Life After PowerPoint!

Most presentations are a variation on the problem-solution format. The presenter surfaces a problem that affects the audience, explains it in some way (its scope, implications, causes, etc.), and prescribes a solution to it (what to do, how to do it, and the benefits of doing it).

There are many ways to define a problem. The definition that I’ve been working with lately is a version of one proposed by a friend who teaches game theory to both the military and to businesses. And it’s this:

A problem is anything — a set of circumstances, an object, an action, a process, a person, a rule, a condition — or a combination of all of those things that prevents you from achieving what you desire.

A locked door is not a problem if you’re a homeowner wanting to protect your family and your possessions. It is a problem 1) if you’re the owner of the home and you’ve locked yourself out, or 2) if you’re a burglar and you want to break in.

Something — anything — only becomes a problem when it keeps someone from getting what they want.

That means that when you’re talking to a mixed audience, you may need to define the problem in a couple of different ways, depending on what the different people in the audience want. The CFO, the VP of sales, and the head of R&D may all agree that a situation at a manufacturing plant is a problem. But they may — they probably will — define it differently because of how it affects them and their areas of responsibility.

So to begin creating a problem-solution presentation, you need to understand at least three things: 1) the situation as it is, 2) the people affected by it, and 3) their desires and objectives.

Have I left something out? How do you define a problem?

I’m a big fan of using analogies in a speech or presentation.

There are many forms of analogies. The two better known forms are

1. Metaphors equate two unrelated objects (“A is B”).
   All the world’s a stage,
   And all the men and women merely players;
   They have their exits and their entrances.
   - William Shakespeare, As You Like It
2. Similes liken one object to another (“A is like B”).
   “Politicians are a lot like diapers: They should be changed frequently and for the same reason.”
   Robin Williams in the movie Man of the Year

All the different forms basically compare two unlike objects or processes in a way that implies a similarity.

Using an analogy is a great way of explaining or illustrating a thing, a process, or a concept that your audience may not understand either because it’s new to them or because it’s complex. The best way to do this it to compare something that the audience already knows or understands to what you’re talking about.

Jon Stewart and his guest correspondent, Wyatt Cenac, used an analogy — to humorous effect — earlier this week on The Daily Show when they compared politicians to professional wrestlers. Watch it here.

What you always have to bear in mind is that analogies imply similarities. They do not establish identical natures. They are symbolic, not literal. When you say “A is like B,” you have to realize — and, if you’re being honest, admit to your audience — that in (sometimes significant) ways “A is unlike B.” We are not, after all, merely players doing our brief part of a stage.

What are some of your favorite analogies?

Rowan Gibson is a global business strategist, author of Innovation to the Core and Rethinking The Future. In an interview here, he said something about developing new insights that I found well worth passing along:

The fact is that in order to discover new ideas and opportunities of any real value, people need to stretch their thinking beyond the conventional. They need to develop fresh perspectives. So the “Four Lenses” represent four specific types of perspectives, or ways of looking at the world, that innovators typically use to come to their breakthrough discoveries. They are
(1) Challenging orthodoxies,
(2) Harnessing trends,
(3) Leveraging resources in new ways, and
(4) Understanding unmet needs.

By using these lenses, or these particular angles of view, it’s possible to systematically look through the familiar and spot the unseen. That’s how you discover those deep insights that others have overlooked or ignored.

Blogging Innovation: Part 1 of 3 – Building a Systemic Innovation Capability – Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights.

Gibson is talking about building a culture of innovation into organizations. But I think speakers and presenters can benefit from using his approach — the four lenses — as they are developing their programs.

What do you think?

March is Listening Awareness Month according to the International Listening Association, and since I believe listening is by far the most important part of communicating I offer these comments…

Speakers and presenters do most of the talking during a program. Sometimes — during keynote addresses to huge audiences, for example — they may do all of the talking. But, if you’re a masterful speaker, you actually do an equal amount of listening. Maybe even more.

