Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence by Amy Jen Su & Muriel Maignan Wilkins

Author:Amy Jen Su & Muriel Maignan Wilkins [Jen Su, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2013-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

Choose the Right Frame

Once you have a better understanding of your audience and how they communicate, you can choose a frame that will connect with them. You have a better shot of reaching them. We are not suggesting you “spin” your message. A frame is not meant to be manipulative or to sugarcoat an unpleasant message. Instead, we’re talking about frames that offer context, focus people in on the most important issues, or make your message salient to others.

There are various ways of framing a message at an executive level that exudes a confident and connected presence:

• Strategic framing: Tie your message to the strategic imperatives and priorities of the organization. How is what you’re saying relevant to the overall business? How can you link to the bigger picture? Use the specific language of the company’s goals.

• Outcomes framing: Connect your messages back to the goals you’re trying to achieve. How is your message related to the outcomes you are trying to drive?

• Metaphor framing: Bring your message to life with the use of a metaphor or analogy. An executive at one of our client organizations, upon inheriting a very insular team, said to them “I need you to operate like a soccer team, not a swim team.” By this, his direct reports understood that he did not want them to work in silos anymore. The metaphor made sense and had a heavier impact than him saying “I need you to work better together.”

• Sound-bites framing: Create a pithy, memorable statement that encapsulates your overall message. If your audience forgets all the details of your message, at the very least they will still hold on to the theme. One executive repeated over and over again to his organization that the focus for the next twelve months is “relentless execution.” While there were many details behind this statement, everyone understood the number-one priority.

We recently worked with Pete, a VP of Finance supporting the development function of a software entity, which was owned by a larger technology conglomerate. As part of the annual budgeting process, Pete needed to ask the CFO of the parent company for funds at a time when the parent company was tightening the reins on all budgets and going through major layoffs.

While Pete knew he had all the right slides in his presentation, he asked for our help in getting his opening frame prepared so that he could both present the case for more money while being respectful to the budgetary constraints in the rest of the organization.

Here were Pete’s attempts at framing:

Attempt 1: “We recognize the budgetary constraints currently at play and hate to do this, but need to ask for more money today.” We agreed with Pete that this played too heavily on his voice for others and came off as apologetic.

Attempt 2: “The bottom line is that we are here to ask for $500 million, given that we are the future of this company.” Pete knew this didn’t feel right either. It was too strongly

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