Seth Godin this morning really gets to a critical essence of communicating with your teams, clients or bosses: you need to make sure people know your thinking process.
Seth called his post The Theory of the Case. Another way to think about it is would be:
- Open any pitch – internal or external – with an outline of what you’re going to cover
- Follow that up immediately with “and this is what our/my analysis proves to be the facts of the situation.”
- Invite conversation – if you don’t have agreement on the facts, your conclusions have no matter. Seth points this out very well – without gaining this agreement you will have critique on your conclusions which is really about an unstated assumptions about the situation.
- Only once you have agreement on the facts do you present your actions/conclusions/ideas. In that way you insure that you are going to invite critique, insight and hopefully eventual agreement on what you want: on the things you are paid to bring to the party, the ideas.
I cannot tell you the importance of this step. I also cannot tell you the number of times I wished I had taken this step. Innocent unspoken assumptions like “we don’t have the budget for the really good idea so I won’t present it” or “there is the skill to perform this function” often kill great ideas. The first type sometimes backfires when you hear “I was expecting something more creative” and the latter fails because a leader says “I love the idea but we’re just not ready for it.”
The list above is the thinking, but it doesn’t have to be that formal. Imagine this conversation:
“I love this opportunity. I have a bunch of great thoughts. I just want to make sure that I’ve been thinking about this challenge in the right way. Here’s what crossed my mind: we’ve got Allison and Chi to do the work, they aren’t experts at social media, and the most money we’d have for outside expenses above their efforts might be about $10,000. Does that sound about right?”
Then be silent until you either confirm or revise those assumptions. Be ready to revise your recommendations based on what you hear.
Wise words I wish I’d had someone coach me about much earlier in my career!
