Intensive workshop · Leadership
The presentation that asked for nothing
A recommendation nobody says out loud is not a recommendation. The person deciding needs to know what is being asked of them before hearing how you got there.
- Duration
- 4 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 6 to 16 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
The meeting ends and someone asks what is needed from them. That question should have been answered at the start, and it surfaces at the end because the presentation was built in the order of the work: context, method, findings, and, if time allowed, a recommendation nobody ever reached.
The presenter reads this as a shortage of time and compresses for the next round. Smaller type, more tables per slide, the same order in less space. The result gets worse, because now there is more content than anyone can read and still no explicit ask. The decision is deferred with no information missing. It is deferred because nobody said what was being requested.
What repetition spends is access. Leadership that has left several presentations without knowing what to decide starts asking for the summary in writing, sending someone else to the meeting, or deciding without the area that prepared the analysis. The technical work remains correct and steadily loses consequence, which is the only form in which that work is visible from outside.
What it covers
The workshop treats the executive presentation as an instrument of decision rather than a summary of work performed. The opening is given to a distinction that reorders everything else: which part of what you know is needed by the person deciding, and which part is needed only by the person who will carry it out. A great many hard-to-follow presentations are presentations aimed at both audiences at once.
On that footing the structure gets built: the ask in front, the basis behind it, the risk acknowledged before somebody else finds it, and the technical route available but off the main path. Each participant assembles a one-page version of a live matter of their own and puts it through the simplest available test, which is reading it to someone unfamiliar with the subject and asking what they understood was being requested.
The central block is practice. In short rounds each participant presents to a group acting as a decision body, with different instructions each round: one listener interrupts early, another jumps to the end and asks about cost, another arrives late and wants the summary. Participants practise answering without abandoning the structure, stating precisely what is not yet known, and returning to the ask when the conversation scatters.
The closing section deals with what happens outside the room: what to send before the meeting and what is better withheld, what to put in writing when a decision is deferred, and how to pick up an open matter without presenting the whole thing again from the beginning. Participants leave with a finished one-page recommendation and an opening tested in front of a group.
What participants learn
- Design a presentation that opens with the ask and carries the basis behind it.
- Identify which part of the analysis the decision-maker needs and which part belongs to the executor.
- Apply the one-page format to a live matter awaiting a decision.
- Evaluate the risk in your own recommendation and present it before someone else raises it.
- Develop answers to interruptions and out-of-order questions without losing the structure.
Agenda
- What the decider needs and what the executor needs
- The ask in front: how it is worded and where it goes
- The one-page format, and what the deck is for once it exists
- Acknowledging the risk in your own recommendation
- What is known, what is estimated and what is still unknown
- Interruptions, jumps to the end and out-of-order questions
- Recommending on incomplete evidence without overstating certainty
- What to put in writing when the decision is deferred
What the organisation leaves with
- A one-page recommendation on a real matter, finished in the room.
- A presentation opening tested in front of a group acting as a decision body.
- A written criterion separating decision content from execution content.
- The participant can rebuild an existing presentation with the ask in front before their next meeting.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Professionals who present analysis or proposals to leadership, boards or committees.
- Technical specialists whose work is judged by decisions other people make.
- Managers presenting resource requests, process changes or area results.
- Project teams reporting progress to whoever funds the project.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the workshop teach slide design?
- Very little of it, and that is worth knowing in advance. The work is on the hierarchy of information and on what does not belong on a slide, not on visual styling or on operating a presentation tool. Anyone coming for graphic design will find the session austere.
- Does it apply to client presentations and not only internal ones?
- It does, because the structure is the same whenever someone on the other side has to decide something. What differs is the commercial side of the conversation, which is not covered here: the session works on the clarity of the recommendation, not on negotiation.
- Does it work with a large group?
- Not well. The useful part is the practice rounds with feedback, and in a large group each participant presents once or not at all. Above the stated maximum, two sessions work better than one crowded room.
- Do participants need to bring a live matter?
- It is strongly advisable, because the entire session runs on the participant's own material. Anyone arriving without one can work from a shared case and will leave with the criterion, though not with a finished document.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.