Kellblog

I can’t tell you how many times over the years that I’ve needed to coach people to “answer the question” when dealing with senior executives.  It amazes me to sit in meetings and watch people hem, haw, dodge, extemporize and do just about anything but answer the question they were asked.  I have a old friend who used to say that corporate meetings were often “parallel independent conversations” due to two factors:  the non-answering of questions posed and the non-listening that comes from people spending all their energy preparing what they want to say next.

Both are bad behaviors.  But the one that will stall your career inside your company — or wreck a salescall outside of it — is not answering the question.

In my career I’ve had the good fortune to meet with many senior executives.  Almost without fail, they share these qualities:

• They are direct.  They speak clearly and in simple language.  Buzzwords and spin are the province of middle management, not the C-suite.
• They go fast.  They are busy.  They don’t want to waste time.
• They want to drive the agenda and are used to getting their way.  This is a key reason why you should not give a presentation to senior executives unless asked.
• They have a series of questions that they want answered.

So the best thing you can do in front of a senior executive is answer the question.

• Question:  On a scale of 1-10 how is the team working?
• Bad Answer:  “Well, you know, the people have been trying hard, things haven’t been perfect, but the team has really been pulling together lately, and I think things are improving.  We’ve filled the open headcount and are making real progress.”
• What the Executive Hears:  Blah, blah, blah this fool is not answering my question blah, blah, blah.
• Good Answer:  “7.”
• Best Answer.  “7, but there one or two key problems to work out.”

You should answer the question because the executive wants it answered.  You should answer it succinctly because there is a 90% chance they have a line of questioning prepared and want to move through it quickly.  I believe the last answer, above, is best because:

• It answers the question.
• It’s succinct and doesn’t interrupt a potential line of questioning.
• It leaves a thread to pull if they so desire.

Simple hedging can be used to leave such threads open and avoid the huge disclaimers that people often insert before answering questions.

• Question:  is the project tracking to finish on time?
• Bad Answer:  “Well, you know, you can never be sure about these things, but it is going pretty well, the head PM has had a cold, and we got behind on a few tasks and — gosh you never know if an Act of God is going to interrupt things — and the long pole in the tent is getting some new servers delivered, and risk, yes risk, there’s always risk in managing such projects.”
• Good Answer:  “Yes, but one item on the critical path — server delivery — is holding us up, but not so much that I think we’ll miss the deadline.”
• Best Answer:  “Yes, mostly.”

I like the last answer best, because — if I care — I can simply ask:  what do you mean by mostly?  And if I don’t, then I can proceed.

My advice:  in the meetings you attend, start tracking how often people actually answer the question and observe how much time is wasted on useless filler.  My guess is that once you start paying attention to this issue that you’ll first be shocked at how often it occurs and second become a much better answerer in the process.

And, if all else fails, then mail people this link.

When I was new to the workforce, I was violently opposed to matrixed organizational structures.  “They’re bullsh*t,” I thought, “people will always favor one direction over the other, making one of the two managers superfluous.  And, if that’s the case, then why bother at all?”

It was only as Business Objects grew, and me with it, that I realized matrix structures weren’t an “if” but a “when” and the ability to work within such structures would become a defining attribute of someone who “could scale” within the organization as it grew.

As the head of worldwide marketing, the defining question to me was simple — say, for example, the French country marketing VP came to me and said, “which is it, am I French or am I in marketing?”

The answer was, inevitably, both.

• You are supposed to be a right-hand to the French country manager.  You are supposed to worry about the French pipeline and the French sales number.  You are supposed to work on French go-to-market strategy.  You drive French public relations.

• You are in marketing.  So you are supposed to be consistent with the positioning and messaging that use worldwide.  We want you to use programs that have worked elsewhere to improve cost-efficiency and we want you to contribute back to the worldwide marketing community by attending leadership meetings, sharing best practices, and leveraging common systems.

Like it or not, you’re both.  And, more importantly, if you can’t handle that, then perhaps you’re not the right person for the job.

But given my historical views on matrices, we didn’t do the classic “solid one-way and dotted the-other” reporting structure.  We created a double solid-line matrix that, to me, more accurately reflected the business reality.  It also gave the matrix some teeth.  I thought the model worked quite well, balancing local empowerment with global consistency and scale economy.

That’s how I, a dyed-in-the-wool anti-matrix person, became a big fan of matrices.  The fact is, as a company grows, certain leaders in the organizations will inevitably need to have dual allegiance.  For example:

• The head of product marketing for a business unit owes allegiance to both marketing and the product business unit.
• The head of sales engineering for a country owes allegiances to both the country and the worldwide sales engineering organization
• An head of overlay sales for a given product owes allegiance to both the product unit and the sales organization

In fact, in a perverse way, as either the head of marketing at Business Objects or the head of a product business unit at Salesforce, I have noticed the following law:

The more a local leader treats me like a virtual boss, the less I care about reporting structure.  And conversely.

That’s my take on the matrix.  What’s yours?