Why do you think they call them “slides”?
Perhaps some of you reading this are old enough to remember slideshows or have seen an example on TV or in the movies. 40 years ago, if you wanted a sophisticated “visual aid” you put slides in a carousel tray and “clicked” through them as you talked. This was done recreationally, “Here we are on our trip to the Grand Canyon.” Educationally; “What you’re looking at here is an amoeba.” or professionally; “As you can see from this slide, earnings have increased 22 percent since last year.” You were looking at a picture or diagram. I’d venture to say never were you looking at bullet points.
Fast forward to present day, where PowerPoint “slides” are used by presenters worldwide to display their written content to their audience. When did we come to think of this kind of visual as an aid – (to the audience, I mean)? We have all been the audience and we all know how mind-numbingly boring such presentations are. In fact, the only thing we usually remember from a presentation where the only visuals were screen after screen of lots and lots of words; is how bored we were watching it.
Presenters are clinging to their “decks” full of words the way a terrified speaker grips the podium. Talk to them of replacing these visuals with images, graphs, charts, great evocative photos and they respond with, “But what will I have to remind myself what to say next?” To them (and you) I say; would you expect an actor, even in a staged reading of a play, to display the script, even an abbreviated version, for the audience? Of course not. What would be the point in watching the actors when you could just as easily read the script yourself?
Why should a presentation be any different? Why would the audience want to read what you’re about to say? How in the world could that do anything but dampen your impact? Isn’t the idea of a visual aid to enhance what you are saying? At bespeak, we say that every visual aid should act as a synergistic component; it plus you should be bigger than either part could be separately.
So the next time you’re creating your “slide show” to accompany your presentation; think back, way way back, to when the term “slide show” meant click after blissful click of images that enhanced what the speaker was saying, and made the experience for the audience a multi-dimensional one that impacted them on many levels. You’d better believe those presenters were being heard. And so can you be.
Orchestrating a successful “Big Return”
When I think of an orchestra, I think of the different sections of instruments, the strings, the horns, percussion. The musicians who play those instruments all have great affection and commitment to music, but their skill sets are very different as are, most likely, their personalities. It takes a savvy conductor to create the conditions for great music to be played by them all, as one.
So it is with your people. They are all committed to the company, but the skill sets of those in marketing are very different from the skill sets of those in finance. (And you don’t need me to tell you about their distinct individual personalities.) As their “conductor”, you’ll need to be savvy to bring them back to the office in a way that enables them to “make great music”.
How to begin? The natural inclination would be to get everyone on a remote town hall meeting and “tell” them the plan for the big return, perhaps even explain why it’s important for the health of the organization. Both of these things are necessary to communicate for sure, but I would offer that there is something missing, something that is of paramount interest and concern to each of your people; no matter their department, skill set or personality.
It is this: What’s in it for them?
Why would it be beneficial for them to return to the office? What would make getting dressed (like, all the way, not just from the waist up), leaving home for the whole day, and commuting somewhere farther than the kitchen worthwhile? For them?
Lots of reasons not spilling out of your head? I’ll bet. But just because the reasons why they would want to come back to the office aren’t immediately evident, doesn’t make them any less important. In fact, clearly articulating 3-5 reasons why coming back to the office is good for them could very well mean the difference between a successful or disastrous big return. So, take a deep breath and have a think about it, as my British friends would say. I’ll bet you can come up with some reasons (you only really need five) why returning to the office is good for your people.
Here are a few to get you started.
Connection: Many people spent most of the pandemic alone. Perhaps they’ve grown accustomed to only having live conversations with their cat, but my bet is that the opportunity to be around colleagues and friends would get them out of their sweats and into some work attire.
Visibility: Especially for those who are early in their careers, or those who are eager to be recognized as future leaders, being seen is key. While you don’t want to scare those who will continue working remotely (perhaps because it makes more sense for their department) it’s not a bad idea to remind people that nothing beats being there live and in-person.
Community: If you’ve built a strong company culture pre-pandemic, it shouldn’t be hard to remind your people how much they enjoyed being together. Do you have a tradition of celebrating milestones? Big wins? Holidays? Now is the time to highlight those events, perhaps even forecasting what’s to come.
Variety: Yes, we’re creatures of habit, but we’re also highly susceptible to boredom. Describe for them the dynamic aspect of a day in the office – meetings, walks at lunch, (free snacks?). Being able to work in an environment other than their home may be a welcome change. It will spark their imagination, get creative juices flowing and make their days new and different from what they were for the past almost two years.
Casual Collaboration: One thing being remote cannot do is allow us to bump into one another in a hallway, next to the coffee machine, or on our way into a meeting. These “accidental” meet-ups inspire ideas, support of ideas, additions to ideas, etc. These fortuitous micro-meetings also plant the seeds of recognition, relationship, and reward. And they only happen live and in-person.
Keep in mind, each of these five benefits have one important thing in common: they are benefits to your people – not to the organization. Each of these is an answer to their question, “What’s in it for me?” And each of your people needs to see a few solid reasons why coming back to the office will be good for them.
