Is PowerPoint Killing Corporate America?

by

David W. Richardson, CSP

PowerPoint™, computer-generated visual aids, is technology at its very best.  It adds an entirely new dimension to presentations.  Used properly, it can turn a good presentation into a great presentation, but it can’t turn a mediocre presentation into even a good one.

PowerPoint™ is great, but it is so misused and abused that major initiatives in everything from large Fortune 500 companies to even the smallest of businesses are experiencing retardation in the growth of new initiatives.  This is not the fault of incompetent people; quite the opposite.  Bright, intelligent engineers, accountants, managers, executives, etc. are totally misusing this great technology to their ultimate detriment.

Is PowerPoint™ inhibiting the ability of your company to achieve its objectives?  If you said, “Gee, I don’t really know; I never thought about it” then it probably is.  Take a quick check and see how your company measures up . . . here is how PowerPoint™ is killing corporate America.

  1. People are no longer challenged to design and verbally deliver a good presentation.  They put the entire presentation on a bunch of slides and call that “getting prepared”. 
     
  1. 90% of all slides contain more information than the listeners can effectively assimilate while at the same time struggling to listen to the presenter.  Check it out . . . try to listen to the newscaster on CNN while at the same time reading the trailer at the bottom of the screen.  It’s virtually impossible to do.  Human beings are not wired to be able to read and listen at the same time.
     
  1. PowerPoint™ slides are created before the presentation is designed.  I can’t tell you the number of executives and managers I coach who say “Here are the slides I’ve been given around which to design my presentation.”  That’s completely backwards.  A PowerPoint™ slide is a visual “aid”.  First you design your presentation then you select the aids that will support it.
     
  1. Slides are revealed prematurely.  Presenters are too quick to bring up the next slide before they have completed the segue from one to another.  The moment the next slide comes up what do the listeners do?  Of course, they start to read the slide.  By the time the presenter completes a 30 to 60 second transition the listeners have already read the slide and are ready to move on.  The moment the new slide appears, you must begin to speak regarding it or you will completely lose your audience.
     
  1. Points on slides aren’t numbered.  As opposed to using bullet points, the key points on the slide should be numbered.  Then as you turn and gesture toward the slide you can quickly make reference to point number three or point number four. 
     
  1. Presenters fail to describe the information on the slide.  They throw up a graph and assume that the listeners are equally familiar with the information displayed.  If you display a graph, you must carefully describe what people are looking at and then deliver the point that it complements.
     
  1. They don’t respect their “partner”.  A PowerPoint™ slide is much like having a partner in the front of the room with you.  You wouldn’t ignore a partner; you wouldn’t abuse them or try to talk over their words.  Instead you would respect them; you would honor what they had to say.  Make the presentation as a team to make sure you got your point across.  Use your “partner” to the advantage of your message.
     
  1. They use paragraphs vs. short sentences on the slides.  Reading long sentences during a presentation challenges the listener’s ability to grasp the real meaning while the presenter goes on and on.  Numbered phrases should be short, to the point, and easy to grasp from the screen -- maximum four lines of six words each.
     
  1. Presenter’s talk to the slide as they deliver their message.  Many presenters spend 80% of their time facing the screen while either reading or paraphrasing the information to their listeners.  The connection with the audience is lost.

Understanding how people learn is critical when delivering a presentation.  Watch a favorite movie, highly emotional in nature.  I like “Brian’s Song”, the story about Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers.  Play the movie halfway through then turn off the audio portion and just watch the video.  Your mind is all over the place to the point where you drift away from the movie entirely.  You get little, if any, emotional feeling from this visual exercise.

Next, turn off the picture and listen to the audio only.  As you listen, your mind is drawing pictures to complement the scenes; most importantly, deep emotions you feel are very strong.

What’s the conclusion?  In a presentation with audio/visual slides, 80% of what impacts the listener comes directly from what the speaker says.  Only 20% comes from the visual itself.

A recent on-line survey showed that when it comes to PowerPoint™ presentations most presenters turn their audience off, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted-time meetings, delayed decisions, and extra meetings to clarify the message.

The report goes on to talk about the staggering costs of poor presentations.  If you look at an organization that has 10 PowerPoint™ presentations a day – not difficult in an organization of 250 or more professionals – the wasted time spent in re-work can add up to more than 450 thousand dollars a yea!  Extend that out over larger organizations with substantially more PowerPoint™ presentations, and the financial impact is staggering.

The bottom line is that presenters latch onto PowerPoint™ as a crutch.  It’s a great tool; make sure you’re using it to your advantage.

Are PowerPoint™ presentations killing your company?  Are you getting the correct message out the first time, or is it necessary to cover the same ground over and over?

If you would like Dave’s “10 Quick Tips to Better PowerPoint™ Presentations”, fax a copy of your business card to (480) 451-9372 with the message PowerPoint™ Help!  To learn about Dave’s just-published new book “The Presenter's Guide to Being Prepared -- 52 Real-life Situations and Solutions to Help You Win Over Any Audience, Anywhere”, check it out at speaking@richspeaking.com

To Schedule a Speaking Engagement or 
Free Twenty Minute Consultation with David W. Richardson, CSP 
Call 1-800-338-5831 or e-mail us at
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