This "war story" is the one about the Compensation Director who hired a firm to develop a new compensation program. Her idea was to address a number of problems that she believed were obvious obstacles to the compensation plan's effectiveness. After a few weeks working with a consultant, the preliminary design was completed and she presented it to the executive team.
That meeting signaled the end of the project. The executive team, it turned out, did not agree with her assessment of the obstacles and saw no reason for a new plan.
It's a telling true-life experience. If you think that all you need from executives is a sign-off, you can run into serious problems. I've seen it happen many times.
But if it isn't enough to give executives a tight, well-crafted plan, how and when do you communicate with the executive team?
Hiding out to polish up all of the rough spots in your plan is a mistake with most executive teams, in my experience. In fact, sooner is far better than later for a meeting, even if you still have some rough spots.
Whether you want to introduce some changes or get approval for the end-of-the-year tactics, your communication goal should be to give executives the chance to act as your well-briefed advisors. As for timing, the initial executive conversation should happen once you have defined the problem, measurable outcomes and an initial, broad project plan.
Then set a date to talk with each member of the executive team about the direction, outcomes and resources that would be involved -- even though you may still have some open issues. Part of your agenda with each executive will be to identify what you can and should learn from him/her to help polish those preliminary plans.
Recognize how important it is to build a relationship with these individual executives, as well as the total team. If you are not sure how to do this, start by doing an audience analysis. What do you know about each executive team member's individual preferences and business needs? In many organizations, the HR business partners can give you this orientation.
Meet privately with each executive who will be at a full meeting of the executive team. Take an initial draft of your formal meeting presentation with you, and ask for the executive's personal feedback as well as his/her view of what his/her Division would need to implement your plan.
Their input will enable you to customize your formal presentation. When they notice in the final, formal presentation that you have listened to their views, they will know that you value their support. By making the presentation crisp and targeted to what's on their minds, you build recognition for your leadership.
When it's time to give your formal presentation to the full team, begin by describing the business impact of your new approach and end with insights into implementation challenges and strategy. Show that you have heard the individual executive suggestions. The executives will also want to visualize what success will look like, and understand the resources they will have to commit to implementation. (Focusing simply on numbers will challenge your relationship with the group, who will think that you haven't thought through the impact that your new compensation practices will have in spite of your interviews.)
Plan to discuss when the executive team would welcome subsequent team briefings -- at key milestones in the design process when their input will have real value. Most executive teams will welcome the chance to set some of their own terms for the changes you are proposing, and will count your openness to their views as the foundation for further support of compensation innovations.
Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. A former Board member for the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA), Margaret coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.
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