[Music]
thank you so much and good morning yeah
i have always been simply fascinated
by the topic of communications it is so
filled with
puzzles and paradoxes for example how
many of you have ever sat through one of
those awful
powerpoint presentations dozens of
slides hundreds of bullets yeah all of
you
and guess what you absolutely hated it
right and you know it didn't work
and yet knowing that
how many of you have done it to someone
else
isn't that funny communication is so
interesting so what i want to talk about
this morning is why it's so important
how it mostly goes wrong and how to fix
it
now when you think about
how important it is i mean i think it's
proven really throughout history that
communication is probably the single
most important if not the most powerful
tool
you can put in a human being's hands
it's not just how we give and receive
ideas it's how we obtain so many of
those things that we want right that job
we desperately need that project we want
to get funded that donation we need to
keep our non-profit afloat
incredibly important i mean history has
proven this uh history has always shown
the enormous advantage that great
communicators have whether that's steve
jobs or winston churchill
although interestingly probably the most
striking example from history is far
darker the most impressive
accomplishment of communication it's
probably adolf hitler i mean churchill
all what he was doing was rallying
people against tyranny but hitler took
the most sophisticated most highly
educated society of his time
and he persuaded them to support
tyranny and madness and barbarism that
was purely through the power of his
voice
so communication is unbelievably
important and powerful so what's the
problem
we're not very good at it most of us
freely
admit to struggles to communicate as
effectively as we'd like and the data
absolutely bears this out we did a big
study of communication in the business
world and what we found was
less than 30 percent of business
presentations are ever deemed good or
better
fully two-thirds are deemed mediocre or
worse and a really large number a lot
worse
so we have this thing that's incredibly
important but we're just not very good
at it
isn't that interesting so what is it
that's going wrong well we obviously
have good intentions right who here sets
out to punish their audience with slides
you you don't do that
i think it's actually more interesting
that i think what's happening is despite
our good intentions
we get lured away we get seduced into
doing really really stupid things i
think
a nice image here is kind of the sirens
of old um do you remember the sirens
that would lure away sailors you know
unsuspecting sailors onto the rocks this
is a
painting for a woman called ariel
burgess this is us this is what happens
to us so this is you here this is your
big upcoming presentation your big
moment
here are the rocks you're about to crash
on and sink on
so what's doing that what's luring you
away well i would argue it's these three
deceptions or three sirens the siren of
slides the siren of style
with a girl doing her hair i like that
and the siren of success
now let's talk about these
the siren slides i think we all
understand we just are so addicted to
our technology when it comes to
presentations for many of us
presentation equals slides but that's
really weird
so here you've got to do this big
presentation what's the first thing you
do you open up powerpoint and you start
typing and you start typing it feels
good because you get the illusion of
progress
but what's interesting is you keep
typing and you keep typing and all that
typing may mean you're not actually
doing the thinking that you should be
doing
and so i'll often what will happen is
that would lead us to absolute madness
i'll often liken sort of powerpoint and
keynote to tequila in the sense that
they're not inherently evil but given
the right circumstances they will make
you do some really stupid things and um
and you know exactly where this ends up
i mean this is a slide deck built by one
of the world's leading technology
companies they were trying to win a
monster deal with this deck
but guess what for a two-hour meeting
guess what they built 121
slides
with just absurd complexity and tiny
little fonts that only dogs can hear i
mean it's just madness right
my wife is a counselor she recently
attended an online seminar on depression
and it was it was just one of these
slide fire hoses and i asked her after i
said hey honey what did you learn i
didn't learn anything except now i
actually am depressed which is
that's not the outcome that we're
looking for at all so the first
deception the first way we are deceived
into stupidity is through slight
the second one is really interesting
it's the siren of style
because we've been told right great
communication is this
eye contact and body language and power
posing like really
that is just palpably absurd how many of
you ever left any presentation and said
i really hate it i didn't make any eye
contact with me at all it was
disgraceful of course you died we don't
even think about that but there are
there are companies out there dozens of
them in fact a whole industry
that still wants to tell you that that's
what you need to get right it's lunacy
i can prove it a couple of years ago
i was asked to speak at a company's
leadership conference i was done and
they said stick around to the end
because the ceo is going to do this
