How to cut meetings by communicating better

How often has your communication led to a meeting cancellation … for the right reasons?

When I say the right reasons, I mean because your email or paper was so good the leadership got your message and didn’t need to discuss it.

Charl-Stephan experienced this recently.

He wrote a paper explaining the reasons for underperformance of a division within his company.

The CEO called him the next day to thank him and said:

“Thanks for that. We don’t need to meet. Your email and paper were so clear we can see what has gone wrong and what we need to do.”

Watch below to learn how he did it.

I hope that helps. More soon.

Davina

PS – Charl-Stephan learned how to do this during the last Clarity First Intensive. Click here to learn more about it, here to download the brochure and here for a draft note seeking funding support.

When to avoid reviewing other people's papers and presentations

Most of us review communication for colleagues....

A couple of situations this week reminded me of...

How often do papers come together in a scramble...

I had a terrific question from a client...

How to keep your board on topic Has this...

TLDR: The answer is to provide less information...

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.

(*) Numbers are based on 2023 client benchmarking results.