Why wait until they're managers to teach them how to present?

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I’m going to say something that might make a few people in Learning & Development uncomfortable.

If you wait until someone becomes a middle manager before teaching them how to present properly, you’ve waited too long.

Of course they can still learn. I’ve spent three decades coaching professionals at every level, including senior executives who make enormous improvements to the way they communicate.

But why wait? Every year, organisations recruit impressive graduates who are ambitious, capable and incredibly keen to learn. We invest in their technical skills, teach them about the business and give them access to experienced leaders. Then, strangely, we often leave one of the skills that could accelerate their careers until much later: the ability to communicate their ideas with confidence and influence. Or worse – we choose the cheapest, most dreadful trainer who really can’t help them much to upskill – we’re just ticking a box.

I think we should turn that thinking on its head.

Meet Christie

Christie came to me from Toll as a graduate, and she was already impressive.

She was bright, capable and a brilliant communicator. There was no presentation “problem” to fix. Toll hadn’t waited for someone to complain about her communication or for Christie to struggle in an important meeting.

They invested in her early and that distinction matters a lot. After completing my Persuasive Presentation Skills Masterclass, Christie said:

“The course was worth its weight in gold, with real life applicable tips and strategies. Michelle is amazing and dynamic – excellent at facilitating learning. Great content! Amazing post-course support. Excellent structure and real-world learning. Idiot-proof! Michelle makes it so easy! Would love to do a follow up – wish more people from work would attend.”

I love this feedback because Christie wasn’t someone who needed rescuing from dreadful presentation habits. She was already good. The investment was about seeing how much better and invaluable she could become.

Why do we reserve communication development for managers?

This is the bit I find curious. We promote someone and suddenly decide they need to present with confidence. They need to influence senior stakeholders, run important meetings and explain their recommendations clearly. Perhaps they’ll need to present to the executive team or eventually the Board.

So now we send them on corporate public speaking training. Why weren’t we developing those skills during the previous five or ten years?

Imagine what happens when someone like Christie learns these techniques as a graduate and then has years to practise them before she’s in a hot seat and the business outcomes depend on her communication mastery.

Every project update becomes practice. Every client conversation gives her another opportunity to communicate clearly. Each meeting teaches her something about reading the room. When she has an idea, she knows how to structure it so other people can understand why it matters.

By the time she becomes a manager, she isn’t starting from scratch. She has years of communication experience behind her.

And here’s where it gets interesting

Invest properly in your graduates and you may find yourself with graduates who present better than some of your managers. Perfect!

That shouldn’t threaten us. That should be the goal. Surely the point of developing emerging talent is to help them acquire skills earlier than we did?

I’d be delighted to see a 23-year-old stand up and communicate an idea with more structure, audience awareness and confidence than someone twice their age. It means somebody invested in that person before they desperately needed the skill.

Working with a public speaking coach shouldn’t be reserved for the executive who has just received difficult feedback from the CEO.

Neither should a public speaking workshop be treated as remedial training.

Give people access to these skills while they’re hungry to master them.

Young professionals can be wonderfully coachable

From my point of view as a presentation skills trainer, one of the joys of working with graduates and emerging leaders is that they’re often incredibly open to feedback.

They haven’t necessarily spent 15 years presenting in one particular way. Show them a better technique and they’ll try it. Explain why something isn’t working and they’ll adjust it.

That’s why I’d love organisations looking for public speaking training in Sydney and Melbourne to think beyond the people who already have Manager, Director or Head of in their job title.

There’s enormous value in giving these skills to the people you hope will hold those titles one day.

What are we actually preparing graduates for?

Graduate development is supposed to prepare talented people for bigger opportunities and greater responsibility. And as your career progresses, your ability to communicate becomes increasingly important.

Early on, you might be asked to contribute your ideas in a meeting or present your team’s work. Before long, you’re pitching recommendations, speaking with clients, influencing senior stakeholders and perhaps presenting to the executive team or Board.

In those moments, your technical expertise is only part of the equation. You also need to be able to explain what you know in a way that other people understand, remember and act on.

That’s why practical public speaking courses in Sydney and Melbourne can play such an important role in career development. Learning these skills early gives graduates years to practise them, refine them and become increasingly confident communicators as their responsibilities grow.

When organisations look for support with their public speaking I’d love to see more of them investing in their emerging talent before there’s a communication problem to fix. Why wait until someone becomes a manager to teach them a skill that could help them become one?

Don’t fix them later. Develop them earlier.

Christie didn’t need to become a different person. She already had enormous capability.

Toll gave her the opportunity to add practical presentation and persuasion techniques to that capability while she was still early in her career.

Now imagine the compound effect. Imagine Christie after five years of applying those techniques. Then ten. Imagine the manager she becomes after thousands of meetings, presentations and conversations in which she has consciously practised communicating well. That’s the missed opportunity when we leave corporate public speaking training until middle management.

So yes, keep training your managers. Keep coaching your executives. I certainly do. And please also train your grads too because if your graduates eventually become better presenters than the managers who hired them, I don’t see a problem. I see an excellent graduate development program.