This is central to understanding our audience, and Shane offers three particularly useful considerations for us in that regard.

He offers a side-bar story calling us to beware ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’

This is a parable best summed up with a quote from Aristotle:

“What is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others.”

In other words, people are highly self-interested.

In preparing your communication we need to understand our audience’s interests deeply, if we are to get the results we seek.

In Clarity First, we invest significantly here as we find that it is not at all uncommon to start preparing a piece of communication only to discover we aren't clear enough about not only who we are communicating with, but what we will communicate about.

For example, I helped a product manager from a global technology company prepare a pitch recently that involved deep stakeholder analysis.

We realised fairly quickly that there were a number of critical stakeholders who were neutral or potential objectors to her idea, and we took time to unpick their issues using our three-question stakeholder analysis framework.

The patterns unearthed by the analysis helped her see that not only did she have some extra leg work to do before requesting resources from the leadership, but specifically what kind of leg work would help.

She not only changed her story as a result of our 90 minutes together, but radically shifted her stakeholder engagement strategy and the way she presented the pitch itself.

Next week I will have another post stemming from Shane's excellent book.

Talk soon,
Davina

PS – Our new kit for ‘pitching your manager' is now available. It includes an updated program brochure as well as a script you may like to cut and paste into your email or use to guide your conversation with your manager. Click here to learn more.

PPS – Related posts include: