Objective: Strategic Communication and Storyboarding to strategically communicate with Senior Management and become an advising partner.
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Target: Mid-level Managers, Program Leads, Senior Consultants
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Format: 1 day (9.00-17.30 CET), Face to Face in Zurich
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Leonardo Da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." The idiom is as relevant for strategic communication as for art. According to a Holmes report, poor communication costs an overwhelming $37 billion. The reasons often include leaders claiming insufficient time to communicate the topics' complexities.
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Strategic communication involves seeing the bigger picture and communicating simple messages to develop a shared understanding and increase productivity. It prepares us to look for the forest while communicating about trees. A convincing strategic presentation is a story intertwined with key messages in a simple structure. The key is identifying the objectives, connecting with the audience, and creating a logical storyboard. The slide creation using a theme catalog is just the icing on the cake.

Aided by strategic consulting tools like SCQ, MECE (Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive), and Pyramid Principle, the course is based on the works of Barbara Minto from McKinsey.
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Module 1: Strategic Communication: 9.00-12:30

a) Start with Why!: Explaining why a topic is relevant through connecting to a bigger picture and having a shared alignment. Often, leaders start with "How" rather than "Why" and lose an opportunity to make a deeper connection.
b) Message Pyramidically: Using Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle, we learn to communicate key messages first backed by arguments and data
c) Communicate Specifically: Strategic communication involves the paradoxical principle of specificity and simplicity. The art lies in understanding and communicating the important key messages through the right modality.

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Module 2: Storyboarding Strategic Presentations: 14-17:30

a) Identifying Purpose: Understanding the overall objective and sensing the audience provides the purpose of the presentation and defines the storyboard's starting point.
b) Building a Convincing Storyboard: Disney designed a logic of storyboarding in the 1930s for their animation pictures. Strategists are using the same logic worldwide to plot a storyboard for communication to senior management. It involves structuring key messages and providing logic and simplicity using, e.g. Mickey Mouse Storyboard method.
c) Creating Meaningful Slides: Slide creation is like painting a blank canvas. Each slide has a 5-point acid test which decides whether it is a good or a bad slide.
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The modules are conducted in English and are limited to 20 participants to facilitate interactions and connections. Please note that other participants can join for specific modules of the program.
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MQ Learning is EduQua certified educational institute. EduQua is an accreditation body recognized and supported by the Swiss Confederate Government; it’s the first quality certification for public and private educational institutions in Switzerland. EduQua is the premier quality assurance body accreditation scheme for continuing education.

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