“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”

-General Stanley A. McChrystal, leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan

One of the most widely-emailed stories last week was an above-the-fold, color-splashed New York Times PowerPoint diagram portraying the complexity of American strategy in Afghanistan.  As the NYT observed, it looks more like a bowl of spaghetti than a strategy.  As I read it I thought about the old black and white war movies in which war generals drew battle diagrams in the dirt with a stick.  Boy we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?  

Computer generated charts, graphs and bullet points are now apparently a running joke at the Pentagon.  Military communications are dominated by unruly PowerPoint presentations that are stifling real communication.  “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” said General H.R. McMaster. 

I don’t know about you but I’m not laughing.  I’d like to know that when those brave guys and gals go out on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan that everybody’s got the same clear plan in their heads.  I don’t mean to imply that the military considers this a laughing matter.  High ranking military officials have serious concerns that PowerPoint is damaging critical thinking and thoughtful decision making.  But the horse is out of the barn and nobody knows how to corral it back inside.

Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?

Bad PowerPoint is such a running joke in American business today.

Maybe lives aren’t at stake, but your business is. 

The other day one of my new clients came in to prepare for a presentation he was giving in London to about 400 global leaders in his company.  He’d delivered the same presentation to small groups; but it was going on the big screen and he wanted to “check the slides” before he left.  “Minor adjustments,” he said.

“More like a PowerPoint grenade,” I replied.

One structural diagram had so many boxes and messages in the smallest type I’ve ever seen (is there a “nano-point”?) which you couldn’t read with a magnifying glass.  Another had six text boxes each with 12 bullet points.  I’m not kidding. 

Here’s what I’m going to propose.  Copy my article, or just cut and paste the photo and send it around your company today.  Ask for comments.  Get people talking about PowerPoint.  Then send me your comments.  I will post them in the blog.  

By starting the conversation perhaps you can make some changes.  It’s time to start using visuals to make things easier, not harder, to understand.  It’s not too late to win the battle in business.  

Pass the sauce, please.

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I used to hate it when my mother said “It’s right in front of your nose, dear.”  Have you ever actually tried to look right in front of your nose?  (I just did it.)  It’s a weird feeling. 

Try it. 

Really, nobody’s looking.  Go ahead.

Wow, you really know how to live dangerously. 

Seriously, did you get dizzy?  I did.  And I couldn’t see a darned thing. After three or four seconds I stopped because it was uncomfortable. No wonder my mother also used to say, “Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll get stuck.”  

She was right.

What I mean is you can get stuck trying to see what’s right in front of your face – the story of your company.   Even a crackerjack marketing/PR/communications team sees it from the same perspective you do.  It’s simple anatomy – you’re so close you can’t see it.     

Nobody knows your business like you do.  You are smart, self-reliant, and you’ve lived the story.  It’s hard to take a step back.  So there you are looking straight down your nose, so close that you may go cross eyed.  

You are the best one to TELL your story but before you do, you may need to take a step back and get someone to helpyou.  Another person’s perspective will help you to fully appreciating what that story really is.  Your story is not the features of your products or services.  It’s about who you are as a company and why customers want to do business with you.      

Recently we started working with a new company which had a cool technology and a lousy message.  I’m saying you could spend 47 hours reading the copy on their web site and I would defy you to explain what they’re trying to say.  But chat with the CEO for two minutes and you see he’s clearly passionate about it.   

So we started asking questions.  We listened, talked some more, revised, revamped, and eureka.  Cool stuff.  The picture came into focus.  I love it when when everybody looks up at the same time and you can tell they are thinking, ”This is fun!”        

It can be scary to let go and twork with a coach or consultant; to try to tell your story to someone else.  You may be a little afraid of the holes in the story, or the questions you hate to answer.  But when you do this, it’s amazing how the answers fall into place.  And you may as well address those gaps because it’s what your audience is thinking about anyway.  

So, my advice is, before you assign the team to spend hours slaving over another PowerPoint deck; before you ask the “Web guy” (I know they’re not all guys but that’s the lingo) to revise your web site; before you sit down with one more trade press reporter, or go to an industry conference or even meet with a big new prospect, get some professional help.  Bring the story into focus.  Uncross those eyes and get the story right.     

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Suddenly it’s become this thing.  I didn’t used to hear it that often but lately everybody’s talking about how their leaders need to tell stories. 

