Executive commsAgenticJuly 18, 2026

The Seat at the Table Memo

Suggested tool: Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini.

The scenario

Something happened this week that touches your business: a competitor move, a regulatory shift, an AI announcement, an earnings surprise in your category. You could summarize it. Instead, you are going to send your CEO one page of actual counsel, with a recommendation and an ask, and you are going to do it before anyone requests it.

The prompt

I am the [title] at [company, one line of context]. Here is what happened this week: [paste the news or development, with a link or summary]. Here is what my CEO cares about right now: [paste the two or three priorities]. Write a one-page strategic counsel memo from me to the CEO. Structure it in four parts: (1) What happened, three sentences maximum, no throat-clearing. (2) Why it matters to us, tied directly to the CEO's stated priorities, including what happens if we do nothing. (3) What I recommend, two or three specific actions, each with an owner and a timeframe. (4) What I need from you, one clear ask. Write it in the voice of a trusted advisor, not a summarizer. Plain language, no jargon, no hedging every sentence. Cut anything the CEO already knows. Keep it under 400 words.

How to use it

Pick your trigger. Choose one development from this week that genuinely matters to your organization. Not the biggest headline. The one with the sharpest "so what" for your business. If you cannot articulate why it matters in one sentence, pick a different trigger.

Gather the CEO's context. Write down the two or three things your CEO actually cares about this quarter (growth targets, a launch, a reorg, board pressure, reputation risk). Counsel that ignores the CEO's priorities is just a longer summary.

Paste both into this prompt:

Red-team your own memo. Read the output and ask the model: "What would the CFO push back on? What am I asserting without evidence?" Fix the two weakest points. If the recommendation could have been written by someone outside the company, it is not counsel yet. Add the inside knowledge only you have.

Send it, then make it a habit. Deliver the memo before you are asked. Do it weekly and it stops being a document and starts being a reputation: you become the person who sees around corners.

Why it works

It repositions you in one page. A weekly counsel memo quietly rebrands you from the person who reports the news to the person who tells the CEO what to do about it.
It forces the advisor muscle. The structure will not let you hide in summary mode, because parts three and four demand a recommendation and an ask.
It compounds. One memo is a nice gesture. Twelve weeks of them is a track record you can point to when the seat at the table gets debated.

Cowork version

For Claude Cowork, where the prompt can read the files in a folder.

Build this week's Seat at the Table Memo and save it to [target folder]. Do the following:

1. Read CEO-Priorities.md and my company context file in [folder] so you know what matters to us this quarter.

2. Search the news from the past 7 days for developments that touch my company, category, or competitors: regulatory moves, competitor announcements, AI developments, market shifts.

3. Score the candidates against my CEO's priorities and pick the single development with the sharpest 'so what' for us. List the runners-up in one line each so I can see what you passed on.

4. Draft a one-page counsel memo in four parts: what happened (three sentences), why it matters to us tied to the CEO's priorities including the cost of doing nothing, what I recommend (two or three actions with owners and timeframes), and what I need from the CEO (one ask).

5. Red-team the draft: flag the two weakest claims and strengthen them or mark them as open questions for me.

6. Save two files in [target folder]: Memo-[date].md (the finished memo) and Memo-[date]-backup.md (the runners-up list plus sources and the red-team notes).

This prompt first ran in TIC. Read the original issue →