Communicating with Stakeholders

Understanding your audience is the first step to reaching them.

That’s why in bizops, speaking with the right information and level of detail is critical. There are a couple of high-level guidelines that you should always follow:

• Always provide context before diving into a discussion. All questions have origins and decisions have implications.
• Thoughtfully frame any conversation. Why should the stakeholder care about the conversion? What are the pieces that will be of most interest?

Key BizOps Stakeholders

Here are some audience-types to consider. These buckets are by no means exhaustive, but this, in combination with the prompts above, hopefully helps you think about what information is most interesting to who.

Analysts

They are often the ones thinking through the nitty-gritty details of the work, so being precise and specific is extremely valuable here. They don’t always have all the organizational / institutional context, so helping analysts see the greater value of the work and how it fits into other ongoing projects can help them be more effective.

Subject-Matter-Experts (SMEs)

They know the ins & outs of the area of their expertise, which makes them extremely valuable to your team. However, that also means helping them understand the right level of information to incorporate and contribute for different deliverables will be key to incorporating SME feedback effectively.

Managers

They are responsible for the outputs and outcomes driven by their team, but lack control over the team. That’s why when working with them, keeping them in the loop and updated is the best way to win them over. Managers’ responsibilities are also more interpersonal than analytical, so make sure to think through that aspect of anything you communicate.

Decision-makers

Decision-makers are always flying from one conversation to another. They often have the least context and least amount of time to think through a topic, but are asked to make decisions and take responsibility for the outcomes. That’s tough! That’s why communicating with them requires succinct repetition.

Presentation Prep

It's never a bad idea to practice this skill, even if you don't have an explicit presentation interview coming up. Let's review a few best practices.

Before each presentation, ask yourself a few key questions:

• Who will see this and how much time do they have? Are you presenting to a room of people? Responding to an email? Will you have one shot to communicate, or are you contributing to an evolving discussion?
• Are they interested in the big-picture only, or will they want details? C-suite execs will be concerned with the big-picture, but individual team members will likely want details if your project affects their job.
• How much context do they have? How much of this context is preconception? If you're sharing results that'll contradict long-held preconceptions, you'll have a tougher time -- and you should come prepared with detail to back up your arguments.
• What will this audience take away from my presentation? What are the direct outcomes? Will there be strategic or tactical changes? How will these affect your audience?

Executive Presentations

Presenting to higher-ups is uniquely challenging. You often have less time to make your case, and the stakes are high. In BizOps interviews, you’re sometimes asked to prepare exec presentations or at least outline your flow as part of a take-home or during a case interview, so here are a few tips for success.

Stick to one big idea

Tie everything in your presentation to one big idea -- the key message you want your audience to leave with. You should be able to sum this up in one, compelling sentence. Everything in your presentation should support this message; if you’re unsure, cut it out.

If you’re asked to answer a specific question like “what’s the biggest competitive risk to YouTube right now?”, answer that first. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it can be hard after spending time in the weeds of a complex problem.

Ruthlessly cut excess

Set expectations by letting execs know you’ll be presenting your summary first then going into the discussion. This preempts interruption and alleviates time anxiety in busy execs.

When putting together your summary, it can be helpful to imagine yourself in a (fairly likely!) scenario: say you’re given 30 minutes to present, but something came up and now you need to make your case in just 5. What would you say? You probably only have time for a few key insights, your conclusion and recommendation, and a call-to-action.

In building the actual presentation follow a few rules of thumb:

• Less is more. Slides should be understood after about a 5-second glance.
• Make one point per slide.
• Use one color to highlight the key data points or series that you want to highlight and gray out everything else.
• Use charts and visuals wherever possible.

Prep for follow-ups

Executive communication takes practice. Your presentation will be short, but it's a good idea to include a large appendix laying out your argument in detail, including:

• Analysis done with insights highlighted
• Problem context
• Option set generated
• Decision-making framework for arriving at your recommendation(s)

We find it helpful to build a matrix like the below to keep your presentation succinct, but your investigation thorough. Try it out for yourself here!

Project Authority

It's hard to instill confidence in your recommendation if you don't project confidence. There are plenty of nonverbal communication tricks you can take advantage of to develop "executive presence." For example:

• Take up plenty of space. Don't hunch or slouch.
• Calm your breathing. Breathing slowly and deeply puts your body at ease, even if you feel nervous.
• Make eye contact. Concentrate on the point between someone's eyes if direct eye contact makes you uncomfortable.
• Gesticulate (but not too much!) Occasional gestures punctuate speech and draw attention to key points, while open hand gestures convey friendliness.
• Be aware of your movements and facial expressions. Fidgeting conveys nervousness. Try to calm your body and maintain an open, friendly, and engaged expression.

When you do speak, you may want to:

• Vary your tone and tempo. Pause before major points, and take a moment to collect your thoughts before answering questions.
• Take care not to speak too fast.
• Repeat questions back before answering (without overdoing it!) to give yourself time to think and clarify intent.

If you're presenting to a cross-functional peer or simulating a working session, you might want to take a friendlier tact.

Active listening techniques work well for these sorts of interviews. We recommend:

• Smiling. It never hurts!
• Leaning forward, signaling engagement and interest in the conversation.
• Minimize fidgeting. In executive presentations, it looks like nervousness, but in cross-functional conversations,best practices it comes off as impatience.

Rehearse

Exec presentation or not, you’ll want to do a final check to make sure your deliverable is polished. Are the fonts and colors consistent? Are all the slides and charts labeled?

If you can, do a dry run before submitting a bizops take-home or going into an onsite presentation round. Choose someone you trust, and ask them to put themselves in the shoes of an interviewer. Some questions you might want to ask include:

• What made sense, and what didn't? How could I have explained that better?
• Were the graphs/visualizations easy to read and quickly draw conclusions from?
• Did I give you enough context to judge the uniqueness/import of this?
• Was the level of detail appropriate to your needs?
• Did you find the story and data persuasive? If not, what would have persuaded you?
• Did you find the story compelling? What captured (or failed to capture) your interest?

Tip: Remember to time yourself on your first dry-run. If you’re not used to presenting, what you thought should take 10 minutes can easily turn into 30.

Recap

Communication skills are nuanced. In bizops, you'll communicate up, down, sideways, formally and informally, in writing and verbally... Interviewers look for "finesse" in navigating changing requirements for communication. When answering behavioral questions, they'll pay attention to your flexibility in moving from stakeholder to stakeholder, so give that detail proactively. And if you are asked to present, especially to execs, be sure to tailor your deliverables accordingly.

To show communication skills:

• Put yourself in the shoes of different stakeholders when preparing stories. What are their needs? What did you do to understand and address them?
• Deliver what's needed. Do this in your interview by answering questions clearly, but ensure that your answers show you doing this in the past too.
• If you do have a presentation interview, align every part of it to your audience.
• Follow presentation best-practices: less is more, keep things simple, limit colors & text, rely on clean visuals, etc.
• Rehearse presentations with a trusted friend or coworker to iron out any issues before your interview.