How many times have you left a meeting, not quite sure what the point of the presentation was, overwhelmed by the sheer number of slides and data points – yet underwhelmed by the impact of the narrative? Luckily, David Fish is on hand with some pertinent pointers for the prefect presentation
In my time as chief strategy officer, I have sat through thousands of presentations, observing great ideas that fail to connect as the presenter and the ideas get lost in the slides more times than I care to remember.
Confidence, poise, pace, presence; know these to be important traits of great speakers. But when the content needs to do much more than inspire and entertain, these attributes simply won’t be enough.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There is now an overwhelming body of research that supports the power of a well-told story. Pamela Rutledge, psychologist & director of the Los Angeles-based Media Psychology Research Centre has found that when a story is relatable to us, we bring our own thoughts to it, which is reinforced through the emotions we associate with the experience.
Narratives that cause us to pay attention and also involve us emotionally are the stories that move us to action. This is what a good documentary film does. We give more attention to content and ideas that make it clear that something is coming that will help us get to a better place.
Stories can connect and engage
In business, the real power of the story lies not just with the structure it provides. It is about how it connects the audience to the key message from the very outset. This innate power enables a versatile approach across a range of communication types.
While there are myriad different styles of story arcs used for screenplays and fiction, when it comes to business, there are three essential ingredients that will optimise the benefits: establish the premise of the story upfront; control how you navigate through your content; and resolve the story with a conclusive ending.
Most communication starts in completely the wrong place. It’s either mid-story, deep in the detail or completely self-orientated without any consideration as to why the audience should even care. Establishing the premise of the story firstly requires an understanding of who the audience for this communication is followed by the problem you are solving for them.
You are establishing what you know about this topic and empathising with how bad things could get if this problem isn’t resolved effectively. Make no mistake; this is much more than a set-up. This is about creating a real feeling of being in it together to draw your audience in and give them a reason to connect right away and stay attentive to what is coming up.
Control what the audience sees
Once you have established that you have something of interest to share, this is your opportunity to control what your audience sees and ensure that it connects and flows so that they can easily navigate your meaning.
The brain is also strongly influenced by the order in which we read information. It automatically wants to draw information together from what it sees (remember that our brain is wired for stories), and it also wants this story to be consistent with what it saw first.
It is far better to establish the concept and then clearly navigate through the detail supporting it. Dr John Medina has studied how the mind reacts to and organises information; his work suggests outlining the general idea before diving into details can deliver up to a 40 per cent improvement in understanding.
The hierarchy of information presented is critical to understanding. First scan: the biggest and most prominent piece of text should carry the most important point. Connected shortcuts: the role of the picture, chart or graphic is to support the main point. It is a shortcut to help make the point stick.
Order of three: order matters up to three points; don’t distract from these points with new content. Organising content in this way enables your audience to easily derive the meaning of each point relative to one another.
Don’t forget a proper ending
Resolve with a conclusive ending: ever watched a movie or read a book that never drew everything together in a satisfying conclusion? Or one that left you wondering what just happened and confused about the true meaning?
This is an all-too-common problem with business communication. Having taken your audience through all your key points, it is essential to bring it all together. To benefit from the greatest impact, you must ensure that your audience is clear as to what it all means, how it solves their problem or helps them move forward. And crucially, what you want them to do next.
Your story needs a confident and conclusive resolution: we started here, we have seen this, we have arrived here, and in conclusion this is what happens next. All business communication can benefit from being structured into a strategic story that controls the flow of information and has untold potential to establish and hold attention, increase understanding and aid recall, something that will supersede even the most charismatic performance.
David Fish is a business strategist, record-breaking pilot and author of What it Takes to Create Winning Presentations
