Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Just Say No to PowerPoint

Last week, I directed what we call a "booster program" in which six very different business teams, each composed of a CEO and 5-6 of his or her direct reports, used the workshop format of the program to prepare a strategy presentation to the Board of Directors at the end of the week. As part of the program, we work with the teams not only on what they are going to say, but how they are doing to deliver that message. This takes the form of sessions on both powerpoint delivery [one hour in the evening by a real .ppt master] & a shorter session on "presence and command of attention" based on theatrical arguments and delivered by a courtroom-experienced attorney.
This year, much to my surprise and pleasure, four of the six presenting teams made their presentations completely without powerpoint, relying instead upon visuals provided by the two full-time visual facilitators [artists] that we had as part of our team.
While the content in nearly every case was convincing, the visual approach, sans powerpoint, made it compelling! The lesson: when you have an important argument to make, just say "no" to powerpoint!

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