Presentations with Slide Decks: A perfect time to check your email!

This week we talk about using slides in a way that supports, rather than obstructs, our communication. Next week, we talk about ways to ensure a robust connected virtual experience. Both demand that we amplify our visual engagement with others, while minimizing visual distractions.

Anyone who’s worked with me has heard this refrain:

There is a reason that we fly people all over the world in airplanes, put them up in hotels, feed them, host them, give them swag, congregate, meet, and convene, face-to-face. There is a reason that we meet on Zoom or Webex rather than conference calls or email threads.

People need visual connection and interaction. People work better when they are engaged with other people, reading their emotions, expressions, and tone.

There is something ineffable about human connection. Do not squander it.

Anything that can be written, sent in advance, or sent after the meeting (slides, notes, emails, blog posts, papers), should be.

Keep this time together precious.

So why then, do we squander those precious moments by turning off our webcam, eclipsing our selves (face, expression, body) with slides? And why, oh why, would we litter the slides with text, which draws the audience towards the written words and disconnects them from the speaker?

If the purpose of convening is to move, sway, influence, change, make good decisions, be creative, solve problems, innovate, then why would we manufacture and build in tools that only serve as obstacles to our purpose?

The answers I most often hear are: “Because that’s how it’s always been done.” “Because my boss will expect it.” “Because more slides means I’m working harder.” “Because I’m an academic (the worst excuse!).”

These reasons have more to do with impressing others, following silly rules, and acquiescing to a stagnant corporate culture, than moving forward in a positive and innovative direction.

You can be a leader in changing this passivity. Be proactive. Or as my father said, “The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.” Do the right thing! Don’t bore us to tears, I beg you!

Slides in a nutshell:

• Avoid text

• Limit number

Avoid text:

• The minute there are words on a slide, the audience will read the words; they are no longer connected to you or listening to you speak.

• They can read faster than you can speak, so when they come back to your spoken words, you are lagging behind their understanding.

• Then, they check their email while you catch up.

When presenting with slides, most of us use the text on a slide like an outline, to remind ourselves what we want to say. So it’s not really for the audience at all. It’s pretty selfish. In fact, we often have bullet points that need explicating so the audience gets nothing really from the text, while we get a mnemonic.

How to fix this?

• Have the complete deck, with your text, printed or in-view on a second screen or tablet.

• For the audience, use only images, visuals, graphs with almost no numbers or words.

• When presenting online, toggle back and forth often between the slide and your image. This creates a dynamic presentation that pulls people in and minimizes the lure of a good nap or online shopping.

• Then, send the complete deck, with text, to the audience after the presentation.

Limit number:

In America we really believe more is better. But when it comes to slides, please believe me when I say, less is more. Give us more of you and less of a stagnant slide. People are far more interesting than slides. In all of the many TED Talks I have coached, only a few have had slides. And those are talks that are about the images, like the talks by National Geographic photographer, Ami Vitale, landscape architect, Thomas Woltz, and New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly.

I worked with a man who was proud to say he used 150 slides in a 90 minute presentation! He was a marketing professional and truly subscribed to the idea that if we blast people with stimuli and information they will retain something. Or at least, they will become a zombie and follow along mindlessly. That certainly works in shopping malls and casinos, but is this really what we want in our boardrooms?

Next time you make a slide deck: less text, limit number. And have your boss call me if she needs some persuasion—I won’t send a slide deck outlining my argument!

In my next post I’m going to make the case for KEEPING THE CAMERA ON and KEEPING THE MEETING SHORT.