POWERING POINTS OF VIEW

The Inevitable Act

There would be no manager or executive of consequence, who would not have given a PowerPoint presentation or sat through a few. Presentations, frills attached, is now a way of life and inevitable to effective sharing of information, as bullets, charts, graphs and audio video visuals. Anything possible could be improvised and incorporated to make presentations impressive. Despite all that, most merely remain visuals and seldom achieve purposes intended.  When presentations are contests to win situations, where only one can win, success normally graces, not the most spectacular but the most influencing.

Winners

The Internet is teeming with experts and their recipes that guarantee great presentations.  Most of them offer techniques to make screens look better and more attractive. Blazing screens alone, unfortunately, don’t guarantee success in favourably influencing the audience. Without a clear understanding of the means to effectively influence decision-makers, presentations remain purposeless histrionics. Contrary to common belief, it is not the quality of slides, but the ‘power’ of the ‘point of logic’ and its ability to draw audience towards the ‘thought process’ advocated, that wins the day. The key lies in influencing decision makers individually and collectively to agree with the logic advocated or convincing the audience to accept the point of view presented. Skillfully used presentations can help logically reason out adoption of one amongst many viable alternatives and objectively compare parameters. It can help motivate and compel teams to accept, adopt and adhere to new ideas. Presentations are means to be exploited and not the end.

Common Practice

It’s common to hear senior executives say “I have an important presentation to make”. Importance of the event, notwithstanding, the misplaced focus is too obvious to be missed. Energy and efforts go into piling up of as much information as possible and converting them to a series of slides. More often than not, presenters flash these slides, read it out verbatim and state the obvious from graphs, charts or tables. Its common to see presenters running short of time, skipping slides and audience disengaging themselves from the presentation.

While it may be necessary to ‘read out’ slides for people who can't read, business meetings are normally attended by lettered people with basic sense of size and proportion. They can, without outside help, read slides, decipher charts and compare crests or troughs of a line graph.  Stating the obvious to such an audience relegates the presenter to being an announcer. Such presentations help collate and present information for attendees to reason out in the manner they want to, with no role for the presenter. Presentations devoid of a cogent thought process seldom influence decision makers.

The Technique

There cannot be a prescribed method of presentation.  Each one must be unique, the uniqueness characteristic of the presenter and his style of putting across the narrative.

Irrespective of the nature of presentation, the presenter must be aware of its aim. He must know the target audience, competitors, adversaries, influencers and decision makers. The decision of how the narrative must flow would be dependent on this knowledge.

Slides must be designed such that the presenter becomes the source of possible inferences. Such slides incite the audience to focus on what the speaker says rather than ignoring him as an appendage to colourful displays. Too many colours and fancy transitions fritter focus away from the subject and the presenter. Much like designing a conveyor belt, presenter must first decide the path of discourse he wants to lead the audience on. Counters likely, must be intelligently positioned and adequately addressed to liquidate opposing thoughts. Facts and figures must be sequenced such that it strengthens the logic presented. Presentation must be a narrative woven by the presenter compelling enough to, dispel doubts, quell opposition, shape opinions favourably and elicit decisions as desired.

Time, is an issue that most presenters tend to disrespect. Human brains can continuously be engaged only for a limited duration. It may be worthwhile to plan presentations to finish within 20 minutes. If the subject demands longer interaction, presentations must be interspersed with activities like ‘question-answer’ sessions to keep the audience interactively engaged. Most attendees mentally prepare themselves to accommodate presentations as per the time slots given. Exceeding time slots automatically erode effectiveness of the presentation. Thus, when an audience is told that the presentation is for 30 minutes, it will be worthwhile to conclude it in 30 minutes.  Every minute ahead of it, however, absorbing the presentation may be, generally works against it. 

Fundamentals

In order to ensure effective presentations, it is mandatory to answer the following: -

What is the presentation about?

What is expected out of it? (What do I want to achieve from it?)

Who are the attendees?

Who are the influencers?

Who is the decision maker?

Influencing decision maker(s)

What is the prevailing thought process?

Is it in line with or contrary to the line of thought being advanced?

What is the logic appropriate to address the differential?

How do I lead the audience in the direction I want?

How do I sequence the argument or information flow to get the maximum impact?

How do I pack all the punch in the time given?

How do I elicit the decision I want?

Conclusion

Most movies have a hero, a heroine and a plot that finally unites them. Some become super hit at the box office while others bomb miserably. The difference between the two lies not in the narrative but in the manner of narration. So is it, with PowerPoint presentations.