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Build, broaden and refresh your leadership and management skills with this hands-on, interactive online learning resource that addresses your most critical management challenges. Managers face countless challenges every day that require immediate...

Attracting and Cultivating Talent: Harvard ManageMentor

Discover how best to attract, hire, develop, and keep talented people who will grow and thrive throughout their employee journey. With this course, you'll have the opportunity to learn strategies and best practices from business leaders, authors, and...

Sharpening your Business Acumen: Harvard ManageMentor

Learn how organizations operate, create value, and gain competitive advantage. Discover what makes businesses thrive and ways to assess an organization's health by developing an understanding of business models, strategies, and key financial statements...

Digital Intelligence: Harvard ManageMentor

No matter your role, technology continues to transform how you do your work. With access to a dizzying array of new tools, customer insights, and data, how do you keep up? In this course, students will learn how to adopt a digital mindset and foster one...

Negotiating: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to prepare for a negotiation, conduct single and multiple-issue negotiation, finalize and carry out a negotiated agreement, and overcome obstacles to a successful negotiation. You'll learn the key concepts with a mix of...

Marketing Essentials: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to foster a marketing orientation within your team, research and identify target customers, develop a marketing strategy, develop and implement a marketing plan, and market to global customers. You'll learn the key...

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This online course will teach you to develop strategies for understanding and interacting effectively with your boss, build a strong partnership with your boss, communicate effectively with your boss, and use strategies for dealing with challenging...

Leading People: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to define and communicate your vision, build trust in your leadership, improve your emotional intelligence, motivate employees to achieve your vision, and lead with a global mindset. You'll learn the key concepts with a...

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This online course will teach you to build a diverse team to maximize creativity, create a physical working environment conducive to play, creativity, and idea generation, apply divergent thinking techniques to generate ideas, and determine when and how...

Innovation Implementation: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to create a compelling vision statement to guide and focus an innovation initiative. It will cover how to: develop an informal support network and consider the interests of your stakeholders, develop a formal proposal to...

Global Collaboration: Harvard ManageMentor

Addresses the critical skills required to manage cross-cultural collaboration, including negotiating, building trust, overcoming language barriers, and navigating the geographical and technological challenges of working across continents. The course will...

Finance Essentials: Harvard ManageMentor

This primer shows non-financial managers how their units fit into the company's overall financial picture. You'll learn to use financial ratios to interpret financial statement numbers and gauge your company's financial health, create a budget that...

Feedback Essentials: Harvard ManageMentor

Feedback is a key ingredient in fostering learning and high-performance teams. In this course, students will develop the confidence to ask for feedback to improve their performance and work relationships. They'll also discover the benefits and best...

Ethics at Work: Harvard ManageMentor

The online course will teach you to apply a framework for resolving right-versus-right ethical dilemmas, build a culture of integrity at work, and make ethical decisions across borders. You'll learn the key concepts of ethics at work with a mix of...

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging: Harvard ManageMentor

A diverse team generates more creative ideas and gives organizations a unique competitive edge, but diversity also brings new challenges in the workplace. Learn to examine and counter your biases about diverse people in your workplace, foster an...

Difficult Interactions: Harvard ManageMentor

Conflict is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be unmanageable. In this course, students discover how to effectively handle-and coach their team members in handling-disagreements through careful preparation, good communication, and a focus on solutions...

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This online course will teach you to tailor development strategies to individual employees, help employees create and implement their development plans, identify and design experiences that foster individual development and build your team members'...

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Smart decisions are a key to business success. In this course, students develop their decision-making skills by learning how to avoid common pitfalls and use an effective process to spark innovative thinking. They'll also discover strategies to get the...

Customer Focus: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to learn about your customers to better meet their needs, use customer knowledge to identify ways to deliver additional value to your business, and build a customer-focused team. Covers the critical components of servicing...

Crisis Management: Harvard ManageMentor

Every crisis is an opportunity to shine for managers who know what to do. Here's how to chart a course through crisis situations, from crisis plan development and contingency thinking to post-crisis management. Relevant for managers at all levels. In...

Coaching: Harvard ManageMentor

Learn how to get the best from your direct reports and help them master new skills through coaching. In this course, you'll learn how to use a four-step process to facilitate the professional growth of those you've agreed to coach. You'll also discover...

Change Management: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course provides practical advice for implementing, managing, and communicating change in your organization. Learn how to approach change with an open mind and use it as a stimulus to encourage new ideas and harness enthusiasm for further...

Business Plan Development: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course walks you step-by-step through the process of preparing an effective plan for a business proposal from defining your audience and analyzing the market to developing cohesive financial and marketing plans. The steps you will learn are...

Business Case Development: Harvard ManageMentor

This course's easy-to-follow steps will allow you to create a compelling case for your new business initiatives. It addresses topics ranging from identifying business opportunities to measuring their success and includes recommendations for assessing...

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Writing Skills: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to clarify your purpose, audience, scope, and initial ideas before writing. Then to organize content in a logical flow for your readers, write a first draft that represents your key ideas and structure, edit your writing...

