General Manager College — Bigger, Faster, Not My Fault.

An anecdote I heard over lunch one day went something like this:

General Manager College Curriculum
Day 1 — Make it Bigger!
Day 2 — Make it Faster!
Day 3 — Everything that goes wrong was your predecessor’s fault.

Now in all fairness, I think General Manager’s College may only be a two-day event. However, I do think this is likely a pretty good summary of the content as senior leaders seem to invariably ask how ideas can be made bigger and how change can happen faster.

The challenge this creates is, how can you put forth what looks like a great effort, yet still has some upside you can keep in your back pocket for the inevitable follow-up questions re: bigger and faster? In a perfect world I think you “write-up” 90% of your idea and keep the final 10% to share when discussing the idea/proposal in person. Get the manager to think they came up with the last 10% and everyone wins. They got to contribute and improve the idea, you get to go execute on your plan. Call me cynical if you want, I prefer effective.