Richard Lummis and I are back for another episode of 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership. Today, we take up the issue of how to brief senior leadership in an organization. This podcast is based upon a recent Harvard Business Review article How to Brief a Senior Executive by Grant T. Harris. Harris notes in his article, “Briefing a senior executive is an art and adept White House staffers do it every day under the most stressful of circumstances. They’re masters of compressing the right information into the right amount of time, no matter how complex the topic or short the briefing. The skills needed to brief the chief executive in the Oval Office are directly applicable to briefing any executive in the C-suite.”
Some of the highlights include:
- Before You Walk into the Room (or Log in)
- Identify the “crucial nodder.”
- Know your boss’s “tells.”
- Find out how the boss engages with the material.
- Plan for gradations of success and failure.
- Keep an idea alive to fight another day or, in the best-case scenario, go bigger and faster in implementation.
- In the Room (or on the Video Conference Call)
- Read the room, not your notes. Whether the briefing is in person or virtual, you need to read cues and body language. In short, “take cues, not notes.”
- Stay laser focused on your task.
- Practice the art of staying silent.
- What does it all mean?
