The Head Game by Philip Mudd

What it is about

Philip Mudd served as a staff member in the National Security Council and as a senior executive at the FBI and CIA. He is no stranger to high-stakes decision making in situations with incomplete information and crisis timelines. More importantly, in his job as staff to high power decision makers, he had to present the facts, trade-offs and recommendations in almost newspaper headline conciseness. He distills this knowledge and experience to very clear guidelines, made compelling with a fascinating and engaging collection of examples that read like a thriller novel.

Why it changed my thinking

I was educated as an engineer and an unspoken assumption about presentations was that their main purpose is to convey information, the more the better. Even the famed McKinsey pyramid presentation principle is geared towards presenting information. Reading this book completely turned around how I approach building presentations for boards and executives. The first question I ask myself now is What decisions or actions are the principals in the audience need to make? and everything flows from there. Mudd's five questions:

• What is the Question?

• What are your "drivers"?

• How will you measure performance?

• What about the data?

• What are we missing?

give a roadmap to create and organize the content in a much more effective way than any presentation templates I have ever used. Even if your audience is not high powered decision makers, this approach puts you in the head of the audience and makes you a much better communicator in any situation.

Where to get it

(Note, if you buy from the link here, I get a tiny commission back)