Making Compelling Recommendations

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Making a clear case for a proposal is about getting the right facts together to present them powerfully in a well-articulated story. The Elegant Pitch provides a straightforward process for building a compelling recommendation. The book’s author, Mike Figliuolo, shares his perspectives and insights from the book in this video-based course.

Duration: 20 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Generating a core idea
  • Structuring the argument for your recommendation
  • Crafting a compelling storyline
  • Gathering stakeholder input
  • Proving your hypothesis with data
  • Communicating your final recommendation

The target audience for this course is anyone who wants to make more compelling and convincing presentations and recommendations. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Less time spent on “junk” analysis and rework
  • Clearer and more compelling recommendations that get stakeholders to say “yes” on the first past
  • Accelerated decision making which leads to faster time to value

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Master High-Stakes Communication

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When pitching ideas and trying to influence others in high-stakes situations, it’s important to take a deliberate approach to your communications if you want to get recommendations approved.

Duration: 24 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Understand the Audience and Their “Button”
  • Know the Players, Agendas, and How Decisions are Made
  • Get Input on Your Narrative
  • Let Others Think the Idea is Theirs
  • Bring the Right Facts to the Conversation

The target audience for this course is anyone who has to communicate and influence others in high-stakes situations. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Faster approval ideas leading to shorter time to impact
  • Quicker approval processes which saves time and effort

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Compelling Executive Presence

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Build your ability to connect with your audience and convey your ideas in a clear and resonant way. Create meaningful connections between you and your audience to build momentum and buy-in.

Duration: 2.5 hours (Approximately 90 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Compelling executive presence relies upon your ability to connect with your audience and convey your ideas in a clear and resonant way. This course teaches you how to create meaningful connections between you and your audience. The tools and techniques covered in class help you be more authentic and comfortable in a variety of situations.

In this course, you’ll learn and apply an integrated framework covering all aspects of executive presence. The course covers:

  • Techniques for getting present in the moment
  • Ways to help you more easily be your authentic self
  • Tools and techniques for connecting with your audience
  • Approaches for getting your audience to connect with your content
  • Methods for getting momentum for your ideas

Throughout the course, you’ll be introduced to concepts and techniques for being more authentic, connecting more effectively with your audience, and being more comfortable in front of audiences from 1 to 1,000.

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials.

The target audience for this course is any manager, senior leader, or executive looking to learn more than clichéd “do this/don’t do that” presentation platform skills to focus on the true techniques required for demonstrating executive presence: getting present, getting authentic, getting connected, and getting momentum. The course benefits are:

  • More compelling leadership presence and personal brand
  • An improved ability to achieve audience buy-in
  • An expanded toolkit to connect audiences to content
  • Increased audience involvement and support for your ideas

Mike Lynn has been helping people learn for 25 years. His experiences span informal and formal training, extensive delivery and facilitation, one-on-one coaching, virtual learning and training management. He has run the training function for a 300 person global consulting firm, served as the local office learning manager for the Midwest office of McKinsey & Company, trained extensively on professional skills, communications, and problem solving. He served numerous clients in an individual coaching capacity. At McKinsey & Company he focused on training and individual coaching on a wide range of communications topics, and then broadened his role to focus on problem-solving skills, management, team development, and MBTI. Mike was responsible for leading training programs for new consultants and engagement managers. Mike is a principal at thoughtLEADERS where he leads training on communications, chart design, problem solving, and executive presence.

Rob Salafia combines decades of experience as a top leadership development executive with a well-established career in the performing arts. He helps leaders build emotional and narrative intelligence and share vision and strategy in a compelling and relevant way. He’s the author of Leading from Your Best Self. For the first half of his career Rob was a performing artist where he traveled the globe delivering his unique, one-person variety show. Rob is a lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management and a member of the coaching cadres for MIT’s Sloan Fellows, AMP and EMBA Programs. He also cultivated a lasting partnership with Harvard Business School resulting in the integration of experiential programming within the Harvard MBA curriculum and Executive Education Leadership Programs serving thousands of global leaders. Rob is a principal at thoughtLEADERS where he leads training on executive presence.

 

Principles of Chart Design

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Create presentation charts that get your message across quickly and clearly to drive your audience to action.

Duration: 2.5 hours (Approximately 90 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Most presentations are awful. Not only do they lack a story but the charts used to convey information are cluttered, confusing, and distracting. These issues lead to long, pointless meetings, constant rework of bad charts, and leave your audience with a bad impression of your work.

In this course, you’ll learn how to design charts that are consistent, concise, clear, and clean. The course covers:

  • The basic elements of charts and why they’re important
  • The types of quantitative charts and the appropriate situation to use each one
  • The types of qualitative charts and when to use them
  • The 4 C’s of charting: consistent, concise, clear, and clean and how to apply them
  • How storylines connect to and drive chart design

Throughout the course, you’ll be introduced to various chart types and styles and go through exercises where you’ll apply the tools and techniques to actual presentations and charts on which you’re working so you can see the real-world application of these methods and how they improve the quality of your work product.

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials.

