[team_member style=”” image_path=”http://dev.simswyeth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/consulting_icon.png” members_name=”Consulting” members_title=”A Case Study” link_to_page=”” description=”” last_item=””]
A growing consulting firm providing research to the pharmaceutical industry contacted me to train its researchers to be better presenters.
Unlike some of their competitors, they had a policy that only those who did the research could present it to clients. Other firms chose a different business model: they hired researchers to do research, and sales people to present it.
Insisting that research be presented by the researchers meant that the firm had to help its highly analytical personnel overcome their lack of experience standing in front of clients and potential clients, engaging with them on both strategic and tactical issues pertaining to their business.
The leader of the firm knew that clients did not read written reports. Instead, they waited for the meeting; they waited for the presentation, for someone to show up and bring the material to life.
This meant that the perceived value of their information products depended on the experience the clients had at the meetings with the researchers. It was imperative to the business that presentations to clients were both substantive and engaging.
To increase the value of those meetings, and to ensure that clients acquired a thorough understanding of the issues, they chose to hire Sims Wyeth to develop the researchers and turn them into more effective communicators in terms of substance and style.
We introduced our program called “Presenting for Results“, a highly experiential and interactive learning process in which clients master a number of essential communication competencies:
Presenting for Results begins with a series of exercises designed to help the participants get comfortable on stage, master their delivery skills, structure presentation content in a logical and/or story-like manner, connect with their audience, and design and use effective visual aids
We videotape many of the exercises, provide feedback and coaching, engage in debate on various issues, and give everyone multiple chances to demonstrate increased confidence and new, more effective behaviors, such as the ability to facilitate discussion.
We have had this firm as a client for 12 years and continue to support them as they hire new researchers, prepare for high stakes presentations with potential new clients, and drive the value of their brand deeper into their client organizations through the skill and professionalism of their researchers/ presenters.
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[team_member style=”” image_path=”http://dev.simswyeth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/healthcare.png” members_name=”Healthcare” members_title=”A Case Study” link_to_page=”” description=”” last_item=””]
A Harvard professor called me to say that he had been criticized by his Dean for his lackluster performance at an important symposium.
I flew to Boston to find him in the midst of a crisis of confidence. I asked him to describe the entire event, and learned that he had never had any instruction in how to develop or deliver presentations, despite the fact that he was a faculty member of a distinguished university, and had been teaching and lecturing for several years.
He explained that his boss could be very critical, that he himself had been nervous about the event because of the large audience.
I asked him to deliver the presentation to me and allow me to capture it on video. He did, and while it wasn’t terrible, I could see immediately where he could improve.
He did not have a strong opening. He took a long time to get into the topic. He included a reference to his father at one point, but did not illustrate his points with good personal stories. His slides were dense with words and amateurishly designed, and finally, while he had a strong voice and a degree of comfort on the stage, he tended to pace and could not focus his eyes when he spoke.
All this I told him as we watched the tape together. When we were done, I made the needed suggestions, he agreed to make them, and I left.
The next day, he showed me the revised presentation, which was much better. He had woven the story of his father into the presentation, so it became a kind of case study for the issue he was addressing.
However, when I asked him to deliver the talk to me, his opening was still weak. I stopped him to explain that effective openings had to take the audience by surprise. They had to be unexpected and unpredictable–more interesting than anything the audience might be thinking about.
To improve the opening, we put a powerful graphic up front, followed by the story of the father. It was personal, emotional, and revealed the depth of respect this man had for his Dad.
We also cleaned up the visuals, giving each one a headline that was a complete sentence, a sentence that expressed a point of view and established the big idea of the slide. At the same time, we eliminated a lot of text on the slides and found captivating images, or graphics, which the speaker could explain without reading notes or forcing the audience to read and listen simultaneously.
Finally, I drilled the speaker on not only looking at people when speaking to them, but also actually seeing them and responding to what he sees. This encourages listeners to signal the speaker with nods, frowns, or other telling expressions, and helps the presentation stop being a monologue and become more of a dialogue–a much more powerful interaction.
A few weeks after this engagement I received an email from the professor. His testimonial (below)… summarizes his transformation.
INSERT FRATES TESTIMONIAL
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[team_member style=”” image_path=”http://dev.simswyeth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/consulting_icon.png” members_name=”Consulting” members_title=”A Case Study ” link_to_page=”” description=”” last_item=”true”]
A young, up-and-coming partner at KPMG wants to run for the position of Chairman and asks me to help him get elected. He has been highly successful at building a team in his own area of the firm, and he wants to do the same for the entire organization.
It won’t be easy. The firm is a patchwork of partner fiefdoms. Every partner guards his clients, and his territory, and will not allow the experts on his team to work for other partners.
Of course this means that the clients don’t have access to the full range of talent in the firm. So while the partners are holding on to short term financial goals, the level of service is uneven across the various territories, and the quality of service delivered to the clients is deteriorating. The firm needs a different service delivery model.
In order to win the Chairmanship, my client has to address the National Partners’ Meeting in the biggest ballroom in America, and then make an appearance at every firm office in the country to lay out his plan and engage with the partnership.
The partners are highly skeptical of the plan to give up control of their territories and share clients, revenue, and human resources. Yet the future of the firm depends on its ability to bring the right people to any client problem anywhere in the world.
We began by getting to know each other. We talked about his childhood, his parents, his happiest and saddest moments, as well as his business life–the real events that shaped who he had become. I was looking for stories that he could use to personalize his message and enable his audience to identify with him.
We worked on strategy–what I call the A to B switch. “A” defines where the audience is now, and “B” defines where we want to take them. We needed to understand their predisposition: their thoughts, feelings and attitudes in position “A” and then figure out how to move enough of them to the “B” position.
We divided the population into thirds: the immoveable, the moveable, and the movers. We needed a series of speeches and presentations that would reaffirm the passions of the “Movers”, activate the “Moveables”, and deactivate the negativity of the “Immoveables.”
We developed a vivid description of the problem facing the firm and the consequences should the status quo continue. We also offered a vision of the future in which technology would enable clients to leverage partners with particular types of expertise, no matter where the partner happened to live. We linked my client’s own personal experience to this kind of global team building, so that he could speak to its power and profitability.
Finally, once we had scripted the talks, we rehearsed the delivery and the anticipated Q&A so that the client was as comfortable and prepared as he could be.
The client was elected Chairman of the firm and, over a period of years, was successful at launching the needed change. I remained with him as a coach and advisor on both messaging and his ability to deliver the messages. He retired having made a profound impact on the quality of the firm’s service delivery.
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