If you have experienced the following scenario, you are not alone. You have a fifteen minute time slot to present a proposal on behalf of your team to senior management. You spend hours on your research and delivery, only to find little or no positive reaction when you are through. What caused the unenthusiastic response?
I have found some excellent techniques to help gain senior level support through my work with change leaders over the past ten years. I have also seen more than one attempt flop. I decided to talk directly with several senior level leaders both in corporate and public organizations in order to discover best practices in presentations to senior management.
One thing nearly every executive noted was that team leaders eager to pitch a proposal for support, be it money or otherwise have a consistent tendency to offer far too much information in their presentations. Many proposals never make it past the proposal stage because the executives were too busy and consumed with their current projects to learn every detail of a new proposal. Most senior managers dont care to be involved in every detail that makes up the project your team is working on. They trust you to a number of decisions related to that proposal and dont want to have to be part of that process.
Here are three proven strategies to have a presentation to senior management that will limit the presentation to the most important details.
1. Use visual aids such as PowerPoint to give a summary of your main goals and objectives
Power point is so powerful in this type of presentation because it forces you to organize your key points into short and to the point statements. The Power Point Presentation should be high level key points, and you should be prepared with illustrative stories and anecdotes to bring those points alive. The goal will be to stay on any one Power Point screen no more than three minutes during your presentation. Make sure you have the details to back up your presentation, but only as a resource if you receive specific questions about a key issue.
2. Categorize the key activities and objectives into subgroups.
In a presentation I witnessed recently, the team leader included every detail of the tasks his team intended for 2009. While he had hoped to strengthen his case with a lot of details, it really just irritated the executives instead. One senior manager even spoke up and told the presenter that they had no interested in hearing what activities the team intended to undertake. The only thing important to them was the key highlights.
Separating goals and tasks into related groups is a helpful technique. One example of this might be to state in your introduction that in the coming year, your groups goal is to focus on cost savings, making processes more efficient and creating a stronger bottom line. Then, your presentation would consist of giving examples of how you intend to be successful in each of these three areas. Using this approach will help senior management to focus on how the proposals you suggest for your team will impact the entire company, and allow them to decide if these are the areas that they want to stress in the coming year.
3. Concisely summarize what you need from the executive team in order to move forward.
A good deal of proposal presentations are merely informational. The team leader will give an update on the progress of the project and then asks the executives if there are any further questions. Their hope with this approach is that the executive team will be so impressed that they offer funding and support to the project without being asked, which is rarely the case.
A more effective presentation would be to conclude with a slide specifically describing what it is that you need to make your project a success. Maybe it is a specific amount of money earmarked in the budget, or a critical decision by senior management, or even more company resources dedicated to your project. While there is the risk that you will be denied, it is much better to understand where you stand up front, rather than to hope for something that would never have been approved.
In the 1990s a team of external consultants worked with General Electric to develop a change acceleration process. The team came up with a four-step formula for effective elevator speeches:
* Our initiative is about . . . * It is essential to the organization because . . .* What this means for senior management is . . . . * Here is what we need from you. . .
Use this approach both in one-on-one conversations with stakeholders and in your formal pitches and presentations. You will find that your ability to argue for your case will improve as you learn to focus on these key elements.
Streamlining your sales presentations so that they are short and to the point, you will be much more successful at communicating your goals and not your tasks. Being very specific and clear about what you need will help senior management to know right away what you are proposing, what you would like from them to help you succeed, and, most important, how it will positively impact the entire organization.
I have found some excellent techniques to help gain senior level support through my work with change leaders over the past ten years. I have also seen more than one attempt flop. I decided to talk directly with several senior level leaders both in corporate and public organizations in order to discover best practices in presentations to senior management.
One thing nearly every executive noted was that team leaders eager to pitch a proposal for support, be it money or otherwise have a consistent tendency to offer far too much information in their presentations. Many proposals never make it past the proposal stage because the executives were too busy and consumed with their current projects to learn every detail of a new proposal. Most senior managers dont care to be involved in every detail that makes up the project your team is working on. They trust you to a number of decisions related to that proposal and dont want to have to be part of that process.
Here are three proven strategies to have a presentation to senior management that will limit the presentation to the most important details.
1. Use visual aids such as PowerPoint to give a summary of your main goals and objectives
Power point is so powerful in this type of presentation because it forces you to organize your key points into short and to the point statements. The Power Point Presentation should be high level key points, and you should be prepared with illustrative stories and anecdotes to bring those points alive. The goal will be to stay on any one Power Point screen no more than three minutes during your presentation. Make sure you have the details to back up your presentation, but only as a resource if you receive specific questions about a key issue.
2. Categorize the key activities and objectives into subgroups.
In a presentation I witnessed recently, the team leader included every detail of the tasks his team intended for 2009. While he had hoped to strengthen his case with a lot of details, it really just irritated the executives instead. One senior manager even spoke up and told the presenter that they had no interested in hearing what activities the team intended to undertake. The only thing important to them was the key highlights.
Separating goals and tasks into related groups is a helpful technique. One example of this might be to state in your introduction that in the coming year, your groups goal is to focus on cost savings, making processes more efficient and creating a stronger bottom line. Then, your presentation would consist of giving examples of how you intend to be successful in each of these three areas. Using this approach will help senior management to focus on how the proposals you suggest for your team will impact the entire company, and allow them to decide if these are the areas that they want to stress in the coming year.
3. Concisely summarize what you need from the executive team in order to move forward.
A good deal of proposal presentations are merely informational. The team leader will give an update on the progress of the project and then asks the executives if there are any further questions. Their hope with this approach is that the executive team will be so impressed that they offer funding and support to the project without being asked, which is rarely the case.
A more effective presentation would be to conclude with a slide specifically describing what it is that you need to make your project a success. Maybe it is a specific amount of money earmarked in the budget, or a critical decision by senior management, or even more company resources dedicated to your project. While there is the risk that you will be denied, it is much better to understand where you stand up front, rather than to hope for something that would never have been approved.
In the 1990s a team of external consultants worked with General Electric to develop a change acceleration process. The team came up with a four-step formula for effective elevator speeches:
* Our initiative is about . . . * It is essential to the organization because . . .* What this means for senior management is . . . . * Here is what we need from you. . .
Use this approach both in one-on-one conversations with stakeholders and in your formal pitches and presentations. You will find that your ability to argue for your case will improve as you learn to focus on these key elements.
Streamlining your sales presentations so that they are short and to the point, you will be much more successful at communicating your goals and not your tasks. Being very specific and clear about what you need will help senior management to know right away what you are proposing, what you would like from them to help you succeed, and, most important, how it will positively impact the entire organization.
About the Author:
Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, leader, and author with a emphasis in leading and communicating change. You can reach Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire