Have you heard of addition bias?
It's the brain's default assumption: more equals better.
Don't understand a presentation? Ask for more data. Not sure what to say? Add more detail.
Ikea faced this head-on.
Their founder, Ingvar Kamprad, saw his top performers burning out by their mid-30s. Nothing had outwardly changed. But they were drained.
They weren't lazy. They were young. Energy shouldn't have been the issue.
Kamprad called it The Manager's Trap.
Every new problem triggered the same instinct: add more. More meetings. More tools. More rules. More complexity masquerading as progress.
Your communication works the same way.
When a message isn't landing, the instinct is to explain more, add more slides, or schedule another meeting.
Kamprad's fix was brutal in its simplicity: if it isn't working, don't add. Simplify.
That principle changed how his teams worked. It can change how you communicate.
More soon,
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.
WANT TO LISTEN?
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- Baking Learning & Growth into BAU
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- A Case Study in Digitial Transformation
- How to help a senior leader come back from a misstep
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- How to communicate during great change
- How to turbo charge your transformation
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- Introducing my two new books: Engage and Elevat
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- How to match your method with your message
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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.
