Speak in Their Currency

Claire Monroe

Welcome to the show everybody! I'm Claire Monroe, here with Edwin Carrington. Edwin, today's topic is one I think almost every listener has lived through. You have a good idea. You know it's a good idea. You take it to the leadership team, and it dies. Nobody says no, exactly. It just never comes back. Susan Ashford and James Detert studied this for Harvard Business Review. They called it issue selling, the way people get leaders to pay attention to an idea. And the first two tactics on their list were to tailor the pitch to the decision maker's priorities, and to link the idea directly to the organization's strategy.

Edwin Carrington

Which tells you where most pitches go wrong, Claire. People assume an idea fails because they lack authority. A bigger title, a bigger budget. In my experience, ideas rarely die from lack of authority. They die from being pitched in the wrong currency. Executives spend in four currencies: revenue, cost, risk and strategy. If your idea is priced in anything else, it doesn't matter how good it is. They can't spend it.

Claire Monroe

Let me give you a scenario. Picture a people operations manager at a company of about a hundred fifty people. She's pitched a redesign of onboarding three times. Every time, it stalls. Every time, she presents it as an HR project, with a lot about engagement and the new hire experience.

Edwin Carrington

And on the fourth attempt?

Claire Monroe

On the fourth attempt she changes one thing. Her opening sentence. Something like: we're losing more than one in five new hires before month six, and it's costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to replace them. Same project. Same person. Same title. Approved that quarter.

Edwin Carrington

That's the whole lesson in one story. Her authority didn't change. Her translation did. She stopped describing what HR wanted and started describing what the business was losing. The first version asked leaders to care about her world. The second version showed up in theirs.

Claire Monroe

So once you've got the right currency, how should the pitch actually be built?

Edwin Carrington

Executives scan for signal, so give them a structure they can scan. Five parts. The problem: what's happening and why it matters now. The impact: what it costs, in their currency. The options: two or three real paths, with the tradeoffs of each. Your recommendation: which one you'd choose and why. And the ask: the specific decision, money or people you need. In a formal meeting, that should fit on one page. In a one-on-one, start with the recommendation.

Claire Monroe

That's very close to what Barbara Minto taught consultants at McKinsey decades ago with her Pyramid Principle. Lead with the answer, then support it. Don't make a senior leader sit through your whole thought process to find out what you want.

Edwin Carrington

Exactly. And notice what's in that structure that most pitches skip. Options. When you bring only one idea, the executive's only choices are yes or no, and no is safer. When you bring options with tradeoffs, you've done the thinking they'd otherwise have to do, and you've given them something to decide between rather than something to reject.

Claire Monroe

Let's talk about data, because everyone tells you to bring data. KPMG's 2026 Adaptability Index found that sixty-three percent of executives say they're relying more on data and analytics. But fewer than half, forty-three percent, say their decisions are actually getting faster or clearer.

Edwin Carrington

That gap is the opportunity, Claire. Executives aren't short of data. They're drowning in it. So more numbers won't make your pitch stand out. The data that persuades is data that corrects something they currently believe. If your numbers confirm what everyone already thinks, they're decoration. If they overturn an assumption, they're news.

Claire Monroe

So the most powerful slide is the one that says, here's what we thought was true, and here's what the data actually shows.

Edwin Carrington

Precisely. And then you tie it straight back to the currency. Not, here's an interesting finding. Instead, here's an interesting finding, and here's what it's costing us.

Claire Monroe

Here's the part I find hardest, though. Not every executive decides the same way. Some want the numbers. Some want the big picture. Some want to be part of building the idea.

Edwin Carrington

And most people pitch every executive the same way, usually the way they themselves like to be pitched. That's a mistake. A leader who decides fast wants your recommendation in the first sentence. A leader who needs structure wants your sources and your assumptions laid out before they'll commit. A consensus builder wants to shape the idea with you before it's presented. A risk-averse leader needs to see the cost of doing nothing. Same idea, four different doors.

Claire Monroe

The problem is that most of us are guessing at which door. We've been in two meetings with that executive and we're reading their style from body language.

Edwin Carrington

That's where behavioral data helps. OAD measures behavioral drive across five dimensions: Drive, Influence, Resilience, Structure and Leadership. It gives you an objective read on how someone is wired to operate under pressure, instead of a guess from one meeting. But it's one structured input, Claire. It's not a substitute for paying attention to the person in front of you.

Claire Monroe

Last piece. What happens when the executive pushes back? Because that's usually where people fold.

Edwin Carrington

Pushback is the best thing that can happen in that meeting. An executive who pushes back is engaging with your idea. Silence is far more dangerous. So don't defend, explore. Pause. Ask which risk worries them most. Restate the concern so they know you heard it. Then reframe it in their terms. A cost objection, for example, can often be answered as a risk argument. What does it cost if we don't do this?

Claire Monroe

And Ashford and Detert had a tactic for the meeting before the meeting, too. Bring other people in.

Edwin Carrington

Yes. Never let the formal meeting be the first time a key leader hears your idea. Meet the allies one-on-one beforehand, and tailor the value to each of them. The finance leader hears about cost. The people leader hears about the leadership pipeline. By the time you walk into the room, the decision has already started.

Claire Monroe

If you want to understand how the people around you actually make decisions, start with the person you trust most on your team. OAD's free Top Performer Profile takes seven minutes, results come back in twenty-four hours, and there's no credit card. That's O-A-D dot A-I.

Edwin Carrington

Influence was never about the size of your title, Claire. It's about how well you translate.

Claire Monroe

Perfect place to leave it. Thanks for the wisdom, Edwin.

Edwin Carrington

Always a pleasure, Claire.