Delivering Virtual Executive Briefings, Global Technology Company

To gain a full understanding of the challenges and areas in need of improvement, we carried out an in-depth consultation.

Members of our team sat in on executive briefings, examining both how they were organised and delivered. We also met senior decision makers in North America to get their and input, recognising that they needed to be our priority when gaining buy-in. They told us which areas teams were struggling with and where the skills gaps were.

It was a priority for the client that no one was forced to attend any sessions. Enthusiasm would primarily be built by internal marketing and word of mouth. This necessitated the creation of a series of interconnected, but stand alone, courses – rather than a full programme, as we normally would.

The goal was to create an atmosphere of excitement around the training, with stakeholder buy-in being a crucial element in the strategy.

Our team recognised there were two distinct groups that worked on the executive briefings:

• Discussion Leaders: Actively running the sessions, giving talks on the organisation’s current and upcoming projects
• Moderators: Managing the briefings, facilitating sessions, keeping the briefings running smoothly and follow up with clients after the events

Two sets of courses were designed, matching the two different skill sets these groups needed.

From the start, the client wanted some virtual delivery to connect their international teams. However, once the Covid-19 pandemic began causing office closures, we began adapting all the content to be remotely delivered just as effectively.

We began by delivering courses to the North American teams. From the first session, positive feedback and word of mouth almost instantly spread throughout the organisation. When we ran the second course, the number of participants signed up was well beyond our initial expectations or capacity.

Our team began updating the course designs to adapt to the high volume of participants. Our trainers were assisted by senior L&D members from the client organisation, helping facilitate questions and discussions, which kept sessions highly interactive.

Since April 2020, we have run over 100 sessions around the world.

The client reported that since their teams attended the training:

• Executive briefings have had greatly improved success rates
• They have increased the number of executive briefings run
• The size of the average sale made by attendees to the executive briefings has increased
• Their teams have been pitching to a larger number of high-level decision makers
• Their sales team feel much more confident when pitching

We continue to deliver these courses for the client, training their Discussion Leaders and Moderators around the world. Our courses are regularly updated to ensure we’re always providing the most up to date learning and models.

Our ongoing relationship with the client means we’re in constant communication and able to assist with one-off issues or other long-term learning requirements as they arise.