Communicating Up: Winning Strategies for Successful Executive Conversations

Communicating Up: Winning Strategies for Successful Executive Conversations

Getting face time with executives can be challenging. Getting your message across quickly to the executive in a clear, concise, and direct manner is where most people lose the game. Because our interactions with members of the C-suite and senior management can be limited, it is crucial that each conversation is professional and effective. Roll up your sleeves and get ready to practice and perfect demonstrated strategies and techniques for communicating effectively with top-level and senior executives.

Find out what executives really care about, and tailor your message to them. Learn how to prepare for executive conversations, including those that are unplanned. Recognize communication techniques that executives commonly use and react to them. Practice active listening and getting your message across quickly; understand how to earn and maintain trust; learn to demonstrate the value you can offer, and use techniques of persuasion appropriately. You’ll also learn tips and strategies for how to successfully navigate difficult conversations, such as communicating bad news. You will practice techniques so when you are faced with conflict you can regain and maintain trust while convincing the executive that collaboration is the key to a successful engagement and deliverable.

In this course experience, you will review foundational knowledge before class in an online setting and spend most of your class time practicing and applying these techniques to real-world scenarios—including your own— in a series of discussions and role play exercises.

Pre-work: Download, complete, and bring to class your participant guide, completed prework assignments (1-2 hours to complete), and laptop or device of choice.