Influencing leadership or ‘managing up’ may be the single most vital skill of all for a Continuous Improvement leader.

Picture this: You just crushed a project. Defects are down 30%. You walk into the boardroom, ready to present your masterpiece using 5-Whys and Pareto charts.

But instead of applause… the CEO is checking their watch, and the CFO is looking at your slides like they’re written in ancient Greek.

This is the “Expert Paradox.”

The better you get at Continuous Improvement, the more you tend to speak a “foreign language” full of jargon that executives simply don’t have the time to decode.

If you want to move from being “just a process person” to a strategic partner, you have to stop speaking Lean and start speaking Leadership.

In my latest article, I break down exactly how to bridge that gap.

3 Rules to fix your reporting:

1️⃣ Be the Mechanic, not the Professor. When you take your car to the shop, you don’t care about the brand of wrench they used. You just want the car to run. Leaders don’t care about your tools. They care that the problem is fixed and the “engine” is running smoothly.

2️⃣ Flip the Script (Inductive vs. Deductive). Engineers love to tell the story from A to Z. Leaders want the headline first.

❌ “We did analysis, then a kaizen, then tested…”

✅ “We saved $50k this quarter. Here is how.”

3️⃣ Create a “Cadence of Impact.” Don’t wait for the annual report. Create an endless drip of good news (one-pagers, before/after photos) so they never have to guess your value.

Stop chasing rabbits and start solving the problems your leaders are losing sleep over.

📖 Read the full guide on Speaking the Language of Leadership here: https://impruver.com/influencing-leadership/

👇 How do you communicate wins to your leadership team? Let me know in the comments!

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Influencing Leadership to Boost Support for Lean - Impruver.com

Read this article to learn why leaders struggle to support Lean and how you can maximize their level of investment in Continuous Improvement