Does your company have a strategy for working with investors?

Whether your company is big or small, IBM’s former CEO Sam Palmisano says it’s essential to build relationships with your shareholders before there’s a specific problem to address.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to communicate with your investors to meet their needs — without needing to change your strategy. When Palmisano was leading IBM, he offered investors detailed multi-year projections of revenue growth, rather than quarterly outlooks. This approach helped to keep the company’s focus on the long term. As he describes, “We needed to give [investors] something that worked for us and our management system and our strategy, but also was simpler and clearer so they could decide what investments they would like to make.”

You’ll also learn how Palmisano approached his role as CEO in shareholder meetings in order to send the right message to both shareholders and employees.

Key episode topics include: strategy, leadership, growth, growth strategy, economics, investors, Wall Street, shareholders, IBM.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: How to Manage Wall Street (2014)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

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How to Build — and Maintain — Relationships with Your Shareholders

HBR On Strategy

How to Build — and Maintain — Relationships with Your Shareholders