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Effectively Organize Your Presentation Content
When I find myself part of a presenter's audience, invariably I wonder, "What am I supposed to do with this information?" Not, "What am I supposed to think?" but, "What am I supposed to do?" I suspect that I'm not all that different from most people.
Culturally, Americans have a strong action bias. We might not always take the most productive action, but we're going to do something. Action gives comfort, especially when people within an organization are feeling challenged.
I suspect that this is why most presentations either commence with and/or conclude with a set of conclusions, recommended actions or strategies. We want to give people what they want: something to do to improve things.
Understanding this action bias helps when one thinks about both the substance and the organization of presentation content.
You've read about this organizational device many times:
1) Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em;
2) Tell 'em.
3) Tell 'em what you told 'em.
While repetition helps drive a message home, my experience is that smart people get impatient when they hear the same message or evidence too many times. So, I think this formal device requires some subtlety and shading to work. But the idea is right on. Get to the point early and restate it at the end.
Maybe it's because I was trained as an artist, but I think that the most effective forms are akin to the sonata allegro form, the fugue form, or the novel form. I don't mean to oversimplify here, but they all have the same bones: Exposition (Expose the theme). Development (Develop the theme). Recapitulation (Restate the theme).
Why begin with a statement of recommended actions or strategies? Doesn't this seem like jumping to conclusions, especially without exposing the evidence or thinking that led you to conclude that this is the best course of action? Doesn't this open the presenter to the possibility of resistance or a barrage of questions?
Yes, it does. But it also helps your audience connect your points and evidence to the set of recommended strategies and actions. My experience is that, in the end, this is both a more efficient use of time and more respectful of an audience.
You might not think so, but you want your audience to subject your recommendations to scrutiny and skepticism. You want to make room for your audience to add value, especially if what they add improves the odds that the correct strategy sets are implemented.
The best reason to expose the thematic core of your conclusions early on is this:
Your audience is likely to be distracted by trying to intuit what you're going to recommend, anyway. So you might as well create a low-key, factual exposition of your strategic conclusions early, and then lead them through the data, evidence, and thought processes (development) that led you to your strategies.
Then you can finish up by explicitly connecting key data points and supporting evidence to your recommended actions or strategies. This formal approach drives home both the logic and the substance of your thinking, It manages the evidence of a considered, thoughtful approach.
Most importantly, this formal approach answers that "What am I supposed to do with this information?" question early on. It immediately puts that question aside so that your audience can consider perhaps a more salient question:
"Why should I take these actions?"
Posted on August 22, 2006 09:18 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Points well taken. The "What am I supposed to do with this information" statement and its placement is spot on.