The Danger of Underestimating Communication Strategy

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Michael Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group, LLC

I remember myself at 12 or 13 years old thinking about how splendid it could be to be "the boss." Like most kids my age, my life was filled with rules, teachers, parents and "older-folks" making decisions for me. Naturally, the idea of being in-control and telling others just what they ought to be doing sounded pretty great. As I got older, I held fast to that fantasy through a string of jobs working for a number of great managers, always knowing that as my career progressed things would obviously get easier when I was "in charge."

Of course, as my life moved ahead and I got to be "in charge" of a few things, it never got easier. The decision-makers not only got tougher, but I discovered that I now had many of them at once to deal with. In fact, oodles of them: operating committees, cross-functional teams, business unit managers, the logo police, exec staff, the CTO, … and of course those pesky customers. Some decision-makers were now folks that I didn't know were decision-makers; others claimed importance but never ever engaged in anything other than wreaking havoc in any decision-making process - and usually at the last minute by completely changing the ground-rules. While I still had just one "boss," all of a sudden it seemed like there was an army of folks who could effectively say "no" at any time Getting a simple budget approved at this point in my life felt like getting a ratification to the constitution approved.

Of course, at every level of every management structure there are always bosses - from the manager of the entry-level employee to the Board's Chairman; from the investors to their limited partners. But if you are like most managers, the bigger the decision the more broad-based support you need to gather for whatever you are attempting to do. Perhaps only one person or a small committee is needed to say "yes," but there are many who can effectively say "no!" Consider that your capabilities, your plan and ideas represent only about 25% of getting what you want. It's the ante to play the game. Your proof-points and execution represent another 25%. But I believe the last 50% is how effective you are at personally communicating. And no matter how much of a platitude it may sound, communications really is everything. When I am asked why business plans don't get funded, or why execution fails, I believe that it is most often not about the plan itself but about the messenger and the communication process.

Here's the problem: you have a 'filter' that you pass all of your communications through. That filter is based upon how you have learned to send and receive information during your life as well as on your personal communication skills. Each individual you need support from also has their own filter in which they strain what you tell them. More often than not, these filters are completely incompatible. There is no right or wrong in this. People are just genetically wired differently.

Unfortunately, each individual in a typical room full of decision-makers is also wired differently from you. Worse yet, they are incompatible with each-another in many cases. So when communication goes astray, it's not so much that what is being said is incorrect as it is that the filters have just been badly misjudged.

Most people spend a huge amount of time trying to improve their presentations, tweak the look and feel and layout, massage the text on the page, change the grammar, etc, all in hopes of communicating more effectively. But many of these efforts end up going for naught because they are less than half the battle. The much bigger problem is to understand the 'filters' of those in the room who you are communicating with, and to set the stage for effective discussion before-hand as possible.

Although I can not prove this, from my experience the two most important filters that people carry around with them are:

a. The 'can-do' filter - the filter that looks for enthusiasm, abstract thinking, getting-to-the-point. Emotion.

b. The 'did-do' filter - the filter that looks for results, proof, detailed knowledge. Facts.

I knew an executive that regularly "wowed" people when he presented. He was great at appealing to emotion and was always uniformly perceived as someone with a "fire-in-the-belly." He was charismatic, charming, a brilliant thinker who could process information on-the-fly faster than anyone I've ever met. His presentations were filled with flip-charts, white-boards, circles-and-arrows, and lots of good arm-motion and humor. He controlled the room with his presence. After a presentation I would regularly see people smiling enthusiastically while saying something like "…that was just great! We have to support this initiative. Now what the heck did he say...?"

Another example I recall is when I was in a planning session some years back regarding a potential acquisition. By mid-morning we had plans laid-out on a series of flip-charts: market diagrams, routes-to-market, organization structures, etc. About mid-day the CFO of the acquiring company walked in un-announced, looked around, and stated that it all looked very confusing. He looked unhappy, and then summarily left. But later that same day we had distilled the diagrams down into a series of tables that outlined the tasks, revenue milestones and costs - in rows and columns. Around dinner-time the same CFO walked in, looked around the room and stated…"oh, now I get-it."

