Making an Investment in the Work of Teamwork

As I write, my team and I are on our way to a Partnering session for a large Federal project in the Midwest.  This is an extremely complicated project, with multiple firms and stakeholders representing hundreds of constituents and their needs and interests.  Participants in the session come from the design, development, construction, and support fields. They are coming together to build a framework and foundation for collaboration and team success that will last for the duration of this highly sensitive and critical project.  As their facilitator, I think the partnering process has already begun with team members’ commitment to attend the session and bring issues and concerns to the table in what promises to be a very eventful and content-rich couple of days.  These team members clearly get it; They understand that they have to work together to achieve common as well as individual needs, goals, and expectations.

 

Partnering, done correctly, does not involve the singing of songs or the playing of silly games. Rather, it involves team members making a commitment to come together to discuss their needs in an open environment.  It involves team members, with often competing interests, aggressively working to identify and meet common goals.  And, it involves aligning team members’ beliefs and actions around a common definition of success.

Having completed extensive pre-partnering information gathering, I can tell you that this team faces some significant challenges – most project teams do.  Their challenges relate to the usual suspects of time, money, and resources, but they are also facing the added difficulty of a stressful and changing economy where all of the involved organizations are working harder with fewer resources and increased risk.  That these firms are willing to come together to for their common success, is both satisfying and humbling.  It’s satisfying that the leadership of these organizations understands the value of teamwork and that each are committed to achieving it on this project.  And, as a facilitator, it’s humbling to realize that these leaders have done the real work of partnering already – making time in their incredibly busy schedules to talk about the tough issues associated with teamwork. 

Building a team isn’t easy – and it doesn’t come without cost or conflict.  Teamwork requires airing out concerns and being willing to work through them in an open environment.  It requires revealing your issues to team members and asking for their assistance in resolving them.  And, it requires making yourself responsible for meeting other team member’s needs.  This collection of leaders knows that in this challenging economy, far from being an unnecessary expense, partnering is a proven path to maximizing success for all parties.

Meg Winch, President

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Meg specializes in the facilitation and training of communication and organizational skills, working with project team members to enhance the communication behaviors critical to their jobs.  She is a trained facilitator of formal partnering and public involvement processes.  She regularly works with teams to develop presentations, manage messages, and develop communication strategies and agreements. Meg also works with both public and private sector clients to develop comprehensive programs of both qualitative and quantitative research.

Great Presenters Start Young

As a presentation coach, I love working with teams of great speakers who enable me to focus on my first love, developing strategic and winning content.  My clients have long suspected it, and I’ll go public saying, that my strength is in knowing what content it takes to win.  I’m happiest when I have good speakers to deliver that content.  Fortunately, I have talented presentation coaches on staff who love coaching delivery and who excel at working with problem speakers.  Kristina Corbitt, one of our associate consultants, can take an almost catatonic speaker and make him/her competent in a reasonably short amount of time.  While I’ve worked and won with some pretty poor speakers over the years – coaching them to excellence – I prefer working on developing great, hard-hitting content that keeps the selectors interested and engaged.

So, how does one create speakers who can deliver that content in a compelling and interesting manner?  First, we don’t start the training process during an interview coaching session.  Great speakers take years to develop and firms need to start early in the training and development process. Fortunately, communication is 100% learned behavior.  We learn how to communicate – for better or worse – from our parents, siblings, friends, and later, colleagues.  Humans are sponges; we’re constantly adapting our skills to fit the environment and we’re constantly learning new things.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that as we age, learning is tougher and takes longer. 

The youngest members of firms should take a basic presentation skills course as part of their first year’s training.  And, they should be put in front of an in-house audience frequently to showcase new skills and receive feedback on their communication skills.  Firms should have regular brownbag sessions to present about project successes and challenges.  And, presentation ability should be on every performance evaluation/review form at every level of A/E/C organization.  I also think the same could be said for writing and interpersonal skills.

Great speakers start young and they have speaking skills constantly reinforced through training, regular practice, and constructive feedback.  I truly believe that anyone can be a good speaker – for those of us who are more senior in our professions, it just takes longer to get there.  No one is born a great presenter – great speaking takes time and constant attention to the craft.  But, it’s worth the effort.  Winning work in this market requires good information, strong decision-making, great content, and compelling speakers.  We can’t short our teams on any of these.

Making Presentation Development More Effective: Branding your Presentation

Most A/E/C firms have spent incredible amounts of time and money on branded marketing materials – logos, PPT templates, imagery, proposal designs, etc.  Much like our branded marketing collateral material, a presentation brand reflects the unique character of your organization and your specific approach to particular types of projects.  By developing and using a presentation brand, your organization can create more memorable presentations that reflect your unique culture.

 

A presentation brand makes your team memorable and sets an expectation in the minds of selectors and potential selectors.  One firm with which I regularly work (and win!) has created a knowledge-based brand for their presentations.  At Communication Resources Northwest, we affectionately call them “presentation nerds” and it’s something that works for them more often than not.  Clients routinely say that their interviews are more knowledge rich and research based than any of their competition.  These same clients also report their perception that this firm works harder than any of their competitors. 

This firm’s presentation brand is “hard working and knowledgeable” and they’ve developed and implemented presentation design processes to keep that brand strong.  And, when they are consistent with their brand, they win more often than not.

Getting started with the presentation branding process isn’t that hard. I recommend firm leadership get together (including the Marketing Director!) in a dedicated session to answer two key questions:  How do we want our presentations to be perceived?  And, What would we have to do in every interview to achieve that perception?  For example, if one perception on your list is to be perceived as more creative than your competition, you may want to think about creative approaches to interviews beyond standard PowerPoint slides.  Is your team willing to have fun in the interview, stepping “outside the box” to do something innovative and unusual?  If a desired perception is to come across as polished and professional, your firm is going to have to select (or train) professionals with excellent presentation skills and clearly communicated self-confidence.

One of the most important things I learned in a training program years ago is that communication – in any form – is intentional.  We make decisions about how we want to be perceived and the messages we want to get across.  By establishing and reinforcing a presentation brand, firms become more prepared and intentional about every interview.  While it won’t win all the time – you have to select potential clients who want your brand – you’ll find your process gets easier, decisions get clearer, and you will see an increase in your hit rate.