The pitch and roll

It was as though we'd been transported back in time to summer in the sixth form common room. The pre-examination tension in the air was palpable and the faces around mirrored my internal concerns regarding whether sufficient preparation had been done and precisely what the next hour would entail. The four months which had passed since we embarked upon an internal one-day MBA course were about to culminate in our group presentation to the board.

I had taken half term off in the week immediately preceding this, and by all accounts that was the most cunning of plans. There had been script alterations and last-minute worries, extra meetings and numerous dry runs. A little like revision cramming.

There were even a few moments which reminded me of those girls at school who seemed to enjoy inciting panic in everyone else and would mention some really obscure part of the syllabus, over which all others had glossed, just as you walked into the dreaded room. These moments came from the first two groups to emerge from the seminar room that day (we were third on). The first declared that they had been grilled with hideously searching questions for a full half hour after their presentation had finished and were mentally exhausted. We heard reports of shell-shocked colleagues and the presence of a terrifying number of bodies in the important audience.

Facing the music

My team headed to Starbucks for what my Outlook invitation billed as a nerve-steadying coffee. The six of us appeared one by one and started to exchange the already-reported war stories above. After 30 minutes of mass fretting we had drained all caffeine dregs and set off to face our music.

The drama of the occasion increased further as we stood outside the seminar room and peered in, verifying that there were indeed a whole ten members of the board and our HR and marketing team watching. At least their chairs were arranged in a friendly horseshoe shape so they didn't look altogether like a firing squad.

We heard applause for team two, which we took collectively as a comfort, a few moments before they emerged looking rather pale and tired. They then explained that most of their number had travelled up that morning from our London office, which meant that for their start time they had needed to get up before 5am. It had therefore already been a fairly long day at the office and they hadn't yet made lunchtime.

The board took a comfort break for a few minutes, which did nothing for our anxiety levels, and we were then invited in. After a little furniture rearrangement we were ready for anything and our introducer began...

We started with a slide showing intranet photos of our team members helpfully tagged with names. They had almost been Hollywood airbrushed too, having been taken several years back with fairly flattering results, so it was a good morale boost to kick us off. The use of PowerPoint had been debated at length between us in advance, with some believing that it can be considered rather last year and also distracts attention from the orator.

On the flip side, however, we know from tendering experience that many of our clients expect whizzy and technologically exciting visuals to accompany facts and figures, and thus the decision had ultimately been to demonstrate our capability but to keep the number of slides limited.

Star performance

As I have mentioned before, our topic was 'Rewarding performance' and we had given its scope serious thought. The board may have been expecting half an hour of bleating about how staff could be better paid and faster promoted but we decided that it would probably be of more practical assistance to them, and less damaging to our own profiles, if we stuck firmly to the constructive comments. We had, for example, surveyed some colleagues to ascertain their performance reward priorities. The board looked surprised to hear that salary was not top of everyone's list. Many opted for flexible working arrangements or status as their number one, although pay was of course up there.

We also threw in something of a curve ball by looking at how Weightmans is rewarded by its clients. This involved a review of issues such as whether hourly rate billing is dead (no), if the effort and time which goes into entering for various legal awards is worth it (yes) and how other firms have demonstrated innovation. For example, it is reported that Slaughter & May and Dickson Minto have in the past submitted invoices at the end of a job and asked clients what they think should be paid. A brave move '“ and not a strategy which we recommended should be adopted just yet.

At the end of our slot my group felt that the amount of work we had put into the project had been worthwhile and our presentation was something to be proud of. The experience, while personally time consuming and no doubt costly to the firm in terms of lost chargeable hours (particularly for the day of presentations when the entire board formed the audience) was a positive one. To end on a rather cheesy note my team enjoyed working together and getting to know each other which we would not otherwise have had an opportunity to do.

We are currently awaiting the board's feedback... I'll let you know.

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