¶ Podcast Introduction: Influence Over Expertise
Why do some incredibly smart leaders command executive trust instantly while others struggle to get promoted despite having stronger technical expertise?
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Welcome back to Speak Up, the number one ranked business communication podcast, where we help high-performing introvert leaders, including you social introverts. Turn your ideas into influence and improve business outcomes because being brilliant doesn't automatically make you influential.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your career accelerator, executive presence strategist, and godmother. And by the end of today's fascinating conversation with MK Palmore, You'll know how to communicate risk and complex ideas in ways that senior executives immediately understand and trust. Practical techniques for owning the room, managing your nerves, and building credibility during presentations.
Why storytelling, strategic framing, and audience engagement are essential for executive level influence.
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Well, MK, welcome to the show. I forgot to ask you, where are you located?
So I'm located in the San Francisco Bay area.
Oh well that makes sense, right? The hard of Silicon Valley. All right, everybody. Especially those who work in cybersecurity, this is going to be very interesting for you. E but even if you don't, we're going to talk about framing risk differently and Establishing trust quickly with boards with senior executives and that kind of good stuff. So welcome, MK. Good to have you here.
Thanks for having me.
¶ Communicate Risk as Decisions, Not Data
Yes. So you say that leaders need to communicate risk as decisions, not data. What does that mean? Give me an example, like how does that sound?
Uh we have a challenge in the technology space, specifically in the cybersecurity industry. Many of the folks who are the cybersecurity practitioners Have come up through the ranks and have been practicing cybersecurity for a number of decades in most cases. Yeah. Those individuals are not necessarily business oriented.
They are technology oriented. They've developed their skill set around mastering technology and not necessarily speaking the language of risk management to C-suite individuals or board members. Sometimes even these individuals are the ones who are elevated through the ranks and become chief information security officers with the only business experience that they have as being an adjacency to business operations.
And thinking of themselves as an entity that's outside of business operations when in fact they're there to enable the business to be able to do what it's Well what it's chartered to do. And so there's a communication gap in inability of technology leaders to communicate in terms that business leaders and stakeholders understand to position them so that they can make decisions more easily about technology matters.
And oftentimes I found that folks like myself who sort of speak both languages act as an intermediary or if the CISO chief information security officer happens to be a man or woman who also has had some experience in business or in risk management, then they typically have the, you know, the the verbiage and the lexicon necessary to be able to communicate effectively
the risk associated with either acting or not acting as it relates to acquiring resources in the technology space. And if we get in front of stakeholders, whether it be board members or C suite folks, And all we talk about is a piece of technology and what we think it's going to do when we implement it. That doesn't make the decision any easier for them to decide to spend the money on it and oftentimes
The CISOs aren't the ones who get to decide where the budget is expended. They're simply asking for budget.
Right.
And typically either a CIO or CFO or someone else is making the decision as to whether or not they're gonna get that money to expense. So it it it helps if you speak. This language of risk management. It helps to make the decision much easier for the decision makers, as I like to say it. Typically comes across as if you've done your homework when you're able to actually speak the language of risk management.
And it allows them the flexibility then to be able to decide, okay, it sounds like you really understand the problem, the potential impact to business, and you've made a diligent decision because you've walked us through what the risks are if we don't make this decision. Yes, you you get that three million or whatever it is that you're asking for in order to be able to execute on a technology project.
So apart from getting an MBA is one way to a gain some of that I took. That's the path you took. I'm sure many listeners have taken that, but that's not the only path, right? I mean the thing about an MBA is that the path is laid out for you. Take all these classes, make good grades and you're good. But there there must be other ways to really learn the business side of the and how to frame the risk. So I would love to have an example
of say a risk that the technologist presents versus what the business wants to hear. Like what are the categories of of risk we should be thinking about?
¶ Framing Risk: Strategic vs. Tactical
There are any number of ways that a a cyber adversary can attack in any one particular business. But the challenge is is that businesses, not every business is the same. Mm-hmm. And not every business has exactly the same risk. It depends on what business vertical you happen to be in, what kind of investments you've made in your technology stack up to that point.
whether or not you've encountered adversarial activity before. So there's any number of variables. And that list kind of goes on and on. that puts you in a particular category and then positions you to make decisions around what your next move might be, whether that be a strategic move or a tactical move. My assessment is that many technology leaders are thinking very tactically.
from week to week, month to month, year to year. And so they're thinking about adopting what new piece of technology do I need to help me solve a problem that we've identified in the business. And so they identify a piece of technology. It may even be a best in breed or best in market technology from a high value cybersecurity vendor on the market.