First, you listen before you speak. It’s called research or speech preparation. You speak to the meeting planner. You reach out to prospective audience members. And you ask questions. Then you listen, not to confirm what you already believe but to uncover something new and to begin forging a bond with some of the people you’ll be addressing. (That’s what listening does — at least in part: it exposes you to the thoughts and feelings of others, and in the process it creates a relationship.)

Second, you listen as you’re speaking. This is difficult to do when you’re just starting out. Usually, you’re so nervous that you spend most of your energy focusing on yourself. You’re trying to avoid panic, to remember what you’re going to say next, and to slow down. You can’t imagine what it might mean to listen to your audience as you’re speaking. But if you get beyond all that and tune in to what your audience is saying to you — what they’re telling you in a thousand different ways through their body language, through the way they’re looking at you, through the quality and nature of their silence — you’ll become a much more powerful speaker.

Third, you listen during the Q&A portions of your talk, if you’re taking questions. (With a few exceptions, you should always, in my not so humble opinion, take questions.) The ability to understand what people are really asking and to respond in an appropriate way is what sets great speakers apart from all the rest. Listen on as many levels as possible: listen for the factual basis of the question, for the emotions underneath the question, and for the intent of the question. And then decide which level to respond to.

Finally, you listen after you’ve spoken. Listen to what people say about what you’ve said. Don’t just listen for praise or criticism. Listen to find out how people understood your presentation. Did they get the main point? If someone says, “I really liked your speech,” don’t go fishing for more compliments. Ask, “What’s the main thing that you remember about it?” Don’t try to correct them. (You’ll often be surprised — I know I am — when they attach to some relatively minor point you made, and loved it.) Just listen.

(You might want to take the listening quiz I created and posted here.)

Are there other times or ways you listen, as a speaker or presenter?

Photo courtesy of Ky Olsen at Flickr.

When I help clients create their speeches and presentations, I find myself spending quite a bit of time helping them think through what they want to say. As far as I’m concerned, a speech is only as good as the idea it sets forth.

If the speech’s idea is feeble, misguided or misleading, illogical, false, or trite, nothing else — words and phrases, visual aids, delivery — nothing can save it. Even if it meets with the audience’s wild approval — a standing ovation and 5′s on the evaluation sheet — it is still a bad speech.

A good speech sets forth one — and only one — idea.

You can develop a complex idea with several interconnected elements, if you have a mind to and if it suits your purpose and the needs of the audience. But it still has to be a single, unified idea. It helps, of course, if the idea is worthy of being talked about, if it is insightful, provocative, helpful, or entertaining.

So how do you come up with such an idea? Or how do you test your idea to make sure it’s a good idea?

You ask questions. Lots and lots of questions.

I always like starting off with the basics: who? what? where? when? why? how? But don’t stop there. (This web page categorizes any number of questions you might want to ask.)

But here’s the thing to keep in mind. The questions you ask shape the answers you get. Ask what the problem is, for example, and you’ll learn about problems. You may not hear about progress that has already been made or about unheralded successes or about people’s attachment to the way things are.

The more questions you ask and the greater variety of questions you ask, the better. They’ll keep you from narrowing the scope of your thinking too early.

It helps, too, to have a variety of people asking questions. Like-minded people tend to ask the same type of questions. Bring in outsiders. Give them permission to ask questions, even if they don’t seem to make sense to you. It’s hard to see your own blind spots and biases.

And question your own questions. What assumptions are you making? Are you assuming, for example, that there is a problem? Why are you making that assumption? Is it a fair assumption to make? What are the questions you most frequently ask? Why? What questions do you shy away from asking? Why?

What are your favorite questions to ask, when you’re thinking through an idea?

Academy Award acceptance speeches tie with a president’s State of the Union address (any president’s State of the Union address) for boredom-inducing silliness and lack of purpose. Every so often, of course, there are exceptions in both categories, but they are rare and they only highlight how pointless all the other ones are.

(For a delightfully wicked and profoundly cynical take on these speeches, go to the “Academy Award Acceptance Speech Generator.”)

