Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
This is not the first time I have heard this from a CEO. Most of our clients struggle to communicate in a world where many of us have become microwave presenters. Just like the microwave has made it possible to prepare a meal without a recipe, the same thing has happened with PowerPoint. And what we are heating up isn’t very appetizing.
The best leadership communications is seldom accomplished when PowerPoint has center stage because PowerPoint is about bullets and points not about you or your message. We need to take PowerPoint out of the limelight and starting lighting up our audience with communication that makes an impact. How? Don’t start with PowerPoint. Instead use this three-step planning process (know ’em, hook ’em and hold ’em) to focus on who matters most: your audience.
Know ’em: Begin by visualizing specific people in your audience. Ask yourself, “What are their challenges and interests? What is their viewpoint about your topic? What might they fear?” Now comes the most important part of the talk. What is the one key message that your audience should take away with them?
An excellent example of a clear message was Bill Gates’ commencement speech at Harvard in 2007. In the address he said, “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.” Take a minute to read this speech at www.gatesfoundation.org.
Hook ’em: Members of your audience have a short attention span so make your message memorable by being different either in what you say or how you say it.
Our client Lee Roper-Batker, president of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, was asked to speak before other nonprofit leaders. Our challenge was to address leadership in a different way. Lee did this by showing up with a large one-foot red paper clip.
She shared the story of how Canadian Kyle McDonald had taken a similar paper clip and traded it up to 14 times on eBay to obtain his dream home (www.oneredpaperclip.com) Lee then linked how her organization hadn’t started with much more than an idea and a paper clip and that it had evolved (like McDonald’s paper clip) into one of the largest women’s foundations in the United States.
Lee then introduced her key message, “As leaders, we must have the creativity, tenacity and responsibility to evolve our organizations beyond their original visions.”
Hold ’em: Both Bill Gates and Lee Roper-Batker got standing ovations. They were rewarded for their relevant key message and for framing it in an interesting and different way. But they went one step further. They painted pictures by incorporating stories that held their audience’s attention.
When Michael Lacey, CEO of Digineer, spoke before his team on their 10th anniversary, he wanted to honor the group for how far they had come. He didn’t just say, “We’ve come a long way in 10 years.” Instead he shared the story of their first office in the warehouse district where the wooden floors where so warped that when anyone got out of their chair it would roll down to the next desk. With this vivid picture, everyone could instantly see how far they had come.
After you have completed the planning process, it’s appropriate to evaluate how PowerPoint fits in. There is no rule that says you need to use PowerPoint or that you need to use it from start to finish. More business leaders are learning that their presentations are far more effective if they only show PowerPoint slides for those concepts that benefit from visual reinforcement, such as a chart, a key word, a phrase, a picture or a diagram. The rest of the talk is then focused on you and your message.
Bill Lane, speech writer for the former CEO of GE Jack Welch, shares the moment when he, and other GE executives, realized they were fed up with rambling, poorly developed presentations. The group had gathered to hear the head of a business unit pitch a new idea.
Fifty minutes later he was still mired in an explanation when a VP from the back of the room threw a ball of paper and yelled, “Fred, shut up!” According to Lane, from that point forward the paper ball became a popular tool for providing immediate feedback at GE corporate meetings.
No one can afford to have things tossed at them when giving a presentation least of all the leader of an organization. The reality is that PowerPoint diminishes your message and often steals the stage. Shift the limelight off PowerPoint and put it back on you and your message.
