Meet the MasterMinds: Gene Zelazny on Making
the Most of Your Presentations
 Gene
Zelazny is the Director of Visual Communications for McKinsey
& Company and the author of Say
It with Charts and Say
It with Presentations. Since joining McKinsey
in 1961, Zelazny has provided creative advice and assistance
to professionals in the design of visual presentations and
written reports.
I asked Zelazny his opinions about today’s presentations
and how consultants can prepare winning ones.
McLaughlin: Do you think the quality of consulting
presentations today is better, worse, or about the same
as ten years ago?
Zelazny: As far as I can tell, the presentation
material is every bit as great as it was years ago. Here
we’re speaking about the content of presentations,
the ideas consultants share. And, yes, I’d say that
they are every bit as insightful, as sophisticated, as they
were or audiences wouldn’t sit through them.
On the other hand, if you’re referring to the form
of presentations, then, yes, that’s changed in the
forty-five years I’ve been in the field. I recall
doing visuals with free-hand lettering, ruling pens, T-squares,
India ink, and Zip-A-Tone shadings. Then came the Xerox
914 machine and we switched from easel presentations to
overheads transparencies.
After that, we transitioned to 35mm slides, and now we
have PowerPoint, videos, multimedia, video conferencing,
and WebEx. We also have today’s virtual presentations
where the audience is no longer in the same room as the
speaker.
None of these changes have affected the content of presentations,
except that the technology has made it easy for anyone and
everyone to create their own visuals.
If there is any change, it’s that now we see more
visuals, more slides, than we used to because we’ve
made it so easy to produce them. The evolution of presentation
technology has led to a subtle shift in emphasis from the
speaker to the visuals.
I make a point of this in my presentations about presentations:
unfortunately, today the visuals have become more important
than the speakers.
I maintain that it’s the presenter who’s the
presentation, not the visuals. The visuals should continue
to be “visual aids” in the true sense of the
word, “aids.” As such, my single most appreciated
recommendation is to have speakers learn to use the period
button on their laptops during “slideshow.”
That leaves a blank screen and forces the audience to concentrate
on the speaker.
McLaughlin: What are the key changes, if any, you’ve
noticed in client expectations for a presentation? And how
have these changes affected how consultants create their
presentations?
Zelazny: Here too, I haven’t seen
major change, except perhaps that client expectations are
for shorter presentations with more interaction and fewer
visuals. Once more, I maintain that we shouldn’t think
of “presenting at…” we should think of
“communicating with…”
McLaughlin: What are the essential design principles
you believe should govern the contents of a chart?
Zelazny: KISS, KISS, KISS. I take pride
in making this my primary responsibility—to simplify.
It’s easy to leave things complicated. The challenge
is to simplify. My mantra is that it takes the same amount
of time to present five ideas on one slide as it does to
present one idea on each of five slides.
My way allows the audience to focus on each point one at
a time, and allows us to use larger type so the
visuals are legible to all in the audience. It’s not
the number of slides that count, but the number of ideas.
McLaughlin: It’s common to see animation
in slide presentations. When is animation appropriate to
include in a presentation, and when should it be avoided?
 What
Edward Tufte is to PowerPoint, I am to animation and
clip art. |
Zelazny: What Edward Tufte is to PowerPoint,
I am to animation and clip art. You should use animation
only when it helps to make a point. Otherwise,
keep it to an absolute minimum. It’s OK if you want
to reinforce that “profits are rising,” Show
it with a corresponding wipe up, but that’s it.
I feel the same way about clip art. It has a tendency to
speak below the level of audience intelligence, which suggests
that they represent a waste of what audience members are
paying for.
Be careful, though, because PowerPoint is not the enemy.
After all, it’s very sophisticated software. What
we need to be concerned with is the misuse, the abuse, of
the technology.
McLaughlin: When you review a presentation, what
is the most common piece of advice you provide to improve
its quality?
Zelazny: I ask this question: what would
you say and show if you had only two minutes of your audience’s
time?
Don’t make this into a mystery story that recreates
the problem-solving approach you went through to come up
with your recommendations. Give me the conclusions and recommendations
upfront, and spend the rest of the time showing me how you
got them—if I need to hear it at all.
Stop thinking about yourself; put yourself in the seats
of the audience members.
McLaughlin: What are the first few steps you take
to get started on a presentation?
Zelazny: Start by answering these basic
questions: What’s your specific objective? What do
you want the audience members to do as a result
of the presentation?
Tell me: Who am I supposed to be as a member of the audience?
How familiar am I with the material? How interested am I?
What are three good reasons why I should agree with your
recommendations? And, why should I say “No!”
to your recommendations?
How big is the audience? How much time do you have for
the presentation?
Once you have answers to the above questions, you will
have a solid foundation on which to build your presentation.
McLaughlin: If you could give consultants one piece
of advice to improve their presentation skills, what would
it be?
Zelazny: Practice, practice, practice.
That’s the way to find the weak spots and make your
presentation as compelling as possible.
McLaughlin: Thanks for the tips.
You can find out more at www.zelazny.com.
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