The coddled and shielded executive

My coworker Jim blog-ranted yesterday about how he has to dumb down executive presentations so the higher ups can understand what he is saying.

I find it alarming at many levels that the executives running fortune 100 or 500 companies can only comprehend at a 1st grade level. Since when did the business elite get so illiterate?

While I agree with Jim and share his pain (I have given a few exec-level presentations in my time), I also think there is another underlying cause for this: basically, people do not want their execs to know what is going on. So they ask for a presentation that is fairly scaled-down, even more than it should be. I have done the same thing when I was working as a security manager.

Now before you pass judgment on this practice, you should know that it is not always done with nefarious purpose. Many times the exec has no need to know all the details. Even with Jim keeping his bullets down to a very low number, sometimes the information is just too much.

However, in the work that Jim does (security assessments), the IT or security group may not want the exec to know all the details. Many times they probably would have preferred that an exec level presentation not be given, but the exec's probably insisted (which is their right since they paid for the thing). So they try to keep all the information from them so they can 1) keep the exec from micromanaging the remediation, and 2) not get fired because their company is exposed six ways from Sunday.

It's a game, basically. How do you keep doing your job with little exec interference while at the same time keep your paychecks coming in? Of course, if people just did their jobs, then the execs could know everything because the company would be fairly secure. But that's probably too much to ask...