And oftentimes they think just by saying the names CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, or others who happen to be occupying what I would call the tier one status in the space, that that would be enough for the decision maker to say, okay, well he asked for this. endpoint that a CrowdStrike has. So we're gonna buy CrowdStrike endpoints, but that's not really the whole issue.
Right.
Haven't presented all of the information and context to explain why they settled in on this particular tool or technology and why, as a business, They happen to be in a space or in need of that particular piece of technology. And that's the homework. That's the piece that you have to do beforehand to actually single out and begin to we call it a risk register in our practice. You basically catalog risk to the organization.
You catalog those risks based upon their level of severity, their potential impact to the business, whether or not there's a high likelihood of that potential risk actually occurring within your business, and then you rank stack. all of these, essentially from tier one all the way through tier three, tier one being here are the most pressing issues that we need to be paying attention to because there's a high likelihood and
and it would deliver a high impact to the business. These are the problems that we need to be solving. And when put in that context, it actually helps you as a as a technologist make decisions. better because then you can prioritize where you want to spend and expend funds. And by doing that, by showing that you've created the risk register, that you've gone through the process of evaluating where these risks stack up.
in this ongoing register, you then show to the stakeholder that you've done all the background work, you've done the research. You essentially are coming to them with both problem and solution. And then they get to do what it is that they get paid to do, which is decide yes or no. Yeah.
Yes.
Once you've presented the totality of the of the scenario and what we found historically is that many technologists don't quite understand how to present the scenario in its totality. They think just by talking about a recent breach or just by saying, hey, I need this piece of technology to make sure our emails aren't you know the
by yeah, by an adversary, that's not enough to tell a compelling story that then drives the stakeholder to then act on your behalf and develop the trust that you need from year to year. So as you're continuing to make these changes you know, in these transformation efforts, that they trust that you understand what it is that you are asking for and the value of it.
So it sounds like context is just so important and that the temptation, shall we say, is just to have a very narrow th th we need this technology to solve this problem, but The real question is why this problem and not seven others?
Exactly.
And that applies to somebody I mean, I would say that applies in some form of another to any vertical, whether in marketing or cybersecurity
Which is why risk methodologies apply across the board. It's just that in the cybersecurity and technology space.
¶ Risk Management: A Universal Business Tool
we haven't been as quick to adapt them as maybe some of the other business verticals or business overall. You know, I like to tell folks, you know, think about the history of why risk management even came into practice. And the way that I like to look at it is that no entity on the planet, even even the big Fortune five has unlimited resources.
Right.
And because you don't have unlimited resources, you have to prioritize across a number of variables how it is that you intend to deploy your resources and expend financial capabilities so that you can basically Do the thing that it is that you're in business to do. And without applying a risk methodology or thinking intently about how it is that you want to.
deploy your resources, you could be wasting money, throwing good money after bad in areas that don't really impact the overall outcomes of the business, which won't leave you in business for long.
Right. You you won't be needing to send a resume to any executive recruiters. All right. Well, so would you say that the biggest mistake that you see intelligent executives making is It's just not doing that risk analysis profoundly enough. Is that a major mistake?
Yeah, not doing it profoundly enough, but maybe even not even getting educated on the language of risk. Many of us in the cybersecurity industry over the past decade have sort of gone not necessarily back to school. I got my MBA decades ago, but I I went back through courses particularly aligned to cybersecurity risk management to better understand how to convey these ideas and issues and how to how to handle them and grapple with them as a cybersecurity leader.
I would say that there's a good number of cybersecurity leaders today that are doing that, but certainly not the entirety of the industry has gone through that kind of a through that kind of process. It's not it's not a gated opportunity that everyone thinks that they need to go through and when in fact they should.
Definitely everybody listening, you want to make, you know, do a little in self inventory and how strong are you in risk analysis and cataloging risk, no matter what area you work on.
¶ Why Executives Lose Credibility
Since you're, you know, helping companies with their s senior cybersecurity executives, what are the mistakes that you see them making when they sound perfectly logical pulled together when talking to you or their teams, their peers, and they get before a board and they lose credibility. What would you say? What are the causes of that issue?
Well the number one cause is most technologists don't know when to ask for help. Oh. We are notorious as a group. of thinking that we've got everything handled and that we don't need any external help and oftentimes g even get offended if external help is brought in to help us identify how to tackle our problems.
So that's the first barrier. Many technologists I think are not only offended when external help is brought in, but also think that it's somehow going to impugn their position in the company when in fact You can leverage external advisors to a huge degree and come out looking like a champ. The other obstacle is that we don't put enough emphasis on the subject of communication and the skill of communicating.
