PART

IV

Career and Personal Advice
from the Top

One topic has dominated the world of fad-laden business publications and training for the past 25 years: “Leadership.” Like Hollywood sequels, leadership is a topic that seems to be a box office hit year after year. From Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence), to Ken Blanchard (The One Minute Manager), to Jim Collins (Good to Great), to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (The Leadership Challenge), there is a seemingly insatiable appetite for research data, Harvard studies, even parables (Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese) about how to lead. Perhaps this is because each year a new crop of MBAs charges onto the playing fields of business with one burning question, “What the hell do I do now?”

While Speaking Up^®: Surviving Executive Presentations might be considered a business “self-help” book, it is not about how to become a CEO. Neither is it a book about leadership “best practices.” This book is directed at those who must speak to top leadership. It offers strategies that will help you get in and out of those presentation rooms successfully. In Part IV, we take a deeper look at who these C-levels are, their lives, their struggles, their worries, their goals, the legacies they want to leave, and most importantly, how they see their relationships with subordinates, especially during presentations.

Why should you care? Why should this matter to you? There are at least two reasons:

1. The more you know about the people sitting around that table, the better your chance of being successful. As I recount what these executives told me about their lives, think in terms of your own top-level executives. What can you learn about them? Where can you find that information? How can you weave that information into your presentations?

2. Whether you ultimately accede to the C-level or any other senior leadership position, your personal life and your business life have an amazing trajectory through the years. You will face many of the same things they have dealt with: successes and failures, mentors, hopes and dreams, and legacies. In their stories you’ll see your story.

Audrey MacLean puts it strategically:

Most executives are trying to “pattern recognize” what you’re presenting in the context of their experience in other business opportunities over the years. They’re trying to draw this pattern, ‘Here’s what he’s telling me, and it reminds me of this …’ So the more you know about what their experiences have been, what they’ve worked on, decisions they’ve made in the past, the better able you’ll be to figure out how they’re thinking about what you’re telling them.

A body of research supporting Audrey’s observation shows that people prefer to do business with people who are like themselves, including beliefs, hometowns, and alma maters.¹

You have a better chance of building a bridge with executives if you understand something about their personal and business backgrounds. Remember, they are consciously or unconsciously looking for a recognizable pattern in what you are presenting.

For example, if you were presenting to Steve Blank, and you had read his book, Four Steps to the Epiphany, you would know how much he values facts about customers based on research via in-person meetings. Getting ready for your presentation, then, you would include fact-based customer information. In your presentation, you might mention how you did the research and what it means. Steve might pay more attention to your presentation knowing that you share his commitment to customer information.

Here’s another example. Let’s say you are presenting to Ned Barnholt. On the Internet you can find lots of references to how exposure to Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard shaped Ned’s management style at Agilent. If your presentation related in some way to management philosophy, and you mentioned how you were influenced early in your career by a strong mentor, Ned might have a moment of “pattern recognition,” and that would help build the rapport that is so critical in these meetings.

Obviously, it is unlikely these particular executives will be in your audience, but think about what commonalities you have with the executives who will be in your audience. If there is a link, you and your proposal will receive a warmer reception.

In summary, doing deep homework about the people around the table will reveal ways you can connect with them. Knowing what it is like to ascend to the lofty heights of top-level executive positions not only gives you needed empathy for the people sitting before you, but also gives you clarity about what that path is like. Is it the path you are on? Is this the path you want to be on?

In the concluding chapters of this book, we’ll explore three areas of importance to people at the top: parents and mentors, career challenges and advice, and legacy. If your goal is to make it to any senior-leadership position, you will find guidance in the stories of those who’ve gone before you. Are you ready to shoulder the responsibility? How does it affect family life? What about mentors and support systems? Additionally, knowledge of their struggles will help you understand what they’re trying to do.

To get this information, I conducted in-depth interviews with eleven C-level executives about their personal lives and careers: their parents; where they grew up and went to school; the pivotal events in their lives; their mentors; their struggles and self-doubts; lessons learned; even how they want to be remembered by their children. As you read their stories, advice, and counsel, reflect on your own business and personal life. What can you take away from their experience to help you carve out your own future?