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in analytical or persuasive roles at mid- to senior levels of corporations (e.g., analysts, managers, mid-level executives). The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Clearer communications for more efficient and effective decision making and reduced decision making time
  • Less rework of bad presentations and charts
  • Fewer meetings spent figuring out confusing data and frameworks and more time spent on executing the ideas the charts are trying to convey

Mike Lynn has been helping people learn for 25 years. His experiences span informal and formal training, extensive delivery and facilitation, one-on-one coaching, virtual learning and training management. He has run the training function for a 300 person global consulting firm, served as the local office learning manager for the Midwest office of McKinsey & Company, trained extensively on professional skills, communications, and problem solving. He served numerous clients in an individual coaching capacity. At McKinsey & Company he focused on training and individual coaching on a wide range of communications topics, and then broadened his role to focus on problem-solving skills, management, team development, and MBTI. Mike was responsible for leading training programs for new consultants and engagement managers. Mike is a principal at thoughtLEADERS where he leads training on communications, chart design, problem solving, and executive presence.

 

Engagement Management

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Whether you’re an internal or external consultant or a project leader, learn proven methods, techniques, and processes to effectively lead consulting engagements that drive your client’s success.

Duration: 2 hours (Approximately 60 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Leading consulting engagements is challenging and requires approaches unlike most typical corporate work. Whether you’re an external consultant, part of an internal consulting group, or functioning as a consultant within your organization, your ability to effectively lead consulting engagements is the key to your client’s success.

Based on the approaches used by elite consulting firms like McKinsey & Co. and Bain and Company, this course provides participants proven and time-tested approaches to running consulting engagements. In the program, participants learn how to:

  • Apply the engagement management model where the EM is at the center of the “wagon wheel”
  • Use a structured approach to running an engagement including scoping, delivery, and wrap-up as well as how to allocate and manage work across team members
  • Define and apply engagement guiding principles like the obligation to dissent, attacking the problem and not the person, the best idea wins, and it’s not about you – it’s about the best answer
  • Manage up and manage expectations of both senior consulting stakeholders as well as client stakeholders and client team members

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials. The course includes:

  • Extensive instructor videos to guide you through the content
  • A downloadable course guide of slides to help you follow the instruction
  • A downloadable workbook to apply the method as you take the course
  • Exercises, quizzes, and case examples to help you apply the method as you learn it

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in, or soon to be in, engagement management roles at mid- to senior levels. The value of this course to the participants and to the organization are:

  • More effective consulting engagement management where teams do a better job of getting to the right answer and getting there quickly
  • Better team dynamics both within the consulting team as well as with clients
  • More confident engagement managers who are capable of leading the thinking, leading their teams, and pressing for the necessary changes required to dramatically improve client organization performance

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Structured Thought: Problem Solving

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Clearly define a problem, scope all issues related to the problem, generate potential solutions, then analyze and select the best solution by using time-tested critical thinking methods and tools.

Duration: 2 hours (Approximately 60 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Are you dealing with big, challenging, ambiguous problems with no clear answers? Learn a method for how to define a problem, scope issues related to the problem, generate potential solutions, then analyze and select the best solution. You can do this through the application of an efficient and effective analytical method. This course explains how to:

  • “Pin” the problem to clearly define the real issue at hand
  • Put structure to ambiguous problems in an issue-focused way
  • Generate potential solutions to the problem
  • Quickly prioritize the highest potential solutions
  • Analyze the solutions and make a case for the recommendation

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials. The course includes:

  • Extensive, in-depth instructor videos to guide you through the content
  • A downloadable course guide of slides to help you follow the instruction
  • A downloadable workbook to apply the method as you take the course
  • Exercises, quizzes, and case examples to help you apply the method as you learn it

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in analytical or persuasive roles from junior to senior levels of organizations (e.g., analysts, managers, mid-level executives). The value of this course to the you and to the organization as a whole are:

  • Clearer issue definition and more holistic evaluation of possible solutions
  • Efficient and focused problem solving and analysis which saves time and money
  • Higher confidence in recommendations being the right recommendations
  • Better prioritization of efforts so teams work on the highest value opportunities and avoid working on low value ideas

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Structured Thought and Communication

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Craft clear and compelling recommendations that resonate with stakeholders. Get your ideas approved by using a proven method for delivering executive-level communications.

Duration: 2.5 hours (Approximately 90 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

If you want to get to “yes” efficiently and effectively, this course is exactly what you need. You’ll learn a method for defining and analyzing an idea as well as how to successfully create, communicate, and gain support for initiatives through the application of an efficient, effective analytical approach.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Create and define a “core idea” you want to get support for
  • Build logic to support that “core idea”
  • Define the analyses required to support that “core idea”
  • Draft and discuss your “story” with key stakeholders
  • Package your “story” in a variety of formats (presentation, memo, email, etc.)

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials.

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in analytical or persuasive roles at mid- to senior levels of corporations (e.g., analysts, managers, mid-level executives). The value of this course to participants and the organization as a whole are:

  • Clearer communications leading to more efficient, effective, and faster decision making
  • More efficient analysis and less re-work which leads to higher productivity
  • Crisper thinking to eliminate low-value work and prevents pursuit of low-value ideas

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.