closing keynote he's absolutely amazing
so okay so i stuck around
and he gets up at the end and he checks
every box he's got the eye contact of a
peregrine falcon he's got the body
language of kramer from seinfeld he's
witty he's funny
he's got this impeccable suit there's no
nerves he's checking every box
except what i noticed was his subject
was
the 10 things we must get right this
year they were really very good but
there was no narrative flow or story
within the ten things i thought well
that's very interesting anyway so it
comes to an end
the crowd goes wild they're throwing
flowers they're throwing underwear i
mean it's a bit cultish
um
and anyway but then then the meeting
comes to an end it's true story and i
grab somewhat well not the underwear
part but the true story and i just
grabbed somebody at the end i said what
do you think he goes oh it was amazing i
said yeah it was can i ask you a
question
how many of the ten things could you
name for me please
two
that is a profound story because what
that tells is most of what we've been
told about communications is actually
wrong
this guy had checked every box of
traditional thinking but he had totally
failed as a communicator and that's what
happens when you're deceived into
a prioritizing style over substance
now the third deception the third siren
is really the most interesting it's not
the one we think about very much
i'm going to call this the the the siren
of success and what i'm going to argue
is
almost all of us do not actually
understand what success is in
communication that seems like a strange
statement so let me just it's much
easier if i just draw it for you so let
me just draw it for you
so hopefully this will appear on screen
yep great so this is you
and you're making
a big presentation to your boss let's
imagine you're trying to get this big
project funded it's really important to
you
now is that meeting important
yeah so you want it to go on you come
out like yeah i nailed it but what's the
problem is that the most important
meeting
no never why because the decision
doesn't get made there sometime later
um there's another meeting
and it's a meeting you don't get invited
to
and at this meeting the decision-making
body is actually going to decide on
whether your project gets funded or not
now that's really interesting because
when you think about it that way what
you realize is you know is this
important that this goes well yes but
actually what is more important
is that this person
can effectively
retell
your story
so what i would argue is the single most
important word in communications is
actually
retailability
or representability
because this is always true in sales
this is the buying group in business
this is the management committee or the
board if you are talking to a donor this
is the grant committee it's always true
now this should change the way we think
about communications completely because
the deception is we fixate on the first
meeting so we think yeah first meeting
success but no no no no
is your message so crisp so clean so
compelling that actually
you can achieve second meeting success
now that's really profound
so those are our three deceptions the
lies we've been told that cause us to do
really stupid things how many of us here
have been deceived by one or all three
of these things okay all of us so the
question becomes
how do you solve this can this be solved
and that's not an academic question
because every one of you in this room
will have many
many times in your lives
where you're making a really important
presentation
and it really really needs to go well
so this is personal
how do you make sure you can do that
well
there is actually a tool i want to show
you that will completely defeat these
three sirens i know ted talks are lofty
and they don't always descend into the
practical but i want to give you a very
very practical tool here
the tool
is called
the pyramid of planned outcome
and and it's incredibly simple it's
cocktail napkin stuff so if i was
building any message presentation
anything including a ted talk what would
i do well i'd start at the top
and i'm simply going to think about what
is it that i want my audience to do what
action do i want them to take what
decision do i want them to make
and that's very very important
but what that raises a very interesting
question how do we make decisions
well let me illustrate that
imagine i wanted you to make a decision
which was to raise your hand and play a
game with me we don't have time we won't
do it
and here are the rules of the game
i'll ask you a simple trivia question if
you get it right you get ten dollars get
it wrong you owe me one dollar and you
can ask a friend for help if you want
now if we played that game
somebody here would raise their hand and
the moment you did that the moment you
raised your hand you would be
illustrating one of the single most
important
principles of communication which is
this
in human beings action is preceded by
belief in other words we take decisions
based on the beliefs we have about that
decision so if you had raised your hand
it would have been for three reasons one
is i believe i could probably answer
that he said it was easy
two is um i like the risk reward ten for
one yeah that works and three is i'm not
going to be embarrassed because i can
get help if i need it right
and i can prove that so i said i'm going
to ask you a question from particle
