I have noticed a trend that many brilliant people struggle to advocate for their ideas effectively. Often as engineering or product leaders, you need to propose a technical or product solution, recommend a vendor or make some sort of choice that you need buy-in from others. In all of these cases, the ability to “sell” your idea is critical. Here are the top 4 things you can do to take your pros and cons lists to the next level.
1. Be Honest
Provide an honest take, looking at all sides equally. Often, people fail to advocate fairly for the choice they are not recommending. Others will see through this and dismiss all of your arguments. Without honesty, you have no credibility.
2. Make a Clear Recommendation
The second most common trap people fall into is listing pros and cons but making no recommendations on a course of action. The best leaders are the ones who, in addition to presenting the options, can make an informed opinion and recommendation. A weak conclusion like “both options have merits” helps no one make a decision.
3. Focus on the Most Relevant Points
A few key and relevant reasons why or why not to choose something are far more convincing than a laundry list of items. Choices are made by the value in the pros and cons, not the number of items. Feel free to create an appendix as a reference for all of what was evaluated separate from the main report. The main report should focus on the key points only. More words or more slides does not make for a more compelling argument. Keep it simple.
4. Do not rely on AI
A modern trend is to get AI to write everything. Yes, AI can help you with wording but you must start with the key relevant data. AI tools tend to perform generic analysis that lacks insight. They often miss context and are weak at identifying the most important points (previous section). Also, they tend to write long-winded responses. You might be better off taking your most relevant points and using Grammarly instead of ChatGPT.