While communicating well with your executives is important, it’s hardly of biblical significance.
Nevertheless, this week, I’m being inspired by the magic number 7 and that notion of ‘things to avoid.’
I share these in the hope that they serve as a useful reminder for bad habits that have potentially built up over time.
7 Deadly sins of Executive Communication
My first ‘communication client’ was my university boyfriend, who liked me to help him with his essays.
Needless to say, that was a while ago.
Since then I’ve helped lots of people from all over the world. I typically help about 500 people a year, so the cumulative number is high!
It fascinates me that the challenges people have are so very universal.
And it’s all too easy to bake those natural challenges in to form ‘bad habits.’
Here are my top 7.
Why not pick one and see if you can crack it?
Here they are:
Long backgrounds derail you from your purpose. They invite your audience to lose themselves in rabbit warrens of detail, trying to work out where the story is going.
Fuzzy messaging is confusing. It also suggests you haven’t thought through your insight, reducing trust.
Leaving the ‘main thing’ until the end guarantees you’ll lose them before you get there. Lengthy, flowing narratives are risky, as your audience makes their own mental adventure, not the one you want them to go on.
Numbers, without explanation, require your audience to do the heavy mental lifting and expose you to the risk they will misunderstand what you, the expert, know they mean.
Not being skimmable slows your audience down. Execs need to skim quickly so they know where to focus.
Topic titles waste space, as they lack meaning. These describe what you are discussing, rather than what you mean.
Missing the basics is no longer excusable, thanks to AI. AI can fix typos, grammar, and basic expression. This is one of the best places to use it.
I hope that helps.
More soon,
Davina
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PRESENTED BY 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.
