Have you ever sat through a 45-minute presentation… only to realize the key insight was buried on slide 37?
It doesn’t exactly make you smile, does it?!
Today I will share four things to look for when evaluating your own drafts so you don’t get caught this way.
4 things to look for in your presentation
Here we go.
Put yourself in the director’s shoes.
You're in the boardroom.
The team spent weeks preparing.
The presentation looks polished.
But 15 minutes in, you're asking for clarification.
By minute 30, you're wondering what the actual recommendation is.
This happens more than we'd like to admit.
Learn to spot these four problems that cause decision-makers to rework or reject presentations:
The wafer: too thin to be convincing
↳ Loosely connected ideas
↳ Light on detail
The Easter egg hunt: insights too hard to find
↳ Insights buried in a slew of facts
↳ Includes too much irrelevant information
The Agatha Christie: insights saved for the end
↳ Requires reader to slog through your own thinking
↳ Results in reader quickly losing interest
The miss: misses the strategic issue
↳ Lacks strategic relevance
↳ Loses audience's interest quickly
Just in case you are new here, here’s the fix…
- Start with the insight.
- Make it easy to find.
- Connect it to what matters strategically.
Your executives will thank you.
And your recommendations will actually get implemented.
I hope that helps. More soon.
Davina
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ABOUT AUTHOR: DAVINA STANLEY
I love what I do.
I help senior leaders and their teams prepare high-quality papers and presentations in a fraction of the time.
This involves 'nailing' the message that will quickly engage decision makers in the required outcome.
I leverage 25+ years' experience including
- learning structured thinking techniques at McKinsey in Hong Kong in the mid 1990s before coaching and training their teams globally as a freelancer for a further 15 years
- being approved to teach the Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto in 2009
- helping CEOs, C-suite leaders and their reports deeply understand their stakeholder needs and communicate accordingly
- seeing leaders cut the number of times they review major papers by ~30% and teams cut the amount of time they take to prepare major papers by ~20%*
- watching senior meetings focus on substantive discussions and better decisions rather than trying to clarify the issue
My approach helps anyone who needs to engage senior leaders and Boards.
Recent clients include 7Eleven, KPMG, Mercer, Meta, Woolworths.
Learn more at www.clarityfirstprogram.com
(*) Numbers are based on 2023 client benchmarking results.
