What are the best habits to do when working with C-Suite?

Three best habits to follow

1. Clear communication strategies on why you are meeting, what problem you are trying to solve, what is the solution in your mind and the reasoning behind it. At the end of the day, they'd want to know how they can help so make it explicitly clear.
2. Absorb the chaos and churn clarity - it's important to have control and context at all times even if there is confusion amongst the larger audience.
3. Maintain the balance of speaking time and listening time - don't take the whole time to tell your story (unless asked) but tell it in a way that there are key takeaways and time for discussion. Share the agenda or any documents for discussion in advance with an executive summary.

Even beyond C-suite, a PM should tailor his/her message to the audience. A typical mistake aspiring leaders do whilst communicating with the leadership is get too much into nitty gritties and details, whereas an CXO, by virtue of his position, needs the information and his action points as succinctly as possible.

Breaking away from this trap is key to being an effective communicator

Every interaction you have with your c-suite, set the context before jumping into content. A number of times 5-10mins into the meeting, the conversation derails into a completely different topic. That is because the c-suite may have a different priority in mind and your discussion is not addressing it. To avoid this, do the following at the beginning of every c-suite discussion:

• Take the time to prepare a 2-3 mins intro at the start of every c-suite meeting. What is the meeting focus area, how does that align with the broader company goals and what is a successful outcome of the meeting
• At the end of the summary and pause and ask for feedback

If the feedback from c-suite is that they want to discuss a different topic, then you know at the beginning. This gives you the opportunity to offer the choice to end the meeting and come back so that it's productive use of everyone's time.

Bonus tip: add the context and success criteria in the agenda of the meeting, so that audiences are prepared before your meeting starts and your summarization will be a re-confirmation of what they know you will cover.

Be helpful, be clear, be gone. 

Let me expand. 

Helpfulness: execs need your help with in-depth expertise and knowledge in your local area of product/business. You can show it in three ways: 

• Provide simple, specific, data-driven and context-aware insights when presenting/writing or answering questions from the C-suite
• Raise your hand if you can help with something
• Make it easy for execs to understand and keep up-to-date with your area of product/business

Clarity: See my answer on common pitfalls of comms to C-suite. Lack of clarity means execs would need to invest more time (their most precious resource) to understand. Don't be the time thief.

"Be gone". I often see folks thinking that they will earn trust by having more face time with execs. This quickly turns into communicating for the sake of being visible, and execs read through it very quickly and in fact, lost trust. Be mindful of how much face time and visibility you are seeking, and let value/helpfulness guide the degree of your visibility, not the other way around. 

Not sure these can be called “best” habits. Just some principles I try to follow myself.

• Take a top management perspective. This means elevating your thinking to that level, and thinking beyond the tunnel view of your product. To do that well, you have to be curious and keep tabs of what’s going on across the company (products). You will also need to have a good understanding of the business. Practice thinking “what would I do if I were running this product/ business unit/ company?”

• Clear and concise communication. Whether it’s written documents, or in meeting discussions, go “answer first” for less controversial topics, and follow the “situation -> complication -> resolution” structure if you need to convince others. Skip unnecessary details, especially around your process to get there.

• Obligation to dissent. We bring the front line perspective to executives that are not always immersed in the details. It’s our obligation to dissent if we disagree based on facts and our knowledge. That said, voice your opinion but disagree and commit to move everyone forward.