We often talk about joining a conversation in real time with a flexible agenda and a mind open to discovery. Can a conversation be designed to achieve a specific purpose?
The job interview, a client presentation, corporate blogging, your next team meeting, to name just a few, are all conversations that can be designed for a specific outcome. The key is to know why -- why you're doing it and why the other party should care.
Let's take the client presentation -- much has been said about the container, that is the visuals used to complement your message. The presentation style from a nonverbal perspective is important too.
Convey credibility with emphasis on voice inflection closing down (study some of the best TV anchors for that) and open up to questions with inflection up.
There is a potentially disturbing ugly when the inflection keeps going up at the end of each point and phrase. It will exhaust your listeners and undermine the validity of your information. Keep your body language open to invite dialogue and feel comfortable in the space while making a connection with your audience. These are all useful tips.
The most importat part of having a client presentation is to validate the reason why you were asked to present in the first place. If this is, say, a research project on new market opportunity, you will serve yourself and your client well by figuring out what is the real reason you are presenting the information.
You might have been asked to scope the competitive landscape in that market so the client can begin to view potential acquisition targets. The client, however, might have just stated that they wish to enter that market with no specific guideline as to how.
How do you find out the real intention? Start with researching the client from their own point of view. Then tell the story from that and cascade the information accordingly -- the flow and depth should reflect the desired outcome with enough wiggle room for the client to shape it with you.
I had a great example of that this morning during dry run presentations by the students of The Fox School of Business at Temple University, MBA Enterprise Management Consulting Practice, which I attended as a member of the Advisory Board.
Faculty and school staff join the students and advisors in a conversation around live projects for actual clients. The piece usually missing when studying business is the advice from practitioners who know the kind of questions you need to ask a client.
It helps that these projects are live, for actual clients. This is not about the much-hailed case study. It's about the real deal. And it makes an enormous difference in focusing the conversation.
While walking out with one of the students who had just presented, we broached the topic of corporate blogging. It must have been because I mentioned my blog. Rajesh, an extremely articulated and bright young entrepreneur, technology geek, marketing business student and father, asked me what I thought about the validity of corporate blogs.
Especially in light of the whole Edelman/Wal*Mart discussion, he asked, how do you make sure that what comes through one such medium is the truth about the company and not just spin?
It comes back to why. Why is the company doing it? From that cascade all the other decisions. Who does it, the voice -- for example the business people, or the communications department?
The guidelines set for content, what is ok to talk about, what is off limits -- for the off limits stuff, you may want to reconsider the medium. The blogosphere environment has low tolerance for fakes. And you can rest assured that people will not only bother to engage with you if you're good, they will also take time to let you know how bad or ugly your material is.
There is worse, of course. Any feedback is better than no feedback -- you could be met by a stone cold silence. So look well inside and ask yourself: why am I doing this? Why should anyone care?
As an interesting aside. My casual conversation with Rajesh led me to discover all the skills he posseses and appreciate that this is the new work force -- prepared to do what ever it takes, hungry for learning, not afraid to do the work, and quite enjoyable conversationalists to boot.
Why are they doing it? To change the world, of course. Rajesh understands that every conversation is also a potential job interview. He has my vote.