You’re prepping for a big presentation. Slides are done, talking points are sharp, everything looks good. You send it to your technical colleagues for a gut check, they suggest a tweak or two, you make the edits, you present.

Here’s the trap. No one in that review had decision-maker eyes. Your technical colleagues judged it against their own values, precision, completeness, rigor. Decision makers don’t score you on any of that.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤, 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐧𝐨. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.