What makes a great board report?

This was the first week back at my desk after two weeks proper break. Soooo good! I hadn't realised how long it was since I have downed tools for more than a few days at a time.

And, working with a group of super smart tech product managers is always a good place to start.

Here was one of the thoughts that emerged in our first workshop together, which focuses on communication strategy.

To say that the goal of a board paper is to ‘gain alignment around the proposed strategy' is no way specific enough.

We need to dig much more deeply to fully understand three things:

Who specifically in the room will hold the most sway over the decision we need
What their objections to that decision might be … and why?
How do we draft a message that is so insightful, so interesting, that they can see, touch and feel the recommendation in play already?

Don't allow yourself to accept ‘gain agreement on the strategy' as your purpose.

Authors of powerful board reports are much, much more specific in their ‘ask'.

I hope that helps. More next week.

Kind regards,
Davina

PS – Check out my new How to Write Powerful Board Reports Handbook.

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.

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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.