One of the questions I hear most often following a corporate training is: “How do I get my boss on board? She still insists on endless bullet points.”
Believe me, it’s frustrating for me as well to train a whole team from a company to present more effectively only to have the CEO (who missed the training) insist everyone revert to death by bullet points because it’s all he understands.
Managing up in any situation and convincing the boss to change course is a delicate art, but here are five strategies for doing exactly that when it comes to presenting with fewer words:
1. Show, Don’t Tell
People make bad presentations because they see bad presentations. From college and MBA programs through to entry-level positions and management positions, most people are simply never taught how to present information well. And so, corporate America emulates the presentations they see being created by clients, colleagues and superiors.
To counteract this, use every opportunity to show the powers that be what good presentations look like. When I first read Nancy Duarte’s Resonate, I was thrilled to see an example of a presentation given by GE CMO Beth Comstock filled with beautiful large photos. I immediately copied the pages and sent them around to my then company’s team that worked with GE. “Show your clients how their boss is presenting,” I told my team.
Collect good presentations every time you see them, and show everyone you can what good slide decks actually look like. Send PDFs, links to TED Talks, hard copies of agency pitch decks or sales presentations you come across.
2. Preach the Golden Rule of Presentation
Okay, “preaching” and managing up are not always compatible, but try to remind others of the Golden Rule of Presentation: Present Unto Others How You Wish to Be Presented To. If your CEO complains about being given bullet-point ridden decks, remind her that you can help create better slides for her to deliver to others.
3. Win Small Battles
A mistake many make is to try to change everything overnight. Instead of standing on your desk and shouting, “One message per slide or else!”, look for opportunities to make over a small internal deck or just a few slides from an upcoming big presentation. Don’t change all of your president’s pie charts into bar charts and remove his legends the night before a major pitch, but try it with a few charts in a smaller deck and gently show how much more readable the data can be.
And understand that you will not win every battle. But be strong and you will start to win here and there. Remember, an aircraft carrier doesn’t turn on a dime…
4. Gather Your Tribe
In his wonderful book, Tribes, Seth Godin urges changing company culture not by altering how leadership thinks, but how your peers think and act. “Gather your tribe,” says Godin, and gain as many allies as possible in your organization. Eventually, this critical mass will influence leadership. And you won’t feel like such an island.
5. Bring in an Outsider
It’s a sad fact that the longer you stay at an organization, the more resistant that organization may be to looking to you for change. I’ve been there. I’ve been hired to “change the thinking” and “remake” an offering only to find myself a few years later shut out when things needed to evolve further. We’ve all seen high-priced consultants brought in to tell a company what many insiders already knew.
But if that’s what it takes, then go ahead and bring in a presentation or data visualization trainer. Sending people to outside training is good, but not nearly as good as physically getting someone in-house to advocate to as many people as possible.
And, of course, If you feel your organization would benefit from an outside voice and training, drop me a line!
Thanks to Tim K. for suggesting this topic.
