Powerpoint be damned!

Who knew I had something in common with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

It turns out, like me, Bezos is  not a fan of using Powerpoint for internal meetings or pitching ideas (Business Insider, 2015).  

I never knew I had an issue with Powerpoint until I experienced what felt like “Death by Powerpoint” at a large semi-conductor company based in Santa Clara.  You know who I’m talking about.  Don’t get me wrong.  I believe an engaging PPT presentation has its place.  It can be a great visual aid for presentations, workshops and seminars.  Unfortunately, it can be an unsuitable choice for explaining complex business ideas or proposals, especially if the PPT deck is the primary source of information. Powerpoint presentations give the ability to dress up a poorly thought out, or simply bad, idea.

I experienced sitting through a deck that had over 100 slides with bullet points containing acronyms and statements.   As the new kid on the team, I decided I would read and research the deck on my own believing that I just needed to get up to speed.  There were a lot of very pretty pictures and compelling graphs.

After reading and researching the surrounding market factors, acronyms etc, I did not see how the idea would ever work much less create 100M in revenue within 18 months.  Assuming I must be missing something, after all these are brilliant people at a brilliant company with a long history of success.   I decided to ask around and check in with the other meeting participants.    It turned out that no one in the room knew the acronyms or understood fully what was being presented. Everyone assumed that because it was long presentation, had nice pictures, lots of acronyms and was being presented by a respected long time  manager, it must have been well thought out idea or it wouldn’t be presented.  More than a year was spent and wasted on the idea.  Fortunately, in a company of its size, the project wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen and pretty much went unnoticed.  But think of what could be done with that kind of wasted time in a company with such resources.

I like the Bezos approach of creating  a four-to-six-page memo referred to as a “narrative” and ensuring that everyone reads it, checks in on understanding and asks questions.   Bezos explains that writing such a memo forces thought and better understanding of what is really important and how it relates within the business.

Powerpoint presentations have actually made it too easy to put “lipstick on a pig,”  gloss over important gaps of information and create a sense of credibility that may not be deserved. The concept of the narrative pushes the discipline of critically thinking through ideas and concepts.  Isn’t  that just standard business operations?  It should be.