How To Prewire a Meeting - Part 2 (Hall of Fame Guidance)

0:00Welcome to Manager Tools. This is Sarah. And I'm Mark. Today's podcast, How to Pre-Wire a Meeting, Part 2 of 2. As always, our content has been crafted by humans, and we're now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are, what is pre-wiring? How does it help to pre-wire meetings? Whom should I pre-wire to? If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Become the manager your team wants to follow. Elevate your leadership with the Effective Manager Conference, a practical, results-focused training for managers at all levels. Learn how to develop your team, improve performance, and retain your best employees.

0:50Key takeaways include conducting impactful one-on-ones, delivering feedback that drives results, coaching to unlock potential, and effective delegation to empower your team. Walk away with tools you can immediately apply to improve team engagement, efficiency, and results. For more information, visit manager-tools.com forward slash EMC. That takes us then to prepping your slides. We don't want to mislead people that slide prep should take the place of really, really effective evaluation and objective and subjective decision-making regarding what you're doing and how to be most persuasive. So this is a huge problem for everybody in presentations.

1:41Everybody has, almost everybody, 99.9 % of the people I talk to, when they think presentation, they immediately open up a keynote or a PowerPoint and they start creating slides. And that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Yes, you're going to have to have slides, but the slides to support you because you are the presentation. What we're asking is know what that key message is first. And you don't do that by starting with your first slide, which is background information. You start with the end. What is the key message? And if you've got that one slide per five minute rule, you know what the time limit is.

2:22You know, the goal is to get a slam dunk by doing the work in advance. advance you'll be much more effective and efficient at preparing your slides with those parameters in your head in advance if you're an engineer a technical person and you feel the need to boil the ocean and you start creating slides you're going to end up with 20 slides every time at a minimum and that doesn't work you've got it backwards you're trying to build the yellow brick road all at once and it doesn't work it just doesn't work and the point here folks is You don't start building your slides until after you're clear what your key message is.

2:57You prep your slides so that you'll have something to talk about. You are not preparing your presentation. You are prepping your slides. Your presentation will only have been prepared when you've rehearsed it like 50 times. And if it's 30 to 40 % different than your slides, that's completely fine. because you're going to have talked to the audience that's going to be listening to you, a la the pre-wire. And you'd much rather tell the audience what they want to hear insofar as it's ethical than what you think they ought to know. Yeah. So now you got to brief your boss. Remember, we're a skip here.

3:39Okay. So your boss and her peers are the audience along with your boss's boss. Your boss is simply the first person in the chain of attendees that you're going to prewire your briefing with. Your boss is probably most important because he or she is most likely to say, oh, they're most comfortable saying, oh, you've got a glaring error here. Why did you even think you should say that? I really want you to change this. I really want you to change that. They're going to be most likely to do that. So we do them first. They'll be most willing to give us feedback. They'll be most willing to engage with us and catch us if we're really off track.

4:16In addition to briefing your boss first, because you're more likely to get important feedback, they're also going to give you feedback on the other people that you're going to be talking to, their peers, what their issues might be. So in addition to doing your standard pre-wire brief, which we're going to talk about here in just a second with everybody, you also say, hey, can you give me any guidance on each of these people, the people that I'll be talking to. I mean, what are their hot button issues? Those kinds of things. You may very well know these things yourself already or feel as though you do, but it doesn't hurt to ask your boss again, just to be clear.

4:57And they might, again, see things that you don't see in this situation. Getting their input is going to be hugely valuable. Yeah. Don't assume. Ask. A lot of people, when they're doing this, tend to want to impress their boss early on. Your boss doesn't want to be impressed early on. Your boss wants to be impressed when his or her boss says slam dunk. So, although you're briefing your boss part, this briefing your boss part sounds one way, it's really going to be a two-way conversation. This is the start of the visible part of pre-wiring, right? Where you go to your boss first and say, this is what I'm planning on presenting.

5:35Love your input, suggestions, and so on, your boss may be even able to tell you, hey, there are two or three things in here that absolutely have to change. Because I guarantee you, Joe and Barbara over there are definitely going to have those things change. So you might as well change it in advance. Yeah, that's exactly it. Prevent you from stepping in it in the pre-wire, never mind in the presentation itself. You might as well get out ahead of those kinds of things for sure. All right. So that takes us then to request time from the other attendees of the meeting. So now again, we've talked to our boss and it's time for you to ask for time one or two weeks in advance of the staff meeting in order to brief the others who will be in the room on what you see as your draft presentation.

