here is a mystique to annual reports， and for good reason. The?， are<br > not only the most important document for most companies， they<br > are also in many cases the most expensive. It ts a prolect that has the<br >direct involvement of the CEO， while involving literally scores of people<br >in the company， some of whose jobs or status in the company may de<br >pend on how well they perform on this project.<br > Reports today need to communicate to a variety of audiences: share<br >holders， brokers， stock analysts， lending institutions， employees， cus-<br >tomers， prospective employees， the business and public presses and<br >government officials. With such multiple audiences， there are quite natu-<br >rally a number of agendas and expectations for the report， depending on<br >whom in the company one talks to.<br >Whose Book Is This， Anyway?<br > In most cases the annual report is， quite simply， the CEO s book. Just as<br >most corporations reflect the personality and direction of the person at<br >the top， so the annual report reflects the chief executive officer s outlook，<br >philosophy and vision--and aesthetic taste，<br > The annual report is a very personal project for most CEOs. It is a re-<br >flection on them personally， and they care a great deal about how they are<br >presented to their peers， their shareholders and their many publics. Think<br >about it: Their picture is displayed， they sign their name to the text， their<br >successes and failures are the subject of the report. Yet， even with all this<br >riding on the report， many CEOs are shielded from much of the process<br >by their own organization.<br > ~Because of the CEO s pivotal role， it is virtually impossible for a de-<br >signer to create an effective annual report without first finding out what s<br >on the CEO s mind，" says Richard Lewis， chairman of Corporate Annual<br >Reports Inc.， a leading producer of annual reports for major American<br >corporations. "The designer has to spend time with the CEO or be ex-<br >tremely well briefed by someone close to him. Without that kind of input，<br >a designer falls into a bottom-up trap--dealing several rungs down the<br >corporate ladder while trying to guess which topics and themes the CEO<br >considers most important for inclusion in the report."<br >Involve Top Management Early in the Process<br > I once worked on an annual repor~ for the holding company of a large<br >bank. The writer and I were at the corporate offices going over the final<br >mechanicals when the director of investor relations， our client， informed<br >