How to Win Arguments and Manipulate Managers

Whenever I’m presenting an analysis, I like to start with the story of how we got to the need for this analysis to be with and why this math matters—fairly normal advice. However, I’ll take it a step further.

Rather than rattle off the numbers along with my suggested fix, I’ll wave three red story flags in front of the executive’s eyes. Each discret

Great founders and CEOs typically shine in their ability to understand and communicate stories . Their job is to rally investors and team members—with the most universal way to do so in charisma and charm.

These are the people you need to convince, so instead of trying to teach them how math works, adjust your math to their story.

So, after nearly a decade of doing this wrong, please learn from my mistakes. These skills should be used for good (improving the company’s chance of success) but are also applicable in a more Machievellian sense, if that’s your sort of thing. To make this feel more real, I’m going to walk you through a work of analysis I did here at Every. Using i