6:21And this is done in order to get input to include their thinking so that everybody is in agreement, thus allowing for the slam dunk during the presentation itself. yourself you're there in this pre-briefing not to persuade them as much as you're there to achieve a win to get their input see what changes might need to be made see what their concerns might be in advance yeah and in fact if you think your job is to persuade them that you're right you will create tension you should be going in simply laying out and saying what do you want to see here. This is their chance to weigh in. You're creating a platform for every single person you're going to talk to, to get a little bit of what they want.

7:07And them getting a little bit of what they want allows them to say yes, when you actually give the full-on presentation that creates the slam dunk effect. So you have to be careful about thinking my job is to persuade. You're basically there to gather information, get input to make changes. You have to have a not invented here mentality, which is like, it's okay that you have input. I'm not in love with my idea. I'm in love with an idea that will get implemented. If you're in love with your idea, but your idea can't be implemented, you'll never be an executive. Okay. I think somebody wrote politics are the art of the possible, right?

7:48As opposed to the ideal. So it's the art of compromise. You're going to, this is the process by which you're going to start compromising. And you'll be lucky to end up with 60 % of what your original idea was. And if that bothers you, if you're a purist and you need a hundred percent of your idea to get implemented, you're going to be very disappointed. And none of your ideas are going to get implemented because everybody's going to have something they don't like about it. So your job in requesting time from the attendees is recognizing that they're the ones who are going to be having a lot more input than you are.

8:26And look, the person driving the show at the actual meeting is going to be your boss's boss and their peers. So these people you're meeting with, you probably won't pre-wire your boss's boss. The idea is, okay, process is important, but you got to know what your key message is. Remember, that's what we went back to when we talked about preparation in the beginning. You don't want to lose sight of the forest for the trees when you're talking to the other attendees, the peers of your boss in this example. Keep focused on what the end state is. And the end objective is getting your idea implemented, even if it's only 60 or 70%.

9:02I've had ideas implemented that were only 50 % or only 40%. But interestingly enough, I got credit for it. And I had a bunch of other people's ideas in there. And in fact, I finally learned I had to thank them when I was given the final briefing saying, I really appreciate Roberta over here. She suggested this and that was included. I had that wrong in my presentation. And now everybody feels like they win. So keep focused on what your in-state is, what your objective is. Be willing to trade off some minor points in return for achieving your objective. And your objective should not be 100 % black or white.

9:36Take it all or nothing. And folks, people have different agendas and you better be prepared for those different agendas going into these meetings. And if you don't know, again, what the key message is, if you don't hold on to that, if you think you've got to do 30 things and what you'll realize is you're not going to get any of those things done. If you think you know the one thing, you're much more likely to get that done. So focus on that. Yeah. And you probably think you've created the perfect system and they're going to disagree with you and they have a different system. As long as you get with the ultimate thing you want, the system by which it gets there, you're probably fine adopting other people's ideas.

10:22Okay. In terms of the logistic of this, our general recommendation is request 30 minutes from each attendee. Maybe it only takes five or 10 and that's fine because you're going to give them back time and they'll love you for that. If I'm one of your boss's peers and somebody asked for my time for a prewire, I'll sit in and say, hey, look, I read through your deck. This is fine. I have no issues. I'm in favor of this. Say, okay, any suggestions, anything I can make better or any ideas for any of your peers that I'm going to be talking to? Okay. If it's a five-minute meeting, unless I change my mind between now and then, that's a win.

11:00You got my input, which is don't change a thing. And you and I both saved a bunch of time and that's good. And by the way, when you're meeting with your third and fourth person, you can say, I've already talked to Joe and Bob and Terri and Carol and Allison. They're all on board. And those people who say, I'll read your slides in advance are not going to. They don't do that. Okay. They're going to read your slides in front of you and that's okay. Just like they would, if you were presenting in the actual presentation, don't worry about that. Don't get your feelings hurt. So you request time and you say, I would like to walk you through my briefing and slides and or slides.

11:36You're going to need the 30 minutes far more often than you realize. So having the 30 minutes will come in handy here. Yeah. We should have done this backwards, right? We should have said, you're going to need the 30 minutes. And then we should have said it, by the way, every once in a while, you only need five or 10, briefing five or 10, telling them five or 10 first gave them the idea that they're going to go through all these meetings, they're only going to take five or six minutes. Most of the people, I would argue, aren't just going to be like, oh, yeah, absolutely. I love all of it. Yeah.

12:05Most of them are going to take their 30. Managing managers is fundamentally different from managing individual contributors, and almost no one prepares you for it. The effective senior manager conference covers the systems, rhythms, and communication tools you need to lead at scale for directors and senior managers ready for the next level. For more information, visit manager-tools.com forward slash ESMC. Okay, next, you're going to brief those attendees. So you've got time on their calendars. You keep your appointment and you bring a copy of the slides, even if you've already emailed them. You say, I'd like you to walk you through the briefing.

