In his annual letter to employees, shareowners, the media, Wall Street and everyone whose lives are impacted in some way by Amazon – which means every darned one of us, just ask Alexa – Bezos repeated his rule that PowerPoint remains banned from all executive meetings at Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer.

Say what …?

You read that right. No templates, no pie charts, no trend lines, no bullets or sub-bullets, no headers or footers, no fretting over font types and sizes, no last-minute revisions for the poor soul who’s riding herd on visuals backstage. Nope, none of that.

Instead, Bezos requires six-page narratives from his executive team which is, essentially, a corporate version of the dreaded essay from your high school days. But why six pages instead of three, or two, or one? It’s simple. You can’t bang out a 1-pager 30 minutes before a meeting simply to keep your boss happy and create the illusion your enlightened perspective has crystalized after deep contemplation.

It takes time, research, thought and facts to put forth six high-quality pages of persuasive narrative. No winging it here, you better get started early and work hard at it. And that’s the rub. Business people are so busy, they simply don’t have time to do just that, or so they say. Well, they’d better take the time. I venture to say the brainpower you invest in truly thinking through your topic and crafting a memorable presentation is worth twice the time you spend studying your bulleted visuals on the down-stage monitors.

Hieroglyphics instead of PowerPoint …?

Bezos’ reasoning also harkens back to the days of cave-dwelling, heavy-browed, shaggy-haired men who carried clubs and grunted to communicate. (Sounds like the crowd at an Insane Clown Posse concert.) Seriously, you can learn a lot about human interaction and its application to the world of business by studying anthropology.

And Bezos has.

When humans first learned how to harness fire, they not only escaped the limitations of a boring Paleo diet, they gained the ability to cook food over heat with a side benefit of hangin’ with the boys by the campfire while a side of yak sizzled on the spit. To kill time, they told stories. Lots of them. Thus, began a more profound human interaction and the ability to teach through tales.

That’s why Bezos bans PPT and demands a six-page narrative – which is simply an academic way of saying: “Write me a story to make your point.” The first 30 minutes of any executive meeting at Amazon are held in silence to allow all in attendance to read, re-read and, if you’re an Evelyn Wood grad, re-re-read the narrative. This is all a prelude to thoughtful discussion, debate and ultimately insightful, strategy-based consensus.

(It’s also interesting that Bezos adheres to a strict “two-pizza rule”, meaning meetings should be small enough for two pizzas to feed everyone in the room. Sounds crazy but it’s hard to argue with the world’s richest man who’s helping to shape all of our futures at this very moment.)

Brains Dig Stories …

The human brain is hard-wired for the acceptance of narrative. Studies have shown that effective storytelling is far more powerful when it comes to comprehension and retention of information than bullets on an edge-blended widescreen. Does that mean visuals should go the way of popped collars and 8-track players? Hardly. The brain also responds well to imagery – the sharper, more colorful, and spectacular, the better.

Instead of laboring over 4-5 data bullets, spend that time laboring over an image or two that will amplify the point you’re making onstage, or at the head of the conference table. But only do that if you wish for your presentation to be successful.

The magical mix of memorable wordsmithing, crafty storytelling and illuminating pictures – Dr. Seuss comes to mind – is what all presenters should aspire to. (Actually, Keith Morrison of NBC’s weekly newsmagazine Dateline also comes to mind. He could draw you in and keep your rapt attention describing an oil change with his storytelling style.) Good stories delivered well activate the mind’s eye, trigger the imagination, and use all eight cylinders of the brain that, sadly, spends too much time idling or cruising on a mere four cylinders.

OK, does this mean all executive speech writers are soon headed for the soup line and an unemployment check? Again, hardly. A talented writer can work with you to pick your brain and extract great information and anecdotal gems that can be fashioned into storytelling that packs a punch. Hey, it worked for Jesus who was a big fan of teaching in parables. And Aesop has had a fabled legion of followers for centuries.

Trust me (or them), it can work for you, too.

No offense but Aristotle was probably a better storyteller than you.

