Get To The Point (Again)

One of my most popular posts has been Get To The Point, a primer on how to be clear, concise and quick in a fast-paced business environment.  I talked about organizing your thoughts so you know what you’re talking about, concisely expressing your main points and getting to your conclusion quickly because no one likes to listen to someone prattle on.

I have a few more thoughts on Getting To The Point that I’d like to share with you.  I recently gave a speech in which I used Keynote slides to help illustrate my points.  I had about twenty-five slides and the speech lasted about ten minutes.  For most of you, this description is already bringing to mind some of your own experiences with Powerpoint in a business meeting.  Someone slaps a slide up on the screen full of text and bullet notes and then proceeds to read word for word what is written on the slide.  Within seconds, the audience zones out either by reading the slides instead of listening to the speaker, or by just tuning out completely.

GET TO THE POINT, PEOPLE!

This pretty much describes nearly every single staff meeting I’ve had in my professional career.  It describes about 75% of the courses I took in college.  I don’t know about you, but I can read.  Do I really need someone to put a slide up and then read to me word for word what is on the slide?

NO!

So why do we do it?  Why do you do it?  The biggest complaint I hear from meetings like that are about the presenter reading directly from the slide.  But when given the chance to present, the same exact people do the same exact thing- bulleted powerpoint slide, read from the screen.

THIS IS NOT HOW YOU DO IT.

Your slide should help emphasize what you are trying to say.  It should not give the presentation for you.  You should know what you are trying to say verbally to keep the audience focused on you and your message.  The powerpoint slide is there simply to help make your point or to show off something you want the audience to know.  That’s it.

For example, the speech I gave was about making smart decisions in the workplace.  I came up with a little acronym to help me outline my points.  Here is the slide I used:

Simple, right?  Doesn’t tell the audience what each point means, but it does sort of grab your attention and make you want to know what each letter stands for.  I could have used a slide like this:

But that is so wordythat the audience will focus on reading the text on the screen instead of listening to what I am saying.  I went on to outline each letter in bullet point and summed them up at the end, but I never dwelled on the slide and I certainly never read directly from the slide itself.

Here is another slide I used:

While this slide was up, I talked about Netflix’s recent decision making snafu’s, how they seemed to have no direction and how they only served to anger their customers who left the company in droves (800,000 lost subscribers) and tanked their stock price (from $300+ to $70 in only 15 weeks.

Again, I could have used a slide like this:

But then you aren’t listening to my point, you’re reading the words on the slide.  In fact, you may have read every word on the slide before you moved on, EVEN THOUGH I had just told you what would be on the slide in the previous paragraph.  The goal of ANY speech, whether it is a business presentation, a staff meeting or a toast at a wedding should be to communicate your message clearly and concisely while engaging your audience.  Not to overwhelm your audience with words on a slide.

After my speech, I received the following comments:

“Great visual aid, very well organized.”
“Good use of slides.  Thank you for not looking at the screen the whole time.”
“Your slides were simple and easy to understand and kept me engaged.”

People LIKE to be engaged by their speaker.  They want you to look at them, talk to them and make eye contact with them.  They don’t like having slides read to them.  The next time you have to put together a powerpoint presentation, make your slides simple and focus on the message you are trying to get across.  Your audience will thank you for it.

Get To The Point

Today I would like to discuss getting to the point.

Getting to the point is a crucial skill in the business world.  It is one we must deal with on a daily basis.  I remember at one point in my career being assigned a new manager.  You already know where this is going, don’t you?  I, playing the part of the impressionable young employee excitedly went to our first staff meeting to see what new and interesting things our manager would bring to the team.  I left two and a half hours later, exhausted, dejected, and completely out of sorts.  Why? Because this manager had no idea how to get to the point.  We are all busy.  No one has time for you to get to your point in a roundabout way.  You need to be able to express yourself in a clear, concise manner in order to be taken seriously in the professional world.  Without that skill, you will find your influence is diminished or you may find that people avoid speaking to you altogether.  Neither of these things will help you be a successful professional.

I am going to present you with three ways to get to the point and get on with your day.

Organize Your Thoughts

How often does something pop into our head and we rush off half-cocked trying to get someone’s attention?  Too often, I say.  Organizing your thoughts will help you figure our what you understand fully and what you require additional explanation for.  It will help you tease out the tough concepts and give you a chance to further deepen your knowledge before you present it to someone else.  Take the time to think about what questions someone will have for you and be able to answer those questions.  There is nothing more irritating than when someone presents half an idea and then does not have the simple basic understanding of the issue to answer questions or further expound on that idea.  Once you’ve organized your thoughts and thought up questions, walk away from it.  Then, a few minutes later, come back to it and review it again trying to come up with more questions or problems that may arise.  Being organized will help you come across as more credible and will give your opinions on the issue more weight.  Even if this means taking several minutes to jot down what you know about what you are going to report to someone, that time spent organizing your thoughts will lead to a more efficient use of your and your boss’s time.

 Be Concise

Get to the point in ten words or less.  What is the main point of what you are going to talk about?  This is the most important thing to get across to someone, and you should be able to summarize it in ten words or less.  If I were to summarize this post in ten words, I would say “get to the point, organize your thoughts, be concise, conclude.”  I’ll give you a second to count those, but I assure you, it is ten.  This doesn’t mean that all of your reports should be ten words or less, but you should be able to sum up the main point of what you are trying to say in ten words or less.  “The supplier is requesting an overall increase of six percent.”  “The contract expires within the lead time and must be extended.”  These are summaries of a broader explanation, but the main point is clear, and should always be clear to the person you are reporting to.  The best thing about being able to concisely state your point in ten words or less?  If someone needs more information, they can always ask for it.  But you’re not overwhelming them with pointless information they neither need, nor will remember.  And because you spent the time organizing your thoughts and thinking of potential questions, you will be prepared for when those additional questions do come up.

Have a Conclusion

This was my manager’s weak point.  She rambled on and on for as much as twenty minutes on a single point, throwing out random anecdotes and stores to try to help make her point clear.  But because she had not organized her thoughts and boiled the main point down to ten words or less, she ended up going on and on and only served to further confuse her audience.  Always be working towards a conclusion.  Often, ten words will be enough for your main point, but you will need to further explain the subject to your audience.  That is fine, but as Stephen Covey once opined, “Begin with the end in mind.”  While he was making the point about starting a project, it still applies to speaking before a group.  Once you get to this point, you have already organized your thoughts and boiled your main point down to ten words or less.  Now expound upon your main point, but know when to get out.  Be able to summarize your main points and any specific items that bear importance and then, shut it down.  For less complicated matters, you should be able to conclude in a couple of minutes.  Only the most intricate issues should go five minutes or more.  But regardless of how intrinsically complex your issue may be, have a point where you wrap your thoughts up in a neat little bow. Conclude.

And speaking of conclusions, that brings me to mine.  Getting to the point is a critical business skill.  We’re just too busy for you to take your time examining all of the different viewpoints of an issue.  Today’s business environment requires quick, decisive action and in order to facilitate such action, you have to be able to get to the point.  Remember to organize your thoughts, boil your main point down to ten words or less and have a conclusion in mind.  Once you have mastered these three skills, you will be well on your way to being able to successfully, skillfully, and concisely get to the point.