12:49I'd love to get your input. I'd love to get your insights. Any place where you feel like I'm off or anything you can suggest that will make it more effective. I'd love to hear that. Both your perspective and anyone else's perspective you think is noticeably different would be very, very helpful before we get everybody together and talk about this. Very simple. That's just the introduction. Really simple. Really simple. And I know we've talked about this, but again, I cannot stress enough, folks. Don't be defensive in this meeting. The last thing you want to do is go into your final briefing, having already created bad, bad relationships or bad interactions with the other people that are going to be in that room, thus making your job even harder.

13:34So go in there, be open, accepting of everyone else's perspective. So now at this point, again, we talk to our boss, followed by all of the other people that we believe are going to be in that meeting. Now it's time to rebrief our boss. So you started with them. and again, you're ending with them saying, I went and briefed the other people and I actually learned a couple of things. I didn't realize that this guy had a really tight budget this year and yet we were going to ask him for money. So in my conversation, somebody else suggested, don't ask him, ask me because I've actually got the budget, which seems weird to me, but I guess as long as we Get the money, right?

14:14So, yes, you rebrief your boss so that you and your boss are clear on what you're going to say, what the key message is, and that you're actually going to be able to deliver that key message while at the same time achieving the possibility of no surprises, getting agreement, and going ultimately again for that slam dunk. Yeah. Then, obviously, you're going to finalize your slides. Once you've rebriefed your boss and he or she has given you input, you finalize your slides, and now you actually have the presentation. We encourage you to write to us and tell us, or send us two decks. This is my first deck and this is my second deck.

14:54And tell us how much the deck changed, how much your presentation changed. Okay? Because it'll be 20, 30, 40%. And yet, you'll get a slam dunk and you'll get what you want and you'll realize apparently the first presentation I ever created every time probably wasn't the best presentation I could have created had I known about pre-wiring. That's exactly it. And then ultimately the last bit here folks in the prep steps if you will is to rehearse because now you actually have a presentation so you have something to rehearse. This is one of the steps that probably the vast majority of folks do not do.

15:34And their lack of rehearsing in this aspect is done at their peril. Yeah. I mean, so many people tell us they've rehearsed a bunch of times, but really I think what they mean is they've gone through it in their head and looked at the slides leaning back with their feet up on their desk. okay? Unless you've booked a conference room and are saying the words out loud, you've not rehearsed. You know, if I were your colleague, you would say, hey, listen, I want to rehearse a presentation tomorrow afternoon at four o 'clock. Can you be there? Sure. I'll be there. I'll put my feet up on the conference room table.

16:08I'll have a timer and I'll keep track of the time you finish each one of the slides. And I'll make some notes about things you said good and things you said bad. But most people, they're nowhere close. They seem to think that rehearsing is going over their slides in their mind and it's not it's actually saying the words out loud that's exactly it if you're reading your own slides and you're not saying them out loud standing up and putting together full and complete sentences that's not rehearsing that's just talking to yourself and talking to yourself just doesn't make you any better at delivering a briefing so you got to say the words out loud you've got to practice it that way yeah Rehearsing is going to the room that you know the layout of, where you're going to do the presentation whenever possible, taking your slides, projecting them on the projector, using your remote, actually going through your presentation word for word, using the same materials you'll use when you present as if there were people in the room.

17:07And even better, if you could have a person or two in the room, so much the better. That's what we mean when we say rehearsing. Yeah. That's exactly it. thinking about what you're going to say is not the same thing as actually saying it. And rehearsal in this case means dress rehearsal. And if you want to go a step further, even, you might consider recording it. I mean, to your point, Mark, you may ask your colleagues or your peers, if you will, to come in and listen to you, maybe throw some stones at it, see what they think. But if you don't have individuals to do that, you could record yourself, watch yourself.

17:44We've got multiple podcasts about rehearsing. Yeah, easy. And then, of course, the final thing you're going to do is actually present, which is not really one of our steps here. But we assume you're going to do that. And then we have some closeout comments, right? Absolutely. We want, again, the slam dunk. Although the feeling of a slam dunk happens at the end of the presentation, a slam dunk actually happens long before a presentation. Two things have to happen for the slam dunk to be possible. The first is your goal being no surprises. Yeah, it's one thing to get agreement. But if you get four or five people surprising you with zingers, what they're telling you is they may not be completely motivated to follow the agreement they just agreed to a week ago when you pre-wired them.

