that imply that they should stop listening to their staff unless the staff can intuit their idiosyncratic communication preferences? IOW, the advice is probably right given current realities, and I agree in general that giving an outline before going into excessive detail is a good practice, but I also feel that if an executive wants something from their staff, they should tell them exactly what they need and be prepared to listen to the experts. It should be in their interest after all.

quickthrower2 4y ago
I have found more than one executive whose style is idiosyncratic but you don’t have to intuit it. They will interrupt, ask pointed questions, mansplain* and etc. to control the conversation so you fit to how they want to consume it. The problem I find is when in that mode they are unlikely to get the point because they don’t want to hear. They want you to say what they already want to hear. * not a pc word but it sums up perfectly the communication style I can’t think of a better one. Maybe condescending?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > not a pc word but it sums up perfectly the communication style I can’t think of a better one. Maybe condescending? As long as you’re insulting men, heterosexuals, white people or cis people you’re perfectly ok with the pc brigade. No need to apologize as long as you’re intersectional.
- JauntyHatAngle 4y ago
  I think condescendingly explain is what you're looking for.
willjp 4y ago
I feel like this is a reality when communicating across any two domains. People have their own problems their mind is busy with, you have to optimize for the least attentive person. That said, this sales-pitch style communication is exhausting.

psi75 4y ago

> Everyone has worked with a terrible executive at some point in their career, but most executives aren’t awful. Almost all executives are outstanding at something; it’s just that often that something isn’t the topic you’re communicating about with them. I'll save y'all the time and tell you what that something is: climbing organizational hierarchies. Executives are good at becoming executives: glorifying themselves, stealing credit, shifting blame, pandering to superiors' weaknesses and petty idiocies. The fact that OP got this so wrong, and spaffed such ridiculous pro-employer bias on the page, discredits the rest of the treatise.

rexreed 4y ago
I agree, and a few other comments here also say that the call that executives are operational geniuses is far fetched. Most are sociopathic ladder climbers looking out for no one but themselves. Corporations aren't meritocracies - you don't work your way to the top by being better than anything other than working your way to the top. Organizations will also impose C-level hierarchies from other organizations they have previously worked at. So it's management by network and affiliation vs. by skill. For presenting to executives, my experience is: present quickly. Focus on what they personally care about, whether or not it's what the organization is (supposed to) care about. Get to the point. Repeat your point. make your ask clear. BLUF and BLAB. If you don't know what that means, look it up. If you're not clear about what you want, don't be surprised if you don't get it. Appeal to ego. Understand rivalry. People support what they feel like is in their personal best interest to support.

rjbwork 4y ago

Had a little bit of Deja Vu reading this. After I clicked around the site I realized it's because I read it in the book https://staffeng.com/book https://staffeng.com/book which the author of this post wrote. I was promoted to principal engineer earlier this year (first in my company) and felt a bit unsure of what exactly the role entails and what I should be doing. I still feel that way to an extent, but that book has been very helpful in clearing some things up, providing me some more solid footing, and generally spurring me to take initiative. Can recommend the book if you're in a similar situation, or aspire to be.

dctoedt 4y ago

> SCQA - Situation, Complication, Question, Answer I've found the SPUR agenda to be helpful: - Status; - Plans (includes 5W + H - who, when, what, where, why, how); - Uncertainties (includes explicitly identifying possibly-flawed assumptions & possible black swans); - Risks (includes identifying likely- and worst-case downside outcomes)

mikehollinger 4y ago

Missing from this (possibly it’s in the author’s book which I’ve not yet read but it’s on my list): For a certain level of discussion, the outcome might have already been set, and the meeting is a formality to make it so. So as long as the presentation isn’t a total disaster what’s said during the formal discussion is only refinement or finishing details on an already closed decision. If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked it out prior to the meeting. It’s not because the PowerPoint was awesome or the policy proposal is clever. I do this - when I’m working on something (if there’s time) I “run it by” the people who need to buy in. That helps refine the proposal or pitch, but it also helps do a couple of key things: 1. I can say “I ran this by Stan,” privately to some other folks, and truthfully say he liked it or didn’t and I took his feedback into consideration 2. I can hear what people don’t like and either change it or account for constraints they have 3. It prewires the audience. They’ve seen the material or heard it in brief. Some people are readers. Some are listeners. With this approach I can catch both and address them on their communication style 4. At the discussion I can say “I spoke with most of you here to get feedback from product / design / dev / support / ops etc and I heard... and the toll tax is paid to cross various bridges Importantly - the execs themselves can just have a conversation the week or day before and say “hey we have this problem. I need you to listen to ____ and get someone from your team to help.” That works because two months later the other party will say “Hey, remember when I helped you with the thing? I need you to help me with ____ because…” This sort of politics is normal. I’m literally doing it between and across companies on a regular basis. It’s a way to get stuff done, as long as its ethical and doesn’t violate various conduct guidelines and (edit) *its in the org’s best interests.* Most of the time for me at least it’s “can we just get X above the cut line and done by October? I know it’s in November but if it’s in October _____.”

