Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of

executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace

the way you want to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today

we're talking about the power of rehearsal. There's an executive vice president who demands high performance from anyone presenting in front of him.

If you're at the director level or above, he expects you to succinctly summarize key points, then lead a lively discussion.

This works well for many of the men and women in his division, but not for Chris.

The more he prepared for the Executive Vice President's presentations, the more anxious he got.

Over time, his performance declined to the point where the EVP was close to banning him from

presenting at all.

Chris felt himself hurtling towards a cliff without any way to stop himself from shooting

off the edge.

After meeting Chris, I felt certain he was plummeting downhill not because of his presentation

skills, but rather because of his rehearsal skills.

If your presentations could use a bit of polishing, rehearsing wisely is a must.

Here are three ways to make your rehearsals productive and powerful.

First, accept this fact.

Rehearsal improves performance.

Chris desperately wanted to believe that his rehearsals would improve his performance, and

they might have, if he weren't clutching them so tightly

that he strangled all the benefits out of them. But at least he was doing it. All too often,

corporate presenters think they can work on their slides one minute, then walk down the hall and present the next, to which I say,

Oh, really? I think that's like putting a football player in a chair to study the

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