Putting aside Aristotle’s notorious and controversial “takes” on evolution, Christianity and the eternal soul, you’ve got to give the dude credit for putting some brain cells behind his writings. Were he alive today, no doubt most of his works would’ve climbed to No.1 on (heh-heh) Bezos’ Amazon Best-Seller List.

Seriously, Ari was a strict adherent of the three elements of crafty storytelling – Ethos, Logos and Pathos. And considering he was an A-Lister at Greece’s earliest toga parties and hobnobbed with some of the world’s great leaders back in the day, he must’ve been taken very, very seriously. Which is precisely the spot you want to land on the next time you present to a large audience or in an executive meeting.

Let’s break those words down …

• Ethos is character and credibility. (Nobody’s gonna pay a sack of attention to someone who doesn’t truly know what they’re talking about.)

• Logos is logic, basically an argument that appeals to common sense, intellect and reasoning; something that makes another stop and say, “Hmm, I never thought of it that way.”

• And Pathos is where it all comes to life — the silver bullet, the secret sauce, the deal-maker, not breaker. Pathos is passion and emotion and the ability to present your case in an inspiring and memorable way. You can’t, and won’t, knock it outta the park if you skip the emotional dimension when creating your presentation.

Some call him Bezos, others call him Bozo …

The all-dug-in, skeptical side of you may be snarking about Bezos’ “No PPT” and “Two Pizza” policies. After all, why should anyone take seriously an eccentric who also happens to be history’s first and only centibillionaire (someone whose net worth exceeds $100 billion, I had to look it up, too). He eats breakfast octopus and roasted iguana, and was once described by The New York Times’ Nellie Bowles as “brilliant but mysterious and a cold-blooded corporate titan”. Sort of Steve Jobs on steroids, you might say.

(He also doesn’t believe in early-morning meetings. Love him or hate him, we can all stand behind that policy.)

EF Hutton had nothing on Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. When Bezos speaks, people listen — even those who dislike him (witness one Donald J. Trump). But considering Bezos has built one of the world’s largest corporations (as measured by market capitalization, the total value of a company’s outstanding shares) in less than 25 years, Jeffy has Ethos out the yin-yang. He also has 112 billion reasons in his personal bank account. So, take a tip from Amazon’s top-dog.

I can only imagine hangin’ ‘round the campfire with the likes of cavemen, Aristotle, Jesus, Aesop, Dr. Seuss, EF Hutton and Jeff Bezos. I know I could learn a lot from them, seriously. Maybe you, too.

CONCLUSION

Don’t be “that guy” onstage at your next meeting or event. You know, the data-packin’, spare-no-bullets DrivelMaster of mind-numbing pie charts and performance metrics. Instead, bring your audience together around a figurative campfire and tell them stories that inform, entertain and persuade. Make it memorable!

Cheers,

Related Posts:

• Sticky Stories
• Why Images Speak Louder Than Words… Just Ask Your Audience!
• 7 Strategies For Empowering Your Visuals And Inspiring Positive Change

The post How Ancient Cavemen Have Inspired Amazon’s Jeff Bezos appeared first on dynami.

“I want everybody to fully understand and embrace the new strategy.”

OK …

“I want everyone to leave fired up and energized.”

Uh-huh …

“I want to build an esprit de corps and foster a greater sense of teamwork.”

Nice …

“I want the audience to have faith and trust in senior leadership and our direction.”

Got it.

And then it happens. All of the above perhaps but something else, too – nothing. After your high-energy, whirlwind, glad-handing and back-slapping, four-day-three-nighter-of-a-conference, everyone dashes to the airport – TSA lines, flight delays, baggage fees and all – and returns to the office … only to pick up where they left off.

You blew it. Sorry, you did.

All that time, effort and money spent on flights, ground transportation, hotel rooms, food and beverage, staging, production, staffing, amenities, activities, entertainment and custom-logoed pillowcases and mirror static clings in the restrooms and … nothing changed.

And that’s on you, Mr. or Ms. Event Owner. You failed to tell them what they needed to do differently when they got back to their offices. Or maybe you did, and it got lost in the humdrum of talking heads, or buried in some double-stuffed, twice-baked PowerPoint imagery.