Now let's combine executive "A" with CFO "B." Here's another real-life scenario: John and Sarah were the CEO and CFO, respectively, of a successful privately-held company. They had a long-standing personal relationship, founded their company together and wielded heavy influence in their executive team's decisions. Their company had entered a difficult transition period, during which time a raft of managers had come - and gone while unsuccessfully trying to get their plans approved for going forward. As a conceptual thinker, John loved to make decisions based upon intuition. He was a charismatic, quick decision-maker, and dealt well in the abstract. Sarah, on the other-hand, loved facts and proof. She did not "suffer-fools" easily, could not stand unprepared managers and had instructed the team to only bring ideas forward once they are "baked." No "big-elephant pictures" for her.

In theory, John and Sarah believed they were quite complimentary because of the ways in which they viewed the world. In practice, managers cowered to present to their executive team because one of two things generally happened: (a) John checks-out when a presentation is too detailed while the presenter engages with Sarah. John sees the presenter as not being able to 'get to the point.' Alternatively, Sarah gets frustrated with conceptual presentations and frequently interrupts to ask detailed, fact-based questions in support of the presentation. This keeps the presenter from getting through the material he desperately wants to present to John, but Sarah wants to see that the presenter "knows his stuff." The presenter gets completely distracted, can not immediately process and return the very deep data required, and Sarah concludes the presenter is inept and unprepared. At the same time John has become bored with the detail dialog and has mentally decided that the presenter is not senior enough for the role…. and the beat goes on…

Now let's see the same scene played out in an early stage fund-raising presentation to a Venture Capital firm. The fund only seeks 'platform-plays' and the sponsoring partner has coached the entrepreneur that he likes the business plan because it is broadly scalable and applicable to a very large market. He coaches the entrepreneur to be brief and present a high-level overview. On the first slide, the questions and drill-down begin. The entrepreneur expects a high-level overview but instead gets the Spanish inquisition from one partner. At the end of the first formal presentation to the partnership the feedback from the other partners is that the entrepreneur seems to have a total lack of focus.

Downtrodden, the entrepreneur goes away and now adds detailed market focus information into the presentation and the detailed facts in support of the financial model. In his follow-up meeting he diligently describes the research that justifies the market entry strategy. The result: several partners now feel the firm is too narrowly focused and that the entrepreneur has no "fire in the belly." "We don't invest in niche markets."

Whether you laugh or cry at the above scenarios, you've probably seen them repeat themselves like a bad screen-play. Unless you happen to be personally blessed with the kind of charisma that can strip away the various filters people carry around with them, I suggest the following:

(i) Know your audience in-advance. As possible, know the filters that each decision-maker carries around with him/her.

(ii) In groups with individual who carry around dramatically different filters from one another, you must socialize expected decisions in-advance of a group meeting to avoid disaster. You can communicate individually in-advance using a different style than in a group. Many people look at this process as "corporate politics." It is not. Rather, it is simply taking the time to make sure you communicate in a way that the receiver can understand.

(iii) Have three different sets of materials for the group you are presenting to. You may choose to not leave all three behind, or any for that matter. But having these three sets of materials prepared in advance will streamline your communications while forcing you to prepare effectively for detailed as well as abstract communication:

a. A detailed, fact-based plan. For the folks that require the drill-down, you can refer them to a document or simply use it as reference information that you may find difficult to remember. Most of your audience may never even read it but just flash it to others as proof that diligence was done. But those that do read the details would have otherwise derailed you had you not provided this information.

b. A very high-level executive summary (1-2 pages). This is often what will be read by everyone. Be very concise, write powerfully and include "did-do" examples wherever possible.

c. A summary presentation. This is your TV spot. Rehearse this and consider the slide as a collection of "sound-bytes."

Mike Tanner is a Managing Director at the Chasm Group, where he provides advisory and consulting services in the areas of new venture development, market development strategy, operational planning, portfolio investment strategy and market positioning. Mike holds board seats for Apexion and Savi Technology, and sits on the advisory boards of Entivity and Unicru. He can be reached for comment at: mtanner@chasmgroup.com

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