Why you get interrupted by executives.

The reason you get interrupted when speaking to an executive team? You are playing a cooperative board game as if it were solitaire. You bring your scripted slides and lay them out for your audience, making all the right moves in the right order. Your listeners, though, see the island is sinking (as in the cooperative board game Forbidden Island).

The next time you are asked to present at the executive team meeting, come ready to engage in a cooperative board game. It's your job to tell everyone what the current conditions are and to suggest what the best next set of moves might be, but then invite all the players into the game. Be efficient with the first part, because the second part is where the real value happens.