E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

by | PODCASTS

Cutting Through

Helping experts
engage ‘outsiders'
in complex ideas

Board Paper Writing episode

In this board paper writing podcast, Dan and I talk about my new books, Elevate and Engage.

Together, we unpack our deep understanding of the paper-writing process for both leaders and paper writers. These two books look at this challenge from each of those angles:

  • Elevate helps leaders set their teams up to write papers they don't need to rewrite themselves.
  • Engage helps teams write papers that their leaders can approve without burning nights and weekends iterating drafts.

Timestamps 

0:08 – Introducing Dan, a board paper veteran

1:09 – Introducing Davina’s new book, Elevate, to help leaders set their teams up to write papers they don't need to rewrite themselves 

1:55 –  Dan’s initial impression of Elevate as a support for people writing papers for senior leaders and boards

3:44 – How Elevate addresses the ‘guessing game’ 

10:00 – A great example of why you need to get the framing right at the start 

11:28 – Why the typical paper brief fails 

15:08 – The importance of producing quality papers for senior leaders and boards

18:23 – Using Davina's techniques to improve papers and stress test your strategy 

24:14 – Discussing the missing ‘process’ and how to implement it 

32:02 – Why writing skills are not the issue – and why many companies haven’t realised it 

36:00 – Why Dan thinks Elevate is the ‘better way’ 

38:28 – Where to find out more about Davina’s new books and the Board Paper Bootcamp 

 

 RESOURCES

  1. Learn more about Davina's new books here >>
  2. Learn more about the Board Paper Bootcamp here >>

 

E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

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E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

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E2 – Making Time for Strategy

E2 – Making Time for Strategy

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E1 – Risk Management = Change Management

E1 – Risk Management = Change Management

Anthony Wilson shares 30+ years' experience in engaging others in risk management. His biggest challenge is to encourage leaders and others involved in managing risk to move away from a ‘once and done' approach. He is convinced there is enormous business value in seeing risk management as change management.

Know when each episode drops

Ready to Grow?

Learn more about Clarity First

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12 + 13 =

E10 – Alexa Chilcutt – How to make your presentation butterflies fly in formation

E10 – Alexa Chilcutt – How to make your presentation butterflies fly in formation

by | PODCASTS

Cutting Through

Helping experts
engage ‘outsiders'
in complex ideas

Presentation skills podcast

In this presentation skills podcast, Davina and Alexa discuss an important communication disconnect.

Having conversations is a natural and often delightful part of work and life. 

Yet making formal presentations can give even seasoned presenters butterflies. 

What if you could merge the two? 

Dr Alexa Chilcutt shares practical ideas for doing just that. 

She suggests that it is not just feasible but helpful to make your presentation feel like a conversation. 

You’ll enjoy this conversation where she shares her wisdom around executive communication. Here are three topics we covered to whet your appetite: 

  • Use your nerves to energise your presentation. As she put it, don’t ignore the butterflies. Make them fly in formation. 
  • You are your presentation, not the slides. Make your delivery conversational, even if on a stage or on Zoom.  Recording yourself as part of your preparation will help you overcome your ticks and avoid being stiff. 
  • Remember that your audience will hear only 50% of what you say and retain about 25% of it, according to a Texas Christian University study. More is not better. 

You'll enjoy what Alexa has to say about techniques for improving your presentation skills.

 

Timestamps 

0:05 – Get to know Alexa 

6:39 – Alexa’s strategies for better presentations. Tip 1 – Begin with two questions. Ask yourself 1. Why is this relevant to my audience? and 2. What do I want my audience to remember, understand or act on? 

13:09 – Tip 2: Lead with meaning. Shift your mindset from ‘here is what I’m knowledgeable about’ to ‘here is what my audience is interested in’ and share that early on. 

23:59 – Tip 3: Look at it as having a conversation, rather than giving a presentation. 

30:00 – Be aware of your delivery style, your body language and your voice. 

33:45 – Learn to not be so hard on yourself and utilise those butterflies.  

