Presenting to Decision Makers: Best Practices

So, you’ve done your homework, double-checked your data, prepared your presentation, and now it’s time to present your team’s results to senior executives. You might be ready to stand and deliver, but are you prepared for the ride?

Presenting business reviews and results to decision makers requires a different mindset and strategies. Here are some best practices for succeeding with this time-pressed, demanding audience...

Give the highlights, then focus on the future.?First, if you’ve prepared your presentation from a CEO’s perspective (that is, focused on key business drivers), you’re ready to tell them clearly and succinctly what you said you’d do last quarter, and what you actually did (and why).?Next, shine a light on what you’re doing moving forward, based on last quarter’s results.?Spend as much or more time on future-focused plans and data points.

Don’t shy away from bad news.?If your results fell short, say so upfront, clearly, and honestly.?Senior executives can see through hedging and equivocation.? It’s always best to be transparent.?They will respect you for it.

Listen deeply.?Remember, you came to this business meeting prepared to deliver what senior leaders want:?a dialogue, not just a data dump.?Don’t be so rigid in presenting your results or your slide deck that you don’t stop and answer questions in the flow.??

One of our Master Facilitators, Stephanie Moore, worked with a corporate leader who wanted interactivity but repeatedly didn’t get it from presenters. “He told me he even had people who, when asked a question, would say, ‘Can you wait a second??I’ll get to that later.’”?When an executive asks a question, answer it.?Better yet, take time to make sure you understand what they’re really asking.?Paraphrasing the question in response often helps to clarify.?So does asking more penetrating questions to more deeply understand the executive’s concern or point of view.?

Be ready to go into the weeds—if they ask.? The minutiae of your team’s work is understandably important and endlessly interesting to you and your staff; but generally speaking, executives want you to focus on a top-floor view.? That said, if one of them wants to do a data dive, be prepared to do so.?

Keep your cool.?“Here’s where presenting business reviews are different than any other presentation you’ll make,” Stephanie says. “It tests every part of your business acumen.”??

What will you do if during your presentation, the executives careen off into a very heated discussion??Or down an entirely different road, topic-wise? What if you realize the discussion they’re having has more to do with politics than the plan???

Or, what if you enter the conference room and are told that instead of 30 minutes, you now have 10???

These are all very real and fairly common realities, and you need to be prepared to deal with them.?First, don’t take it personally.?Second, know that there are artful ways to manage the “chaos.”?One of the best ways is to do enough check-ins throughout the meeting to keep things on track, and yet not shut down necessary dialogue.?For example, if the discussion has veered way off topic, ask, “In the time we have left, would you like to table the balance of my review so we can continue discussing XYZ?”?If your time gets cut short from the get-go, launch into an elevator-speech version of your results (prepared beforehand) and leave the remaining precious minutes for what they’d like to ask.?

Presenting results and asking for support from company leaders might be the most high-stakes moments of your career.?And these are the times you will either help move the business and your career forward—or not.?

PowerSpeaking, Inc. developed Speaking Up: Presenting to Decision Makers? for people who want in-depth training and practice in presenting to senior leaders.?If you’re one of those people, contact us for more information.