Three Tips for Presenting To Executives

And a bonus rant about the lost art of the memo

Presenting up the chain of command can be a rewarding yet anxiety filled undertaking. Presenting to a group of executives can take both to the next level. Here are a few tips I have found beneficial when presenting to my company’s top leadership.

1 You have to give them context. Your senior executive team has a lot going on. They hear a lot of pitches, status updates, and problems across a wide variety of topics. They can’t possibly keep all of that straight in their heads. It is very likely that they don’t recall exactly what it is you are doing or why…even if they were the group that sanctioned and approved it to begin with. Make it easy on them and explain the basics of what you are up to.

2 You have to tell them what you want from them. Much like giving them context, you also need to clearly state your expectations up front. If they don’t know what you are looking for, they are going to spend the whole time you are talking trying to figure it out. Are you asking for their permission or approval? Do you need them to make a decision? Or are you just giving them a status update? Clearly setting your purpose for being there at the onset will help you avoid confusion, frustration, and not meeting your objective.

3 You have to mercilessly consolidate and condense your message. Once you’ve given them context and a clear purpose, you likely only have a limited amount of their attention before they need to move on to the next agenda item or appointment. You cannot waste that time with an excruciatingly lengthy slide presentation covering every major and minor detail. Get to the meat, and get there fast. If you have effectively established why you are there, this shouldn’t be a hard feat to accomplish. Figure out what they need to know to help you get to your objective and give it to them.

Now, for a quick rant about the lost art of the memo. Why does everything have to be communicated via slides these days? It used to be you created a slide deck as supporting material to a longer work. The slides summarized and highlighted the major points in an accompanying report. Now, there are just the slides and often there isn’t enough information on the actual slide to convey a complete thought unless it is being accompanied by the presenter. Then there are the slides that just completely convey complete thoughts in snippets from one to the next. Remember that Netflix presentation on their Culture? 124 slides of mostly complete thoughts. Write a memo already.

Are our attention spans too fleeting to read a two-page memo? Maybe they are. Maybe that is why we have to have pretty graphics and photos to go along with our bullet points. Everyone needs something nice to stare blankly at while they are wondering why they are there and what it is the presenter is talking about.

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