All posts by Suresh Atluri

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, 07d-Delivering a presentation, Uncategorized

Takeaways from being an MP judge

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Last night, I volunteered to judge the Delta presentations of the 2015 one-year MBA students. It felt good not being the presenter and  really good being the judge 🙂 Below are some key takeaways of mine.

Need for Visuals : I’m completely convinced of the need for more visuals and less text. It was very difficult to take in anything when the presentations are loaded with text. Some of the one’s were really really text heavy and it wasn’t easy to concentrate.  So you may ask, how much text is appropriate ? I felt one to two sentences per slide mixed with visuals to be more appealing.  Anything beyond that, I had difficulty moving back and forth between the screen and the presenter.

Need for Simplicity : Teams with simplicity in their slide-crafting kept me more engaged and more interested. Slides with just one data image helped me absorb the content. Whenever there was too much data on one slide, I checked out of the presentation for few minutes.  The problem with that is, even if the listener wants to check-in again it won’t be easy for him to follow. This is my take on the need for simplicity. This is an essential ingredient if you want your audience engaged totally.

Need for laughter : It’s very easy to get bored when you are just watching presentation after presentation.  If you know you will be in situations like that, it helps to have a slide that can make the audience laugh so that they can get back into the presentation

Need for honesty : When someone asks you a question at the end, it’s ok to say “yeah, we didn’t consider that issue”  instead of saying something to cover up. This helps building trust which, I believe, is the foundation for any business relationship

It was a great learning experience to be on the other side. My long trip from John Creek was well worth it. Thank You, Prof. Noonan for giving us this opportunity

 

04-Managing a project team

In pursuit of “Strengths and Weaknesses”

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Reading the article “Managing Oneself”, reminded me of Joe Song’s question during our summer MP launch – Should one build from a position of strength or work on a weakness ? , crossed my mind.

Peter Drucker posits the following-“Companies today aren’t managing their employees’ careers; knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years. To do those things well, you’ll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself—not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.”

Do we really know our true strengths and weaknesses ?  Our classmate Patrick Daly strongly opined that the millennial generation thinks it has very few weaknesses.  This is what Mr. Drucker says – “Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at—and even then more people are wrong than right.”

So how do we recognize our true strengths and weaknesses ? Again, during class we had multiple suggestions from the class as well as from Prof. Noonan.  Mr. Drucker recommends the following in answering that elusive question.

“The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.”

“Practiced consistently, this simple method will show you within a fairly short period of time, maybe two or three years, where your strengths lie—and this is the most important thing to know. The method will show you what you are doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your strengths. It will show you where you are not particularly competent.”

By far, this is the one of the best objective method that I have come across that answers the questions raised in class during our MP launch. I plan to implement this in the coming months and hope what I think my strengths are will match my real strengths.

http://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself/ar/1