For better or worse I find a lot of my tips and tricks for working in a software company from fiction books and films. I learnt most of what I know about how to present to senior folk (an Exec team or a Board even) from a two-minute scene in David Mamet’s film “The Spanish Prisoner”:

In this scene, the main character (played by Campbell Scott) has to present to the board on his new idea (“The Process”) – how do you present something extraordinarily complex and nuanced to a group like this?

There’s a great line early in the scene when Ricky Jay’s character starts to talk about the team and the effort behind the work and the CEO responds with “I know you’ll understand when I say that’s neither here not there”. Harsh, but what the board really want to hear about is:

1. How much money will we make?
2. What are the risks? What do we actually own?
3. What are the timelines?

The presenters then go on to speak to these points and get what they want from the group.

Of course this is fiction – rarely would a senior team make investments based on so little information (and I’ve never known a senior team care so little for the people behind a project!), but it makes the important point – know your audience, don’t waste their time and concern yourself with what they want, not what you want. At a very practical level, next time you’re presenting to a senior group, consider chopping half of your presentation out (regardless of how short it is already) – the skill of summarising key strategic points, and speaking to the point is valued enormously in any company.

Of course I’ve always found marketers good at this sort of thing. Good presentation skills are often expected of marketing people, but there’s more to a great presentation than good elocution. What’s needed for a pitch to a senior team? Knowing your audience, not wasting their time, and concerning yourself with their needs, not yours – a concise description of “Marketing humility”, the skill of putting the customer at the centre of everything you do, and leaving your own concerns to one side. It’s at the centre of how great marketers think.

Watching this scene again also reminded me of a great talk I heard from Erica Seidel a few years back at a MarTech conference. There she talked about the three skill areas she looked for when hiring senior roles:

• Attitude – what general approach/attitude does the candidate bring to a role? Positive? Pro-active? Team player? Team builder?
• Aptitude – can they do the actual thing they’re being recruited for!? A VP of Sales needs to know Sales obviously.
• Altitude – can the candidate talk to colleagues at all levels? Can they summarise a strategy in 2 minutes to the CEO, then spend all afternoon in a workshop going through the details with the implementation team?

Erica’s point in the talk was that, of course, everyone focuses on the 2nd of these. And most people ask about the 1st. But few ask about the last, and it’s a great skill to have as a candidate. The ability to turn on a sixpence and completely change the way you present a proposal from “This is how much money we’ll make, and why the risk is low” to “Here’s the 25 pages detailing how this is all pieced together, and how we’ll run the project” is a scarce talent and invaluable to employers.

The film is one of my all time favourites, and of course anything by David Mamet is great. Films and books often provide great lessons like this because a great writer will be able to summarise the essence of a situation in a few moments, more succinctly than a 256-page book. I strongly recommend watching the whole film through – there’s so much more in there about other aspects of company life too, all of which I’ve found useful over the years :).