18:34You may, in fact, have what amounts to a Potemkin village, a fake false front of agreement when there's actually nobody in that village and there's no energy to put around whatever initiative it is you're suggesting or budget cut or budget increase or strategic change you might be recommending. So the goal here is no surprises. Because if there's no surprises, if no one speaks up, if no one challenges you, if no one throws you a curveball, then you're likely to get a blessing from your boss's boss. And you basically have the raw material for a slam dunk. Mm-hmm. And in order to do that, folks, you must know everything so well that if one thing you left in your presentation was noticeably objectionable to somebody in the room, you've already got a way to overcome that objection.

19:31In persuasion, one of the things any salesperson will tell you is, when do you handle an objection? Before it comes up. So don't let somebody throw you curveballs and not be prepared to catch them. Know where they're coming from. If you can't modify your point of view to keep them happy, if you can't collaborate in a way, you can't compromise, then you have to be able to diffuse it in advance so that it's not a surprise when it comes up in the briefing itself and they verbally disagree. You can have that conversation there without being caught off guard. Yeah. You might actually say, it'll be no surprise to any of you that Robert here disagreed with this point.

20:14We've talked about it. Here's where Robert comes down. Here's where I come down. Here's where I think we're going to be okay with that. And I don't think this is, this is a, what is the phrase that I like so much? It's a distinction without a difference. Okay. And it's okay. And then depending upon the situation of Robert, you may very well move on to the next point and you're willing to point out that, Hey, there's a little bit of discreement there. And maybe your boss's boss says, Robert, are you okay to roll over on that one? And Robert says, yeah, sure. Okay, fine. Now it's pretty rare that I ever did a pre-wire that somebody said, I got a problem with this, that I didn't modify it in some way and move as closely as I could to them without damaging it.

20:58What I've discovered, I thought every single part of my presentations were so important. I discovered almost no single part of it was all that important. I discovered once I got busy working on the thing, all kinds of things would change and that the steps I had set out as being the steps were going to change anyway and everybody knew they were going to change. And so I was really, really flexible. I was very Gumby-like, you know, when I was doing my pre-wire briefings so that I could get approval in advance so I could get a slam dunk. And again, the kids listening to this podcast, Google Gumby, he was like this bendy green guy back in like the 70s.

21:38So there's that. All right. So then the other thing that we need to have happen to make our slam dunk possible is to get agreement from everybody in the room. If you get no surprises and you get agreement from everybody and there's not going to be a vote, the GM or the senior director or executive is going to look around and assess the willingness of the audience to follow through. And that is when you get agreement. You can ask for agreement and action steps before you've finished, but you'll find an agreement to be much more likely if you do this pre-work than if you do not. Yes. If you're a young or a new manager and you go through this process, there are going to be some executives going, wow, she's sharp.

22:23She's dotting her eyes. Man, I didn't learn that until I was a director or an executive director. It's funny. Like I said, at the beginning of the cast, there's the time before when you didn't know about prewire and the time afterwards. I'll never forget learning it. I was just like, why wouldn't that be in an orientation? Okay. This is a powerful tool. Many people are using it, but Sarah, would we agree? Not the majority? Oh, I would agree. Not the majority. Yeah. But maybe we would, if we drew a map of percentage, it would be 0 % in entry level. But by the time you got to executive level, it would be 70%, right?

23:00Somewhere in there. Which I think is the case with so many professional behaviors, right, Mark? I mean, it's just when you're new, when you're young, when you don't really know, you've never really done it before. You kind of assume that some people are just really excellent at presentations and you didn't know about the background. But over the course of time throughout your career, you're exposed to it or someone says, you should pre-wire this and then you learn it. So yeah, I think you're right. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a career tools person who was somehow just recently upgraded a manager tools or they're listening to manager tools and they're like, I could do this when I just brief my boss, maybe not even a boss boss.

23:35I could talk to my peers. You don't have to be a manager to do this, folks. No. This has got nothing to do with management. This is just professionalism. You start doing this as a new contributor, you're going to change the trajectory of your career. That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. All right. So to close it out today, folks, most people think a great presentation is about what happens in the room, and it isn't. By the time you stand up to present, the outcome should already be decided. Pre-wiring isn't a shortcut. It's not a political maneuver. it's the professional recognition that organizations make decisions through relationships, not just logic.

24:11The managers who consistently get their ideas approved aren't the most persuasive in the moment. They're the ones that did the work before the curtain went up. Oh, that was good. Again, one of my top 10 favorite casts I've ever done. And again, folks, those longtime listeners who heard this the first time, or even those of you that are relatively new to our audience, by all means, shoot us a note. We'd love to hear from you. Yes. We'll re-record one of your favorite classics from the archives. Yes. Thanks for joining us, folks. We hope this helped you. Now help us, help others, and tell your friends.

24:45And of course, follow, rate, and review our podcast. And remember, five stars only, please.

25:02We'll be right back.