One of the struggles in working with senior management groups on complex topics is the danger that the discussion begins to focus narrowly on one specific aspect of the topic on which a number of those present have deep expertise or strong opinions (or both). It is totally natural that people want to find a way to simplify the complexity of the topic but the risk is that, all of a sudden, a decision about the whole strategy looks like it will be made on the basis of one relatively minor dimension.
I have found that a useful technique for preventing this is to attach an explicit financial value to the individual items on the agenda. The number represents the additional financial value that could be generated by an insightful group discussion of that topic. So item 1 “Minutes of the last meeting” will have a modest notional value attached to it but item 3 “Sources of incremental growth” might have a $500 million notional value.
I have found that this approach has two benefits:
- It ensures that the allocation of time in the meeting is in closer proportion to the financial importance of the topic than might otherwise be the case (participants will often cut short an unproductive discussions with the remark ”why are we wasting our time on a topic that has little financial value when there are other, more valuable items yet to discuss?”)
- It ensures that the discussion of a truly important topic is not allowed to hinge on a single, relatively minor aspect – even if there is strong debate about that aspect (participants will make a remark like “we are not going to let a $500mn decision hinge on the choice of stationery supplier”)
I encourage marketers to adopt this technique when presenting to senior leadership teams. Begin your presentation as follows ”Our first topic – strategic positioning – is potentially a $50mn topic, so we would welcome a detailed discussion. Our third topic – social media strategy for our holiday sales promotion – has a more modest upside value of $5mn but we would still welcome your input.” I guarantee that jaws will drop and your career prospects will rise…
