Last week I went to the third and last day of a meeting for engineers. After lunch, one of their senior leaders stood up and summarized every presentation they had experienced during the past three days. As he began to speak about each presentation, he put up a new slide, and each slide was a beautiful photograph of a bridge.
London Bridge, Pont Neuf in Paris, that famous bridge in Venice I can’t remember the name of–and the George Washington Bridge, lit up with a thousand lights strung along its spans in the dark.
I liked the images, but I spent time staring at them and wondering what they meant. Were they meant to say that he was “bridging” back to previous content in the meeting? Or was he bridging from “Engineering” content to the upcoming presenter who was about to speak on the subject of Emotional Intelligence?
Then he added another layer of complexity to the experience by linking the lyrics of songs to each of the bridges. Apparently he could recall the lyrics of popular songs with ease, and he would recite, say, a few lines of “Bridge over troubled waters” as the picture of the George Washington bridge appeared with the now destroyed World Trade Center in the background.
At last he announced the subject to be addressed by the next speaker, and he showed a picture of his young blond son in his shiny blue soccer uniform running at full tilt after a ball. He spoke about his experience as a father attending his son’s games–how many other parents witnessed the entire event from behind a “chunk of plastic and wires.” And with that, he put his hand up to his face as though he were holding a small video camera.
I felt a sensation in my body begin to move into my chest. Because he then said that those who watched the game from behind a camera could not easily jump up with joy when their child scored their first goal, or run out onto the field to join the team as they embraced their hero, or participate head, heart and hands in the support of the team.
Nor can a camera man quickly respond when his son is injured, he said, or be the first one at his side, or engage with the other parents, or enjoy the animal spirit of competition.
“That’s my view on emotional intelligence,” he said. Then he introduced the speaker.
He spoke with such earnestness and authenticity that I was truly moved–literally moved–because something moved through me. Perhaps because of his previous dullness I was jolted by his sudden authenticity, but something happened in that room full of 250 engineers. The man changed the atmosphere by speaking with real emotion. It was palpable. He bent the air.
Here’s the thing. I don’t remember a thing he said about the umpteen presentations he recalled for us. I only remember the images, the stories, and how I felt.
Makes me wonder about the 50,000 or more intelligent PowerPoint presentations delivered every day in the meeting rooms of America. How long did it take to create them? How much did it cost? And just what is the ROI–The Return on Intelligence–when there is little imagery, and no emotion?
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His talk would have been better if he had used some of the imagery from the previous speakers as he summarized each of their presentations. In that way, his slides would have helped us recall the content, rather than serve as decoration.
At least he got away from bullet points. Bullet points are problematic for several reasons.
1. We know from educational psychology that people learn better when they see both words and pictures.
2. Speakers often think that their bullet points ARE the presenation, and therefore don’t elaborate effectively.
3. Few of us have had training in the art of “presenting thinking.” We think our job as presenters is to present information. No! Our job is to present what we think about information, and make helpful suggestions to the audience.
The larger question that I deal with day in and day out is: where do I find the emotion in my client’s content? And if I’m lucky enough to find it, how do I get them to communicate it?
I’ll stop there, but thanks very much for your comments.
Wow. That is powerful even in your retelling. And a great point. We truly kid ourselves, those of us who use dotpoints (bullet points) as talking points, stock cartoons as weak accompaniers. Nothing beats authenticity. Powerpoint is a convenient to hide behind it.
Two of my clients have now taken to banning it, and I don’t blame them.
If we let such a dry medium take over, it becomes the message. Sounds like your guy used it against itself, turning the tables, making the very real point that we use technology to evade emotion. And it’s emotion that really gets through to people.
Thanks.
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