Art of Executive Conversation

Ever had difficulty talking to a senior executive? The butterflies, the sweaty hands, those moments before walking into a senior executive board room? [Yes....no....senior executive, what are you talking about?]

Okay, for some people, they may not get much interaction with senior executives. But as consultants, we work directly with senior executives whether they be our own in the company or senior executives on the client team.

Working with senior executives presents a whole new challenge that I had never faced before. But with a few tips and some hard work, there is a way to defeat those fears.

There are three steps to managing conversations with senior executives.
1. Focus
2. Engage
3. Manage

1. Before beginning a conversation with a senior executive, it is important to decide what the focus of the conversation should be. Are there specific objectives you are looking for? Do you want him or her to do X or Y? Objectives need to be simple to understand and few in number. You don't want to list too many things in any one conversation. Keep it simple is the key for both you and the senior executive.

2. In the conversation, there is a need to engage the person. Engaging the person change come from many different angles. Does the person have some specific problem that you will address? Is there some common ground that can be found. The purpose of engaging the person is to build a relationship beyond just the conversation. That way, you can move forward in the future when other issues arise with the same person.

3. Managing the conversation is the most important part. Rather than seeing each conversation as independent of each other, try to tie the conversations you have with the same person together in a managed fashion. That way, the conversations turn into something more than just individual conversations and becomes a relationship. To accomplish this, think about how conversations objectivesvaries when you talk with the person. This doesn't mean you need to keep track of every single conversation, but focus on the important conversations that are preplanned. That way, each conversation is a continuation of the previous, if only in a different capacity.