Anybody relate? Yeah, thought so. We’ve all been there.

So, what can we do to turn this busted model on its ear and actually achieve all of those noble desires stated above and spark behavioral changes that have a positive impact on your bottom-line? After all, isn’t that the point? Here are seven strategies for adding more “Oomph!” to your next all-important meeting or event; specifically, making information easier for the audience to grasp, retain and put into practice so your bottom line trends in a steep, northerly direction.

Map Out a Communication Strategy for Your Event – There are three phases to any event – pre-program, onsite and post-program. Think hard about how you can pre-package visuals and learning materials to be pushed out in advance so your invitees can learn on their own schedule prior to your gathering. “Set the stage” with the pre-work and save the most important stuff for delivery from the mainstage or in breakouts. Finally, follow-up after the program ends. I said, follow-up. Did I mention following up? Momentum will not sustain itself.  You’ve got to continue to breathe life into new information and expectations long enough for them to grow into changed behaviors. You wouldn’t lay new sod then walk away and never water it if your goal was a lush, green lawn. Same is true for business learning. You have to nurture it until it takes hold in your organization.

Visualize the Impact of Your Visuals – When sitting down to build your presentation, ask yourself, “What do I need for them to do differently when they get back to their daily responsibilities?” … “What changes in behavior need to take place in order to achieve goals and objectives?” … “What’s the best way for me to demonstrate the tactical steps and how they’ll pay off?” Once you’ve envisioned the successful outcome or result, back your way into your presentation with the answers to those questions in mind.

What You See Is What You’ll ‘Get’ – Visuals, visuals and more visuals. And not just any visuals. Beautiful visuals with crisply written text and high-resolution, gorgeous photo art that amplify your message. Make your audience want to enjoy what’s onscreen and look forward to the point you’re building toward. Guide them along an info trail that’s eye-opening, mind-expanding and, most importantly, memorable and actionable. Memorable and actionable … two very, very important considerations.

And while we’re talking visuals, a professional graphic artist is worth your investment. I don’t care how good Sally or John down the hall are when they dabble in PowerPoint or Keynote, there’s a difference between really good amateur efforts and work done by a true pro.

Mix It Up! – We live in a Max Headroom blipvert, visual world. Smart devices, video games, 500+ cable channels, on-demand, streaming, etc. have made “eye candy” king. Seek ways to incorporate still imagery, infographics, animation, video, livestreaming, etc.  The candy store carries many more treats than it used to. Use ‘em!

Audiences are skewing younger and younger and, more often than not, you’re presenting to young women and men who’ve been raised in a visual era. They demand visual engagement, or they tune out. Accept this truth and work within it.

Don’t Put 10 Pounds of Stuff in a Five-Pound Bag – If you overload your PowerPoint and/or add too many minutes to your presentation times, your audience will remember perhaps a third of what’s communicated when they trudge out of the ballroom. (There’s a reason why the no-more-than-18-minute-long TEDTalks are a global sensation.) One week later, that retention rate drops to 10%, or less. And that assumes your speakers were actually pretty engaging when onstage.

However, an artful combination of precisely the right words and carefully selected images that fit into a brisk timeslot will increase retention by 50% or more. It’s worth the time and effort to labor over your words and visuals to make the most of your assigned presentation time.

Lighten Up and They’ll Light Up – Business is serious stuff, but it needn’t be to a fault. Seek ways to have fun, mix in humor, tell personal stories, use props, bring someone onstage to help make a point (without embarrassing them), catch the audience off guard with something that comes out of left field and helps illustrate the point you’re making. Your audience will appreciate the change of pace. The element of surprise is a good one.

Give ‘em the ‘Gangplank Thoughts’ – I have a friend who did a high-level program on a chartered cruise ship once, and all presenters agreed to end their onboard presentations with Gangplank Thoughts. Essentially, they told the audience, “If you only remember 3-4 points from my presentation, these are the ones I want you to take with you when you disembark the ship. And here’s what you need to do with them to be better at your job.” People enjoy success and achievement, and they particularly appreciate having the secrets to greater success shared with them. Seize the opportunity to do that!

