Senior Leadership Communication Skills
for
Since 2007, Chartis has partnered with McAlinden to conduct leadership communication skills programs.
Your program has been designed to focus on skills that are particularly important for more experienced Chartis leaders. It will strengthen your ability to:
Convert data and generic content into persuasive client-centered stories
Listen to clients, adapt to their needs, and motivate them to act
Sell Chartis services and build deep client relationships
You will build skills that can be applied in a broad range of situations:
In-person and remote meetings and presentations
Calls, one-to-ones, and difficult conversations
Town halls, webinars, and other public speaking opportunities
This program is a highly personalized experience that produces substantive results.
It is intensive — you will be actively engaged in practice, role plays, and feedback in small working groups — you, two colleagues, and an experienced coach.
You will have one or two one-to-one coaching sessions per day. You will watch video recordings of your practice with your coach, get a clear picture of your strengths and areas for work, and receive concrete suggestions for how to improve.
There isn’t one right way for everyone to communicate to all listeners. Instead, your coaches will help you strengthen your skills while remaining true to your own personality.
The program is in two parts: Part One is two full days, there are several months between parts to practice the skills in real-world situations, and then Part Two is another two full days.
The rest of this page explains how to prepare for the program and provides an overview of the sessions in Part One.
Choose material
You will practice with your own real client communication situations. Pick two meetings or presentations that will happen after the program and bring any slides or notes you may have.
The situations you practice should be important to you because you will improve the content as well as your skills.
Do not script yourself or over-prepare. You can bring work-in-progress. You will use your laptop to prepare content during the program and adjust it based on feedback.
The first situation you practice should be a presentation to a current or prospective client.
Ideally it should get across a point of view or a recommendation, rather than simply inform.
You can use a deck that you present to many different clients, but we will ask you to pick a specific client and personalize your presentation to make it focused on their needs
You will present up to ten-minutes of content. If the actual material is longer, you can condense it before the program or during the preparation period.
You have the option to use four or five slides. You can bring draft slides / work-in-progress.
You will be asked to try different approaches to the messages and structure of the content.
The second situation should be an interactive meeting with a current or prospective client.
The objective of the meeting should be to sell a service — in the short- or long-term — or to build a client relationship. It should not be a straightforward update on an existing project, but it can be a difficult conversation about a project that has gone off track, in order to repair the relationship.
The content you would like to discuss should be complex, controversial, or both. It should be a bit challenging — don’t pick something that is very easy to talk about.
You will apply a stakeholder analysis tool, so it is helpful to pick a client where you know the people or have received a good briefing on them. Your colleagues will role play the client, so you will need to be able to describe their personalities and likely reactions to your content.
You will practice taking questions during the meeting. Your colleagues also can interrupt and challenge you, if it would be helpful for you to practice those dynamics.
Tell us who you are and what your goals are
If you would like to use a self-evaluation to think about your skills before answering these questions, click here.
Overview of the sessions
Day 1 morning
Opening
Discuss the challenging communication situations you face and link the agenda to them.
Set goals
You set personal goals within our intellectual, emotional, and physical communication skills framework.
Tell a story
You practice telling a brief story — expanding your use of eye contact, voice and body language — to increase your presence, confidence and impact. We record your story. Together, we begin the process of giving and receiving feedback.
One-to-one coaching
You review the recording of your story privately with the coach.
Prepare a client- centered message
You use our preparation tools to work on the presentation you plan to practice. You analyze your listeners and then create an outline with a clear opening, compelling messages, and an action-oriented close.
Day 1 afternoon
Discuss visuals
Visual aids can be powerful tools to support your messages, but they also can draw you into low-level details and make some listeners disengage. We discuss some simple techniques to design and use them well.
Deliver a client-centered presentation
You present a ten-minute version of the material you prepared in the morning. You practice and receive feedback on your ability to be persuasive and engaging. We record your presentation.
One-to-one coaching
You review the recording of your presentation privately with the coach.
Day 2 morning
Analyze stakeholder motivations
You work with more advanced preparation tools that are appropriate for situations where the material is complex and / or controversial. You think through the perspectives of the people in your meeting and where they see the world differently than each other and you.
Develop a compelling storyline — structuring ideas to persuade
You get additional tools to efficiently structure a persuasive storyline to address the complex / controversial client situation and move your stakeholders towards action. You get feedback on your preparation and then practice delivering a 2-3 minute executive summary of the storyline to test your ability to be concise and compelling without visuals or details.
Day 2 afternoon
Lead a sales or relationship building meeting
Using the content you prepared in the morning, you role-play an interactive client meeting. You practice answering questions, dealing with interruptions and challenges, and leading the meeting toward agreed actions. We record your role play.
One-to-one coaching
You review the recording of your role play privately with the coach.
Plan actions
You identify a few meetings over the next couple of weeks and plan the skills you will apply in each one to increase your chances of success.
Part Two
After several months of workplace application, Part Two will reinforce the skills you gain in Part One and strengthen your skills in new areas:
Listening actively
Writing persuasive PowerPoints
Motivating clients to think and act differently
Adapting to clients in the moment
Questions?
Email us goals@mcalinden.com or call us +1 212 986 4950
About us
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