Communicate
Communicate to be easily understood and remembered
You step into the elevator on a typical Monday morning, coffee in hand, and are surprised to find the CEO standing there. As the doors close, the CEO, with a friendly nod, asks, “What are you working on these days?” Caught off guard, you stammer a barely coherent reply about current projects, leaving words tangled and thoughts unfinished. The CEO raises an eyebrow slightly, clearly puzzled by your response. For the rest of the ride, both of you remain silent and stare at the elevator door
If you were adept at the elevator pitch, you might have responded smoothly: “I'm currently enhancing our customer data platform to improve our marketing automation efficiency. By integrating real-time data analytics, we're aiming to personalize customer interactions more sharply, which could increase our engagement rates by over 30% within the next quarter.”
Impressed, the CEO smiles, "That sounds innovative! Let's schedule a time to discuss this further; I'd love to hear more about your approach and how I can support it." That is the power of communicating through an elevator pitch.
You can master the art of the elevator pitch (EP) by following three easy steps.
At its core, an EP is a brief and compelling summary of an idea, product, oneself, or anything else, delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator. It's a skill valued not only in business settings but also in everyday conversations, job interviews, and networking events. However, crafting an EP that truly resonates requires more than just brevity; it demands clarity, memorability, and structure. Let's learn how to do each step.
The critical foundation for structuring effective elevator pitches is MECE. MECE ensures that our messages are clear, comprehensive, and easy to understand. By organizing our thoughts into distinct and non-overlapping categories, we can convey the core components of our message with precision and impact.
The first level categories of the MECE structure are components for building the EP. Therefore, you must first develop a MECE structure for the topic before you can construct the EP. This means that follow-up questions can be addressed systematically, without redundancy or confusion, by simply moving down the path of the MECE structure and easily constructing a new EP.
Each day we are bombarded with information, and retaining it is a formidable challenge. How do we ensure that our messages linger in the minds of our audience long after the conversation ends? First, the message has to be clear and concise but that is not enough, it has to be also memorable. How do you do that?
Once again it is through the MECE structure. Each category becomes a distinct anchor point in our audience's memory, facilitating recall and comprehension. in effect, you are helping the audience create their own MECE structure in the head.
Let's consider an example of an excellent EP. "I ensure proactive risk mitigation and safeguard financial stability for financial institutions, by conducting thorough risk assessments and implementing robust risk management strategies"." This EP is excellent because it clearly communicates the value proposition (proactive risk mitigation and safeguarding financial stability) ie the what, directly addresses the audience (financial institutions) ie the for whom, and followed with the approach (conducting thorough risk assessments and implementing robust risk management strategies), the how. And that is the common structure of all excellent EP. They all include the what, for whom, and the how. The order of these essential components is less important. What is important is that all three are there and succinctly articulated.
The only way to excel at crafting elevator pitches is through practice. So, practice frequently and seek feedback in the comments below to refine your skills.
please provide specific examples. We can discuss in class
The MECE structure and key elements of Elevator Pitch enable us to easily organize our thoughts and provide a memorable presentation to senior management. It helps me to feel less nervous when doing presentation
In situations where follow-up questions arise, how do we use the MECE structure to smoothly extend the conversation and address more complex details without losing the listener’s attention?
By focusing on the key elements: "what," "for whom," and "how", the Elevator Pitch is memorable and impactful, fostering better communication and retention during risk management process. Other than the EP, are there any other tools similar as the rule of the EP that can capture attention quickly and deliver a clear message?
So, MECE is a really good method to organize my concept and summarize easily. During the EP, I just need to summarize maybe the first 2 or 3 levels, and do not need to explain further unless my audience ask. Am I right?
I am a little confused about MECE. If we use the first level of MECE to form the elevator pitch, and the elevator pitch is composed of what, for whom, and how, can I understand that the first level of MECE needs to branch through what, for whom, and how?
The EP was built regarding the super clusters of the MECE framework, with the "what" focusing on capturing the main information within those clusters. So, depending on "for whom" the audience is targeted by, the EP and "how" the suggested approach is structured may vary?
I believe an Elevator pitch is a wise way to communicate as it ensures the information is understandable and memorable. As we discussed in class, the components of the elevator pitch can be “for whom, what and how”, I am wondering do we always want to include “for whom” in our elevator pitch even if there is no specific target? If so, how specific should “whom” be? Thanks!
I believe technical accuracy is critical to operational risk management. However, can the focus on being "memorable" lead to oversimplified or misleading messaging, especially in scenarios requiring detailed risk assessments?
I know that the elevator pitch is supposed to be efficient and direct, but I am unsure about how long it is actually supposed to be. I am worried that I will sacrifice important information in favour of brevity, and that the point will be lost because there isn't enough detail.