No More Slides

“No more PowerPoint!” Wouldn’t those words be music to your ears? I suspect your answer is “yes!” Well, if that’s the case, why not make the slide-free dream a reality? Jeff Bezos did, and I must admit, I am a huge fan of the alternative he came up with. 

The CEO of Amazon is famed for banning PowerPoint. In fact, he made the decision well over a decade ago. At the e-commerce giant, every meeting starts with participants reading a six-page narrative on the topic for discussion. Bezos’ rationale is that having everyone understand the basic facts and context from the outset makes the meeting better informed. As a result, decision quality rises, and time is used more efficiently.

Why am I just now writing about a well-established practice that has been around since 2004? I recently had dinner with two former Amazon executives who were there when Bezos introduced what he called a “weird meeting culture,” and hearing their perspective got me hooked.

Bezos chose to ban PowerPoint because, as he pointed out, you get very little information from slide decks. They are usually filled with bullet points or, in my case, pictures and as few words as possible. While PowerPoint presentations are easy for the presenter, they’re difficult for the audience and, as slide follows slide, boredom, distraction and lack of retention set in.

The problem with the typical slide presentation is that it misses the narrative. Bezos knew this and so he chose to bring it back. Today, Amazon executives must refine their proposals so fully that they are able to express them in narrative form, in a way that everyone is able to understand. The CEO believes in vividly telling a story, rather than relying on data or graphics, or packaging the business case into bullet points on a slide.

Prior to every meeting, the Amazon executive who calls it spends hours preparing the six-pager. You may think this is a waste of time—surely executives have something better to do than effectively write papers like they did in school. But actually, those hours avoid wasting everyone’s precious time in meetings. You can’t show up ill-prepared and try to bluff your way through. What’s more, the whole process removes the temptation to jump from meeting to meeting, and it causes the organization to be more thoughtful.

What really hooked me on this practice is the notion that if you can’t put your idea down on paper in a way that others can understand, then you’re not ready to share it. Let’s be honest, most people aren’t ready. The beauty of the six-pager is in the preparation, both prior to the meeting and as it gets underway.

Putting your idea down on paper isn’t a quick exercise. You may believe that you can just write it out in a few hours, but you’d be mistaken. The Amazon experience is that great six-pagers are written and rewritten, shared with colleagues for feedback, set aside for a couple of days and then edited again with a fresh mind. This can take up to a week.

The reason that writing a six-pager is harder than preparing a 20-slide presentation is that narrative structure forces better thought and better understanding of the point you are really making.

In Bezos’ annual letter to Amazon shareholders, he mentions the six-page narrative saying, “We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of study hall.” This has a wonderful purpose: it assures undivided attention on the part of everyone in attendance.

Reading the short write-up often consumes the first half of an hour-long meeting. Given that there is no pre-reading or preparation involved, the six-pager forces everyone to prepare there and then, and minimizes the distractions of ill-prepared leaders jumping in and offering up their uninformed opinions.

I’m such a huge fan of this, that we’ve adopted it internally. Perhaps, it’s time for you to throw away your slides and replace them with a six-pager.

Printed originally in Gulf News (16 July 18)

A thinker, speaker, and writer to the core, Dr. Tommy holds a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University, and is the founder of EMLC where he is the region's leading CEO Coach. In addition to writing a number of books—including the Amazon #1 best-seller, Leadership Dubai Style and 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East, Dr. Tommy is the editor-in-chief of Emerging Markets Business—The Authoritative Review.

Follow me on twitter @tommyweir or visit www.tommyweir.com for more of my thoughts on leadership.