Continuing on with the 3rd day of GE's Foundations of Leadership training ...
After marveling over our tape art and thinking if we should have gone into careers as artists we came to our senses and moved on to our next lesson - Presentation Skills.
Previously I have taken a presentation skills class when I first started at GE as part of the ITLP Bootcamp curriculum. That class was three days long. This class at FOL was 4.5 hours long. I had a feeling it was going to be quite intense.
We focused on 3 main areas: eye contact, pausing, and gestures. The class was structured so that each part built on the last. We started with eye contact by doing an exercise where you can talk about anything but you have to hold eye contact with some one for 5 consecutive seconds before moving your eyes. It was hard! Then we added in the pause in between moving our eyes to the next person. Then we added gestures. -- All the while being videotaped so we could watch and analyze ourselves afterwards -- Compared to my first GE presentation skills class, this was a good refresher but it could have been spread between two days.
You were probably wondering about the title of this blog, "Pictionary with the VP". Well this particular Wednesday night after dinner, a group of us went over to do some networking at the Green House. The Green House is an eco-friendly building with solar panels on top! Inside it is a bar with two pool tables, ping pong table, card table, guitar hero, piano, actual guitars, and board games! A group of us started playing Pictionary. After a few rounds it started getting intense. We were naturally all competitive. Then in walks Richard Simpson, a Vice President and Officer of the GE Company and leader of Global Supply Chain for Transportation. I said hello and invited him to join us in the game. I had met him that morning over breakfast. He joined my team. Richard and my team became quite the champs.
The first round Richard joined he was the drawer. Some how I guessed the answer in about 20 seconds. It was "dune-buggy". How did I get that?? When was the last time I saw an image of a dune buggy or even said the phrase?? Anyways after that Richard was amazing and my team and I were giving high fives all around. Richard played several more rounds before heading out for the night.
After Pictionary, Julie and Mayank (two other Transportation ITLPs) and myself met one of the CIOs of Aviation. This was really cool because Mayank is actually taking a rotation with Aviation next! We also caught up with Ehren Powell the CIO of Global Services for Transportation.
FOL definitely provided some unique opportunities to meet senior leadership of the GE company.
More FOL adventures to come ... with FOL Day 4
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