toyg 4y ago
> If you’ve ever wondered why in a certain discussion someone “came around” or magically the entire room was in support, either that person or their boss worked it out prior to the meeting. This is old-school political practice: when it comes to taking decisions, you should go into meetings only if you know in advance what their outcomes will be. Going blind is a defeat in itself. > Hey, remember when I helped you with the thing? I need you to help me with Trading favours is an invaluable skill. A lot of people do favours for free and feel petty if they remind others at later date; figuring out a way to do it in a pretty neutral way, will help you a lot. Typically it's just about figuring out that it's not personal. For a great intro to the practice, the character of Rawls in The Wire is a decent model.

ftio 4y ago

This is great advice, but this article was not written for executives. I skimmed in 5 seconds until I spotted the SCQA bullets, Minto's Pyramid, and the bolded parts of Mistakes to Avoid. If there are other takeaways, I don't really care. This is how executives think. They have to — they're in meetings for nine hours straight, constantly context switching, needing to suss out who's bullshitting them and who's legit. One tangential thing: in any situation with an executive, one way to stick in their mind is to deliver little 'nuggets' of interesting information that they can quote to their peers or managers. Should be pithy, novel, and ideally surprising: "Did you know that 25% of users have been doing [totally unexpected thing] outside the product in order to [solve some problem we thought we understood]?" Don't expect you're going to be able to come up with these things on the spot. Prepare them. Keep 'em in the holster. You're welcome.

rzzzt 4y ago
It is tagged as "management" and "staff-plus", so most likely the intended audience is people operating on that weird boundary layer between management and engineering.

balderdash 4y ago

“The foundation of communicating effectively with executives is to get a clear understanding of why you’re communicating with them in the first place.” This is essential. I sit in these meetings with senior execs all the time in my role (mostly as neither the presenter nor one of key audience members) and I can’t tell you how often people presenting to execs make their lives hard! E.g. status updates on key initiative/project is delivered as a summary of all the work that’s been done to date, challenges encountered and overcome, detailed technical commentary, and piles of next steps and detailed charts, when all the leadership team wants to know is 1. Is the project on track? 2. What are the key milestones/ next steps 3. Where and what are future risk /decision points, 4. Economics/budget considerations

SnowHill9902 4y ago

Become an executive yourself. Then it’ll be obvious.

bmitc 4y ago

Interesting article, but I would suggest to the author changing the title to something like "How to present to people.", as at present, the title treats executives as some feudal lords that need to be specially appeased. Of course, job duties differ, but the advice the article gives is rather universal for any internal business/company/industrial presentation.

j6zauas4gz 4y ago

If anyone has any suggestions on resources for how to present to *lawmakers*, I would greatly appreciate it. Especially if they are willing to talk about how they target their messaging based on party / area of government. I've yet to find a good piece article or book that goes beyond platitudes, ideally with specific language that I can iterate on. A specific, concrete examble might be how to express "look I know you cant vote for this, but I suspect you are secretly with us, even if you wont say it during this meeting cuz you dont know us well enough to trust that we wont leak it, but can you at least get us meeting with x other lawmaker who might also agree with us, and is in more of a swing district but we cant get ahold of because they have a shit schedular that if they vote our way we can help them out in the primary?" I've been in the "part time citizen lobbyist" game for a while now and I suspect that just saying the above (even without the "we cant get ahold of" part) would be to much a specific / blunt ask. But none of my attempts at soft balling a "can you introduce us to X?" has worked thus far. And I am not sure if its just that I am an untrusted newcomer who needs to build up more relationships, or if its an issue with the language / tone, or if its the nature of the ask itself. I really wish there where more leaked audio recordings of meetings between lawmakers and hired lobbyists. that would be helpful.

karaterobot 4y ago

Telling a story is important, I agree with that. I didn't see my number one piece of advice, which is to tell them how the thing brings value to the company. They don't care if your button functions really well, they care that the old button was preventing people from completing checkout, and that problem has been solved. My number two piece of advice is to present way less information than you want to. A small fraction. They don't want all that context, they want a clear story that looks like the SCQA model given in the article. Also, they live in a world where people project confidence, not a world where people present both sides and talk about the uncertainties of both. Often this confidence is unwarranted, but that is utterly beside the point. While the real world is full of uncertainty, what most executives want to hear is "I have the solution to this problem, and I can make it happen".

outworlder 4y ago
> what most executives want to hear is "I have the solution to this problem, and I can make it happen". I guess that applies to most people. I'm getting flashbacks of Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho's State of the Union presentation. "I got a solution", followed by a simple, 3 point plan.

jbaczuk 4y ago

It also helps to understand their motivations and speak in terms that they actually care about. Things like revenue, customers, markets, resources. Hint: They almost never care about the engineering details.

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