CONCLUSION – For decades, business meetings have been treated like information dumps. In reality, today’s programs should be seen as opportunities to change behavior in positive ways. And when it comes to sparking behavioral changes, “going big” isn’t necessarily the only option. Don’t discount the power of many people making minor changes or fixing small problems simultaneously. In a recent LinkedIn article, Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan said, “Everybody can fix one thing … they can change one behavior. If every one of our 120,000 people starts to fix one thing, you start to see a movement happen.”

Start by taking a fresh look at your speaker-support visuals and develop a sharp focus on how you’re going to inspire new behaviors that yield greater results for your organization.

Cheers,

The post 7 Strategies For Empowering Your Visuals And Inspiring Positive Change appeared first on dynami.

Yeah, me neither …

Why is that? I mean, hotels have managed to successfully wrangle meeting planners such that room blocks and menu selections must be complete a week or two before a program kicks off. Ground transportation companies require a manifest several days out, too. Why can’t the same be done with some of the inside-the-ballroom aspects of a corporate meeting or event?

In a word, it’s nerves.

In two words, it’s nerves and focus (or a lack thereof).

For the sake of today’s topic, let’s zero in on speech writing and script writing, whether it’s for a major product launch, a sales banquet, a leadership conference, or even a smallish gathering that still requires writing. Regardless of forum, the 11^th-hour rush to change this word, move that paragraph, update these numbers, or go-for-broke and blow up the entire overarching theme of a presentation the night before seems ever-present.

It’s the bane of existence for speech writers, producers, graphic artists (and presenters, as a matter of fact). And in the end, the audience, too. It happens all the time in every industry, it seems.
 
Draft 2 = Draft 16. Huh ..?

I once worked with a Fortune 100 company in Atlanta that needed a pivotal speech written for a senior executive who had just joined the company from a competitor and was scheduled to appear before 500 members of the company’s franchise system for the first time as part of a huge program in Beverly Hills. Needless to say, he was nervous. Very nervous.

My speech writer and speaker met and re-met. Wrote and re-wrote. And revised then re-revised over the course of several weeks until they’d become numb to the whole point of the speech, and the key messages seemed so convoluted and overbaked that they zig-zagged about like a motorboat without a captain.

Once onsite in Beverly Hills, after staying up all night working on the latest (and mercifully, final) version of the speech, my writer delivered the file to the exec’s hotel room at 6:30AM – less than two hours before the Opening Session would begin. The speech writer was whipped, the graphics folks were in a frenzy, and the producer would’ve torn his hair out if he’d had any. Mentally, the presenter wasn’t much better.

After the speech had been delivered (quite well to a very receptive audience, in spite of all) and the program had wrapped up, we did a debrief to see how my speech writer could’ve gotten from Point A (initial input meeting) to Point B (final approval) in a more time/energy/brain-cell-efficient manner.

Amazingly, Draft 16 (yes, 16, that’s not a typo) looked about 95% similar to Draft 2 that had been written and reviewed 2-3 weeks earlier!

So, what happened?

Nerves. Those maddening, twitchy, keep-ya-awake-at-night things that heap havoc on top of the already unavoidable, on-the-fly changes and revisions that every program experiences, (regardless of how well you’ve planned, designed and produced, content-wise and logistically). It’s critically important for presenters to understand the difference between being a little nervous before taking the stage and being justifiably anxious because they haven’t yet arrived at the point of focus and clarity as to what needs to be said (or not said) – especially when time is getting tight.

I’m not speaking of last-minute performance numbers that need to be updated, or Sales Incentive winners decided days before a program, I’m talking about the storytelling narrative that can be crafted anytime following the initial input meeting where key messaging and calls-to-action are identified.

