Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Organisational Resources, Presentations Within Industry, Relationships And Communication

By Dom Richards


It is tricky to run a meeting without experience, and it will change throughout your career. Why do you need to call a meeting. In order to resolve a problem or issue. Why do you need to sort something out. To gain insight into the thoughts of others and allow them to help you progress.

Duration of the meeting depends on your agenda, depends on how well you know the people and the materials you have to discuss. Getting the right people in the room is of utmost importance, without the right mix of responsibility and input the meeting will be a failure.

Presentation slides are important for the meeting but ensure you have the facilities available. If anyone needs to bring something along ensure you give them plenty of notice for it to be a success. Create an action list / agenda items / accountability for the key issues to be discussed.

Quite often the discussion in meetings will become heated and people will have different views. The parking lot is a great tool for these sorts of issues. Always remain neutral and calm. Agenda: Context - Reasons for having a meeting, and the issues you have. Stakeholders - Ensure the correct people are involved and feel empowered. Your position - Discuss your ideas for the path forward. Action items - Keeping track of what is required and by when and whom and the context. Close out - Let everyone know that you appreciate their time.

When presenting to management its always a daunting task and you need to understand what it is that they find useful to see and hear. Congratulations that you have the opportunity to present to management, its not something that everyone gets a chance to do. What does management want. To understand the work in progress and ensure its in line with their vision for the future. They also want to reward good performance and it is a credit to you that you are an 'adviser' to the management team. What do you want from management. This is obviously different for each individual but in general we want recognition, money or power. This is a harsh way of framing it however when we break down motivation it is quite simple.

Trust of your peers and managers, this means we will needs to highlight areas for improvement and where we had difficulty. This puts a positive spin on something that isn't ideal, but think about if you don't talk about the negatives. Do you want to sell all the positives then be asked the hard questions at the end. Respect, respect is something that is hard to earn and easy to lose. It is all about integrity and proven capability. You know you are capable, the hard part is showing them. that's where the presentation comes in handy, show them your capability and talk about how you have influenced the outcome.

Tips and tricks for presentations

Structure is first and foremost, start with the outline of where you want to take them and progress in a logical fashion. Context / Details / Outcome.

Impression is everything so don't let yourself down. You have done a great job and finish with some positive notes on current work.

Go through the negative details early on so that you can discuss how they arose and what you did to rectify them , always prepare for the hard questions. Preparation can be done in a number of ways, brainstorming for causes and effects is a great way to show all the possibilities.

Graphics and pictures are great but also remember that we all learn in different ways. In general men prefer pictures and women are more linguistic.

In finishing, keep it simple (KISS principle)

We all want to do a good job. Relationships at work are pivotal, show your worth!




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