Episode #108: Business Schools Get This Wrong

Everyone is a critic today, holding their firm opinion, swanning around full of biases and prejudices. We better know how to state our conclusion in a way which avoids all of those minefields.

Avoid this Business School advice at all costs, “State your conclusion first and then explain the reasoning behind it”. The “conclusion first” advice is a reaction to lengthy diatribes, wandering aimlessly around business subjects, driving bosses crazy. The senior leadership are thinking, “I wish they would get to the point”. So the standard advice is state your conclusion up front and then add the evidence.

This sounds quite logical and reasonable, except it doesn’t work very well when it comes to persuading an audience. If we put up our action recommendation, before the evidence, we are asking for trouble. When there is no context, the audience cannot judge fairly. Your bold, naked conclusion instantly comes under silent assault from a room full of armchair critics and skeptics. They now tune you out. They are totally focused on why what you just said is rubbish and won’t work. They are no longer listening to you and are concentrating solely on negatives.

Start with evidence, proof, facts, data, expert opinion but wrap it up in a short story. This story should have a few defining guideposts – time, place, people and emotion. We try to capture our audience’s attention by helping them to see the scene in their mind’s eye.

For example, “I caught up with our client CEO Ken Tanaka in Toranomon Hills last week. We were meeting in their wood paneled boardroom, on the 36th floor, listening to feedback on the programme and I was getting nervous”. That introduction takes about ten seconds. No one is going to stop us and say, “Will you get to the point”. We have mentally pulled them into the story, taking them to a place they either already know or can easily imagine. They can visualise the people and the scene. They are also hooked by curiosity – why was I getting nervous, what happened next, etc?

We now have their complete attention, as we explain the problem or issue at hand. We bring in strong evidence with context and state the action step we recommend. This is done in one brief sentence and we immediately tag on the benefit of taking the action. The chances are high that the listeners, hearing the facts and context we have introduced, will jump right ahead of us. They will race to the same conclusion we have reached, before we even have a chance to articulate it.

This approach allows us to more easily persuade others to take the action we are proposing. This is the real world of business not B-School. Try and it and enjoy the results.