5 Rules for Successfully Engaging with Senior Executives to Enhance Your Career

A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science.

Senior executives have risen to their position for many reasons, but one of them is a love for numbers. Executives live by numbers. 

So, you can’t just have a “really great idea.” It would be best if you had a “really great idea” and an idea of how it will drive numbers for the organization.

I have learned a lot about how to win over senior executives. In this episode, we explore the five rules for successfully engaging with senior executives to enhance your career. I share these based on my decades-long career and constant immersion in these skills. Moreover, I share them because I have learned that if you don’t engage properly with senior executives, it can have precisely the opposite effect on your career. 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

One of the overarching principles that guide your behavior when engaging with senior executives is to remember what matters to them most. So, if you're having a conversation about customer strategy, think at their level, which is a high-level customer strategy, not an on-the-ground customer tactic. We often mention getting inside the head of your customer and looking at the experience from their perspective. Now, apply that principle your upline by taking their perspective and speaking to them in the language of their decision making.

Here are a few key moments in the discussion.

• 03:25  Colin shares the first rule, which is that everyone should have an opinion; that’s what you are paid for and how you add value to the team. 
• 08:51  We discuss how to handle an explanation with senior executives, and walking the tight rope between respect and intimidation.
• 13:25  We talk about how at a senior level the questions get simpler, even if the responsibility gets more intense. 
• 18:38  Ryan explains how the fourth rule is essential, be concise, because he has seen people that cannot adapt to a changing environment, and they lose their opportunity to communicate it as a result.
• 21:38  Colin shares the last rule, Back up your argument with numbers and explains why these matters—maybe the most—when talking to senior executives. 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on Linkedin and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. 

Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more. 

How can we help?

Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.