A 3-Step Challenge to the Better Use of Visuals

By Jim Endicott, Owner/Manager of Distinctions

I’m not a huge fan of reality shows. There’s something a bit artificial about the reality portrayed on TV these days but I recently broke down and caught an episode of Fear Factor. I didn’t want to. I wanted to change the channel but I found myself mesmerized as several contestants had to perform a relay race suspended ten stories over the street below supported only by some wires and a safety harness. If someone had the fear of heights, this had to evoke in them the worst kind of panic. 

It got me thinking. What’s the worst kind of fear that a presenter would have to deal with? What causes us to lose sleep over presenting? Just like many fears, human beings sometimes attempt to cope in very unhealthy ways – often taking the form of addictions that seem to minimize the fear. You see, many presenters today have a monkey on their backs too - a kind of addictive partner who takes away some of the pressures of presenting – or so it seems.

What makes most addictions so insidious is that they feed on the one they are addicting. For presenters, this crutch even takes on the persona of being a helpful “co-presenter.” This silent partner ensures we will never be alone up front and we find their presence strangely comforting. It rarely asks for much but serves a very important role – divert attention and say what you can’t seem to say or might forget. 

You see, once your heavy text-oriented presentation images go up on the wall something happens to good and marginal presenters alike – they gladly share the stage with their projected partner. If audiences are reading the screen most of the time, they aren’t looking at the anxious presenter. If the presenter is looking at the screen too, then your PowerPoint is getting all the attention. There’s something very wrong with this picture. You have just become the least important part of the presentation equation.

As a group, most of us feel a bit vulnerable as we step to the front of the room anyway to sell an idea, product or plan. Our greatest fears often revolve around insignificance. We rely on presentation visuals because they have the promise (in our minds) of elevating the impressions above what we ourselves can create. It’s more colorful than we are. It’s certainly bigger than we are and maybe even moves more than we do. The only problem is that our co-presenter doesn’t care to share the audience and would be just as happy if they got all the glory. And the sad part is, we are much too accommodating.

What if I asked you to deliver your most important presentation without the assistance of anything at all on screen?  (I can feel your heart already begin to race) What if the sole weight of your audience’s capacity to “get” what you were trying to communicate fell solely upon your ability to articulate your thoughts in an engaging way? The result may not be what you think. There’s a very surprising scenario that frequently emerges when I do corporate seminars. It usually comes out when the group and I discuss our worst presentation experiences or most productive presentation outcomes and it goes something like this.

Hi Jim. Our worst presentation experience was when we had a major pitch we were giving to a prospective customer. There was a lot on the line  We had prepared for days and when we finally arrived, my laptop wouldn’t boot up. I pressed the ON button and nothing happened. After a few minutes of messing around with the laptop, we shut it all down and simply talked with the prospect. We discussed a number of the issues that were behind them wanting us to present. The conversation that ensued was amazingly productive. We found that their biggest issues dovetailed well into the service solutions we provided. At the end of the day, we closed the deal. We couldn’t believe it.

Although this may feel a bit like tight rope walking without a safety harness, I hear this type of story time and time again. Is there something we’re missing related to presenting that has somehow eluded most of us?   The answer is – yes and we dare not ignore the lesson.

At its core… at its very essence, the presentation process for most of us is first and foremost a relational one. It has nothing to do with technology or software and it certainly doesn’t live and die based on the volume of text on a presentation screen. It is not dependent on our prowess with PowerPoint or even our ability to move on cue or gesture with “pizzazz”. It’s about one human being telling another human being a story. And in the telling, they are moved to consider the possibilities. To the (minimal) degree that your presentation screens advance that cause, it works. Make it more complex if you’d like, but you will be missing the point.

For most of us, the idea of having nothing at all projected over our shoulders is simply more than we can bear. So it would be unfair to introduce a challenge of such magnitude without offering a solution for beating our addition. There is a program – a three-step program that can help you break this obsession but I’ll tell you right now, it won’t be easy and there is a horrible withdrawal phase that comes with recovery. I challenge you to try this in preparation for your next presentation. It will be an eye opener.

Challenge Step #1
Prepare the first 10-minutes of your primary presentation. After the title slide, only use images on screen – pictures, screen captures – whatever you can imagine – but not a single word. If a picture is really worth a thousand words, let’s put it to the test right here and now. Deliver your presentation, show the images but don’t rely on a single word of text as you deliver the message. Right about now, I sense you squirming in your seat but this is just the first step in your 3-step road to recovery. 

Challenge Step #2
After that very painful process, now do the same but allow yourself four or five words maximum on each screen. Choose them carefully. Make them key words that help underscore some important thoughts along with the original images. Deliver your 10-minute presentation once again. It was a little easier than the first pass, wasn’t it? When you’re coming off of a text addition, this step is like getting to use the patch.

Challenge Step #3
Now, with your last presentation in front of you, you can use a few bullets per slide with no more than 20 words all together. This is still tough but I know you can do it. There’s only one stipulation on this last step, however. You can’t recite a single bullet word-for-word. As a matter of fact, at this point, I want you to speak to the “essence of the slide” - just as if you had to write a one-paragraph summary of what the slide is trying to communicate. Feel free to call out a specific point or two from the bullets in your commentary; just don’t talk bullet to bullet. Now deliver your 10-minutes for the last time.

If you’ve faithfully gone through these steps and you haven’t fudged a bit, you just learned a lesson that 90% of presenters will probably never learn. Less is truly more. You probably never imagined you could deliver a slide with less than 40 or 50 words (count your typical presentations and you will be blown away) and you just did it with less than 20. There’s a powerful lesson here. Do you sense it? Ridding yourself of the horrible addition to text starts with your personal acknowledgment that you are powerless over your desire to use text in your presentations and are in need help.

I’ve had a little fun with the topic but I’m as serious as a heart attack about the underlying lesson. 

You will never move from average to good or good to great as a presenter until you do something about your over reliance on text to tell your story.

Here, let me help you with your road to recovery…

“Hi, my name is (your name here), and I am addicted to text in my presentations.” 

Feel better?

Learn more about Jim Endicott and Distinctions in our Contributors section.