Time Management: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you to prioritize goals when managing your time, build a realistic schedule based on key priorities, adopt new time management habits to sustain your productivity gains, and improve time management in your organization...

Team Management: Harvard ManageMentor

This online course will teach you foster trust within your team, strengthen your team's identity, and help your team make decisions. It also covers how to make conflict constructive and resolve harmful conflicts, ensure collaboration and participation...

Stress Management: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to assess your stress levels, use a framework to resolve negative stress, apply coping techniques to address immediate and long-term stress, and maintain a healthy work/life balance. You'll learn the key concepts of stress...

Strategic Thinking: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to identify relationships, patterns, and trends that affect strategic decisions, apply creative skills to generate new alternatives and possibilities for your organization, identify critical information needed for solving...

Project Management: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to define project objectives and scope, develop a realistic project schedule and budget, build an effective project team, and assess and manage project risks. It also covers how to keep projects on track, communicate project...

Process Improvement: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to plan a business process improvement, analyze, redesign and implement a business process, and continually measure, monitor, and adjust a business process. You'll learn the key concepts with a mix of practical content, videos,...

Presentation Skills: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to clarify your objective, identify your audience, and consider the setting for your presentation. It covers how to identify the single key point of your presentation, construct a presentation that hooks your audience and...

Persuading Others: Harvard ManageMentor

The ability to persuade people is critical to winning the all-important buy-in needed to accomplish goals. In this course, students will discover how to win support for their ideas and influence others to take action. They'll learn effective tactics for...

Performance Measurement: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to define clear objectives, critical success factors, and key performance indicators. You'll also focus on how to collect, report, and analyze performance data, avoid common performance measurement pitfalls, and use performance...

Mastering Finance Fundamentals: A Harvard ManageMentor Curated Collection

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Whether it's coaching more effectively, setting goals, or delivering feedback, how you manage yourself and others in your organization is critical to your success. This hands-on online course skill pack includes four topics to help you develop the skills...

Mastering Business Fundamentals: A Harvard ManageMentor Curated Collection

To stay competitive today you need to be proficient in many aspects of managing a business, from reading financial statements and creating a budget and negotiating lower prices from a supplier to growing your customer base. With this much responsibility...

Improving Productivity: A Harvard ManageMentor Curated Collection

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Budgeting: Harvard ManageMentor

Build better, more accurate budgets in less time. Learn how to create a budget that functions as a critical strategic tool as you explore the advantages and disadvantages of new techniques and approaches. The online course focuses on how to assemble the...

Communicating for Results: A Harvard ManageMentor Curated Collection

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Delegating: Harvard ManageMentor

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Meeting Management: Harvard ManageMentor

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Goal Setting: Harvard ManageMentor

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Career Management: Harvard ManageMentor

Develop a straightforward approach to managing your career or helping others manage theirs. With this online learning experience, you'll learn the key concepts around career management with a mix of practical content, videos, infographics, and...

Strategy Planning and Execution: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to develop components of a strategic plan, develop detailed action plans that support your organization's strategy, manage the execution of strategic plans, and evaluate and reward performance. You'll learn the key concepts...

Performance Appraisal: Harvard ManageMentor

This course will teach you to prepare for a performance appraisal meeting with a direct report, conduct a performance appraisal meeting with a direct report, and monitor an employee's progress on performance goals. You'll learn the key concepts with a...

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Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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Harvard ManageMentor: Attracting and Cultivating Talent

By: Harvard Business Publishing

In this course, students will learn what successful teams have in common. They will discover how to attract, hire, develop, and keep talented people who will grow and thrive throughout their employee…

• Length: 1 hour, 16 minutes
• Publication Date: Aug 18, 2022
• Discipline: General Management
• Product #: 7894-HTM-ENG

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Harvard ManageMentor helps students develop the skills they need to thrive in the workforce. These online courses combine the latest in business thinking from management experts with interactive assignments to empower students with the skills employers seek.

In this course, students will learn what successful teams have in common. They will discover how to attract, hire, develop, and keep talented people who will grow and thrive throughout their employee journey. Students will have the opportunity to learn strategies and best practices from business leaders, authors, and coaches like Angela Cheng-Cimini, Hubert Joly, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Deborah Elam, Joan C. Williams, Isabella Diaz, KeyAnna Schmiedl, Ryan Dexter, and Christopher Yeh. This online course has been designed and developed with the intention of complying with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Explore all Harvard ManageMentor courses at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/harvard-manage-mentor/

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Foster a positive and inclusive work environment where individuals feel respected, valued, and supported.

Attract a diverse talent pool with the skills a team needs.

Identify people who will thrive at the organization and creating a positive hiring experience for new employees.

Retain and engage employees through a culture of learning and development.

Anticipate and navigate team changes with grace.

Aug 18, 2022

Discipline:

General Management

Harvard Business Publishing

7894-HTM-ENG

1 hour, 16 minutes

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