 

 RESOURCES

  1. Download the shownotes below
  2. Connect with Alexa on LinkedIn

 

E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

Cutting ThroughHelping experts engage 'outsiders' in complex ideasBoard Paper Writing episode In this board paper writing podcast, Dan and I talk about my new books, Elevate and Engage. Together, we unpack our deep understanding of the paper-writing process for both...
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Read More

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E11 – New Board Paper Writing books: Elevate and Engage

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Cutting ThroughHelping experts engage 'outsiders' in complex ideasBoard Paper Writing episode In this board paper writing podcast, Dan and I talk about my new books, Elevate and Engage. Together, we unpack our deep understanding of the paper-writing process for both...

E8 – Adam Bennett – Communicating during great change

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Cutting ThroughHelping experts engage 'outsiders' in complex ideasLeading a major change effort while navigating almost polar opposite expectations of a board and the employees is no small task. This week's Cutting Through guest Adam Bennett shares his experiences...

E5 – Daniel Musson – A Case Study in Digital Transformation

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Cutting ThroughHelping experts engage 'outsiders' in complex ideasDan explains the difference between transformation and change, sharing deep experience in helping top brands gain maximum value from their digital transformation efforts. An outstanding communicator, he...

E2 – Making Time for Strategy

E2 – Making Time for Strategy

Cutting ThroughHelping experts engage 'outsiders' in complex ideasDo you struggle to find time to think at work? In this episode, Richard shares ideas to help 'cut through' with our diaries so we have time to think. Although he primarily focuses on strategy, the...

E1 – Risk Management = Change Management

E1 – Risk Management = Change Management

Anthony Wilson shares 30+ years' experience in engaging others in risk management. His biggest challenge is to encourage leaders and others involved in managing risk to move away from a ‘once and done' approach. He is convinced there is enormous business value in seeing risk management as change management.

Know when each episode drops

Ready to Grow?

Learn more about Clarity First

Get in Touch

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When to avoid reviewing other people’s papers and presentations

When to avoid reviewing other people’s papers and presentations

by | - Board communication, - Writing, Board Papers, Emails, INSIGHTS, Prose

Most of us review communication for colleagues.

When doing this, the temptation is to dive in and edit the words on the page.

This involves going straight into the detail, fixing typos, changing words and potentially tightening or removing sentences or whole sections.

In other words, it requires you to work bottom-up to iterate in the weeds to hope you find the message.

This is time-consuming and messy, and inevitably leads to more rework and less clarity. It means you contribute to what I call the Chain of Pain. See below.

 

It is also unlikely to drive a fast and effective business outcome.

Here is what I suggest instead.

If you don't know what specific outcome your colleague is shooting for and can't find the main message at a glance …. ‘make like Kissinger'.

He is famous for asking his subordinates the following question before reviewing their work.

“Is this your best work?”.

If yes, great. He'd review it.

If not … he'd ask them to keep working on it before using his time to review.

I hope that helps. More soon.

Kind regards,
Davina

WANT MORE?

Free ‘How to cut rework' MasterClass Monday – Part of Clarity Hub along with weekly in-depth ‘how to' emails, an extensive library of tips, tools, exercises and case studies to lift the quality of your communication.

One month free. Ongoing access is USD25 per month or USD250 per year. Learn more here.

PowerPoint image library – Want to save time preparing complex but attractive PowerPoint concepts? My image library offers 300 cut and paste images. Grab your free sample of 25 or the full 300 images here.

 

WANT TO LISTEN?

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  2. Richard Medcalf – Making Time for Strategy
  3. Baking Learning & Growth into BAU
  4. Helping Leaders ‘shift testing left' to derisk projects
  5. A Case Study in Digitial Transformation
  6. How to help a senior leader come back from a misstep
  7. How to hit the ground running in a big new role
  8. How to communicate during great change
  9. How to turbo charge your transformation

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How to be human when communicating with senior leaders

How to be human when communicating with senior leaders

by | - Board communication, - Communicating up, - Stakeholder management, Communication strategy

A couple of situations this week reminded me of the importance of differentiating between ‘content’ and ‘context’.

On the one hand I was listening to a fascinating podcast where Lex Fridman interviewed Yann Lecun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta about the abilities and limitations of AI.

