What is our leadership team actually deciding?
Your leadership team is usually deciding whether to keep investing in the work, and on what terms: continue it as it is, change it, expand it, scale it back, or stop it. Building your presentation around that choice tells leaders why each piece of evidence matters and keeps the meeting focused on the question they need to answer.
Know what each option would cost and require before you walk in. If the work was started because of a business problem, such as repeated turnover in one role, what happens to that problem if the work ends belongs in the conversation alongside the cost of continuing.
If your audience is a board rather than an internal executive team, the questions are different, because a board's role is oversight and governance. How do I explain our results to a board that just wants numbers? covers that audience.
What should a one-page summary for leadership include?
A one-page summary for leadership should include the decision you're asking for, what the work set out to change, what the evidence shows, what it doesn't show yet, what continuing would require, and your recommendation. Leaders who want the detail can ask for it, and you can bring the supporting data to the meeting.
A one-page structure (an illustrative example)
| Section | What it answers |
|---|
| The decision | What you're asking leadership to approve, and by when |
| The problem | The business problem the work was meant to address |
| What we did | The work, who took part, and what it has cost so far |
| What the evidence shows | The main results, with one or two numbers and what employees told you |
| What we don't know yet | What the evidence can't establish, and when you'll know more |
| Recommendation | What you propose, what it requires, and what you'll report next time |
Use the employees' own words where they help explain a result. If a survey shows that new hires in one department rated their onboarding lower than others, what those employees said about why is often more useful to leaders than the rating alone.
What if one of the results is uncomfortable?
If one of the results is uncomfortable, present it plainly, explain what you think is behind it, and say what you plan to do about it. Leaving it out can undermine your credibility if it surfaces later, and leaders who funded the work need an accurate picture to make a sound decision.
An uncomfortable result is also useful information. It may show where the work needs to change before more is invested in it. Presenting it alongside what's working, with the same level of evidence for each, shows leadership that you're managing the work responsibly. If a result points to something leadership itself can change, such as workload or how supervisors are supported, say so directly and respectfully. When employees give feedback and nothing happens, it can undermine their trust in the next request.
How do I say what the evidence does and doesn't show without sounding evasive?
You say what the evidence does and doesn't show without sounding evasive by being specific about each. Say what you measured and what changed, what you observed but can't attribute to the work alone, and what you'd need to know more. A sentence such as "turnover in the pilot department fell this year, and because hiring and pay also changed, we can't attribute the drop to the program alone" (an illustrative example) is specific and honest, and it tells leaders exactly how much weight the number can carry.
Avoid promising a return on investment the evidence can't support. No one can responsibly predict how much turnover will drop or how much money an initiative will save. What good information can do is help leaders see where an investment is likely to make a meaningful difference and where it isn't. If you haven't yet found out whether the work made a difference, How do we know whether the change we made actually helped? covers how to find out before you present.
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
We treat workforce development as a business issue as well as a people issue, and leaders are right to ask what an initiative costs and what it's producing. The question we'd add is whether the changes improved the outcomes the organization was trying to improve, which matters more than whether employees liked them.
We also avoid making unsupported promises about return on investment. Data should help an organization determine where investment is likely to make a meaningful difference. That requires a sincere commitment to understanding what's happening, even when the findings are uncomfortable. Leaders have to be willing to listen, question their own assumptions, acknowledge when something isn't working, and take responsibility for making improvements, and the people presenting to them deserve that same willingness.
