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Company: Financial Institution
Development needs: An IT department was stuck in a routine of doing the "same-old presentations" at their weekly project updates. Presenters lacked enthusiasm, originality, and the ability to keep the audience interested. The CEO told the CIO he would not tolerate another week of boring project updates.
Challenges: It was the custom for the CEO and senior management team to be informed weekly of the status of all IT projects. The project teams had been using a standard PowerPoint format where they simply "filled in the blanks." They had never been given feedback about their poor presentations. The average length of employment for the team members was 20 years. Their attitude was: This is how we have always done it... why change? So, receiving feedback would be new to them. Getting them to be concise, dynamic, and open to new ways of presenting would be a huge challenge. They needed to be open-minded, think "outside the box," and risk trying new ways of presenting to senior management.
Solutions:
- VoicePro® worked with the IT department to re-engineer their PowerPoint format, modifying their approach so the slides were clear, concise and easy to read. We then showed the presenters how to evaluate the necessity for each slide and determine if the message could be delivered more clearly in another way. We put this team through a customized VoicePro® TechConnect™ program, incorporating real-work topics that made the learning experience relevant to them. They worked through exercises that enabled each presenter to find his or her own level of dynamism, balance facts with the appropriate level of emotion, and eliminate the data dumping abhorred by the CEO.
- Storytelling was a must for this group. VoicePro® helped them bring life to the dry spots in their presentations, which quickly became more dynamic and alive. Almost overnight the CEO and senior management began to "get the message."
- It was necessary to coach senior management on how to create and maintain a risk-taking culture for its presenters. The encouragement to try new ways of communicating and to learn from their mistakes allowed each IT presenter to find his or her authentic communication style. The result? Confident, convincing presenters; weekly updates that conveyed the value of its ongoing projects to the company, and an engaged CEO who wanted to hear more.
What did these solutions do for the company?
- IT employees spent less time preparing for weekly update meetings and more time on projects.
- The meetings were shorter.
- The CEO was happier with the project updates, enjoyed attending the meetings, and gained more useful information for decision-making.
- For the first time, the IT group felt a connection to senior management — they were now working together as a team.
- Miscommunication was appreciably decreased, leading to better understanding by everyone and shortened project timelines.
- The IT department experienced significant cost savings, and time is money for this team.
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