physics it's 20 if you win 20 to me if
you lose and you're on your own
do you still make a decision yes not
going to play that game why three new
beliefs i'm not going to be able to
answer that question i hate the risk
reward and i'm bound to be embarrassed
so come with me on this so if in human
beings action is preceded by a belief
and if that's true what that means is
the single most important question you
ever ask when designing any presentation
is this
well what does my audience need to
believe
in order to take the action i want them
to take to hire me whatever it is
now
you think that through and you write
that in the middle of this pyramid and
what that gives you is a small number of
beliefs or big ideas
that's what we want a powerful
ideas driven narrative
now once you've got there it's
relatively straightforward if you know
what the beliefs are then you simply ask
a final question
okay well what would my audience need to
know
in order to believe that what sort of
facts or data or proofs and you just
write them at the bottom kind of aligned
under the supporting idea
it's incredibly simple
but it's incredibly powerful
now
i get that that's totally academic and
theoretical so let me kind of wrap up by
showing you a really really powerful
example of this in in real life
i was asked to speak
at a fundraising banquet for a
non-profit that wanted to raise money
for an overnight shelter for homeless
teenagers
this is a tragic situation and one that
absolutely needs to be solved
so i sat down to think about you know
how would i do this this banquet
presentation
well the action obviously is very
straightforward wanted people to give to
the overnight shelter
so now i start thinking about okay well
what would the audience need to believe
that's really interesting i spoke to the
executive director and she said it's
really interesting
homeless teenagers will make themselves
look really scary
but they do that to defend themselves
against the many dangers that they face
because it's such a perilous environment
but the weird thing about that is the
donors would look at these really scary
kids and go i don't want to give to them
they're just bad kids
so the light goes on in my brain like
okay
there's the first big idea the first big
idea is guys these are not bad kids
they deserve our love not our
condemnation that was in fact my opening
now that's good but it doesn't quite get
you there because i also knew the
audience would know that this
organization had a daycare center
so they could easily look at this and go
well okay they're not bad kids but but
we already have a daycare center don't
we yes except
second big idea
the real danger comes after dark what
happens when a kid is put out on the
street at seven o'clock at night in the
middle of january
now by the way at this point you can
just see a really good example of how
you can prove any idea how would i have
proved that idea i do that with one
picture
just a kid sleeping in a dumpster it's a
picture that they had at this
organization sleeping in the dumpster in
the middle of winter
now that's great it's not quite there
yet so they would they would get that
they're not bad kids they get that
they're in danger but they might easily
be asking well
okay but but is this the best use of my
money i mean there's a lot of places i
can give is this a really good place to
invest i think that led to the final
and very powerful idea because what i
wanted to get what i needed them to
believe is that this isn't just any old
fundraising banquet and any old need in
fact
you're going to save a life tonight
your gift will actually save lives
and there it is that was the
intellectual argument the intellectual
architecture of an eight-minute
presentation now what i want you to see
is how it completely solves my three
problems
not even thinking about slides okay i'll
get to slides later but what i'm
thinking about is the intellectual
architecture and that's what matters so
the slide tail isn't wagging the content
dog
so slides yes but later the second thing
it completely solves the style siren i'm
not thinking about how i'm going to
present this
i'm thinking about what i need to say
and why i'll think about how i present
it later
and then finally and most importantly
i've completely solved my retail ability
problem because a crisp simple ideas
driven narrative
is the most retellable story you can
tell because ideas are so sticky to the
brain
and hello isn't that what ted is in fact
all about
so this model and tool is literally
cocktail napkin stuff and it will
completely transform your communication
you're probably wondering did we raise
the money and we did
it was very successful and that was very
very important
but the only reason i'm telling you that
um
is is because this is you
all of you here all of us have many
times in our lives where we need to make
a critical presentation and it needs to
go well and we cannot afford
to be dragged onto the rocks of any of
those three problems
and that's what i hope you can take out
of this morning so so what was my action
i want you to commit to being a better
world-class communicator and how can you
get there it's three key ideas number
one communication is vital we need to be
good at it so beware the three sirens
two
retail ability is the standard to aim
for and it is the key that will unlock
everything else
and three
the pyramid is the tool that will get
you there
thank you very much for your time
you