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During the Clinton/Obama debate from California, Barack Obama seemed to get off to a good start, making his point (“I am the future, she is the past.”) at the end of his opening remarks. As I listened, I was made aware of the power of going first. I thought that Hillary Clinton would be at a disadvantage because she had to go second.

But then she began to speak, and I found myself even more deeply engaged than I had been listening to Senator Obama. She was confident, assertive, and crisp. But even more important, she was concrete. She used images that we could see in our mind’s eye. She made her point (“I have more experience”) better than Obama made his.

Let me illustrate this with passages from the transcript.

Senator Obama

After acknowledging the contributions of John Edwards to the political conversation in this election season, and announcing that he (Obama) has been and will be a friend to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama got down to his message:

“I believe we’re at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war; our planet is in peril. Families all across the country are struggling with everything from back-breaking health care costs to trying to stay in their homes. And at this moment, the question is: How do we take the country in a new direction? How do we get past the divisions that have prevented us from solving these problems year after year after year? I don’t think the choice is between black and white or it’s about gender or religion. I don’t think it’s about young or old. I think what is at stake right now is whether we are looking backwards or we are looking forwards. I think it is the past versus the future.”

In a nutshell, he’s saying this is an important election, we’ve got a host of problems to deal with, and I am the new guy with the new ideas, while Hillary is part of an old administration that caused deep divisions in the country and has already had her chance.

Senator Clinton

Hillary Clinton didn’t waste her opening moments when viewers would be most engaged: she got right into a story to illustrate her point, a story that enabled us to visualize the future. Here’s what she said.

“On January 20, 2009, the next president of the United States will be sworn in on the steps of the Capitol. I, as a Democrat, fervently hope you are looking at that next president. Either Barack or I will raise our hand and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

And then, when the celebrations are over, the next president will walk into the Oval Office, and waiting there will be a stack of problems, problems inherited from a failed administration: a war to end in Iraq and a war to resolve in Afghanistan; an economy that is not working for the vast majority of Americans, but well for the wealthy and the well-connected; tens of millions of people either without health insurance at all or with insurance that doesn’t amount to much, because it won’t pay what your doctor or your hospital need…

… an energy crisis that we fail to act on at our peril; global warming, which the United States must lead in trying to contend with and reverse; and then all of the problems that we know about and the ones we can’t yet predict.

It is imperative that we have a president, starting on day one, who can begin to solve our problems, tackle these challenges, and seize the opportunities that I think await.

… there are still 37 million Americans who are living below the poverty line and many others barely hanging on above. So what we have to do tonight is to have a discussion about what each of us believes are the priorities and the goals for America. I think it’s imperative we have a problem-solver, that we roll up our sleeves.
I’m offering that kind of approach, because I think that Americans are ready once again to know that there isn’t anything we can’t do if we put our minds to it. So let’s have that conversation.”

In essence, she said “You want me walking into that room on January 9th, sitting down at that desk, rolling up my sleeves, and digging into that stack of problems. I am the practical, problem solving candidate, not the dreamer, the poet, or the guy whose never really run anything other than a social services agency.”

Much stronger than Obama, at least at that moment. Concrete, specific, story-like in structure.

I was impressed.

When I ask people to name three talks they can remember, they seem to have a brain hiccup. The most common response is to talk about the most recent one they’ve seen.

At this moment, if I asked myself the same question, I would say, “The Reverend Diana Clark, Dean Richard Brodhead, and illustrator and author Christopher Myers.”

Reverend Clark, an Episcopal priest, gave a three minute talk I will never forget. She told the story of her vacation. She got on a plane with her husband, and immediately opened a new book she had brought for the occasion.

She felt a tap on the shoulder and looked up. The flight attendant was asking her to put on her seat belt. She had been so engrossed in her book that she completely missed the instructions on getting ready for take-off.

She concluded her talk by very gently suggesting that we may often miss other important voices in our lives because of our preoccupations.

No PowerPoint! Just a story, an analogy, and a powerful point about listening–to ourselves and others (including those in high places.)

The presentation skill lies in the revelation of insight through story and analogy.
A powerful point without PowerPoint. The visuals are in the story, and therefore play repeatedly in the theater of the listener’s mind.

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?