Challenge: Communicate clearly to build key relationships, both internally and with clients.

Sotheby’s is one of the world’s most respected auction houses. The name is synonymous with deep expertise and sophistication. At their gleaming, glass-wrapped Manhattan tower, every detail merits careful attention. Every step of the sales process – inquiries, finance, shipping – are all handled with great care.

But the senior team brought me in to consult because their presentations weren’t up to these high standards. The rising sales cohort weren’t conveying to prospective buyers enough of their deep love for collectibles and art work. They were too technical in their talks. Their skill set may not have included the ability to close sales, or to cement precious relationships.

Likewise, they weren’t communicating well enough across departments internally. With a goal of expanding into emerging markets, they realized that they needed to sustain a strong culture of collaboration. They could best achieve their goals when they shared information about the impact of new tax laws or a new payment system. If Sotheby’s was going to thrive in this challenging international environment, it was essential that the up-and-coming “rising talent” had the ability to communicate both within the organization and to partners beyond it.

Solution: Encourage speakers to share their passion to capture the audience’s attention.

I designed and offered a series of one-and-half day workshops for small groups. We consciously created mixed groups from across the company – directors, specialists, client relationship mangers, drawn from from finance, security, shipping, and HR – in order to get the trainees out of their silos to share best practices and information.

Their presentations needed to reflect Sotheby’s expertise, demonstrate their comfort with the art world, and establish credibility with a discerning, international clientele. But beyond knowledge, the trainees needed to showcase something else: passion. The expert’s knowledge wasn’t enough in this setting. They had to stop going too fast or glossing over things because they assumed everyone already knew. Indeed, they often didn’t realize the profundity of their insights.

It can be intimidating to make a presentation and receive feedback in front of esteemed colleagues. So as the facilitator, I established an environment of comfort and safety. I helped presenters see what they did well, pointing out each other their strengths. Then we focused on tweaking their talk so that they could share their joy and love for the work.

I encouraged them to tell stories and guide the audience’s eye. The goal was to be more personal and less bookish. This was not a data dump but an opportunity to share their enthusiasm and passion with their audience. Most importantly, they had to keep in mind their objective: making the sale. This required attending to the client’s motivation, whether striving to outdo a rival, or to complete a prized collection.

The results were dramatic, significant changes in presentations, at all levels. The participants lifted each other up and also forged connections across the organization. (And it was a thrill to conduct the training in a conference room surrounded by original masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse, and Pissarro!)

One day, I visited the auction room at a time when Sotheby’s was preparing for a major sale: a Rothko painting sold for $7.5 million. The painting seemed to have sold itself, yet nothing could be farther from the truth. I understood then, thinking of at all the participants in my workshops, that a company that can achieve this result only when it operates like a well-oiled machine, with all its parts working in harmony.