The Truth About Presentations

To a lot of people, the idea of seeing around the bend in business sounds more like magic than common sense. That’s why I notice a lot of raised eyebrows when I tell my team members or external colleagues that one of the biggest problems getting in the way of an organization’s honest and frank interaction on trucks and trends boils down to one word: Presentations.

Yes, I’m referring to those twenty to two-hundred or more slides we take more than a day to prepare for and less than an hour to go over in the next day’s meeting, when in reality the top person in the room only wants to see the last three slides.

When you present upwards, to a group of people higher on the organizational chart than you, you will, without fail, tell them what they want to hear. The truth gets buried under an avalanche of bullshit. An entrepreneur and a leader needs to be direct. On more than one occasion, I’ve had to say, ‘People, let’s cut to the chase. I need to know the plan versus the actuals. I need to understand the challenges and what we need to do differently. Are we on track, or do we need to review our short- and long-term goals? Is the team on the same page and charged?’

Of course, if people have spent significant time preparing the presentation, you don’t want to demolish them. Most conference or meeting rooms have electronic blinds that drop for presentations. The lights go off, giving everyone in the room implicit permission to do everything but listen to the presentation, including checking their mails or WhatsApp messages. In most cases, the presenter’s body language tells you much more than the words or the image on the slide, but you can’t see these non-verbal cues in a dark room. My blunt and direct way to end a presentation is to press the button for the screen to go up and the lights to come on. ‘Look, I think this is a great presentation. You’ve spent a lot of time on it,’ I say. ‘But right now, we need to discuss the issues at hand. Mail it to me and I’ll study it tonight.’

Instead of putting the presenter on the defensive, you’ve defused the situation and refocused the team’s attention on your reason for meeting in the first place: Look me straight in the eye and let’s discuss the issues at hand. I’m reading between the lines of what you’re saying here and I want to talk about our best course forward…

Much of how you’re received when you encounter that jarring predicament goes back to how well your team understands and buys into the culture you’ve established. Pull down someone who, in good faith, has given you his views on the state of the company, and ten people will stop listening to you immediately, too busy being pissed off at you or worrying about how they can avoid getting gutted when it’s time for them to speak. A counter-productive mindset to say the least.

Great communicators communicate.

To boil business down to PowerPoints, Excel spreadsheets and numbers is to ignore the advantage that experience brings to the table. Looking around the bend and spotting trucks and trends all sound good on paper, but without a team behind you, none of it matters or is even possible. Throughout this book, I’ve emphasized the importance of open and honest communication and counting people, not information and certainly not money, as the most important assets your company will ever have. Lose your best people and no amount of data or money will lead to success. 

[In my book Dream with your Eyes Open, one of the chapters is on spotting trends and looking around the bend, and equally important to pre-empt disasters - or what I call "Trucks" or "Trains" heading towards you. I share a small extract from the chapter. On a lighter note, the chapter also deals with why I think Presentations in most organizations do not allow us to get to the bottom of things thereby missing Trends or Trucks. To order your copy, head to https://www.dreamwithyoureyesopen.org/buy-book/ ]