Communicating your ideas, solutions, and recommendations to an executive or superior can often be an intimidating experience. Asking for more budget money or offering a solution to a long-standing or critical problem may make you feel nervous. After all, top level people think differently, process information differently, and expect communications to go a certain way.

No matter what you’re communicating to your executive team or senior professional, the following techniques will ensure you get your message across successfully.

1. Give solutions. Executives want solutions—plain and simple. They want you to show them how your solution will solve a problem. The most important thing about providing solutions is to always provide more than one. Go into the meeting with at least two potential solutions or ideas. Even if one solution is clearly superior, you want to offer the executive alternatives. Why? Because many executives like to be the one who makes the decision. So if you go in with only one option, you’ve created a yes/no scenario. You’ve made it too easy for the executive to shoot down not only your idea, but also the whole issue. When you approach an executive with more than one option, you open the door for more discussion.

2. Give the pros and cons of each option. After you give each solution, clearly articulate the pros and cons of each idea. In other words, identify the risk and reward for each potential solution. You want to help the executive understand the upside and the downside of making a decision, as well as the pros and cons of not making any decision at all. Realize that sometimes not making any decision is the way to go. Executives need to understand the impact of each option.

3. Be brief. Any high-profile communication needs to be done in 10 minutes or less, whether you’re on the phone, face-to-face, or in a virtual meeting. When talking with an executive, shorter is always better. As you’re thinking about what you want to say, be aware that if you are not interrupted with questions (which you likely will be), you should be able to say everything you need to say in 10 minutes.

4. Be honest. This may seem obvious, but when you’re dealing with executives it’s easy to clam up, beat around the bush, and not be as direct as you should. Remember that not being completely honest can be detrimental to the organization. According to the book Leadership: The Challenge by Kouzes & Posner, the number one quality a leader possesses is honesty. So when you’re thinking about those tough recommendations, be direct, be honest, and be forthright at all times. Only then will you get the results you want.

Sheri Jeavons
President