The Art of the Executive Summary

July 21, 2015 Employee Performance and Coaching, Project Management

How to Create an Executive Summary

Raise your hand if you have ever sat through a presentation and walked away not understanding its core message. Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever asked an employee to give you a project briefing, only for them to bury you in data, facts and graphics. Finally, raise your hand if you’ve ever picked up a 30-page report, wishing to get right to the key points due to time constraints, but were forced to read the whole thing out of necessity.

Most managers and business leaders can relate to any or all of these scenarios. In each case, there is no executive summary to help guide participants or readers to the key points.

Making an executive summary and capturing the necessary message takes work, but doing it well is a highly important communication skill. Below are the four key steps for making a great executive overview to ensure your readers and viewers get the real message.

The Importance of Summarizing

Managers serve as an essential conduit between the executives and the working levels of the organization. This responsibility requires sharing progress with the top, while communicating actions and initiatives downward into your organization. Summarizing data and communicating clear, succinct messages is therefore essential.

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Summarizing well requires one to create a consolidated story that includes the critical information, yet be easy to digest in just a few minutes. Given this contrast, however, it is easy to see why so many people struggle to summarize information and craft a takeaway message.

Even so, whether part of a written report or an in-person presentation, the executive summary is the most powerful part of delivering your message because it takes all your research and hard work and repackages it into a nice, tidy form for others to understand. If there is one thing you want the reader or participant to see, it will be your summary. Thus, you may find yourself spending almost as much time on your summary as you do the rest of the content.

Whether you are communicating with your CEO, making a presentation to a customer, or simply reporting data to your own supervisor, the principles are all the same.

What to Include in Your Executive Summary

Every report, document or presentation has a purpose. Maybe it’s to state the results of your financial analysis, or maybe it’s intended to convince someone else to take a certain action. The intent may simply be to report status on a project.

The key to making a good executive summary is to make sure the takeaway mirrors the intent of the entire presentation, whatever it’s purpose may be. Further, being clear about the purpose of the overall briefing will enable you to select the most appropriate information to share.

Here are some examples of information you may wish to include in an executive summary, depending on your needs:

Sources of the Information
Volume of Data Considered
Techniques, Tools or Processes Used
Methodology or Approach
Amount of Resources Consumed in Analysis
Investment Needed to Reach Next Phase
Key Observations or Risks
Recommended Actions

Ultimately, the items you choose to include in an executive summary should be your way of saying “Here is what you need to know.”

In order to create a powerful executive summary, here are four essential rules you must follow.

Four Rules for Creating a Powerful Executive Summary

1. Synthesize the Data, Don’t Repeat It

When you create an executive summary, you are really boiling down numerous spreadsheets of data, analytical comparisons, and answers to a number of questions and repackaging all of it into a well-groomed package.

Your job was to look at all the information, test the possibilities, draw conclusions and the report this to someone else.

Thus, your executive summary should ideally not repeat the data or information shown elsewhere. Rather, your executive summary is the message that emerges from your analysis and examination of the facts and figures.

In order to avoid falling in the repetitive data trap:

Explain where the data came from
State what you did with it
Provide a single graphic that illustrates the trend or story
Explain what the information means (this is your conclusion)

Additionally, you will want to avoid:

Sharing data that is unrelated to your final conclusion
Presenting all options considered
Graphics that do not illustrate a clear story, or require their own explanation

2. Less is More, Except…

Managers today are faced with the growing challenge of time constraints. Free time is nearing extinction, it seems. Thus, when you create an executive summary, it must be brief and to the point. However, it must also stand by itself – too sparse and it will leave obvious questions unanswered. Too much, and the message will be drowned out by extraneous information.

Remember, the brief summary is supported by the additional sections of the report, the document or the presentation, and the audience can always choose to read more if desired, or as time permits.

So, how do you know how much to include in an executive summary? As a general guideline, make sure you include enough that the recipient has the necessary information to comfortably reexplain your work to another person.

To illustrate this point, imagine Mike only has time to review Sarah’s summary before going into a meeting. Imagine how Mike would explain the results when asked about Sarah’s report during the meeting based on the information she provided:

Amount Sarah Provided	What Mike Would Say to Another	Explanation
Not Enough Information	“Sarah’s report said sales will go up in the third quarter somehow.”	Mike did not have enough of an understanding to explain the result to someone else.
The Right Amount of Information	“Sarah’s report said sales will go up about 5% in the third quarter. She ran three different evaluations, all of which came to a similar conclusion.”	Mike had enough details to explain the results to someone else so they could understand.
Too Much Information	“Sarah’s report said sales will go up in the third quarter. She showed a lot of data, but I think it was 5% growth. I’d have to study it in detail again to know for sure.”	Mike was able to walk away with the basic message, but the specifics were lost in all the details Sarah presented.

As illustrated here, if your summary doesn’t have the critical information, it has not done its job.

By contrast, if you provide too much information, you run the risk of having your audience miss the point.

If it’s a report you are writing, your summary section should have short sentences that state essential data. If you’re creating a slide presentation, do your best to fit your executive summary onto a single slide.

3. Place the Executive Summary Appropriately

Different forums require different placement of summarized information. If you are simply reporting data or facts, such as in a quarterly report, or project status, your executive summary should be placed at the front.

In other words, give the reviewer what they need and let them go. The audience can always read on to get into the details if time permits. For this, you might want to consider the BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) concept.

Conversely, if you are trying to convince someone or make a recommendation on a given topic, you should put your executive summary at the end. Placing your executive summary at the end allows you to lead the audience through your logic and arrive at the desired conclusion. Summarizing at the end also lets your audience walk away with that message.

Even if they bypass the report and jump to the conclusion, the fact that it’s at the end of a long report or presentation slides will suggest the summary is the result of a lengthy and comprehensive analysis.

4. Choose Language Carefully

The fourth rule of creating an executive summary is to choose your words carefully.

More often than not, your goal at the outcome of your presentation or your report should be alignment and agreement with the work completed. In some cases, you may be looking support for the position or opinion presented.

Regardless of your intended outcome, the language you use can be the deal-maker or the deal-breaker.

For example, imagine the executive summary of your written sales pitch says “We at Acme IT Services believe we likely have the right skills to meet your needs.” Likely? You will not exactly convince your customer you’re the best one for the job with this kind of language.

The same is true for delivering a presentation to your executives and having your slide say “The data suggests this acquisition may generate $10 million in revenue.” Is that $10 million good or bad? What’s the risk it won’t generate that revenue?

Thus, when creating an executive summary, select the appropriate language to achieve your purpose. Pay close attention to it. After all, the words can be the difference maker in winning or losing a business deal.

Other Tips for Creating an Effective Executive Summary

In addition to the four rules we identified above, here are some final tips and strategies for creating a presentation summary that delivers the desired impact to your audience:

Ask a trusted colleague review your summary to ensure there is no alternate interpretation of your message.
Place summary content in a logical or natural order – left to right, top to bottom, numbered, etc.
Minimize font or color changes to avoid unnecessary distraction
Use visual aids to draw the eye – boxes highlighting key lines, stars or arrows to point to key data, flow chart layout to illustrate steps
Use a “Takeaway” box at the end with the one key message that the reader or viewer can remember.

Summarizing Data and Information in the Workplace

Our time is in constant demand these days – emails, texts, conference calls. Ensure your hard work pays off by honing your communication skills and learning how to synthesize key messages. Whether you are pitching to win a $100M deal, or are summarizing the organization’s key strategic initiatives for your employees, a powerful executive summary is the key to your success.