Motivating People to Think and Act Differently

a program for

McAlinden programs build the communication skills leaders at Convergint need — practical skills that can be applied every day to accelerate projects, build culture, and drive growth.

This program will strengthen your ability to prepare and deliver effective communications for a broad range of situations, from public speaking engagements in front of large groups, to informal meetings with smaller groups, to the unanticipated discussions you have every day.

We will help you:

• Create clear, concise, and compelling communications

• Use presence and tailored messages to engage and influence listeners

• Respond to questions with convincing and confident answers

• Motivate people to think and act differently

The program is in two parts: Part 1 is June 16 - 18 and Part 2 is October 22 - 23. You will build your skills in highly interactive and practice-intensive sessions.

• Small working groups will ensure you have a very personalized experience. You will practice with two colleagues from Convergint and an experienced coach from McAlinden

• We don’t think there is one right way for everyone to communicate to all listeners. Instead, we will help you strengthen your skills while remaining true to your own personality

• You will have several one-to-one coaching sessions, during which you will watch recordings of your practice, so you get a clear picture of your strengths and areas for work, as well as concrete suggestions for how to improve.

The rest of this page explains how to prepare for Part One and provides an overview of those sessions.

Choose material

You will practice your own real communication situations. Pick three meetings or presentations that will happen after Part One. Bring any slides or notes you may have. All three should be important to you because you will improve the content as well as your skills.

It’s best to work on the tough subjects that challenge you. Here are some themes that Convergint leaders need to address that are not easy to communicate well:

• The scale and pace of change in the business

  • The evolution of the business is driven by Convergint’s customers, who need a consistent experience across the CTCs

  • However, there are negative messages circulating such as “All this corporate stuff” and “It’s not what it used to be”

  • There’s an opportunity to reframe this as “It’s just what we always should have been doing” and to connect the dots for people. Techscape, and succession planning, and running your CTC well aren’t separate goals — seeing your business in real time and presenting jobs clearly to customers is part of running your business well, just like looking around the corner to prepare for the moment a key leader in your area suddenly leaves is part of running your business well

• Becoming a public company

  • All leaders in the organization are feeling the pressure to achieve an incredible amount in the next year. The expectations for new systems, new processes, and financial hygiene are very high

  • At the same time:

    • The organization has been consistently outperforming its financial goals

    • This moment presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for Convergint leaders

    • This event will not change the lives of the frontline

  • This environment requires leaders to communicate even more proactively with peers, with their reports, and with the senior leaders they report to — to accelerate the flow of information and to build the relationships that are necessary to maintain both growth and culture while sprinting toward the IPO

• Volatility & uncertainty

  • Geopolitics and business models are changing quickly in ways that are hard to predict. How do you effectively communicate with customers and colleagues in that environment?

  • Recognizing the fear your colleagues and customers may be feeling — and at times the fear you and your senior leader might be feeling — how do you pivot to help everyone see the opportunities in this environment?

  • How do you separate the noise from the relevant changes that are affecting colleagues and customers?

It is important that you practice real upcoming meetings, so if you do not have a meeting coming up that incorporates one of these themes, think of something else that is real and important in your role.

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.

Through the three days of Part One, you will progress through a series of skill building role plays. Here are some criteria to help you decide the best order to practice your material.

The first situation you practice should be a presentation or meeting.

• Ideally it should get across a point of view or a recommendation, rather than simply inform.

• 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.

At first, you will not practice taking questions or challenges, even if the real meeting will be interactive. Later in the program, you will practice responding to questions / challenges about your presentation.

The second situation you practice can be almost any kind of verbal communication, but popular choices are interactive meetings and difficult one-to-one discussions.

• You will need 3-10 minutes of content. If you want to practice more interaction, you will not get through as much content.

• You have the option to use a few slides.

You can use the second situation to practice responding to challenges, interruptions, and difficult personalities, if any of those dynamics might be part of your real meeting, or you want to build those skills.

The third situation should be a meeting with a group or individual who sees the world differently:

• A meeting where you are likely to face skepticism, active resistance, or passive resistance

• A meeting where the other participants do not understand the issue being discussed, they have decided there are different reasons for a problem or solutions to it, or there is not consensus about the importance, urgency or risks involved

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.  Many people also seek input from a few colleagues whose opinions they value.

Part One

Day One Morning

Day One Afternoon

Day Two Morning

Day Two Afternoon

Day Three Morning

Day Three Afternoon

Part Two

After several months of workplace application, Part Two will reinforce the skills you gain in Part One and add new skills to further enhance your working relationships.

Questions?

Email us goals@mcalinden.com or call us +1 212 986 4950

About us

Visit our main website McAlinden Associates