The reason most people can’t find their leadership stories is because when asked, they can only remember the stories they’ve been telling at neighborhood cocktail parties or around the family dinner table on Thanksgiving.  You know - the one everybody likes about how in third grade you and your brother were chasing each other across a field and climbed over a fence and you stuck your hand on a board with a rusty nail and your mom was mad as hell and youu had to get a tetanus shot.  Or the one about how you skipped World Religion class in college and then got your girlfriend’s notes and pulled three all nighters in a row to study only to fall asleep and wake up 12 hours later having slept through the final.  Fascinating stories like that.   

Those probably won’t work. The reason they won’t work is that it’s going to be hard to make a business point.  But trust me you do have great stories some of them personal but with universal themes appropriate for business. 

Stories are the way to deliver a message.  The reason many leaders pooh-pooh the idea is because they are …afraid.  There, I said it.  We don’t do that in our culture.

The best speakers and leaders tell stories.  They believe events in their own life are worth sharing with others in order to explain who they are as leaders.

Of course they get help.  You don’t want to get up and start telling stories unless they’re going to make a powerful point.  That would be like picking up a scalpel and performing heart surgery without the proper training.  Yes you could use the instrument but the results won’t be pretty. 

Fortunately telling stories isn’t heart surgery.  Everybody learn to do it well.  And everybody HAS stories.  I’ll never forget sitting in a session with our consultant Craig Bentley who told his client, “If you’re breathing, you have stories.”  Yes, your stories are there, hiding in plain sight in the corners of your life.  You just need to stop and look.  Then, give them a little love.  Say, come here story, I might want to tell you.

How do I know?

Well, for one, we teach storytelling in our boot camps and workshops so I’ve seen ordinary people get up and tell gynormous stories that nobody could guess they had in them.  It’s happened a thousand times.  We start by asking probing questions to get people thinking about interesting experiences, they work with a partner who asks more questions to get to the “truth” or lesson in the story.  You wouldn’t believe how much fun it is to hear these stories and watch these speakers blossom right before our eyes.   

If you are wondering whether personal stories really work in business the answer is yes as long as they aren’t inappropriate, x rated or pointless.  And if one of our coaches is working with you we’re certainly not going to let you go tell your team how your fraternity got arrested at 4 a.m. in the middle of the football field because you were reenacting the famous all-night streaking party of 1972.   We’ll be looking for the kinds of stories that show decisions you’ve made, challenges you’ve faced; transforming experiences that express who you are.  You might be surprised to discover how even small, ordinary events can become signature leadership stories that express your viewpoint and make a huge impact on your audiences.

Nobody except perhaps your spouse would be interested your first kiss, but a lot of people would like to know about something you learned in your first job.  They’d also like to hear about awkward moments, difficult choices, failures, successes, interesting people you’ve met, and insights you’ve gained by living and facing life head on.  

As I always like to say to my clients, you’re leading this group or this company FOR A REASON.  Somebody put you here because they saw something in you.  So now it’s time to reveal it.  You owe it to the people you lead to share insights about the values and principles that drive you.    

Your stories about life and career have shaped you as a leader and made you the person you are today.   The trick is to be selective; choose the right events, master a process for examining them, and apply the structure for writing and telling a story to make a point.  

I am constantly amazed and astounded at the things that happen to people.  It’s life!  It’s damned interesting!  You can look at somebody in a business suit and think “he was born in that suit” until you hear his tale of surviving a storm at sea in a rowboat or how adopting a baby from Romanian orphanage or trekking to a remote mountain village with a broken leg.  You always end up in the same place.  Everybody has an interesting story.  And if you share your stories you’ll make a magical connection with your audience. 

You know how a lot of people look at you and think that you’ve been sitting in that big office all your life?    They have no idea that you’ve struggled, failed, or overcome difficult situations personally and professionally.  Honestly, they think somebody just handed you the keys to the office.  As a leader if you can connect with them through your stories you will encourage, motivate and inspire them to work hard and live up to their own potential and I can’t think of a better definition of leadership.

Steps in the storytelling process 

• Think of a challenging situation you have faced, a failure, awkward moment, difficult decision
• Tell the story to a friend, coach, mentor or speechwriter
• Get them to ask you probing questions - what happened, why was that significant, what was the result, how did you feel, why does it matter
• Look for the point inside the story, don’t try to “fit” a point into a story - let it tell you what it’s about
• Record it out loud, then transcribe and edit
• Use a story structure to eliminate unnecessary details and leave only what matters and takes your audience there
• Bring it alive with conversation and colorful descriptives
• Make your point in terms of a universal theme for your audience
• Write it down and save it
• Practice until you can tell it in a fluid, conversational style
• Be sure your point is clear

If all that sounds complicated it’s actually not.  Once you learn the process and have the tools, it’s really fun.  And let me tell you those stories make speaking a whole lot more enjoyable. 

