90 Seconds

I had been warned! Prior to my first quarterly Management Review they told me the leaders would probe and exploit any area of perceived weakness, risk, or concern. I attended once as a guest and watched that process first-hand; the unprepared were grilled without remorse. The quarterly review was dreaded by all; fear was the operative attitude. Past participants and peers said their only goal was to survive the meeting. Nobody expected to come out unscathed. Fatalistically attached to expected failure, pain, and suffering it was de rigueur to accept the beating and move on. But not us! We had fierce ambition, little scar tissue in this context, and plenty of will to bend the outcomes in our favor. And maybe just a little fear as well. I knew what was coming and I vowed not to get caught in the same trap.

The next 90 days were spent preparing for the meeting. Every day we worked at least 10 minutes reviewing the presentation, identifying areas of weakness, areas of uncertainty, areas of potential business risk. I ruthlessly followed up on open actions and commitments. Never rude, never unkind, but relentlessly annoying. Insisting on results, insisting on content, insisting on understanding we honed the message and the delivery over those 90 days. We recruited allies, owners, representatives, back-ups. We listened to critics and skeptics. I rehearsed alone, I rehearsed in small groups. I sent my draft to peers for review. We assembled an army of SMEs 40+ strong. Warned them of the danger, had them waiting in reserve, coached them to interrupt with additional details and commentary as needed.

Ninety days is a long time to stay focused. As the presentation date neared time and anxiety seemed to accelerate. We owned six or seven slides of an eighty-page deck. There would be 10 other presenters with an audience of over 50. All the business unit presidents, and the senior executive panel of 3-4 including the CEO/Chairman were present. As the review progressed every group took the expected beating. They hadn’t anticipated important questions, their metrics demonstrated spotty performance and trends not addressed. Our slides came up about 45 minutes into the review. We knew the stuff cold, the team was well prepared and confident, every data point showed an improvement from the previous quarter. Every single one (we were a metrics-obsessed organization lead by genius engineers). I presented my concerns and my plans to address them. I fielded one or two questions and gave clear, concise answers. The Chair said, “okay – see you next quarter”. The whole thing lasted 90 seconds. No pain, no beatings, no embarrassment. A nice handshake from the boss.

World-class athletes put in hundreds of hours to prepare for a single performance or event. The very best practitioners exercise their craft 8-10 hours every day. This is how they win – they consistently leverage exceptional talent with exceptional effort over time to deliver exceptional results. We applied this same purpose our quarterly review and the outcome was predictable. We didn’t just survive; we thrived.
But a single data point is not a trend; at least not yet…

So we did it again, and we earned an improved response from the chair – “nice work, see you next quarter”. So we did it again and showed a three-quarter trend in improved performance. This time the response was unexpected – “Wow, you’ve accomplished what your predecessors only talked about. I want to give you a hug for these results”. This had never happened before. I collected my hug, thanked the team lavishly for their commitment and effort, and we went back to work.

Ninety days of preparation, ninety seconds of presentation. Now get to work!