Entries Tagged 'Communication' ↓

Today, I was roped into facilitating and co-hosting a workshop last minute for a professional services firm (PSF).

The exact material of the workshop is something that I am no longer as close to anymore so I was ‘in at the deep end’ - to put it lightly. This provided a useful reminder for me of the importance of preparation for any presentation - no matter how small (something that I am passionate about - when I have sufficient warning).

Here is a brief skim through some of the key lessons that I was reminded of during the course of the day in delivering effective presentations:

1. Beware of your ‘ummming’ and ‘errring’ between sentences or words - this horror is best revealed to yourself by videoing your presentation. Bad news for me today was that even I could hear them in real-time as I was saying them! This boils down to not having rehearsed the material sufficiently - not my fault in this case.
2. Slooooow down. The faster you speak, the more eager you can sound to get the ‘ordeal’ over with (perhaps the audience would have thanked me for sparing them!)
3. Have some real life anecdotes or stories up your sleeve. This helps keep the energy and interest level of the audience up. Again, this requires decent advance preparation and research. Ideally, try to intersperse the stories about every 10 minutes to avoid eyes rising up to the ceiling in a sleepy trance-like state.
4. Have a strong beginning and end - your audience won’t remember much in between but they will likely remember these.
5. Visuals are all important. Big, colourful and minimal.
6. Online software demonstrations require good preparation and knowledge of what to do when things go wrong…..
7. Interjections of humour can help. As can injecting some energy by walking around the room and digging out the old flip-chart for a bit of audience participation. Helps especially when the content is a tad dry.
8. If it’s a small audience, get them to introduce themselves at the beginning and give a little background about their relevant experience. This helps you gauge the level at which to pitch the talk and allows for the audience to speak up (and therefore participate) from the outset.
9. Keep to the allotted time particularly if the content of the seminar or workshop is particularly heavy on technical detail - your audience will appreciate it. We got this right and, yes they did!
10. Ask for audience feedback on forms. You might not want it after a difficult course but it is in your interests in the long-term to help build your skills and develop the course. (Yes, we did and no, it wasn’t that bad!)

I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

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Information today has a finite life. And it’s getting shorter. Every day.

And this is even more pronounced in the case of technical information offered by PSFs.

Consider some examples of recent technical legal, tax or accounting advice which you may have provided for clients - how long before your competitors get wind or that the rules change and the advice becomes obsolete? Not long. And the length of time between idea generation and execution is getting shorter.

It is now becoming business critical for PSFs to generate replacement intellectual property faster than ever before.

So why fight to protect intellectual property which has such a short shelf life anyway? Why not publish online those slides from that prestigious client ‘Property Update Breakfast’ or perhaps anonymised examples of advice so that clients and (soon to be) clients can witness firsthand your expertise and speed to market? And if competitors get hold of this information - so what? Collaboration for the benefit of the wider client base perhaps?

It is all about the race to innovate. And with this mindset, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Just a thought……

A little more about the skill changes we believe are facing PSFs today.

What was once a gentleman’s game has now become more akin to a ‘blood sport’, suggests Thomas J. De Long in reference to the PSF professions in a recent interview at HBS Working Knowledge.

This analogy, emanating from De Long & J Gabarro’s new book (When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance), refers to the disruptive change in landscape experienced by the PSF professions in recent years e.g. from increased globalisation, more demanding clients, war for talent & retention of key players etc. 

In the authors’ view, this new landscape in which PSFs find themselves requires a shift to the 4 sets of leadership behaviors which they term the ‘integrated leadership model’. 

These leadership traits may be summarised as follows:

* Setting direction - PSFs often focus on the short term and spend little time providing direction on where the firm or practice is going and why. Since professionals are often solely focused on specific goals and tasks, they need leaders to articulate the organization’s objectives and how their work relates to those objectives…..

* Gaining commitment to the direction - Professionals have an innate need to be involved and included. They want to be heard. Unfortunately, a sense of alienation exists among firm professionals at all levels who feel the firm has changed and that the current culture and leadership has left them out; many solid performers who are not the star players at a firm often feel as if their contributions are being undervalued…….

* Execution - Follow-through and accountability cannot be left to chance, even though professionals are naturally task-driven. Execution is a key activity for leaders who are intimately involved in business development, selling, client service, and delivery. Balancing the need to get things done with the need to get professionals on board is a huge challenge for PSF leadership. Execution is about not letting dates slide. Execution is the process of meeting the financial goals that have been set and holding professionals at all levels accountable.

* Setting a personal example - Providing a positive personal example is crucial when leading professionals. In the stress-filled, volatile environments of PSFs, it matters what leaders actually do through word and deed. Leaders must embody the firm’s stated values and goals or those values and goals become meaningless for professionals. Gaining commitment requires that leaders display personal integrity, support their professionals, and take responsibility for their own actions—including mistakes. Nothing undermines the credibility of leaders as quickly as exhorting professionals to do one thing while they themselves do the opposite.

[Summaries taken directly from the article and where abridged indicated by '....']

Effective and clear communication is a clear theme throughout this leadership model.  No surprises there.  But what are you or your PSF doing to enhance your people’s communcation skills - or is this being left to chance……..?   

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