Making the case to the C-level suite

[Wes Bucey]

From time to time, here in the Cove, we get posts asking "How can I get my top boss to listen to me?"

FWIW: I was a top boss for a long time before I went into semi-retirement. I am pretty sure I understand what held my interest as a boss and what didn't, sometimes what didn't made me think less of the person than before the meeting.

Here's a list of things I think a low ranking guy should have in hand before he confronts the top boss (or any other executive at the C-level [CEO, COO, CFO, President, etc.]):

1. Learn and know as much as possible about the guy you want to meet and present your proposal to - personality quirks, panic buttons, biases, any conflicts with his peers/subordinates/superiors in the C-level suite, current hot button topics [competitors, new markets, new products, regulation, etc.])
2. your own agenda - in stages, first your 3 to 5 main points, then short overview or summary of each, finally, "leave behinds" - do not expect to get down to detail level unless your research has shown the guy IS obsessive about details, in which case, he will ask you for more detail - be ready with a firm conversational grasp of all the details in your "leave behinds" which are reports, statistics, surveys, FMEAs, etc.
3. your access route to the C-level suite - often this involves kissing the rings of gatekeepers, the bigger the organization, the more gatekeepers between you and the top boss.

It is important to know that, although they have some traits in common, no two top bosses are exactly alike. Since they consider themselves unique, they will probably not be as interested in a generic approach as in one where the guy making the pitch is hitting responsive chords on the top boss's hit list. Yeah, CEOs are concerned about money, but some are concerned about corporate image, their own image, considering a run for public office, etc. Because of this variation, the more research the guy with a plan to put in front of the top boss does about these quirks, the better chance he has of making a good first impression, not just coming across as some geek with an armful of data and an inability to articulate the plan in plain English.

One major bit that is supremely important is FMEA. With a good FMEA, you can inoculate the top boss against naysayers, by listing the possible things that could go wrong and showing you have a plan to avoid them entirely or to ameliorate them to prevent damage. That way, when somebody says later to the top boss, "We tried that before and it didn't work." you will have clued in the boss that you were aware of that, had analyzed WHY it didn't work and had a plan to avoid that snag. Two things happen, the other guy comes off as uninformed and you look more and more like a genius - in one fell swoop you eliminate a potential foe and boost your own credibility.

I recall a line from the movie, Gypsy. In it the stage mom, Rose, says [of the audience] to her stripper daughter, "Always leave them wanting more."

If you can come across as a guy who has complete control of his plan, it won't be necessary for you to spill it all in one meeting. If your three or four major points pique enough interest, the boss will come to you for more. You have to be ready to dispense it on demand, but if you try to dump it all in one shot you are likely to hit sensory overload and burn out your welcome.

Try to stay on message. You are in the meeting for one purpose - to sell YOUR plan. If you can't control yourself enough to stay on message, the boss won't think you have enough control to follow through on the plan if he green lights it. Do not gossip about other people. If the boss starts to wander, you can come back to your message by saying, politely, "I know your time is valuable and I don't want to distract you from the plan we're discussing." (even if you aren't doing the distracting.)

In future posts, we'll talk about wending your way through the hierarchy of gatekeepers to get your proposal before a top boss. One tip: do everything you can to make your pitch in person versus handing over the job to an intermediary - no one can sell your proposal with as much knowledge and enthusiasm as you.

Final point: try to boil down your main points into a one page recap (outline style) and leave this as part of the "leave behinds" AFTER you make the presentation, not BEFORE! (If you hand it out before, the boss has no reason to listen to you make the pitch while he reads it - you want to leave it as a memory aid AFTER you make the pitch.)

More stuff later in the week.

 

[adickerson]

I agree with this, I have had a lot of success when I started to ask myself: why to executives buy into SixSigma programs when most of the tools have been around for years? It seemed that quality tools relegated to project management, engineering, and statisticians were being rapidly addopted at the MBA level and high level executives. There can be a lot of debate into the value of this and if it was successful but to wisdom to be gained is that SixSigma as a methodology attempts to put Quality Control into monetary terms. Money is the language of C-level executives.

Once I stopped talking about process variation, process capability, or wasted process time and I started talking about Cost of Quality it was easy to get my point across. I learned to talk about money and how the work I did affected the bottom line. Before this switch, quality was just seen as overhead required by the customer to fill out forms. Now a lot of my quality programs are seen as valuable cost savings programs. My job went from bureaucracy to problem solver. I was surprised how well this worked at first. I was doing the same work as before, I only changed the way I presented the information. However, that small change from presenting technical solutions to presenting cost savings opened up lots of doors.

I try to be careful and present very conservative estimates for my cost savings when I propose a project, I don't want things to backfire and promise something I can not deliver. I would rather be more right then less right in the eyes of my management.

That is how I get to C-Level executives; talk their language - money.