Mark Murphy explains that senior executives often think nonlinearly: they want the conclusion first, not the step-by-step analysis. Start with your headline recommendation, then let them choose what to explore deeper. Leading with detailed analysis will make them tune out.
One simple way to distinguish communication styles is how linear people are. Here's what that means. Some people are very linear. They like to go step A, then step B, then step C, then step D, then step E, then F, then G, then H, then I, then J. Now, that's one kind of people. If you're the other kind of nonlinear communicator, then my little alphabet exercise just made your head want to explode, 'cause all you could think was, Oh my gosh, for the love of Pete, just get to Z. I don't care about A, then B, then D, then— just get to Z. Now, why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because if you're a linear communicator, you may have discovered that a lot of C-level folks, CEO types in particular, tend to be very nonlinear. That is, they don't want to always hear A, then B, then C, then D, then E. They just want Z. They just want you to cut to the chase. They're the person that says, hey, you want to go see a movie? And they go, great, how's it end? What do you mean, how does it end? I can't tell you that. It's going to ruin the movie. No, no, I'm not going to watch the movie until I know how it ends because I want to know whether or not I want to invest my time in this. If you're dealing with a CEO, a C-level, an executive that seems impatient. It's often the case that they're not necessarily impatient. What they are is a nonlinear communicator, and that means they don't want to hear your whole report. A, then B, then C, then D, then E, then F. They want Z. And if you give them Z, oftentimes they'll give you a little more time to go back and do A through Y. But if you don't give them Z first, they tend to tune it out. So you're going into your boss to give a presentation on recommendations for fixing your product. Okay, so you go in, you got 10 items you want to talk about. Here's how we're going to fix our product. The mistake, if you're dealing with a nonlinear, seemingly impatient kind of boss, the mistake would be to say, here's recommendation number 1. Let me talk about recommendation number 1, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now let me get to recommendation number 2. And to proceed in a linear fashion that will drive that CEO insane. Instead, what you want to do is get to Z, cut to the chase, and say, "There are 10 recommendations." This is Z. "I'm just going to list them for you. They are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, blah. Here we go. Now you tell me which one of those 10 you want to hear more about." And if the boss listens, they go, "Oh, okay, 10 things. I hear it. I don't need a lot of detail. I just need the list of 10." Oh, I get it. You know what? Number 3 sounded really interesting. Tell me more about that. Now you'll get the chance to go back and give your detail. But if you're dealing with a nonlinear communicator, somebody who just wants you to get to Z, worst mistake you can make is try and make them listen to A through Y.
