Reader's Question: Why does my boss keep asking me to redo my presentation?

I would like to thank all of you for sending in you questions. Of course I won't be able to answer every single one but since many of the questions are similar, I hope the questions that I do address will answer many of your questions.

Andrew from Kota Damansara sent in the above question, " Why does my boss keep asking me to redo my presentation?" and sent me a copy of one of his PowerPoint files. After reviewing the file he sent, I hope the following tips will help him and others faced with the same issue :

People have trouble paying attention for more than
20 minutes so keep your presentation short

1. Keep it short and to the point- Always try to put yourself in the shoes of your boss. He or she will always be very busy with many things at the same time, so if you can put your point across quickly and clearly without them having to think too much they will greatly appreciate it. The PowerPoint file you sent was very big and had 23 slides in it for a simple proposal to purchase a new version of software that your department uses. Try to keep your slides to a minimum but still getting the message across. Bear in mind most people do not have an attention span of more than 20 minutes. Your boss probably realises this and wants you to keep it short for the benefit of the audience who you will need to present to and convince.

Images in a slide must help to convey a clear message,
too many images creates clutter!

2. Keep it simple - Your slides have too many things going on at the same time. Not only is this distracting but it makes it difficult for people to follow what you are trying to say. A single image to convey a specific point should be sufficient, too many pictures make the whole slide look very cluttered and leaves a bad impression. Also too much text on the slide and reading the text is a sure way of putting your audience to sleep as they can read much faster than you can while you are presenting. Too often people create what some people call, 'sliduments' which are a hybrid of slide and document. The slides are just a tool for you to help present you case, the details should be in separate document, i.e. the formal proposal memo.

3. Tell the good with the bad-  It is not enough to just highlight the strength and benefits of your proposal. Your presentation needs to be balanced. What this means is that you also need to be able to pre-empt possible concerns that the audience may have. You need to put in a section that also highlights the possible risks that your proposal will create and also how you will mitigate those risk with specific actions and interventions. This was missing from the file you sent and I would consider this a major omission.

4. Keep your boss in the loop- As you develop the slides pack it would be a good idea to consult with your boss at appropriate intervals to make sure you are meeting his or her expectations. To start off, develop a skeleton framework of just the heading of each slide so that your boss agrees with the flow and direction of your presentation. Next check point could be fill in the key points of each slide present again for comments and feedback. Finally show your final draft for comments and approval. Involving your boss in the development and creation process will generate a feeling of joint ownership and also show your initiative to get things done right. A common mistake of many young executives is to only show the boss the final product without any communication or validation in between. Most important of all listen to the comments that you boss makes and do not repeat the same mistakes. After a few rounds you should be able to have a good model in your mind of what your boss considers a good presentation and try to stick to it.

For those of you who have sent in questions but I have not had the opportunity to answer, thank you for sending them in but please bear with me. I will try to answer as many as possible in the coming weeks. If you have an interesting question about presentations or general business communications do send it in.

Say it with pictures: Get your point across visually and tell a story

Two weeks ago I was invited to give a refresher course on marketing to a group of entreprenuers, most of whom had little or no formal marketing training. While preparing my materials I came to a point where I had to touch on the concept of "Marketing Strategy". Below is the slide that spells out a formal definition of "Marketing Strategy".

Wow! That's quite a mouthful. I then thought, how could I explain this visually? It took a while but I then decided that I would use the idea of a battle to illustrate what the above definition of marketing strategy was trying to say. This is the first slide I used.

It show the battle formation of two opposing forces. The army on the left is outnumbered and outgunned but it has a single tank. The tank represents a competitive advantange. Based on the current formation, the army on the left has very little chance against the army on the right which has more resources at its' disposal.

However if the army on the left rearranges its' battle formation and focuses its strength i.e. the single tank that it has on a narrow front with the rest of the army providing close cover, the situation can take a totally different course.

The army on the left could effectively punch a hole into the defensive lines of the army on the right as shown below:

Once the defensive line is broken, the army on the left is then free to charge through and capture the flag and consequenly win the battle.

Instead of just elaborating on each keyword in the definition slide, tell a story around your explanation and make it as graphic as possible. In this example we have taken a very conceptual idea (that was potentially sleep inducing) and illustrated it in a dynamic and engaging way that was easy to understand.

Psychologists have done extensive research that suggests that people are better at remembering what they see rather what they hear. Use this to your advantage the next time you are presenting. This is just a simple example of how the use of simple graphics and images can help you to illustrate complex subject matter in a very short time. You could of course just verbalise an explanation of whatever you need to say.

However, you risk losing your audience which has a very short attention span. The human brain is wired to be as economical as possible and will try as far as possible to minimise its work load. We all have filters in the most basic parts of our brains that constantly scan all information we are receiving, if it looks or sounds like it will take a great deal of thinking to understand and does not threaten your well being in any way, the most common reaction is to shut off and disregard the information.

As far as possible try to weave a story around what you are trying to say. This helps to create a connection with the audience. People love to hear stories and most people love to tell them too. Unfortunately we often forget this when we are presenting.

Remember, always use pictures and images to support what you want to say. Also build a story around what you wish to say to keep the audience who have a short attention span engaged and on your side!

Be visual

Use images to reinforce your message. How often have you had to suffer 'Death by Powerpoint' with slide after slide of hardly visible text that the presenter reads? It does not take long for the mind to quickly shut off an...d start thinking about other more interesting stuff like what will be served for lunch after this boring presentation. The human mind remembers more if there are visual cues which accompany the text on screen and the words being spoken. In fact the less text the better if you can choose a visual that expresses what you want to say very graphically. The master of this principle of " Picture superiority" was the late Steve Jobs, many of his slides were just a single evocative picture that literally said " A 1000 words".