GIST Update — a four-line bullet that execs can green-light while walking between meetings.
1. Goal: tie your message to a live target (“Hit 95 % on-time delivery”).
2. Insight: one fact that reveals the gap/opportunity (“24 % of late orders come from SKU-123 stockouts”).
3. Step: your specific move (“Switch SKU-123 to weekly replenishment”).
4. Timing: decision or action deadline (“Need approval by EOD Thursday to meet Q3 cutoff”).
🎯 Try this today: Draft your next note to leadership using the GIST headings—Goal, Insight, Step, Timing—in four crisp sentences, then send it.
HERO Slide — a 4-piece layout that lets execs say “yes” in 10 seconds.
1. Headline: one complete takeaway + metric (“Net churn fell to 2.4 %—beat target”).
2. Evidence: a single chart or ≤3 bullets that prove it.
3. Recommendation: verb + deadline (“Roll playbook to EU teams in Q3”).
4. Objection Guard: name the top risk + fix (“Cap spend at $45k; track CAC weekly”).
If anything on the slide isn’t H, E, R, or O, delete it.
🎯 Try this today: Grab the deck you owe leadership—rewrite one cluttered slide using HERO, then strip every extra element.
Execs skim on phones. Lead your email with one blunt line: “Decision: approve $45k for Q3 pilot by Friday—projects +4 % ARR.” They now know the choice, cost, and payoff before their thumb scrolls.
🎯 Try this today: Draft your next leadership email. Make the very first sentence a “Decision:” line—choice, number, deadline, upside. Hit send and watch the reply time drop.
V.I.E.W. Lens — the 4-point scrub every exec slide or email should pass
1. Value: open with the business win or risk in one sentence (“+$1.2 M ARR at stake”).
2. Insight: surface the core driver they don’t know yet (“56 % of churn comes from un-activated admins”).
3. Evidence: one chart, stat, or quote that proves it—no data buffet.
4. Way forward: the single decision or action you need by when (“Approve $25k for onboarding revamp by Friday”).
If a piece is missing, you’ll get questions instead of a green light.
🎯 Try this today: Grab the slide or draft you’ll share with leadership next—run the V.I.E.W. check and tweak until all four parts snap into place.
SCORE Outline — a 5-step snap-brief that gets execs from “What?” to “Go.”
1. Stakes – open with the consequence of inaction or upside on the table (“Churn is creeping toward 6 %, risking $1.2 M ARR”).
2. Current state – one sentence on where we stand (“Onboarding emails ship 48 hrs late, users never activate”).
3. Option – your recommended move, verb first (“Cut email lag to 2 hrs via auto-triggered Zapier flow”).
4. Reason – the one data point or insight that proves it will work (“Teams that message <2 hrs see 40 % higher Day-7 retention”).
5. Endgame – the precise ask with owner + deadline (“Need $5 k for Zapier upgrade; approve by Friday so build starts Monday”).
Slip SCORE at the top of any deck, email, or hallway pitch and watch decisions pop.
🎯 Try this today: Open the next update you owe leadership; rewrite the first five lines using SCORE—time yourself, it’ll take under three minutes and halve the back-and-forth.
Execs skim like day traders; bury the request and it never trades. Lead with “Ask + Impact + Deadline” right in the subject line: “Need OK for $15k vendor spend — cuts release cycle 2 wks — reply by Wed.” Barbara Minto would applaud—you’ve surfaced the answer before the explanation.
🎯 Try this today: Rewrite one email subject you’ll send to leadership with Ask-Impact-Deadline; watch how fast the reply comes back.
Your CFO will skim your deck in 20 seconds—she reads the slide titles first. If the title only says “Q3 Pipeline,” she still doesn’t know whether to cheer or panic. Turn every title into a verdict: “Q3 Pipeline Up 18%—On Track to Beat Target.” Now she can nod, drill in, or move on.
🎯 Try this today: Open your next deck and rewrite the first three slide titles as full-sentence conclusions—no nouns alone, only clear takeaways.
Senior execs skim for decisions, not back-story. Start every update with the ask (“Need green-light on the $120k pilot by Friday—30% ROI in 6 months”) and follow with two bullet facts as proof; stop talking and let them probe. It feels abrupt, but per the Pyramid Principle clarity beats suspense.
🎯 Try this today: Rewrite your next leadership email so the first line states the decision and deadline, the second line lists two data points that back it up—then hit send.