There are disasters.  You see them at conferences and company meetings.  You know, when the speaker starts a story that goes on forever, and everybody starts squirming or checking their Blackberries.  You try to be polite but nobody is that nice. So, you turn to a perfect stranger seated next to you, exchange painful, knowing glances meant to say OH MY GOD PLEASE HELP HIM or LET THIS END.  

But don’t let that scare you.  You can learn this.  Storytelling is not a natural born skill but with the right tools, practice and some guts you can do it.  A good story will earn you a reputation as a standout leader in your company and industry.  Not to mention you’ll be able to ditch the PowerPoint heroine for a few minutes and actually have a conversation with people. 

Want to hear about our boot camp and storytelling seminar?  Email me at info@bates-communications.com

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Last week in the middle of a presentation to of 500 people at the Massachusetts Conference for Women, my PowerPoint presentation became suddenly “unavailable.”  The screen went dark and a signal sign was flashing.  As luck would have it, even though we had “tested it twice,” the computer crashed while Meredith O’Connor, our Marketing Director, was loading  videos.  These videos were an important part of the program, an exercise called “You Be the Coach,” in which the audience critiques well known CEO speakers. 

To compound things, I had arrived there in the morning without a hard copy of the PowerPoint slides.  They were not printed for the audience.  So without PowerPoint slides it would have been tough to make sure the “show went on.”  Fortunately, I have had so many experiences like this, that I knew I would need a print out.  I asked a terrific conference aid if she would take the flash drive and run to Kinkos downstairs at the Boston Convention Center to have it printed for me.  This is an important reminder- you ALWAYS need to have  hard copy in front of you - little did I realize it would save me.  I was able to go on and even joke about how whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and to point out how to rescue yourself when you encounter such an inconvenient technological glitch.

Here are five tips on how to resuscitate a presentation when the technology gremlins threaten to ruin you.

1.  Bring backup: Flash drive of the PowerPoint, hard copy of the same, and any other visual aids that do not depend upon technology.  Make sure whatever happens you can deliver a great program.

2.  Be flexible: While the technical gurus work on “fixing” a problem, go on with the program, ask questions, do an exercise, get people engaged in a discussion, so that you don’t continue to call attention to the technical issues and people feel the time is used productively.

3. Bring a side-kick:  It would have been extremely difficult to resolve this technical issue with only the technician that the conference center provided; in fact the guy was nowhere to be found at the moment it went down.  Meredith rebooted and kept working on it while I kept the program going, and that was what made the difference.  Whenever possible, bring along someone who can trouble shoot.

4. Stay cool:  What impresses audiences is not the PowerPoint, but how you handle yourself on the platform.  They feel bad for you but they don’t want to have to live your pain.  You will be judged by clients, prospects, bosses, your board of director and other audiences by how you manage under pressure and keep your focus.

5. Have a sense of humor:  When I turned to Meredith (semi seriously) after it looked like she had rebooted and we would be able to see the video.  I said, “Don’t make a liar out of me!”  and that got one of the biggest laughs at the conference.  Later people came up and said, “you model what you say.  That could have been a disaster and you handled it well.” 

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I’m wild about a brand new, beautiful, and absolutely brilliant book on how to create memorable visuals for presentations.  It’s called Presentation Zen, Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, by Garr Reynolds (New Riders, 2008).

You only have to flip through the pages to immediately grasp Reynold’s provocative mix of inspiration and practical guidance.  As a presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert, he shows how  thoughtfully designed, graceful, efficient visual imagery can make you look good as a presenter.  He has of the most popular Web sites on presentation design and delivery on the net — www.presentationzen.com.

The book is filled page after page of examples of how creativity, photos, large size font, and cool graphics can transform your PowerPoint from dull to dynamite.  Just one example - picture this - the slide on the left shows a full page photo of a runner slogging through the desert with a simple message - Less than 33% of U.S. adults are at a “healthy weight.”  Not bad.  But the slide on the right? It shows the midsection only of an overweight man grabbing his belly fat, with the caption in large print: 66% of Americans are obsese or overweight; below that a simple chart on the numbers of all adults, women and men.  It’s so much more memorable!

Garr Reynolds is a writer, designer and musician who currently holds the position of  Associate Professor of Management at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan. http://www.kansaigaidai.ac.jp/asp/

 Hence, his zen-way of seeing things.

His real message: Simplicity Rules.

How good is it?  Seth Godin  http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/ the marketing guru of gurus quips, “Please don’t buy this book! Once people start making better presentations, mine won’t look so good.”

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