Still, it’s hard to blame the Oscar winners. (I was going to write that theirs is a thankless task, but it seems that giving thanks is all they do.) The winners are, after all, set up to fail. For any number of reasons.

First, the pressure is on. Even the calmest, most restrained and balanced person–is anyone in the movie industry calm, restrained, or balanced?–would have a hard time keeping his or emotions in check. Yes, it’s a good thing to be passionate when you’re speaking, but there is such a thing as too much passion. At least, for a speaker. (If you doubt me, watch Gwyneth Paltrow’s speech as she gasped and wept her way through her acceptance speech for her role in Shakespeare In Love.)

Second, there’s the time limit. Short speeches are the hardest ones to pull off–especially when the pressure is on and your emotions are running riot. And these speeches are or are meant to be very short.

Third, the event itself is an unholy mess. It’s long, disjointed, and uneven. And that’s not even taking the commercial breaks into account. How do you get people’s attention, establish rapport, and be in the moment, when the entire event conspires against you?

But I think there’s another reason why the vast majority of Oscar speeches are so painful to watch. And it’s this: they’re pointless. They serve no purpose.

Under normal circumstances, when you’re given an award and asked to say a few words, that’s exactly what you do. You say a few words. You thank people for recognizing your accomplishment or contribution. You thank those who helped you. And you leave the stage or sit down. Your goal is simply to be gracious in response to other people’s and the audience’s kindness.

But that’s not the purpose of an Academy Award acceptance speech. And that’s not what the winners do. The ceremony would be even more boring than it invariably is–imagine such a possibility–if winner after winner simply followed that formula.

Every speech is or should be driven by a goal–what the speaker wants to accomplish. And that goal, in some way, has to address the audience’s needs. And that’s where I think these speeches fail. Most winners haven’t figured out or haven’t even tried to figure out how to say something that will have some effect on the audience.

The purpose of these speeches is not to thank everyone who has ever been kind or helpful to you. It is, I think, to be entertaining. People are watching and listening in the hope that someone in an entirely too long evening will say something that engages their hearts and minds.

These speeches don’t have to be comical or clever. Heartfelt is fine. So is witty. Self-deprecating humor would be nice. Insightful or intellectually penetrating would be a bonus.

Your thoughts? Did any speech or any moment stand out for you?

Usually talking back to the boss is a career-limiting move. But there are times and situations when it’s not only called for, but necessary and beneficial.

I don’t call it talking back, mind you. I call it reporting back. Here’s when and how to do it.

Say your boss tells you or the team you’re leading to do something. He wants you, maybe, to make an improvement in a product or a process. He’s pretty firm about it, but he’s not real specific.

Ask him questions. Listen. Take notes. Instead of immediately working on a solution, think about what you think he’s thinking. Ask yourself or yourselves questions.

I suggest, for starters, working through the basics:

• Who? Who else is involved in this project? Who is in charge? Who is affected by it? Who knows the most about it?
• What? What is the current situation? What about it does the boss find unsatisfactory? What does the boss want changed or improved? What is the extent of the change? What is the desired outcome? What is the level of effort to be invested?
• Where? Where will the work be done? Where are the people or resources located? Where will the product be produced?
• When? When is deadline or expected delivery date? When is the start date?
• Why? Why does the boss want this change? Why did he put you in charge?
• How? How will he judge the finished product or project? How will you know what you’re doing meets with his approval?

Be especially clear about the assumptions you’re making. For example, you might be assuming from the way he talked about the project that it’s high priority and that you’re to drop everything and get right on it.

You don’t have to answer all these questions in detail or in writing. But you do have to surface issues that need clarification.

Then, go back to your boss and tell him you’ve thought about the project and you’d like to make sure you’ve understood what he wants. Give him a brief, but detailed summary. And state your assumptions. Ask, “Is that what you want?”

It’s surprising how often your boss will make modifications to what you’ve said, even if you’re simply echoing back what he just recently said.

This process — reporting back — will save you all a lot of grief. It will help you understand more precisely what you’re being asked to do. And it may even help your boss think through what he wants.

What do you think of this process?