CLIENT
Fira de Barcelona
DEVELOPMENT AREAS
Impact and Influence
Leadership
Internal and External Communication
TRANSMEDIA TOOLS
Storytelling
Gamification
Graphic presentations
Performance recording
GOALS
To increase awareness about the impact and relevance of any public communication, taking into account their role in the company
To provide tools and techniques which help them adapt and boost influence according to each audience
To activate behaviours which transform directors into high impact speakers
BRIEFING
Fira de Barcelona is an international company with a large team of Managers, each one in charge of a specific venue. High qualified professionals with a high level responsibility, which goes from project management to external communication. However, they have to lead situations in which, either externally or internally, they face difficulties in communicating the appropriate information or connecting with the audience.
Training program aiming to transform venue managers into high impact speakers, testing their knowledge transfer level regarding message structure, emotional connexion with the audience, overcoming scenic fears and creation of an appealing graphic support.
Fira de Barcelona aims to improve their public speaking ability, and to help them become their better self in terms of impact and influence.
THE PROPOSAL
Cookie Box suggested 4 face-to-face training sessions of 4 hours each in which the audience evolved their own presentations, focusing on a specific key communication point per session: 1. Message structure, focusing on the purpose of their venue, 2. Connecting with the audience through an emotional message, based on storytelling techniques, 3. Capturing the essence of the message in powerful visual supports, which complement their speech instead of duplicating it, and 4. Leading the stage and feeling comfortable on it, by practising oral and postural techniques.
This journey was energized with gamification techniques in order to test participant’s evolution constantly, and keep them motivated to work on the improvement of their skills.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
Before the sessions, participants were asked to send us their Power Point presentation, which allowed us to better know their respective venues and understand how they are presenting the content and their graphic level.
In the meantime, consultants were co-designing with the client a card game which aimed to energize the sessions and to test the reaction capacity of the participants, along with the 4 training sessions. Furthermore, the training included challenges between sessions, aimed to transfer learnings and to help them get ready for the next one.
In the 1rst session, after an icebreaker in which all participants had 1 minute to expose a concrete subject in front of the camera, we started working in the content of the message, the structural principles for an effective presentation and the keys of influential communication, followed by more practising exercises in which their colleagues were playing public and “anti-public” roles, according to the card game. The amount of tension in each speech goes in crescendo and their improvisation skills need to be part of the game, if they want to succeed and achieve the goal. The activity debriefs, after such tension, were definitely memorable.
The 2nd session was a similar activity, a 1-minute speech in front of the camera, during which participants had to explain a personal story. After that, Román Zabal, scriptwriter and storyteller, explained the keys of emotional communication based on storytelling, and focused again on the participants’ performance. This time they were requested to connect the objectives they had been working on in the first session with a story, presenting it while the audience was playing again the role given by the card game. A new level was reached.
The 3rd session followed the same structure: 1-minute explanation where they had to include skills learnt in the previous sessions, supporting it also with a visual presentation. After that, the keys of visualization were explained by Joan Fornós, who also led the last challenge: a card game to assign roles among the public, some time to prepare their powerful venue presentation and… time to jump onto the stage!
The last session, led by Helena Navarro focused on how to overcome stage panic thanks to public speaking techniques. The final challenge aimed to consolidate learnings from all the 4 sessions, therefore participants had to evolve their venue presentation into an effective influential speech which included a clear content structure, an emotional story, an inspiring visual presentation and, last but not least, dominating the stage with their presence. The results were amazing, and the evolution more than obvious.
Participants’ skills transformation became real, like they said “unforgettable training which added huge value to our public appearances”.
RESULTS
Participants’ satisfaction and their perception of personal real evolution in terms of influence capability when facing a public presentation were extremely high.
One of the things they were most grateful for the follow-up provided by facilitators in between sessions. A constant feedback helped them to build powerful presentations which are now ready to be introduced in public speeches.
The HR Department also expressed us their satisfaction with the personalized training design and the results achieved.