Great project managers define issues, remove barriers to performance, resolve resource issues, and empower team members to do their best work. Not coincidentally, these very skills that make some project managers exceptional at managing projects, clients, and teams can be brought to bear in the development and implementation of winning short-list interviews.
I recently coached a presentation team with 12 presenters in a 25 minute presentation. While certainly larger than an ideal number of presenters, this presentation was flawless, with detailed and compelling technical content, carefully choreographed primary speakers, lean-ins, and transitions. No ego took over the preparation and team members worked together seamlessly to achieve an incredibly interesting, technically rich, and well-coordinated performance. What was particularly remarkable about this team is that the entire presentation was conceived and implemented within a 48-hour period after the notice from the client about interview specifications.
While I’d like to say this presentation came together because of strong coaching, I’m humble enough to recognize the value of incredible leadership from the senior project manager as a catalyst for team excellence. As a coach, being able to partner with the project manager enabled more creativity, the ability to help individual team members, and a singular focus on crafting the right message for this client and this project.
This project manager held himself to the highest standard of performance. While he was certainly stressed by the demands of the situation, he put the needs of the team first, while making sure his parts of the presentation were well executed in a timely fashion. This enabled both of us to manage the presentation preparation like a project, moving quickly through initiating and planning activities to executing the interview, monitoring team performance, and closing out our “project” with an exceptional interview. Treating the presentation like a project enabled the team to work through a large volume of tasks in a very short period of time. Not only did they develop and rehearse a solid prepared interview, but they also responded to some questions in written form, developed and rehearsed oral answers to other questions, and prepared for impromptu questions from the owner. I am confident that without a streamlined approach to the process and the leadership of our project manager, the team would not have been able to perform so brilliantly in such a short period of time.
There are two important takeaways from this experience: First, complex presentations can and should be managed like projects, and second, complex presentations require a strong partnership between project manager and presentation coach.
From a project management perspective, our project manager brought his team together before the short-list, anticipating an interview and getting the team ready for future success. By initiating the process early and being able to start presentation planning, he reduced future stress on the team and enabled a focus on the complexity of client requests once the short-list was announced and the specifications articulated. Project execution was divided into phases. As a coach, because the team was so well managed, I was able to move the team quickly through the phases of presentation development: alignment, strategy, choreography, and rehearsal. We were able to significantly reduce the amount of time required in each phase, essentially fast-tracking the project in order to deliver the highest quality presentation in a very short overall project duration. In fact, we were able to collapse strategy, choreography, and rehearsal, enabling the team to practice movement and flow in the presentation as they continued to develop content. And, even the normal VE of the interview content (cutting good material to get the presentation completed on time) wasn’t as painful as it usually is; team members gave up things they wanted to say for the greater good of the presentation with no complaints and no late team member drama.
The lesson learned for me as a coach is to lean on strong project managers to lead their teams. This enables me as the coach to develop and lead a strong presentation. When the project manager leads his team in the presentation preparation, I can focus on the message and the choreography. For this team, our senior project manager was the glue that held the large team together, enabling highly technical professionals to deliver their best performances. Agreeing with him on the structure of the coaching and the clear milestones of the presentation preparation process freed me to help individual speakers, monitor messaging from a mock-client perspective, and ensure all of the details were handled before the team left for the interview. In fact, the team was so well managed that we finished rehearsing early, enabling team members to relax for an hour before they left for the actual interview. In 25 years, this has unfortunately been a rare occurrence and reminds me how valuable managing “float” in my coaching schedule can be.
Working with a strong project manager took some getting used to. The combination of two strong personalities can be challenging in the best of times and even more so under an almost impossible schedule. But, it worked – and I’ve come away from this experience humbled and grateful, reminding myself of the value of listening to and collaborating with other smart professionals and grateful for the opportunity to learn from such an exceptional manager in a truly impressive interview performance.
In the future, I’m looking to work with project managers as partners in the presentation process and I’m committed to partnering with them as we lead teams to successful interviews. Unfortunately, however, this experience is not the norm. Too often, project managers are working on multiple responsibilities and are only too happy to delegate the presentation to a marketing or coaching resource. While happy to step in, I’m reminded of the value of partnership: this particular project manager believed so strongly in his team and in the importance of this pursuit that nothing else he was doing took precedence over his team’s success. And, the team felt it and delivered to his highest expectations. I suspect each of his teams give him this level of performance because, quite simply, he expects it of himself and inspires it in others. In the future, I’m going to ask for this level of dedication of all project managers with whom I work.
This experience has given me a renewed interest in using my own knowledge as a project manager to continue to streamline the coaching process so we can deliver better interviews – faster. That’s been the crux of my coaching efforts at Communication Resources and it’s always nice to see that it works – with the help of strong project managers and dedicated teams.
Short-list interviews are themselves projects that require strong project plans, milestone schedules, change management, focus on stakeholder needs and interests, and most of all, strong leadership. We won’t hear for a bit if this particular team won or lost in the final interview. But, even without the verdict, to my project manager on this pursuit, thank you for partnering with me and reminding me of the power of focused leadership and unwavering commitment to the success of your team.
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