Business Core · Stakeholders · Module
Reporting
What is communicated to whom, how often, and in what form — including the things that are harder to report.
The idea
How it works
Reporting builds credit slowly and loses it quickly. An organisation that reports consistently through ordinary periods is believed during difficult ones; one that goes quiet when things are hard is not believed at any point afterwards.
The common failure is volume without relevance. A long report that does not help the recipient decide anything is not read, and its length is later cited as evidence that the information was provided.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Report to the recipient’s decision
What do they need to decide, and what would change that decision? Everything else is padding.
- 02
Keep the rhythm through bad periods
A missed report during difficulty says more than its contents would have.
- 03
Lead with what changed
Not with what happened. Recipients are tracking deltas.
- 04
Name the bad news early
Discovered later, it costs the credibility of everything reported before it.
One level in
The components of reporting
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The report content
What changed, what it means, what is being done — matched to the recipient’s decisions.
Learn
A missed report during a difficult period says more than its contents would have. Keep the rhythm.
The other modules in stakeholders
Identification
Establishing who is affected by the organisation and who can affect it. The second group is usually mapped; the first is usually not.
LearnExpectations
What each stakeholder actually wants, established by asking rather than by assuming. Assumed expectations are usually the organisation’s own priorities restated.
LearnEngagement
How each stakeholder is involved — informed, consulted, or genuinely party to the decision — and being honest about which.
Learn