Executive Summaries: Where Less Really Is More

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THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, that brief, introductory section of a lengthy report or proposal, is often the only place decision makers go to determine whether they will take measurable actions on an idea or scrap it, whether they will allocate funds to a project or shred the document. Management demands that the executive summary live up to its name. (Summary comes from the Latin summatium, meaning epitome.) So the expectation is clear: tell me as thoroughly as possible, without wasting a word, only the information important to me so that I can decide on whatever you expect of me. “Millions of dollars are at stake,” a client for a major pharmaceutical company recently told me. “All the logic and due diligence I put into the proposal are useless unless I can move the CEO to act on the strength of the executive summary alone.” What a challenge! Writing executive summaries requires the writer to fulfill two objectives: * To understand management’s objectives for reading the executive summary. * To demonstrate content mastery of the original document by including and excluding information based on those reader’s objectives. Achieving these objectives means that executive summary writing is as much a reading assignment as it is a writing assignment; however, we read and write not for what interests us, but for what interests the executive who will read the summary. When writing an executive summary of research findings, we have many choices because volumes of information about most topics inundate us in a content-crazed world. And when writing an executive summary suggesting a course of action, we have many choices because management’s direction changes course rapidly in a volatile marketplace. For these reasons, I no longer express surprise when a corporate employee assigned to write an executive summary asks me, “What should go into an executive summary?” In the business world, many disparate staffers assume the task of summarizing, or epitomizing, in writing. Some are account executives writing executive summaries of their own proposals for their clients; others are junior executives briefing management on an issue by compiling useful data from numerous reports; still others are administrative assistants writing executive summaries of articles or books to save their managers reading time. Whatever the case, I find more training directors requesting courses, or at least course components, in writing effective executive summaries. The following discussion begins to answer most questions I field about this critical document. It comprises the key considerations for the writer in composing executive summaries that address their audience’s reading inclinations and content expectations. Executive Summaries and Abstracts: Similarities and Differences An important first point is to distinguish between an abstract and an executive summary. Looking up the word summary in a dictionary, you would find its primary definition to include the word abstract. This fact does not help clarify the difference for those of us paid to write one or the other. Both the abstract and executive summary share at least these purposes: * To index for readers the key points of a document. * To help readers decide whether they should read the entire document. Where the abstract and executive summary differ, however, is in their larger purposes – their personal connection to and professional expectation of the reader. Personal connection. The abstract works best in technical fields where the reader understands the complex material in the document. For example, a biochemist friend recently showed me one of her published articles. As soon as I read the abstract preceding her article, I realized that its subject, a thermodynamic analysis of intramolecular electron transfer in trimethylamine dehydrogenase, was intended for the consumption of her fellow researchers or subject-matter experts, not for readers like me who lack the basic knowledge of the principles, particulars, and positions of her field.