COACHING CASES

Executive Board Presentation

A pharmaceutical chemist charged with the development of a new drug was slated to give a progress report to the corporation's executive committee. A previous presentation to this committee had not gone well. They read their mail while he presented to them!

For a multitude of reasons (habit, personal preference, desire to impress, lack of confidence in front of these executives) this gentleman was well on his way to creating yet another overly-technical presentation that would lose the attention of the senior executives. At the request of his department head we worked with him to create a new presentation, crafted for his audience.

The result was a success where there had previously been failure. The CEO and his fellow executive committee members stayed fully engaged and praised the chemist for a "highly valuable" presentation that gave them the information they needed.

A Big Contract

A defense contractor had managed to get itself added to the group of suppliers who would be considered for a Department of Defense contract valued at $750 million. This company knew it was an underdog with less experience than the other companies competing for the business.

Winning the contract came down to which supplier could most persuasively present its proposal to an audience of fifty military personnel. Videotaped recordings of the presentations would take the place of written proposals. Each supplier team would be given four hours to present its main proposal and respond to two case studies it was given just 24 hours before its scheduled appearance.

We were included in a group of experts charged with getting the team ready for the presentation. Over a two-week period we coached the individual presenters and then ran the team through rehearsals.

When the big week arrived we flew to the presentation site, incorporated the last-minute case studies into the presentation, and accomplished the unexpected: our client won the secret ballot taken of the military audience members and was awarded the contract.

Standing Out as the Leader

The acquisition of a large corporation by an even larger one was leading to the inevitable "cost savings from efficiencies." In other words, redundant facilities and personnel were being eliminated.

An executive with the acquired company was being given the "opportunity" to present to his potential bosses. He, and several other people in his department, would each be given ten minutes to present about themselves.

Over a weekend, we worked with him on his message. We convinced him not to deliver a slide-based resume (they already had his resume), but to position himself as a leader by speaking about his vision for the crucial role his group's specialty would be playing in the radically changing industry.

Out of eighteen people presenting, he was the only one to deliver a leadership-oriented message instead of a resume piece. He knew he had made an impact when the only presentation the bosses spoke about at a special dinner that evening was his vision of where the industry was going.

Six months later he was the only one of the eighteen still at the company and he was put in a new position with global responsibilities.

Concrete Results from a More Focused Presentation

In another corporate acquisition, we were asked to work with the general manager of the manufacturing firm being acquired. He had been told he would be presenting to the acquiring firm's sales mangers being flown in from several dozen countries. He was to introduce them to the main product his company would be adding to their product line now that it had become a subsidiary.

When we went through his presentation with him we found that he had prepared a message that had no call to action. When we asked what his goal was he said he wanted to "impress" the sales managers with the "cutting-edge technology" this product represented.

We convinced him that his goal needed to be much more concrete. Otherwise, he would forfeit the potential this presentation had. We helped him rebuild his presentation so that it persuasively called on the sales managers to consider a pilot program that would demonstrate the value of his product to one of their large customers. The result was commitments for eight major pilot programs that took his product global after having previously only been used in the United States.

Taking Skills to a New Level-Group Coaching

The re-imbursement managers at a biotech firm had already been through a presentation skills workshop. However, their leaders could see that they needed to come up to an even higher skill level given the challenging nature of their jobs.

We took the group through a full day of coaching focused on seated and standing presentations using the company's slides. Peer feedback created a rich environment of shared best practices. Not only was there on-the-spot improvement due to the extensive practice, but all of the participants finished the day with personal improvement priorities. Later reports from the field sited continued improvement in presenting effectiveness.