Oh my goodness. Imagine that.
I'm a big communicator. Mm-hmm. And and it's not something that I've always been good at, but I happen to be fairly good at it now. And it's because I've spent time in iteration. I call it at bats, call it whatever you want to call it. taking advantage of opportunities to get in front of folks in all kinds of scenarios, whether it be small team, large team, big conferences, keynotes on stage, every opportunity that I get.
to exercise this skill, the development of a skill of communicating with people. I engage in it because I know that I'm gonna learn something from it and I know it's gonna make me better for the next opportunity that I have. Not everyone is doing that. I can't tell you the number of technologists that I've met who are supremely talented, have lots of knowledge and could walk, run circles around me as it relates to technology, but are poor communicators. And because of that
Oftentimes they find difficulty in getting promoted. Yeah.
Is that'cause it's a blocker.
Yeah. They find difficulty in getting even identified as having those particular skills because no one seems to recognize how skilled they are. And they're always asking folks like me, like why am I hitting the ceiling? Why can't I seem to to break out? The skill of communicating and developing your way of communicating and making sure that it's landing with folks.
Is something that I think everyone should be thinking about developing. And I certainly tell folks that if you ever plan to be a high level executive, Anything SVP or higher, you better bet you need you need high level communication skills because they it I don't care how good you are, they will not hire you for those roles unless they believe you to be a decent communicator.
¶ Storytelling for Executive Influence
Yes, and that has to come through in the interview, but it's there's so it's the multiplier effect because a senior SVP or above, everything they say is just gonna be rippled out. through the company. So you're you're absolutely right. And it's not what I found in my own journey with learning communication, it's not just the transfer of information. It's about why
this thing A is more important than thing B and why we need to do this and not do another thing and why we should care about certain things. So that's a That's a lot more than just, you know, a download or transferring information across the room. And I think in cybersecurity in general, like if you can make it compelling, interesting to a non technology audience.
I'm not thinking just of the executive communications, but I remember a presentation, a PMO at the IT department where I worked would explain why we needed to not open the spam, you know, email back in the day and he would make a really compelling case, but like you said, you can't just lot rely on one story of one hack or one disaster. There has to be a framework.
You have to be a convincing storyteller and uh storytelling is the term that most of us have been using now as of late. In executive circles. You you have to learn how to uh how to weave a tail together. You gotta bring folks along on that journey and you have to do it in such a way that they understand that they are part of the team that needs to be active. in repelling these attacks which are going to happen to nearly any enterprise.
¶ Mastering Boardroom Presentations
Right. So this is a pretend scenario. Let's say somebody listening is going to be presenting to the board or some executive leadership group. And about their stuff, I mean, they know their stuff. How would you advise them to prepare to exude confidence and inspire trust? You know, when they're not that known, but they know their material. What would you advise?
I think that over time, assuming you've had enough at bats, enough iterations that confidence will develop over time, but y everyone has a starting point. Maybe you've never briefed a a board on a particular issue. Maybe you've never briefed
a room full of executives on a particular issue. And so your competence in most instances is not what you need to be worried about because you were selected for that briefing based upon your knowledge base. And so competency you should be able to artfully check that box and then be thinking about how it is that you're gonna convey this information on a calm, deliberate manner, a convincing manner.
So that again you position them or put them in the best position so that they can make a decision. Lots of different things go into this this kind of thing. I I talk to folks a lot about even at this point, I've done hundreds of talks, speeches, if you will.
Yeah, I bet.
hundreds over the course of my career. And I think that with each one I've gotten to the point where I take on a couple of exercises, whether they be breathing exercises, If I'm briefing a board or any small set of executives, I like to enter the room before my briefing. I hate being just thrust into the room, set up your technology and they're all sitting there with cross.
Arms watching watching you get set up and then they were okay, they're looking at their watches. Yes. Let's get going here, buddy. What do you got to tell us? I like to enter the room beforehand. I want to see what the level of interaction is, uh who's communicating of the board members, who's asking the questions, who's engaged, because if I see that someone's engaged, I may target them with a question right out of the gate to get the conversation going.