As you plan your big return, give a great deal of thought to your people, and why coming back to the office will be in their best interest. It will make the Big Return, and your orchestration of it much, much easier. You’ll all be making beautiful music together, and you’ll be heard.
Everyone personalizes everything.
Everyone personalizes everything. So spoke my new friend and founder of FuturesThrive, Wendy Ward. How right she is. We filter everything we see and hear through the lens of our personal experience.
So, what does this mean for you and your presentations? For starters, it means you must be building your presentations with your audience at the forefront of your mind. As I like to say (again and again and again) you must turn your focus 180 degrees. You must sit yourself in your audience’s seat and examine everything you’re thinking about saying through the eyes and ears of your audience.
For example, you’ll be careful not to tell a story that could take them down a rabbit hole of their own emotions – taking their attention away from you and your message.
You won’t throw out a factoid or statistic that’s questionable or controversial without clearly explaining and or authenticating it. Why? You’re smart; you don’t want gigantic question marks in their minds, causing doubt and uncertainty not just about that stat, but about everything you say after it.
You’ll make sure you’re not using jargon words or acronyms they may not understand. That will only piss them off; who wants to do that? (ahem, not you.)
If you’re giving a persuasive presentation, you’ll make sure the benefits to them are truly benefits they want and care about. And if you know it’s a big benefit to them, but it’s one they’re as yet unaware of, you’ll draw a clear compelling picture of why it matters to them so they can see the benefit as clearly as you do.
In short, every single part of your presentation is going to relate directly to them. Now they’re paying attention. Who wouldn’t?
Take a good look at your upcoming presentation through your audience’s eyes. How does it look? Is it connecting? Compelling? Convincing? To them? If not, tear it down to the studs if you have to. If it doesn’t speak to them, it’s not worth delivering.
Rebuild it with them in mind every step of the way (see above) and you’ll NAIL it.
Remote, live in-person or a hybrid; these things are critical to a successful presentation.
Yes, the presenting world has changed, and no, it doesn’t look like it’s going back to the “old” live and in-person format any time soon. More likely, we’ll next be navigating presenting in a hybrid format, with some of our audience in person and others attending remotely. No matter what, these five things remain critical to a successful presentation.
AUDIENCE FIRST: Nothing matters more than the audience. They know it, and in order for you to be a successful presenter, you must know it to. From the time you begin creating your presentation you must turn your focus 180°. Focus not on what you want to tell them, what you want them to know, all of your very-important-stuff (which, p.s., they could care less about), but instead, focus on what they care about, what they worry about, and what their knowledge level is in regards to your subject. NOTE: If they don’t think your subject is relevant/urgent/important to them, you must begin by illustrating this relevance/urgency/importance very clearly.
DO THE HEAVY LIFTING: It is not your audience’s job to untangle the spaghetti of your content. Neither is it your job to edit your content for relevance while you’re presenting. This is all stuff you need to do ahead of time. Determine what the main point of your presentation is and stick to it. Organize the content around it, and vigilantly edit for irrelevancy.
BESPEAKING THE AUDIENCE’S LANGUAGE: No, it won’t make you look like a super-smarty-pants subject matter expert to throw around 8 syllable words and insider acronyms. It will only make your audience feel stupid, which feels bad, which has a ricochet effect. Feeling bad needs someone to blame. Who made them feel bad? You did. Now they feel bad about you. Way to go. Nix the jargon words and acronyms and talk to them in language an eight-year-old or eighty-eight-year-old can understand.
MAKE YOUR VISUALS AIDS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE: Your slides should be a synergistic component. They plus you should be exponentially more effective in getting your message across than either of you could alone. No visual should ever be self-explanatory. If it is, then there is no need for you, the presenter. Think “Show and Tell”. Show the visual (chart, graph, icon) and explain to the audience what they are looking at.
PRACTICE OUT LOUD: This is non-negotiable. There is no way to be a truly effective presenter in any format without practicing out loud. In your head does not count. Trust, me, you’ll sound like a genius in your head. Once you actually start clicking and talking, however, it’s a different story. Create the pathways between your brain and your mouth. Practice more than once to get your long-term memory involved as well. Come presentation day you’ll feel confident and well-prepared, and it will show.
No matter how you find yourself presenting; remotely, live and in-person, or a hybrid of the two, follow these five rules and you’ll be NAILING it.
10 things your visuals are doing wrong.
You don’t have to be a graphic artist to create great visual aids – aids for the audience, that is. Unfortunately, most of us don’t realize how detrimental bad visuals can be to the success of our presentation. At the very least avoid these 10 things the next time you’re using PowerPoint (or Keynote or Prezi) and you’ll have a much better shot of NAILing IT.
1) You’re using too many words. Humans process language via the phonological loop; a processor in working memory that makes sense of language – both written and spoken. Thus when you have a visual that requires reading, and you’re talking at the same time, your causing cognitive overload. You’re short-circuiting your audience’s processor of language. Not a good thing.
