Board-Ready | Strategic decision narrative
Stop presenting information. Start asking for decisions.
For executives and leadership teams who take decisions to boards, investors, executive committees and panels. Participants leave with the structure of a real paper, a clear ask, and a plan for the hardest question in the room.
Free field card
"If you can't say it in twelve seconds, you have a topic, not a decision."
The templateFive ways it failsYour draft
Get the 12-Second Ask →
Sound familiar?
Good analysis. No decision.
The problem is rarely the thinking. It's that the thinking arrives as a tour of the data instead of a recommendation someone can say yes to.
- Papers that run to forty slides and still don't say what they want.
- Smart people who lose their authority the moment the first hard question lands.
- Board meetings that end in "come back with more information."
- A strategy everyone approved and nobody below the executive team can explain.
- A capable executive facing the board for the first time, and everyone quietly nervous about it.
The method
Nine moves. One decision.
Every strategic paper, whether it goes to a board, an investor or an assessment panel, follows the same architecture. Participants learn to speak from it, not from slides.
1
Decision askedWhat exactly is on the table?2
Why nowWhat has changed that makes this urgent?3
StakesThe risk of not acting, and the prize for acting.4
OptionsTwo or three genuine paths, including doing nothing.5
Trade-offsWhat each path costs us.6
RecommendationA clear position, stated without apology.7
ProofThe data and mechanism behind it.8
Risks and mitigationsWhat happens if we're wrong, and the plan.9
Next stepWhat the board must do today.Notice what's missing: background, history, who the team is. Boards don't need the backstory. They need the decision.
The toolkit
Not notes. A paper that's ready to go.
Participants bring a live decision: a board paper, an investment case, a capstone, a strategy they have to land. They leave with it restructured.
Framing
Choose the lens on purpose.
LossGrowthIdentity
The same fact, framed differently, produces a different decision. Participants choose the frame for the decision-maker in the room, not for their own comfort.
Data that goes somewhere
Every number earns its place.
Signal, meaning, stakes, decision. A number that doesn't climb towards the ask comes off the page.
Hostile questions
Hold the room under fire.
Acknowledge, reframe, respond, bridge. Rehearsed live until it holds, so the presenter keeps the last word.
Formats and investment
Three ways in.
Same method, sized to the problem. Roughly five minutes of input for every forty minutes of work on your own material.
For teams
Team workshop
For leadership teams and high-potential cohorts preparing real papers.
$5,500 half day
$8,500 full day
- Up to 20 participants
- Sponsor briefing and tailoring
- Printed participant workbooks
- Feedback on every participant's ask
One to one
Board intensive
For an executive with a specific board, investor or panel presentation on the calendar.
$3,700 four sessions
- Four 90-minute sessions
- Full rehearsal with hostile questioning
- A map of the decision-makers in the room
- Paper restructured on the nine-part spine
Program module
Universities and academies
Delivered inside MBA, Executive MBA and leadership academy programs.
$3,500 two-hour masterclass
- In person, hybrid or fully online
- Workbook built for the cohort's assessment
- 15% off for accredited education providers
Where it's been used
From Executive MBA capstones at a leading Australian business school to board preparation for a Chief Operating Officer, whose sponsor extended the coaching after the board meeting.
Delivered by Kevin MacIsaac
Warm with you. Blunt with your paper.
Executive coach, facilitator, and a professional actor since 2003. Kevin works with executives before the moments that decide careers and budgets.
Stop apologising for your view. If you don't believe the recommendation, the board won't either.
Who is it for?
Executives and senior managers who take decisions upward: to a board, an investment committee, an executive team or an assessment panel. It works for individuals preparing one high-stakes presentation and for teams who present to the same audience every quarter.
Do participants need to bring anything?
Yes. A live decision: a board paper, an investment case, a strategy or a capstone. The session restructures real material, not a made-up case.
Can it run online?
Yes. Board-Ready runs in person, hybrid or fully online, with breakout pairs and live drills in place of room exercises.
How is this different from presentation skills training?
Presentation training improves delivery. Board-Ready fixes the argument first: what you're asking for, why now, and what it costs to say no. Delivery work comes after the decision is clear.
Start here
What's the decision on the table?
Tell us who has to decide, by when, and what happens if they don't. Twenty minutes is enough to know whether this is the right fit.
kevin@bodkintraining.com | 0401 182 506
- You describe the decision.
Who decides, by when, and what's at stake. - We tell you straight.
Whether it needs a workshop, an intensive or neither. - You get a scoped proposal.
Built around the date that matters.