Your business case isn't weak, it might just be in the wrong language

I was talking to a leader recently who had a genuinely strong case for investment in a new project. Clear return, solid numbers, it was a plan that made sense to everyone on his own team. He put it to the board and got a lukewarm response, and came away convinced the case itself was the problem, so he started rewriting it, by adding more detail, and more of the thinking behind the plan.

The case wasn't the problem. The board barely knew this part of the business, had no track record with this kind of project to lean on, and needed to see the downside risk laid out plainly before they'd back anything, not more conviction about the upside. Once the ask was reframed as here's the risk if we don't, here's the risk if we do, here's how we'd know early if it wasn't working, the same case that had landed flat a month earlier got approved in a single meeting.

Nothing about the underlying plan had changed. What changed was the language it was delivered in, and that distinction is worth taking seriously, because most of us make our case in whatever language feels persuasive to us personally, and then wonder why someone who thinks in an entirely different currency wasn't moved by it. It's the same underlying idea behind Cohen and Bradford's currencies model, which I've written about before in the context of managing up, that people respond to what they actually value, not to what you'd value in their position. Applied to making a case rather than building a relationship, it becomes a question of what evidence someone needs to see before they can say yes, rather than what evidence would convince you.

There's decent research behind why this particular version of the mismatch, risk versus narrative, shows up so often. Work on message framing, much of it building on Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory, has found that how something is framed, as a potential gain or a potential loss, measurably changes how persuasive it is, and which framing works best depends heavily on the risk perception of the person receiving it. Someone who's naturally risk aware responds far more to a clearly laid out downside than to an enthusiastic upside, however real that upside is. Someone who thinks in narrative and relationship needs the story and the context first, and finds a page of numbers with nothing around it cold rather than convincing. Neither response is difficult or unreasonable. It's simply that the case is being processed through a lens that's always worked for that particular person, and if it isn't built for that lens, it can be genuinely strong and still fail to land.

A useful discipline that comes out of the wider research on tailoring persuasive messages to an audience is to properly separate the content of your case from its framing before you ever present it. The content, the numbers, the plan, the reasoning, should barely change from one audience to the next. The framing, whether you lead with opportunity or risk, whether you open with a story or a summary of figures, whether precedent matters more than potential, needs to shift depending on who's actually receiving it. Before finalising a big ask, it's worth asking one question that's easy to skip in the rush to get something over the line. Not is this case strong, but what does this specific person need to see before they'll say yes.

There's a particular kind of frustration that builds when you know you're right and still can't get someone over the line, and the instinct is almost always to make the case bigger, add more evidence, push harder on the same argument, when actually the case was never really the issue. The people who get backed consistently aren't always the ones with the strongest argument. They're the ones who've worked out that persuasion isn't a fixed skill, it's closer to a translation exercise, and the translation changes depending on who's on the other end of it. A number that would convince one board member leaves another cold. A story that moves one investor reads as fluff to the next. Knowing the difference, and being willing to build the same case twice in two different languages if you need to, is what actually gets things through.

If there's a case sitting on your desk right now that you know is strong but hasn't landed yet, it might not need to be bigger. It might just need to be said differently to the specific person you're saying it to.

Who's the last person you made a case to that landed flatter than it should have, and what language do you think they were actually working in?

Nicola Gunstone is an executive coach working with CEOs, MDs and leadership teams across the South East. If making your case to a board, an investor or a chair is a live issue for you, you can find out more about working with me or connect on LinkedIn.