QRG - Presenting To Leadership
QRG - Presenting To Leadership
QRG - Presenting To Leadership
There are three main components of effective communication: Preparation, Purpose, and Poise.
1. Preparation is about diving deep to make sure you understand your material, your content, and your
argument so you can set up an effective conversation debate.
2. Purpose is about owning that conversation and ensuring that you have a defined outcome that you'd
like to reach and steering the conversation to get to that outcome
3. Poise is about earning trust in the way that you present yourself and your arguments, and
recognizing the right way to communicate to your specific audience.
Don’t waste time in a leadership review by having to explain what is being presented and why it is
being presented. (This is sometimes referred to as a “reporting tax.”)
Do leverage existing mechanisms to prepare for your upcoming leadership review well in advance of
the meeting. Documents like WBR, MBR, and QBRs usually include explanations of the initiative,
updates, progress blockers, etc. They’re often broken down into wins, misses, key learnings, and next
steps—which helps explain your product challenges and opportunities.
Best Practice: Use regular communication to build the story leading up to your presentation. Why? Talking
about your progress and key initiatives repeatedly over time builds content and context. Not only are you able
to iterate and improve as opposed to creating it all at once, but you capture it when it's fresh in your mind.
(Trying to remember why you made a decision or what data you looked at is much more difficult three months
after you made it.) By integrating the concept of "leadership communication" into your daily life you'll also get
better at it. Bonus!
Over time, effective communication drives trust from your leadership, and that makes communication easier
going forward. It becomes a virtuous cycle: As you listen to their reactions and bring them along over time,
people will trust your opinions. You’ll start to get less argument-based questions and more explanation-based
questions.
The primary way we communicate at Amazon is in written form through documents. Great documents are:
Insightful
Action oriented
Data driven (layered with customer anecdotes)
Balanced
2. Use your time with leadership effectively and efficiently. As the leader of the review iy is your job to
take things off line when they're not productive to the broader group, to stop a conversation and say
that you can follow up at a later time, and to interject and say “I know you all are debating about this.
Let's talk about it later.” Best Practice: Empower yourself to take control of an unproductive meeting to
refocus the group.
3. Prioritize important topics. This goes beyond establishing a meeting agenda and controlling the order
of discussion topics. When questions come up or people start to dig into specific areas, your responses
should highlight the places where there's an interesting conversation to be had. Best Practice: When a
question comes up talk about the area where you can get help to move forward.
4. Enable thoughtful debate. Be open to what other people have to say. Leadership reviews go bad when
you debate on mental models. A person may have a set of assumptions or beliefs about an area and is
unable or unwilling to integrate the thoughts of others. As a result, the debate becomes one person
thinks X the other person thinks Y and there is no progression. Best Practice: Control the conversation
Make them understand how time spent considering your proposal will be better for customers.
5. Drive the conversation you want to have. Having a strong purpose is one of the easiest and most
effective ways to avoid analysis paralysis. Preparation is much more straightforward if you know what
outcome you want. What are the big decisions that need to come out of the meeting? Then you can
identify the things you need to do to enable that thoughtful debate. Best Practice: “It's hard to find a
needle in a haystack if you don't know what haystack it's in.” By understanding WHAT your purpose is,
you can reduce your preparation efforts because you don't need to explore every corner.
Overall, be intentional. Being intentional enables you to move quickly, remove blockers, and get the resources
and support you need. Use the time you have with leadership effectively and efficiently.
For example, no one could debate that your favorite An argument might be convincing someone that
movie is your favorite movie. The explanation is why it’s movie was the best movie ever made, not just your
your favorite movie. favorite movie.
At Amazon we explain goal status updates At Amazon we argue for a prioritization request using
why it’s Yellow, why we’re below plan data to influence stakeholders
Best Practice: Be prepared with various style approaches. Use analogies, stories or examples to spark your
audience’s attention.
Best Practice: Match your message to your personality and audience. Choose your energy. Don’t let nerves
cause you to lose yourself. Use casual, relaxed movements, postures, and language in your presentation.
If you’re in a hole, stop digging! When you get into tough situations, consider the following...
Is there an argument that gets me out of this in a productive manner?
Is there context missing that would change their thoughts on it?
Have I not done a good enough job describing the situation to elicit the right reactions?
Best Practice: Pause. Don’t get defensive. Acknowledge the thing being challenged. Don’t waste time
pushing yourself further into a bad conversation. Say you’ll look into it and follow up at a later time.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know.” It’s a completely valid answer to a question. It speaks to your ability to
be direct, authentic, and honest about the situation. It's not an admission of failure. It's a very mature
approach to the situation.
The importance of authenticity. Be authentic to yourself, to those around you, and to the topic at
hand. When you’re authentic, they will focus more on WHAT you’re saying instead of HOW you’re
saying it. Don’t optimize for optics. Be honest about unknowns and risks. Amazon leaders have a good
sense of when the story or data is incomplete or biased.
Checklist
Set yourself up for success
Use leadership resources efficiently. Be respectful of their time. Set meetings in their space.
Practice with your presentation software
Be organized. Have a set agenda and use it to control the time. Start and end on time.
Start strong
Speak slowly and at the right volume. Use vocal inflections and pauses.
Pay attention to body language. Use intentional gestures versus distracting ones.
Maintain direct eye contact
Be succinct
Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 5
Avoid filler words like ‘um,’ ‘you know,’ etc.
Show your methodology and share details (data)
Come back to a central message
Be resilient
Every no is a chance to learn. It's important to find out what the no had to do with.
Take a step back and evaluate short-term solutions. Do you need to provide proof of concept? Try
getting commitment to run a test or scrappy pilot and come back later.
Be open to feedback and don’t take things personally.
Put It in Practice
Here are three ways to dive deeper into mastering Presenting to Leadership.
1. Take the “Influencing without Authority at Amazon” training
This eLearning is in 3 parts. It is intended for L5-L6 PMs. You will learn:
o Course 1: The Basics (30 min) -- Understand why influencing at Amazon is unique and critical to
your success; build your influence map; identify your own influencing style and know how to
work with other styles
o Course 2: Tactics to Learn (20 min) -- Apply influencing tactics and tips in a variety of situations,
and build a strong case
o Course 3: Tips to Try (25 min) -- Tips to influence in writing, in person, upwards, and at remote
locations; how to face difficult conversations and escalate; hearing no; and the Top 10 ways to
‘Make it Easy to Say Yes’
After completing the courses, you will get a downloadable Quick Reference Guide (course
summary/cheat sheet) with all the content along with weekly follow ups--activities, videos, case
studies, etc.--to help put what you learned into practice.