Give Them Something to React To
Another in my ongoing series of practical observations from independent consulting.
Early in my career, I would spend days refining a draft deck before bringing it to a senior leader. I'd tighten the logic, sharpen the language, and walk in feeling prepared.
Then the leader would say something like: "This needs to speak more to what the board cares about, not what we’re working on."
Back to square one. Another meeting scheduled. Another cycle of rebuilding something from scratch, without a clear enough direction to make sure the next version land much better than the first.
It took a few rounds of that before something clicked. The problem wasn't the quality of the thinking. It was that I'd handed the leader a single artifact and asked them to either approve it or describe — from scratch, in the abstract — what they'd want instead. That's a hard thing to do well, and most leaders will tell you what they don't want long before they can articulate what they do.
What I've started doing in certain situations — particularly when I'm genuinely torn between two approaches, or when I suspect a leader's instincts might pull in a different direction than mine — is to bring more than one version to the table.
Not always. And not as a hedge. But when the situation calls for it, showing two concrete options tends to move the conversation forward in ways that a single recommendation rarely does.
A few reasons it tends to work:
It gives leaders something to engage with rather than describe. A finite choice is easier to work with than a blank slate. When someone can point to Option A and say "not this" — and then look at Option B and say "closer, but move this piece" — the conversation becomes specific almost immediately. That specificity is what gets a project unstuck.
It keeps things grounded. One of the more common dynamics in senior review sessions is what I'd call conceptual drift — a leader starts describing what they want in abstract terms, the room starts nodding along, and twenty minutes later nobody's quite sure what was actually decided or what needs to be built. Having two concrete options in front of people anchors the conversation to something real.
It can actually reduce the total number of cycles. Building a second version upfront feels like extra effort — but compare it to the alternative: one option gets sent back without clear direction, you rebuild from scratch, you schedule another meeting, and the process repeats. In my experience, having an alternative ready at the first meeting often gets to a decision faster than a single option would.
The framing matters too. When I do bring multiple options, I still have a point of view — and I say so. Something like: "Here are two directions. I lean toward the first for these reasons — but I wanted to show the second in case the constraints look different from where you sit." That way the leader has something to push against, but they also know where I stand.
The goal isn't to show more work. It's to give the conversation somewhere to go.
Comments