Executive Communications: Start with the Bottom Line

Every single one of my coaching clients face challenges with executive communications in one form or another. The most common contexts in which these issues come up include these two dimensions of personal branding and executive presence:

• Communicating in an executive fashion to be seen as a potential executive (i.e., ready for a promotion)
• Communicating with executive colleagues to earn credibility and influence decisions in senior leadership conversations

But what does good executive communication really look like in action? Most of the time, it starts with the bottom line.

What is Executive Communications?

Executive Communications Stems from Executive Thinking. There’s a reason the frontal lobe of the brain is called the home of the brain’s “executive function.” Executive mental functions such as communications, analysis and decision-making fundamentally relies on our brain’s ability to prioritize and sift through huge amounts of data and information served up by the rest of our brain in order to produce an outcome. These outcomes look like decisions, requests and actions.

Similarly, acting as a sort of “frontal lobe of the organization”, executives in companies lead most effectively and efficiently when they are focused on the outcomes (i.e., decisions, requests and actions), not the sifting and prioritizing necessary to inform the outcome. This is why most executives usually like to start with the end state of an analysis or recommendation and work backwards until they understand what they need to know to move to the outcome. In a perfect world, the executive trusts those who produce the information so much that they spend little time reanalyzing data and get right to the outcome.

If you’ve ever found an executive impatient with sorting through the details, it’s because they want to spend their time on outcomes.

Why is Executive Communications Difficult?

Of course, getting a recommendation ready for decision making never starts with the outcome. It starts with a clear understanding of the problem and moves linearly through gathering information, analyzing/running scenarios and – finally – a conclusion that produces the bottom line recommended outcome. Too many times, those tasked with the non-executive tasks of developing the recommendation stumble at the end and struggle to get to a bottom line where the executive outcome can be more easily decided. There are many reasons this final step, the step the executive cares most about, is difficult at the end of the analysis, because the analyzers:

• exhaust themselves doing the work and run out of time or brain cells when it comes time to boil it down to a bottom line
• get so lost in the weeds that they lose the perspective necessary (if they ever had it) to see the bottom line that can drive the outcome
• inexperienced with achieving outcomes (i.e., decisions, requests and actions), their recommendation doesn’t provide the necessary rigor or information necessary for an executive to drive the outcome

How to Start with the Bottom Line When Communicating with Executives

So what should you do if you’re determined to avoid these challenges and become a good executive communicator? Here are three steps you can take to switch up your analysis and recommendation style to deliver the bottom line effectively in an executive manner:

1. Be very clear at the outset on the executive perspective of the problem AND the type of outcome your analysis should support

• Do you know the cost of the problem and the potential return of a solution?
• Do you know what decisions can and cannot be driven by your work?

2. Do your analysis in the traditional linear order

• Think through the problem, data, analysis, scenarios, potential outcomes, solution/recommendation)
• Come to your recommendation by telling your story in a linear fashion, to yourself and then others who will help you with a “dry run”

3. Develop an executive communication package: put your linear story above into an Appendix and deliver a short (5-10 slide) presentation structured to start with the bottom line

• your description of the problem
• your recommendation
• the top 3 reasons you’re making this recommendation and then
• the Appendix.

When you deliver executive communications as number three outlines above, you give the executive listener the essential information she needs to either move directly to the outcome or take you back into your Appendix to discuss the specific pieces most important to her before moving to the outcome. Even if you have to retrace every step in discussion, which is less likely with this approach, your initial overview will usually lead to a more efficient executive interaction and a greater probability of an outcome.

You may note that the above approach feels at some level inherently inefficient, requiring you to prepare up front more carefully and do the analysis twice — once forward in the thinking and once backward in the communicating. If you’re only looking at efficiency through the lens of time spent, than this approach is less efficient than simply doing the analysis and sharing it. And once you go through the “inefficient process” of analyzing it forward and communicating it backwards, you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently represent the most important aspects of your ideas in any format, powerpoint, narrative memos, elevator conversations and more.

However, I can guarantee you that in the last step, (number three – leading with your high level recommended outcome and putting the details at the back of your presentation) you will do the executive synthesis that is at the heart of high quality executive communications. And the executives you’re communicating with will appreciate your effort. They’ll see that you’re capable of joining them in the frontal lobe of the organization. If you’re not there already, they may just ask you to join them.

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