I'm much more interested in having a conversation, bringing into the conversation my competency rather than just throwing slides at folks.
because
As a presenter, I can tell you that although I build great decks, I rarely use the decks. They're only meant for pacing and guidance as to the topic matter, but I am never going to read a bullet or something off of a deck that's been prepared. That's just a visual cue for the audience to actually follow along with where I'm going with the storytelling. And so you gotta know your material in such a way that when the slide pops up
You see the slide, you acknowledge, okay, this is what we're talking about. You turn to the audience and you start delivering on that topic. without the need to have to look back at the slide and guide you through where you need to be by the end of that slide. Like you d you need to know your stuff dead on because you want to engage them in conversation. So the best possible scenario that might come up
is that, you know, you're going through, say, some pertinent examples of risk to the enterprise or a particular cybersecurity issue that your enterprise is dealing with, you want to then be able to say, well, has anyone seen this impact your day to day work?
You want to pull them in so that it doesn't give them an excuse to pick up their phones or be diverted looking elsewhere or or wanting you to hurry up and finish providing the information that so anytime that you can pull folks into into the talk, into the discussion, those are scenarios where ultimately you're going to win out.
¶ Engaging Your Audience Effectively
I just want to pull out the Tips because you gave a lot of specific insights, but it's not a transfer of information. It is you want to Think of a ping pong game. You want to like you say something and then you create ways to bring them in usually by asking questions such as, you know, have you seen this? Or another another question I've seen is
before you show a slide asking let's just pretend that it's on cybersecurity risk and AI and and you say, Well, what do you think the number one issue is? And get the answers and then say, Well, the research says It's this thing. Almost anything to get people engaged and to really keep your eyes on people.
I may even start off with a with a question at the top of the presentation. You know, before I even introduce myself, I have found it to be an attention grabber to throw a question out to the group. in an effort to immediately get them engaged and kinda see where their thoughts are, especially if we're talking about a topic that I think has the potential to be particularly engaging. I may throw a question on the
Like what? Like what?
This is a relatively poor example, but how about the question that we're all grappling with? Is AI going to take everyone's jobs?
It has a great one.
Maybe I start with that c I wanna hear the thoughts and opinions of the people sitting in the room so I know we're the starting point is for that particular audience as they begin to receive the information. I may be presenting on AI and I happen to be particularly bullish on the topic. So I want to hear
any naysayers that might be in the room.'Cause they they'll speak up. Yeah, if you throw on a question like that, they'll immediately be like, Yes, it's gonna take everyone's jobs. We need to be afraid of it and I think that we need to slow down on AI adoption like that. You wanna identify who those folks are'cause that those are the people
that ultimately you are going to have to convince that, yeah, there are some things to take into consideration. Yes, we do need to be more diligent about how it is that we're going to adopt this new and emerging technology. We do need to do it in a safe and secure fashion. I'm here to help you with that.
But it doesn't mean that we need to stop all things in terms of progress. It just means we need to go through this framework or a sequential way of adopting this technology that's going to keep everyone safe, but at the same time give you the ability to maximize the use of it.
I love that. Yes. By asking the question at the very beginning and eliciting the under the surface disagreement with you already. If you don't do that, if you don't ask the question Then they're holding it until the end and they're not even listening. Right. But they're just waiting for to
I haven't even yeah. I haven't even I haven't even uncovered that point of friction yet in in the discussion. So they may that may preemptively block them from receiving my information because they have this opinion it may be so strong that it prevents them from even ingesting or hearing the things and thoughts that I'm the journey that I'm trying to take them on. It's almost as if we all start at a beginning line and I think we're ten meters down
down the journey and this other person standing at the starting line with their arms folded. I haven't brought that person along with Take him in terms of storytelling.
Yeah, so I I think everyone like think of a question that pulls out the resistance to your message. Like if I were to talk on executive presence by I could say, how many of you think executive presence is a total waste of time?
You know, that I'm just selling, you know, I don't know, snake oil or something. It's okay, I can take it, you know, and and just to get that out It not only pulls in contrary opinions so that you can address them And you do it early on and it also relaxes the room because in the audience if especially if you're like the guest speaker or you don't know the people as well, the people in the room know, Oh, I know that MK is gonna be super um
not bought into this topic or I know this other person is going to attack Laura when she talks about this thing. So it helps the audience to just relax and it helps you to relax and it just helps everything go better.
And oh by the way, maybe there's that you throw out a question to which there's no correct answer to. You just want to hear people offer their opinions and give them the space to basically jump in and begin the conversation. You don't have to Say, oh no, you're wrong about that, or that's not quite that's not quite what I'm what I'm looking for, because that actually creates more friction. It's just an opportunity, it's actually a tactic.
