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Planning an Effective Presentation, Part 4
Understand Your Purpose
People who don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, always achieve their objective. But seriously, if you want to accomplish specific objectives, it’s important that you first understand what they are, and then create strategies to achieve them. Intention matters.
Sarah believes that Jody is the best person to motivate the rest of the staff. She believes that Jody’s reputation and relationships strengthen the possibility of meaningfully engaging everyone else. The presentation will also inform people about what is to be accomplished and educate them about those strategies that will be used to succeed.
But, be clear, the superordinate goal of this presentation is to motivate. Motivating people calls for a different communications tone, style, pacing, and substance than does simply informing or educating. In my experience, the best way to motivate people is to first engage them. People become motivated when they believe in the substance and integrity of strategy. Integrity of strategy translates into perceived probability-of-successful outcome.
Because people have “adverse kum-ba-yah reaction� to inartfully crafted motivational messaging (think about those awful “fly-like-an-eagle� motivational posters), Jody will have to put beef in the sandwich. The presentation must reflect sound strategy if Jody wants to develop buy-in from everyone else.
Jody’s purpose priorities might be reflected as follows:
1 - Motivate
2 - Engage
3 - Educate
4 - Persuade
5 – Inform
In my experience, understanding the purpose of a presentation is the single most important thing I need to know when I’m designing a presentation. Understanding purpose is akin to mission. Purpose – more than anything – guides content, style, timing, tone, and structure. It makes simplicity possible. As I’ve written previously, simplicity succeeds.
Posted on June 14, 2006 06:30 AM | Permalink
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