Doing this helps facilitate and focus consensus-building
After years of watching great strategic recommendations stall in committee discussions, I’ve learned that one-size-fits-all presentations often create more confusion than clarity.
Different stakeholders care about fundamentally different aspects of any strategic initiative, and when everyone receives the same comprehensive report, they often talk past each other during decision meetings. Your CFO wants to understand financial implications and risk mitigation; your head of operations focuses on implementation complexity and resource requirements; your sales leader cares about customer impact and competitive positioning.
When you ask me to create targeted summaries for each key stakeholder, something powerful happens during consensus-building: everyone can see that their specific concerns have been directly addressed and thoroughly analyzed. This doesn’t mean sugar-coating difficult findings—it means organizing insights in ways that speak to each person’s decision-making priorities and expertise. The best AIs are capable of doing this pretty much on their own, if informed of each stakeholder’s role, responsibilities and outlook, so this turns out not to be a significant “add” to project scope.
I’ve watched executive teams reach consensus in single meetings when each member received analysis formatted around their primary concerns, versus watching the same teams debate for weeks when everyone struggled through generic comprehensive reports. The stakeholders feel heard and respected when their unique perspectives are acknowledged in the analysis structure, and they’re more likely to engage constructively in group discussions because they understand exactly how the recommendation addresses their domain-specific concerns.
