A few years ago, I was sitting outside the board room of the very big company I worked for. It was quarterly business review time, fondly referred to internally, as root canal surgery.
I waited outside the board room with my head of finance. We checked a few numbers and talked about the weather. There was always an air of nerves before the quarterly. We were, after-all, presenting our results to the C-Suite and forecasting the full year, which is about as binary as it gets.
A few minutes before we were due to present, my boss, who was also on the board of directors, popped out. Always economic with words, he called me over;
“The stock is being hit and nobody is bringing good news. They’re in a bad mood. Don’t take it personally”.
And he disappeared back in the room.
Great. Looks like we’re in for a flaying. I looked at my finance head. She raised her eyebrows, and smiled…”This is going to be fun”.
We didn’t have the best news to deliver either. My turn-around had begun and our progress was strong, but like everything in corporate life, it was never going to be strong or fast enough.
The door to the board room swung open. Out came the team from our largest division. Were they hobbling? Nobody spoke.
***
One thing I have learnt about good communication, especially when it comes to pitching or presenting, is to connect with your audience from the start. Read what you can of the room. Use what you see and feel to set your tone. There’s no manual for this. Trust your gut. Your human gut.
As I walked in, our CEO had his head down in a deck. The rest of the room (about 25 people), were fixed on their phones like teenagers, faces diverted. It was silent. It felt grim. The CFO gave me a look I couldn’t decipher.
By all accounts, someone in the last review had done a No.2 on the table and left without apologizing.
As I wandered over to my seat, I pulled out a picture. It was a photo of Jay-Z wearing a t-shirt from a big movie we were about to release, shot in Central Park from a few days ago, the team were proud of it, and so was I.
As I sat down, I slid the photo over the table to our CEO. It wafted in the air a little, as if it had wings, settling just in front of him.
My gut said the room needed a dose of cheering up. I hoped my gut was right.
The CEO picked it up. I watched him stare at it, his face, unbroken. He took a beat, then smiled;
“Is that Jay-Z? This is very cool”.
The mood of the room suddenly lifted.
We started talking about the picture.
I had already prepared a preamble to kick off my review, a quick summary of the numbers, but now it just didn’t feel appropriate. It needed something different.
“…we know it’s tough out there. And it’s taking longer than we all want, but we’re doing the right things, and there’s more of this to come”.
It took me by surprise how casually I said it.
We knew things were tough around the company, but we also had the utmost ambition to change that. We were proud of what we’d delivered to date, and even prouder of what was to come.
Jay-Z helped set the tone.
The CFO smiled and asked us to start. With the mood notched-up, and a better tone established, my 25 minutes of quarterly root canal surgery began.
So what’s The Jolt?
Ultimately, I knew I wasn’t just delivering a business review, I was delivering a pitch to my management team - to have faith and confidence in me, the team, our business and our results, even when times were tough. I knew that demonstrating I understood where the wider business was in relation to mine was vital - and so was demonstrating ambition.
It was a lesson I won’t forget. The simple act of setting the tone.
Creating a connection to an audience from the start has an outsized determination for how your message is ultimately received.
It’s not a super power either.
My story might read like a corporate fairy tale, but I was no hero. We all have the power to use simple, human moments, to connect and change outcomes for the better.
I could have slid down the doom-coaster with everyone else, resigned to the results, a binary game of numbers. Sure, I’d have got through it. But I didn’t want to just get through it.
I wanted the room to be proud of what we’d done to date, and confident for what we were going to do tomorrow.