On the other, I was reviewing communication to provide suggestions to participants from one of my corporate board paper writing programs.

What fascinated me here was that much of the communication I was reviewing was ‘content' that lacked ‘context'.

This bothered me because placing content in the right context is not only central to our uniqueness as humans, but essential if we want to engage senior decision makers.

And yet, I see teams frequently skipping this foundational step in the rush to finish their paper.

I get that thinking feels slow and that ‘writing' feels like ‘doing', but it reminds me of a comment made by an old boss of mine. “activity does not guarantee impact”.

With the right inputs, AI can deliver lots of content.

So far (!) we humans are the only ones that can take ‘content' and add ‘context' to have impact.

Let’s be human.

I hope that helps.

More soon.
Dav

WANT MORE?

Monthly MasterClass  – New topics every month, as well as access to an extensive library of recordings, case studies, tools and templates to lift the quality of your communication.

One month free. Ongoing access is USD25 per month or USD250 per year. Learn more here.

 PowerPoint image library – Want to save time preparing complex but attractive PowerPoint concepts? My image library offers 300 cut and paste images. Grab your free sample of 25 or the full 300 images here.

 

WANT TO LISTEN?

  1. Risk Management = Change Management
  2. Richard Medcalf – Making Time for Strategy
  3. Baking Learning & Growth into BAU
  4. Helping Leaders ‘shift testing left' to derisk projects
  5. A Case Study in Digitial Transformation
  6. How to help a senior leader come back from a misstep
  7. How to hit the ground running in a big new role
  8. How to communicate during great change
  9. How to turbo charge your transformation

RELATED POSTS

How to deliver better board and SLT papers more quickly

How to deliver better board and SLT papers more quickly

by | - Board communication, - Communicating up, - Stakeholder management

TLDR …..

1. Thank you for the LinkedIn follows. I very much appreciate your support as I build my profile on that platform.
2. The March BoardPaper Bootcamp is open. Learn more here.
3. Today's topic: Better papers more quickly.

_______________________________

How often do papers come together in a scramble just before they must be submitted for review? Perhaps you …

… left it to the last because you assumed you only needed to tweak a few details in last month's paper, only to realise that this particular board presentation required more?

… received an ambiguous briefing and delayed your preparation because you frankly didn't know where to begin?

… waited for quite some time to receive stakeholder feedback, which turned out to be substantive and required you to burn the midnight oil to finish?

These are just three collaborative challenges that limit not only the speed of preparation, but also the quality of insights they contain.

Why?

Delivering papers that are both insightful and useful leans more heavily on collaboration than many realise.

In my experience, teams that prepare their papers with minimal midnight oil result from leaders driving the process that:

  • Readies their teams early so they appreciate why the paper is needed and what it needs to achieve.
  • Iterates the messaging around a highly-structured one-pager to ensure everyone can contribute quickly and substantively to what really needs to be said.
  • Settles the document to check that it reflects the agreed messaging before it is delivered.
  • Embeds the learnings from preparing and delivering the communication to ensure the team can grow together.

Here is how I visualise a process that consistently elevates the quality of thinking in my client's papers while slashing the time they take to prepare them.

I hope that helps, more next week.

Davina.

PS – This is the framework that underpins both of my new books, Elevate and Engage. I'll be sharing more from the book in the coming months as we finalise each one

 

WANT MORE?

Free MasterClass  – New topics every month, as well as access to an extensive library of recordings, case studies, tools and templates to lift the quality of your communication.

One month free. Ongoing access is USD25 per month or USD250 per year. Learn more here.

March BoardPaper Bootcamp now open – Work with me in a small group and in 1-1 coaching to prepare papers and presentations that engage senior leaders and boards. Maximum cohort of 15. Learn more here.

 

WANT TO LISTEN?

  1. Risk Management = Change Management
  2. Richard Medcalf – Making Time for Strategy
  3. Baking Learning & Growth into BAU
  4. Helping Leaders ‘shift testing left' to derisk projects
  5. A Case Study in Digitial Transformation
  6. How to help a senior leader come back from a misstep
  7. How to hit the ground running in a big new role
  8. How to communicate during great change
  9. How to turbo charge your transformation

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