Can you believe it is 2025 already?
I know new year's resolutions aren't worth much, so I have a simple idea.
Let's kickstart the year with one question that will I think have a useful flow-on effect throughout the year.
How can you stop communicating too much detail? Here are three ideas:
- Find the three latest emails you have sent. They are simple and short, so a useful and quick opportunity.
- Ask yourself whether you had clarified the real outcome you needed from each one. Can you articulate it? Is it obvious to you now that some time has passed?
- Rework one of them so that the main message ‘pops' off the page. Without using lots of colour and ‘crazy formatting', make sure your main message is so obvious that your audience can't miss it. This does, of course, mean you need to have one!
I hope that helps. More next week.
Kind regards,
Davina
Whenever you're ready, here are five other ways I can help you:
Elevate, the book – helps leaders set their teams up to set up a new dynamic across their team that will elevate everyone’s skills, helping the team get better, faster decisions.
Engage, the book – helps individual contributors prepare papers and presentations that leaders can approve without reworking.
Engage, the self-paced course – supports both individuals and leaders prepare more insightful papers and presentations for senior leaders and boards.
Extreme Clarity, the 2-hour workshop – introduces techniques for structuring your messaging.
Board Paper Bootcamp, the 2-week program – helps you clarify and convey complex ideas to senior leaders and boards.
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ABOUT AUTHOR: DAVINA STANLEY
I love what I do.
I help senior leaders and their teams prepare high-quality papers and presentations in a fraction of the time.
This involves 'nailing' the message that will quickly engage decision makers in the required outcome.
I leverage 25+ years' experience including
- learning structured thinking techniques at McKinsey in Hong Kong in the mid 1990s before coaching and training their teams globally as a freelancer for a further 15 years
- being approved to teach the Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto in 2009
- helping CEOs, C-suite leaders and their reports deeply understand their stakeholder needs and communicate accordingly
- seeing leaders cut the number of times they review major papers by ~30% and teams cut the amount of time they take to prepare major papers by ~20%*
- watching senior meetings focus on substantive discussions and better decisions rather than trying to clarify the issue
My approach helps anyone who needs to engage senior leaders and Boards.
Recent clients include 7Eleven, KPMG, Mercer, Meta, Woolworths.
Learn more at www.clarityfirstprogram.com
(*) Numbers are based on 2023 client benchmarking results.





