Presentation Training Tips:
Solving The PowerPoint Riddle

By James A. Baker
Presentations Training Institute.
May 2009

Question: What is shiny, colorful, and ubiquitous (300 million copies sold worldwide), which can absolutely destroy your ability to deliver a persuasive presentation?

Answer: That set of PowerPoint slides you are probably working on right now.

In what surely is the best example I can think of to prove the old adage: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” PowerPoint technology and its ilk have inundated the presentation and public speaking arena like a stifling outbreak of “tribbles” from an old Star Trek episode. Looking back now, I suppose it wasn’t such a bad idea initially. After all, visual enhancements are supposed to reinforce the mind’s natural learning processes and help audiences retain more of what you tell them. Of course, that presumes that they are paying attention, and therein lays the problem with the way PowerPoint-style presentations are used today.

Question: If a picture is worth a thousand words then what are a thousand pictures worth?

Answer: NOTHING!

Day after day, in classrooms, boardrooms, and auditoriums around the world, people sit and stare at screens in semi-darkened rooms while daydreaming about trips to Fiji and scrolling through their Blackberry’s while some unfortunate soul stands at the front of the room and drones on through slide after slide in an attempt to deliver information that someone believes to be important; though at the moment it is hard to understand why. He might as well be reading it straight out of an old-fashioned handout, for all the good modern technology is accomplishing.

Where did the PowerPoint revolution go wrong? There is nothing intrinsically wrong or evil about PowerPoint slides. They are quite simply tools to enhance communication much like overhead projectors, flip charts, and those old-fashioned mimeographed handouts that came before them. But somewhere along the way, people forgot that PowerPoint was a tool – a means to an end – and began to mistake it for the end itself. In other words, people began to assume that if they just strung together enough information in a glitzy and attractive way, making liberal use of colors and animation – even sound effects and special effects – the entertainment value and the high-tech ambience would imbue their presentations with the credibility necessary to create maximum impact on the audience.
Well, it doesn’t really work like that. Let me tell you why.

The persuasive power of your presentation isn’t issued from your content, as important as it may be. If all people needed was the content, why even bring them together for a presentation? Why not just email them the PowerPoint file and they could review it at home? The reason is that we humans are affected by our personal interaction with other humans. Our opinions and decisions are subject to influence in the presence of a persuasive person. That person can utilize the PowerPoint slides to achieve a certain impact, but the PowerPoint is not what drives the presentation.

I am strongly convinced – and psychological research backs this up – that people are strongly influenced by body language, gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice. In a very real sense, the messenger actually becomes the message. An effective presenter or public speaker takes the entire audience along for the ride, connecting with individuals one by one and eye to eye; thus inspiring them and cajoling them with compelling variations in tone of voice and reinforcing the urgency and sincerity of the message through body language and gestures that mirror the scope of the content’s implications. Consciously or unconsciously, the audience resonates with these non-verbal cues and either accepts or rejects the speaker’s overall message on that basis. At the very least, the personal energy the speaker invests into connecting with the audience sets the parameters for how much value the information will offer to the listener.

So, you tell me; when the attention of the audience is focused on the screen and reading along with the speaker (except they are reading silently at twice the rate he can read out loud), what happens to the impact of eye contact, body language, and tone of voice? Obviously, it is mostly lost, and the opportunity to effectively communicate the full impact the could-have-had message is gone with it.

This doesn’t mean you have to ditch the PowerPoint; just scale way back on the number of slides you use and change the way you use them. PowerPoint is a good tool to use when:

• Citing important statistics involving graphs and series of numbers
• Bridging from one outline topic to the next
• Introducing a KEY fact or point of emphasis
• Displaying a dramatic visual

Keep the lens covered until it is time to reveal your next slide. Even when you are showing the slide, LOOK AT THE AUDIENCE! Never break eye contact or turn your back on the people. Keep your energy up and allow your body language to flow naturally with the message being spoken, not the slide you are showing.

Quit hiding behind the slides, and don’t expect them to do the work for you. Stand tall, speak clearly, be enthusiastic, maintain eye contact at all times, and show a slide only every once in a while when you need to make a big point. Your audience will thank you, and they are certainly much more likely to remember the crux of your message tomorrow.

  More Presentations Skills Tips