Presenting to Leadership

Quick Reference Guide

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.

Preparation = Diving Deep

PREPARATION is a critical factor to driving your intended outcome.

 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

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide pg. 1

Tips for preparing for a review:
1. Join Forces. Prepare as a group.
 Leverage their knowledge
 Identify gaps
 Highlight potential bias
 Create a cohesive story
 Improve team collaboration
 Practical Application: Role play answering tough questions
2. Proactively align with stakeholders.
 Get advanced feedback
 Secure consensus
 Earn trust
 Avoid surprise debates
 Practical Application: Host a pre-meeting with key stakeholders
3. Identify “Kick Me” signs.
 Bring light to missing context
 Explain decisions
 Prevent distracting questions
 Keep the meeting focused on your desired outcome
 Practical Application: Rehearse with people that are unfamiliar with your initiative
4. More Tips:
 Memorize your elevator pitch
 Keep it simple
 Collaborate
 Listen to all feedback
 Know your data inside and out
 Know your numbers
 Write your own FAQ
 Have customer data

Know your Audience!

Every leader is different as far as what they care about, what they choose to prioritize, the metrics they
choose to look at, and how they evaluate situations.
Best Practice: Align with your leaders’ priorities as much as possible and cater to their perspective.

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 2

Purpose = Ownership
Having PURPOSE means creating the right environment to achieve your objective. Do this well in advance of
the review so you have time to collect the data, resources, and people you need. Here are 5 strategies to
establish and maintain purpose in your leadership review:
1. Take ownership of the discussion. As the leader of the review, you own the conversation, the
prioritization of things that are talked about, where time is spent and how the conversation progresses,
and when decisions are made or deferred.

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.

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 3

Poise = Earning Trust
Poise is how you communicate during the presentation. It includes the words you’ve written, the words you
say, and how you say them. Here are three tools you can use:

1. Intent – There are two different types of intent

Explanation Argument
Starts with the assumption that the conclusion is widely A communication tactic employed when the
accepted and agreed upon on. conclusion is not well agreed upon.
It answers the question “How do you know?” It answers the question “Why is it true?”

For example, no one could debate that your favorite
movie is your favorite movie. The explanation is why it’s
your favorite movie.
At Amazon we explain goal status updates
why it’s Yellow, why we’re below plan
An argument might be convincing someone that
movie was the best movie ever made, not just your
favorite movie.
At Amazon we argue for a prioritization request using
data to influence stakeholders

2. Style – Style is the information we prioritize when communicating

Analytical • Lovers of hard data and clearly defined tasks
• Data and numbers are given priority
• Specificity reigns supreme
Intuitive • The big picture thinkers
• Big picture, quick and to-the-point
• Non-linear. Overview and conclusion are first.
Functional • Dealing with everything one step at a time
• Process oriented, sequential
• Implementation oriented
Personal • Relationships over information exchange
• Emotional language and personal connection
• Active listening, conversation “glue”

Best Practice: Be prepared with various style approaches. Use analogies, stories or examples to spark your
audience’s attention.

3. Tone – Tone is how you say what you say

Passive • Avoids expressing feelings, opinions, or conclusions directly
• Lack of explicit agency and/or accountability
Aggressive • Blames or attacks others, implicitly or explicitly
• Seeks to control or change, rather than incorporate
Passive-Aggressive • Appears passive in words, but is aggressive in intent
Assertive • Firmly advocates for one’s position
• Acknowledges and responds to other viewpoints

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.

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 4

More tips

 Active vs Passive Communication

Active Communication Passive Communication
 Argument-based in intent  Explanation-based in intent
 Analytical or Functional in style  Intuitive or Personal in style
 Assertive in tone  Passive or Passive Aggressive in tone

 Practice Structured Speaking

1. Simplify your message
2. Separate your information into chunks -- Bullet points, not paragraphs. Sound bites, not sentences
3. Focus on no more than three key ideas, then organize your content around them. Ruthlessly edit
the details.
Best Practice: Write down your key ideas and memorize them. Even if you don't remember the details,
you’ll know you have three things to say.

 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

Avoid behaviors that hinder your ability to influence others

 Project warmth. Smile.
 Handle objectives convincingly.
 Be inspiring! Use customer anecdotes to emotionally motivate others to share your vision

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

The next time you’re presenting in any forum, consider this:

1. Intent: Am I communicating something assumed to be true, or am I presenting a contrary viewpoint? If
I’m presenting a contrary viewpoint, I should focus on ‘why’ over ‘how.’
2. Style: Who am I presenting to and what do they expect? Leaders may expect a more analytical or
intuitive style, while my team may expect a more personal or functional approach.
3. Tone: How do I make sure I’m perceived as accountable and collaborative in my responses? I won’t
deflect or get defensive. I will be collaborative and integrate other people’s viewpoints.
Remember, there is no one right way to master presenting to leadership.

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 6

Resources to Learn More

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.

2. Watch this recorded session of Pat Kirkland (www.patkirklandleadership.com) talking to Amazonians

about having an Executive Presence (1 hr 43 min)

3. Watch Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk on Body Language (20 min)

Amazon Confidential Quick Reference Guide – Global Retail Training pg. 7