Communicating Up the Ladder?
Thoughts on Presenting to Higher Levels in Your Organization
The clients I have worked with in my communication coaching practice have one thing in common: they are all highly valuable—and valued—members of their teams. Being based in Silicon Valley, I work mainly with individuals in various roles in Tech firms. They are hired for their expertise, and for the background, education, and experience they possess in their field. And yet, as much as their knowledge is critical to their roles, they sometimes find themselves preparing to present to upper management or executives, and essentially being asked not to communicate all that tech!
From working with individual contributors, VPs, CIOs and such, I have developed an understanding of some of the shifts that are required to meet the competing needs of wanting to appear knowledgeable while also addressing the expectations of those higher in the organization. Here are some of the principles we often address.
Principles for Communicating Up
#1: Understand your role. It may seem obvious that if you are presenting at work, your job is to communicate your knowledge. My clients have often shared with me that they see themselves as knowledgeable professionals and that they think they are in the room to share their expertise with the executives. The issue I sometimes see is that they may present the information in a neutral way, given that they see the executives as the decision makers. In most cases, that is correct, and the executives know they are the decision makers; they will take into account your input and recommendations and make the decision that makes sense from their point of view. If your analysis has lead you to a conclusion on the best approach, it is often best practice to be clear about what that recommendation is and why, knowing that you are putting forward the most relevant information. The decision makers may or may not implement your suggestion, but if you make your reasoning clear, you will know that you have provided them with crucial input.
#2: Speak ‘business” not “tech.” Another related point is the surprising fact that during meetings and presentations my clients report being expected to act as translators. Not in the sense of translating one language to another, but in translating their technical work into business terms. After all, they are working within the context of a company or organization. If coaching deals with perspective changes and skills, the core skill here really goes back to audience analysis, a fundamental early step in any key communication at work. You can ask yourself questions like “Who am I speaking to?” and “What do they need to do with this information?” in order to start mentally shifting into this translation mode. The audience make up will determine much about your talk, from how you organize your speech to using or avoiding jargon.
#3: Be Concise. It isn’t necessary to spend a lot of time talking about this. It’s pretty simple to understand the need to avoid being wordy during communications with key decision makers, who are extremely busy. The expression time is money is really relevant in cases where upper management and executives are tasked with hearing and evaluating information from many different parties. The challenge is performing in these often stressful, time sensitive environments. If you have five minutes to lay out a proposal, how are you going to make the best of those minutes? That question is a good starting point for your preparations.
#4: Reassure. When we think about communication in the workplace, we might imagine leaders speaking to their team, whether to inform, motivate, or support them. However, in working as a consulting coach, I have learned how strongly leaders value the communication flow in the other direction, meaning up the ladder or chain of command. They have expressed a desire to be made aware in real time of the status of the various projects they are responsible for overseeing. This may be in order to share that with the person they report to. Everyone reports to someone after all! Sometimes this means that you may have to report that things are not going as expected. In this case, can you clearly and succinctly convey that you have the situation under control or are taking appropriate steps in the right direction? If you can, you are doing what I refer to as reassuring, and this might be exactly what will show how valuable a member of the team you are.
Questions for Thought
Those are some of my observations about what to consider when communicating up the ladder. To help you determine how this relates to your own work, here are some questions to consider.
What are the main challenges you experience in your communication with your direct supervisor or the person that person reports to?
How can you make sure that you are meeting the needs of those in higher levels within your organization while displaying your own value in the best light?