2) Your text is too small to be easily read. If your text (words or numbers) is smaller than 18 points, odds are good it can’t be easily read in the back of the room. There are fewer statements more ironic than, “You can’t really see this, but…” spoken by a presenter as he shows a visual aid. HOW IS IT A VISUAL AID IF THE AUDIENCE CANNOT SEE IT?
3) You put all of the information on the screen at once. There’s a reason God created animations; so that you can give the audience the information one bite at a time. When you put up 7 bullets at once (even if there are very few words), you’ve lost control of your audience. Some will read faster than others. Virtually no one will only read the first bullet and wait for you to explain it. (And heaven help you if all you’re doing is reading what they’re seeing. They’ll simply read the slide themselves and then surf their cell phones – completely tuning you out.)
4) You put a complicated chart or graph on the screen all at once. If you’re telling the story of multiple years of growth, have the years animate one at a time. Build the suspense. Don’t let the audience get ahead of you, or lose you all together.
5) You’re using different, random, animations. Animating text, shapes and charts and graphs is great, but their needs to be a thoughtful application of their movement. Things should appear in order to draw attention to them being there, they should move upward to show growth or improvement (and down to indicate the opposite). Things should animate left to right to indicate steps, a time line, etc. PLEASE do not use every kind of animation provided. Just because you can does not mean you should. Animation should never distract from the message.
6) Your photos are distorted, blurry, still have a watermark … To alter the size of a photo, either tug on the corner or change it in the photo editor menu. PLEASE do not stretch it horizontally or vertically. If you do enlarge it and it looks blurry, use another photo! And for the love of everything professional, pay for photos you’re using; don’t think no one will notice the watermark. We all see it. And we’re embarrassed for you…
7) You’re using pointless clip art. Visuals should have a point. In fact, they should be a synergistic component, helping you explain something your narrative alone cannot. Decoration has no place in a serious presentation.
8) Your pointless clip art is moving about. Why? Really, just why?
9) There’s not enough contrast between your background and your text. This is a rooky mistake. Some colors show clearly on a laptop screen, but are hard to see via projection. Always err on the side of caution. The more contrast the better. Oh, and avoid florescent colors – they never show well.
10) You’re using random colors, hard to read fonts, and complicated templates. Ideally, the colors of your presentation should be the colors of your logo. you should use a sans serif font (Arial, Calibri, Lucida, Tahoma, Verdana, are all good, easy –to-read sans serif fonts.) Likewise with a template. I know that Microsoft provides dozens of options. This is not a time to be artsy. Stick with boring. Boring is good.
Avoid these 10 mistakes when creating slides for your next presentation and you’ll have visuals that are truly aids for your audience. You’ll be heard, and you’ll be NAILing IT.
The ‘Stumble Through’: a critical part of any successful presentation prep.
You’ve built your presentation, you’ve created your slides, you’ve clicked through them a few times figuring out what you’ll say, you’re thinking you’re good to go. Right? Uh, not so fast. There’s only one way to know if you’ve got your presentation where you want it, and that is to talk through it OUT LOUD. Clicking through your slides and thinking about what you’ll say DOES NOT COUNT. In order to give a successful presentation you must have what I call a ‘stumble through’.
Why a ‘stumble through’ rather than a ‘practice’? Because the first time through any presentation out loud is never a smooth experience. In the hundreds of presentations I’ve helped build, (including my own) I have yet to see one delivered uninterrupted the first time through.
Here’s what happens when you run through your presentation the first time. Most likely you’ll end up coming to a screeching halt right after the intro – (once you’ve figured out the intro). The screeching halt is caused by a completely common phenomenon; you don’t have a transition between your intro and your first big point. What to say? How to get from the intro to this first big point? The best way to figure this out is by experimenting.; try things out – see how they sound. Got something that works? Good, now you can move on.
Uh oh – stopped again. This time because you’ve got a slide (or idea) in the wrong place. You simply cannot get from point A to point F. No worries, you move point F to where it belongs, after point E, and you’re moving forward again.
Until you get to point E, which you now realize doesn’t really belong in this presentation at all. It’s a digression, one you don’t have time for. But now what about point F? Turns out that one is unnecessary as well. OK, you delete and move forward.
As you get to your third big point you realize it’s a little thin. Where is your proof of this point? Good thing you realized this now (instead of in front of a real live audience!), better add a chart or two to solidify your argument.
On this goes until you’ve stumbled to the conclusion. Now you have (most of) the pieces in place, and you’ve got a presentation that’s ready to be practiced OUT LOUD. You only need to practice a few times – no more than four. You simply want to know your transitions, be super familiar with the animations (the clicks) so you know what’s coming next. A good night’s sleep and you’re ready!
After you’ve built your next presentation take the time and energy (and lots of patience) to ‘stumble through’ it. You’ll see and hear where things are missing, what’s in the wrong place and what doesn’t belong. Then you’ll easily be heard, and you’ll be giving presentations that NAIL IT.
