At the executive level, success depends a lot on effective communication. This is particularly true for healthcare, where entities frequently rely on one another for insights into healthcare market research, strategic goals and leadership development.
Innovations move fast in healthcare, and executives who want to keep pace will need to relay these insights to key participants within their organization, as well as other entities through presentations, boardroom meetings, or other speaking engagements. To this end, they need a communication strategy that gets the information across in a clear and concise manner, and demonstrates leadership, competence, and confidence.
These are the fundamental traits to have when presenting to strategic-level personnel, and they’re achievable by first nailing down a few essential presentation skills, noted below.
1. Develop the Right Content Structure for Effective Presentations
Presentations given to healthcare personnel must be well-designed, and logical. They need to speak to the benefits of new healthcare methodologies and get clinicians on board. For these audiences, content should be created with the following elements in mind:
- Clear objective setting
- Strategic focus of the content
- Logical structuring of material
- Establishing relevance to the audience’s area of work
In other words, it all starts with the content and how well it is structured.
2. Manage Distractions During Presentations
Technical problems. Memory lapses. Co-presenters going off-script. Distractions are inevitable. It’s how the presenter deals with them that matters.
Managing distraction is a function of experience and deliberate application of personal skills around voice and body language. Healthcare executives don’t need to be clever or quick on their feet to manage distractions; they just need to apply the same skills-based approach to distractions as they do to their other presentation goals. With the right healthcare executive training, presenters will have all the tools they need to stay one step ahead of such disruptions.
3. Leverage Media Tools to Support Verbal Messages
Slideshows and handouts are old favorites, but to be effective in today’s world of short attention spans, executives need to take things one step further. These days, interactive multimedia presentations are the easiest way to keep audiences engaged.
Modern digital media like 3D modeling and simulations, infographics, gamification, can all be leveraged to create interactive learning experiences for audiences. After all, the best healthcare presentations don’t simply speak to audiences. They’re customized with specific audiences in mind and built to facilitate participation and thoughtful dialogue.
The idea here is to determine the best combination of technologies to engage each audience and leave them with a “wow” factor that makes them eager to hear more!
4. Identify & Manage Varying Types of Audience Participants
It’s common to feel alone up there on the platform. But presenters aren’t alone – not when they’re familiar with their audience and how they can help reinforce the presenter’s goals. Some audience members may be supporters an executive can turn to for validation; others may be detractors, or “fence-sitters” that jam up a group consensus.
Learning to identify and manage these participants helps healthcare executives retain control during presentations and create better engagement among attendees.
5. Create Purposeful Audience Interaction
Healthcare is a dynamic industry, and healthcare presentations need to follow suit by engaging audience members and driving purposeful results from their participation.
But it isn’t easy to shake attendees out of apathy and get them involved in the discussion, which is why it helps to have dedicated training from healthcare consulting firms on the best way to create purpose-driven interactions in each presentation.
Healthcare Executive Training Begins With Communication
The above are just a few essential presentation skills that effective healthcare executives should know, but they’re only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s possible. The Brooks Group provides detailed presentation training through our Carpei Audientiam program, specifically designed to enhance executive presentation skills and the way they connect with their audience. Registration is available through open enrollment sessions here, or by custom course with your organization.
This blog was originally posted on https://thebrooksgrouponline.com/2020/11/5-key-presentation-skills-that-healthcare-executives-need-to-develop-today/
