How To Improve Your Executive Communication Skills [+Examples]

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague Sam sent the following response to our boss: ‘the attached email has additional information.’ I almost fell off my chair when I saw that.

I can see the question mark all over your faces as you wonder what is so wrong about Sam’s response.

When communicating up (our manager’s level and above), we want to be succinct and to the point. Curating and synthetizing information is an essential part of our job.

The higher the level the more emails people receive and the less time they have to actually read them. Most likely, they are looking at emails on a mobile device in between meetings. Our job is to make it easy for them especially if we need the recipient to take specific action.

Here are three tips I have learned and used throughout my career. It is a never-ending evolution as communication skills evolve with the type of job, level in the organization, and audience.

1) Start with the ‘so what’

When we are talking with our friends, family, and colleagues in a casual manner, we are usually telling a story. And we know that we never give the plot or the punchline away too soon. This approach works perfectly fine when we are talking or writing to connect or…