Here are 10 tips on how to avoid wasted time, energy and resources as you help your corporate executives write speeches truly worthy of a standing ovation:

1. Hire a speech writer expert in discovery, interviewing, and researching who knows how to deftly and diplomatically get a crazy-busy executive (who already has a bucket-load of pressing priorities to tend to) to slow down long enough to provide quality input and direction in a limited amount of time. Your speech writer also needs to have a keen ability to quickly sense an individual’s speaking style and tonality.
2. Clearly lay out the linear, chronological steps necessary for a smooth journey to a finished, standing-ovation-worthy speech or script. These steps include:
   • Initial content planning/input meeting (speech writer, presenter and other key stakeholders)
   • Development of a speech outline or flow, based on Step A (including overarching theme, supporting evidence, necessary changes in audience behavior, call-to-action, a list of any missing or outstanding info, and media suggestions to more powerfully engage the audience and bring the words to life, visually)
   • Revisions and final approval of the outline/flow (including stage direction, if possible, so the presenter gets a true sense of how the presentation will open, progress and close)
   • Managing the process of revised drafts, whether it’s scheduling additional sit-down sessions between speech writer and presenter, conference calls, utilizing a “Track Changes”-type feature in the word-processing software, or old-fashioned, marked-up hard copy. Whatever works best for the presenter, works best for all.
3. Set a deadline! And stick to it unless there’s a zombie apocalypse or some other massively huge circumstance that makes midnight-hour, ripple-causing changes unavoidable. And set that deadline far enough out from your program so your eager and talented graphic artists can add the artistic flair and brilliance they bring to the team. Your producer, show techs, and whomever is calling the show will also thank you. Finally, your presenter will have ample time to rehearse before arriving onsite, and may also get a great night’s sleep on Showtime Eve knowing they’ve mastered the content. If at all possible, I recommend establishing a final content deadline seven days out from your Opening General Session.
4. Avoid hiring PR or advertising agencies to do your speech writing or script writing. The world of PR/ad writing is significantly different from the world of live presentation and production. You wouldn’t hire a house painter to do your family portrait (though each performs their individual specialties at a high level). Same’s true for writers. Plus, agencies will generally charge you double or triple an independent writer’s fees.
5. Hire more than one writer, if necessary. Most corporate speech writers, whether in-house or independent, can skillfully handle multiple speeches for the same program (which includes the added benefit of the right and left hands knowing what’s being said). But there comes a point where quality work slips into the abyss and becomes quantity work. Not good – for your presenter or your audience who will yawn their way to the next break.
6. Make sure every member of the writing team is connected so they can avoid redundancy in messaging and identify opportunities for reiteration and reinforcement of key messaging delivered by another presenter.
7. Make sure each updated version of a speech or script is distributed to all appropriate members of the project team, along with an accompanying email that calls out the major changes in the most recent draft.
8. Don’t over-decorate the Christmas tree. There’s always a tendency for presenters to stuff 10 pounds of “stuff” into a 5-pound bag, simply because they’ve got an audience and a forum. Resist this temptation! Only deliver that info which is “mission critical” because, in the end, your attendees are only going to retain about 10% of what is said. Make sure that 10% is as pure and useful as possible.
9. Following your event, carefully archive all speeches and scripts as reference materials for future meetings and events. Again, you’ll avoid having speakers repeat themselves unnecessarily and they’ll know how to build upon well-crafted messaging presented at a previous meeting or event.
10. Be loyal to your speech writer and they’ll be loyal to you. If your speech writer and your presenter have found a rhythm and have worked well together, don’t upset the applecart. Familiarity and understanding between writer and speaker will help ease nerves in the speech writing process. Everyone will work more efficiently.

Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric who increased the company’s value 4,000% during his 20-year run, recommends locking your speech and living with it seven days before it’s to be delivered. If it’s good enough for Jack, it’s good enough for me!

CONCLUSION
If you want to avoid wasting time, energy and resources in the speech writing process and help your executives deliver stand-ovation-worthy speeches, these 10 tips are invaluable.

Would love to hear your feedback, tips, and suggestions, too. Feel free to comment below.

Until next time … cheers!

The post 10 Tips to Help Executives Write Standing-Ovation-Worthy Speeches appeared first on dynami.