An opportunity to give the to let them voice immediately concerns or give their opinion on something and that way you know they're engaged, they're at least at the starting point with you and they're ready to to begin this journey. One of the other things that uh that I miss mentioning I talked to you about, you know, getting into the space early, seeing the space, seeing who's interacting. That goes for keynote addresses as well. I've given, you know, hundreds of keynote.
Ah, dá.
Auditoriums and stages. Like I want to see the room before I start my keynote. I don't want to just be barked backstage. mic'ed up and then thrown out into the onto the stage and that's my first time seeing the room or the audience. Right. I go through exercises where I actually imagine and Imagine myself delivering the talk. And in delivering the talk, I'm being successful at it. My pacing is good. I'm not searching for words. I'm hitting the marks exactly how I plan to hit the marks.
I imagine myself delivering in a positive manner and I even imagine audience participation with the head nodding and that they are receiving the information. That gives me another sense of calm when I walk onto the stage that Not only have I practiced this, I've mentally gone through the scenario, and I literally just go through a replay of that mental scenario that I've already walked through.
¶ Executive Signals: Learning From Failure
I love that visualization exercise and I'm gonna add to There's a way 'Cause sometimes people say, and I and I am one of these have trouble like making the the movie in your head. But what I do is write a pre cap, not a recap, but a pre cap and write out as if it had already happened. Oh, my conversation with MK went so well and it we I learned so much and and you know, the technology worked great and people were receptive and blah blah blah blah.
Yeah, all the things that you want to happen. It just helps, you know, all of this is getting your brain to feel supported and that you've got it and to build that until you get that muscle memory. But I'm hearing from someone so as accomplished. And experience as yourself that you're still using the tools, doing the reps.
Absolutely.
You know, every day. Well, this is so interesting. I w there's one other question that we cannot let you go until you give I'm gonna make you hold you hostage until you give us the the scoop on this. Since you were w helping companies in some cases And choose people. What are signals that executives are looking for that they're not telling you?
Well th we're look we're still looking for unicorns, especially in executives. And the unicorn scenario is this executive has the right amount of competency, the right amount of experience. They're primed for the opportunity. I think unfortunately what I see in the tech space is that oftentimes they're looking for someone who's already done the job successfully for someone else.
Yeah.
Which I I think should be a little bit of a flag. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily a red flag, but maybe a yellow flag. Yeah.
Yeah.
if they've already done that job because to me that means they may get bored very quickly in this new role.
Yeah.
I like for people to be able to stretch their capabilities. It's all about what someone's capable of doing for that next opportunity. And I like to present folks. Who are ready and property? shown that they have the competency and that they're going to be able to build and be excited about this new role. Nothing smacks a boredom more than, hey, I did roll X, Y, and Z for Microsoft and I'm gonna go do the same thing for uh for Google.
Yeah.
Where's the excitement in that? Because I guarantee you, although those are two very different companies, about four months in, you're gonna start feeling Exactly the same thing.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Different different people, different logo, but the same issues that you were dealing with in the last company you're gonna be dealing with the Mess one. I like to think
that new opportunities with someone who's eminently capable and confident but just hasn't done that role or where we need to be looking. And I will tell you that there is a although companies say that they're looking for uh folks with prior display of leadership experience, they're not digging deep enough to figure out exactly what
that leadership experience amounts to or what that individual has learned through their experiences of being a leader. Because if they present in an interview a bunch of rosy stories about how they were able to build teams effectively and the team was able to do this, that and the other under their leadership. I want to hear about some failures. I want to hear about when you didn't do so well as a leader and what you learned from it because those are the folks
who are reflective and who are really growing as leaders. And if they can't outline a failure to you. That is a red flag. That's another
Oh wow. Okay.
that you probably should not be hiring this person because their first failure may be on your watch then
¶ Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts
Wow. Note to self. Find that failure and share it freely and frequently. MK, this has been so valuable. Thank you so much. This has been great.
Appreciate it. Thanks, Laura.
loved that conversation with MK. He was really on it. There were so many takeaways. I think my favorite is to frame what you want to say as the decision to be made. Like what is the decision to be made? I think that's an excellent filter that's gonna force you to make your message relevant to the conversation at hand. And really the strongest executive presence comes from translating technical risk or even other risk into business risk.
and decisions, right? And this makes you sound strategic, prepared, and trustworthy, like someone who understands the bigger picture and makes the decision maker's job easier. I want to mention that enrollment for summer camp just opened. Those on the wait list got a nice juicy discount, which ends the first week of June. I don't know when you're listening to this, but there is a link if you would are interested.
It's a private podcast series where you'll get daily podcast episodes focused on one single thing to do to improve your executive presence. Have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
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