While executives
often make use of Powerpoint for strategic and tactical decisionmaking, few of
their audience understand its meaning beyond the words on the screen. That
failure can be dangerous! In and of itself, Powerpoint is a highly influential
artifact.
In ordinary leadership settings, the visual aspects of
rhetoric are secondary. Eye contact, natural gestures and erect posture are
designed to enhance, not substitute for the verbal message. The smart use of Powerpoint,
however, can provide the dominant persuasive message. Thus, it’s fundamental
for receivers to have an understanding of Powerpoint subtexts—of what
Powerpoint can do to them. Indeed, in business settings Powerpoint can
become as iconic as Ronald McDonald, Google’s four-colored graphic and 3M’s red
logo.
Visual power
Most people inherently understand that pictures elicit
both negative and positive responses simultaneously. While words on a screen
are not as powerful as pictures, they can work more powerfully than normal
speech: they can be used efficiently, emotionally and persuasively by carrying
strong assumptions to the audience. In short, the Powerpoint is a visual
message that can not only support, but even eclipse the influence of the
leader’s spoken word.
Elements of visual
messages
Words and pictures in Powerpoint have a grammar of their
own. The screen, placed in front of an audience, focuses eyes and brains. When
the Powerpoint moves serially from one slide to another, it effectively
maintains the audience’s focus. All of us know that focus on our tasks is
highly useful to complete said tasks. But focus in Powerpoint also keeps the
brain from significant rethinking, questioning and sometimes, disagreeing. As a
consultant, I rarely use Powerpoint as my primary value to clients requires
them to intensely rethink, question and disagree – if I do not provide that
environment, I won’t get full engagement and buy-in to an idea.
We also know that the three basic types of shapes—square (and
rectangle), triangle and circle—conjure up different meanings. Use of the
rectangular Powerpoint visual emphasizes straightness, honesty and sometimes
dullness. Although they aren’t fixed associations, that does not mean that the
shapes lack merit. The size, scale and number of these shapes are related to
how space is used. Lots of white space has often been associated with luxury,
higher class and independence. Check out the white space in, for example, Leo
Burnett, Chanel, Malcolm Gladwell and my own website. Better skilled and more
experienced users of Powerpoint know the significance of using fewer than a
dozen words on a single screen.
Balance and direction are perceptual cues that help us
organize a visual. Effective Powerpoint, according to research, masterfully
guides the brain from upper left corner of the screen down to the lower right
of the screen – in banana-like shape. Finally, color and lighting greatly
affect mood as they can heighten or diminish the intensity of the images.
Taken together, Powerpoint performs what we rhetoricians
call an enthymemic function in which the audience supplies pieces of the argument, an argument that promises a personal conclusion. Typically, the Powerpoint’s argument is a riff on simple syllogisms
such as “success requires action, it’s going to require all of us to act, and
so if you want to succeed you’ll get into the action.” These assumptions reveal no actual evidence,
thinking or reasoning to drive their conclusions. From the get-go, the
Powerpoint falsely documents reality for no other reason than the mindless
guarantee of a piece of technology. In short, a mere tool of light, electronic
engineering, plastic, software and a projection screen with black letters on
white background makes nonsensical, empty claims without one whit of logic or
reason. But because it’s a visual artifact, it tricks us into belief and
action.
The wording
Although the words on a Powerpoint relate directly to an
organization and its people, when used in business, decision making tends to
take a fairly consistent form. “Here’s a problem. Here is the potential
resolution and its steps. This is your role in the organization.”
By the time professionals become executives, they have
developed expertise in proposal making, presentational speaking and the
generating of problem-solving models and language. They’re also aware of
relevant cultural issues, understand the company’s history of success and
failure, and inevitably know their employees well. As a consequence, they’re
often rhetorical experts, able to pick the most salient issues, use the
accepted language and select the most available instruments of persuasion. You
can be certain that the Powerpoint slides are not ignoring their audience or
overvaluing reliance upon the subject. Like contemporary movies or TV shows,
the Powerpoint adopts an aggressive use of the camera, tight control of the
screen space, varied lighting, and angles that produces a visual image that documents
statements and heightens the spectacle. Although the slides may initially look
like mere information, inevitably, they are freighted with an appropriate
persuasive and rhetorical stance. And if that’s not true, the execs are dumb
asses, not long for their role.
Execs know that making a presentation without Powerpoint would
be far less powerful and authoritative—even though they have no real sense of how
the tool works beyond the display of words.
Debriefing
Powerpoint language
If you’re one of those rare birds with a debate or
rhetorical background, you’ll know what to do. Set aside the Powerpoint
subtext. Get definitions for all that is being stated, remembering that
so-called “facts” are merely one person’s set of inferences and conclusions.
I’d want to know what other options were considered, what should have been considered
that wasn’t and what are the unstated assumptions. In addition, remember that
action timelines are terribly fluid, often unachievable. Find out what,
specifically, will be your role and get priorities spelled out. Think through,
especially, the recommendations in terms of broad-based short and long-term
consequences. And figure out, who, if the proposal goes forward, will lose and
gain power so you can smartly position your own future.
Those of us who’ve studied artifacts and their use with
verbal grammar find that all of them have a number of important features:
- They stress and/or assume the rightness and ennobling
characteristics of their audience.
- They build external enemies, causes that can be
used to explain away internal weakness. These can become scapegoats.
- They offer rebirth and newness to the audience
as a reward for followership.
- They’re always selling something. Even
bald-faced information has its corporate uses.
Powerpoint presentations rarely make for an opportunity
to discuss the details of the issues I’ve listed above. That’s exactly why
they’re used. But it’s always useful to move beyond the explicit assumptions
and actions to the implicit. And though you may not ask much out loud, it’s
inevitably wise to engage in some CYA thinking with trusted colleagues.
Although I’ve written this from a critical perspective, a
perspective that can readily be read as cynical, the insights I’ve laid out can
also be reflected as positive, opportunistic and astute. I’ve written from the
perspective of a receiver in order to enlighten and protect many unaware of the
power of the visual. Of course, my awareness of this power is exactly the
reason that, on occasion, I take advantage of the artifact and use it for my
own business reasons.
Flickr: Presentation Studios
