Presenting to the bosses? Here are some pointers

Giving a presentation to the C suite can be both exhilarating and intimidating. This is especially true if you are pitching your and your team’s ideas to them. Business coach Sebina Nawaz’s article “How to Blow a Presentation to the C-Suite” from the Harvard Business Review on October 17, 2018, got me thinking about the topic. Here are some actionable points from the article and my experience.

Pointers

Pointer No. 1: It’s about a problem, not your idea. The executives want to hear about the problem first, not your solution. Context is everything. Your idea gets more attention if the executives can see that it solves a pressing problem or will become more significant without their attention.

Pointer No.2: Speak to execs in a language they understand. One of the best moves I ever made was taking the Birkman Assessment from the Houston-based company of the same name. It sets out four communication styles: Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. Execs are generally Red, meaning they like their information Bottom Line Up Front (B.L.U.F.), requiring no throat-clearing, time-wasting preliminaries. Rather, they want you to identify the problem and then offer your solution.