Build the leadership update

By the end of this task, you will be able to turn a summary and a procedure into five slides for a director with fifteen minutes and four regions, and to say the uncomfortable part without sounding like you are blaming the customer.

Your situation

Joni Sherman chairs the regional review. Fifteen minutes, four regions, and she has not seen a Calgary number since week two. She approved this recovery.

The honest position is awkward. The largest measurable cause is the customer's drop timing, and you cannot make them change it. Said badly, that is a supplier blaming its customer for its own numbers. Said well, it is a clear statement of what you control, what you do not, and what you are doing about the part you do not.

She will ask one question. Better to have the answer on a note than to find it in the room.

Files you'll use

How to read the prompts

Each prompt below is one block you can copy whole. The # lines are labels, not instructions — they mark where the prompt stops setting the goal and starts giving the context, the sources, and the expectations. Copying them along with the prompt does no harm.

Those four moves, in that order, are what makes a prompt work. Use the same shape when you write your own.

Steps

1. Open PowerPoint. If you are using the Canada Post template, open it and save your own copy first.

2. Build the five slides.

   goal

   Build a five-slide update on the Calgary recovery for our leadership review.

   context

   Joni Sherman chairs it and has fifteen minutes for four regions. She signed off the recovery and has not seen a number since week two.

   sources

   Use the weekly summary and the procedure I have referenced, and nothing else.

   expectations

   One slide each for where the number is, what we changed, what is not yet fixed, what we need from the customer, and what I am asking her for. Four bullets maximum per slide. Keep the deck theme as it is.

3. Fix the slide that always needs fixing.

   goal

   Rewrite the data slide so it makes one point.

   context

   Right now it shows everything I measured. In the room I need one fact she repeats to her own director afterwards.

   sources

   The content already in this deck.

   expectations

   One headline sentence that is the point, three supporting figures underneath and no more, each with its unit and its week.

4. Write the notes for the slide you would rather skip.

   goal

   Write speaker notes for the slide on what is not yet fixed.

   context

   The honest answer is that the fix depends on the customer changing their drop times, and we cannot make them. Saying that badly sounds like blaming the customer for our own numbers.

   sources

   The deck and the weekly summary.

   expectations

   Under 120 words of notes. Say what we control, what we do not, and what we are doing about the part we do not. Then the one question she will ask and the answer to it.

5. Read the deck out loud against a clock. If it runs past four minutes, a slide has to go.

Check your work

• Five slides, four bullets maximum on each.
• Every figure carries its unit and its week.
• The unexplained third of the gap is stated, not buried.
• Nothing reads as blaming the customer.
• The final slide names one decision you want from Joni.

Stretch prompts

Starting out — get the structure:

Turn this weekly summary into a five-slide update: where we are,
what changed, what is not fixed, what we need, what I am asking
for.

Comfortable — cut it in half:

Rewrite this deck for a five-minute slot instead of fifteen.
Tell me which slide I drop first and what I lose by dropping it.

Confident — rehearse the room:

Read this deck as Joni Sherman, who approved the recovery and
has to defend it to her own director. Give me the three
questions she asks and the one I am not ready for.