The data is too math-intensive to hold their interest.

Eyes glaze over. Gazes wander. Executives shift in seats. Expensive pens tap on conference tables. Math does that to people. You remember high school math class when you had to turn word problems into equations? Well, now you have to do that in reverse.

They really believe in their hunches.

C-Level executives are paid a lot of money on the assumption that they know stuff mere mortals don’t. And they got swagger. Who the hell are you to tell them their intuition doesn’t reflect reality? Well, it’s actually your job to tell them, isn’t it? Break the ice by asking if they saw Moneyball. Then slip the name Nate Silver into the conversation at some time in the presentation. You’re doing them a huge favor correcting assumptions that are untrue. But telling the truth isn’t enough – you have to sell the truth. Get your own swagger on.

They get a conflicting story from their own tribe.

Department heads like to say “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”. So, unfavorable data within a department will often be put through the “spin cycle” before they are presented to the C-level person. Or, the data may be buried altogether so as not to make the middle managers look bad. For instance, maybe the IT team only presents the CTO cumulative data on users of the new app – the arrow on the graph is a never-ending march upward. It’s no wonder, then, that the CTO may not embrace Marketing telling her that customers don’t like the new app, and never come back after their first visit. It may be the first time she’s heard it.