Page 109 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

100 DELIVERY

people I will likely become impatient. And if you try to be cute about
it—for example, showing me just one bullet at a time in a build—I
will become outright antagonistic, because I can see how much more
I’ve got to endure until we can get past this one slide. So word slides
won’t endear you to any audience. They can be particularly damag-
ing if misused with an important group of decision makers you may
be trying to get closer to or enlist. To make matters even worse, how
many times have we been faced with endless word slides—only to
realize that we can’t even read the words because the letters are too
small?
On top of that, word slides are a serious liability if you want to be
seen as a leader, authority, or decision maker of any kind or even just
be taken seriously. The signal you are sending when you share the
room or the stage with word slides is that you are unable to discuss
your own subject without cues. The audience assumes that without
the word slides you would be lost, not knowing what to say, unsure
of what’s coming next, perhaps dependent on some junior person or
colleague who prepared the show for you—when in fact, that may
simply not be the case.
Your audience can’t even be sure that the whole thing might not
be corporate boilerplate right off the shelf. The hard truth is that
anyone can do a boilerplate. I can do yours and you can do mine. All
we have to do is read our lines. This means that from the audience’s
perspective, you might not be necessary as part of the value proposi-
tion. After all, we know from long experience that before your audi-
ence is willing to buy your product or service, or follow your lead,

first they have to buy you. If you are not necessary or if you have made

it too difficult for them to buy you, then what is your value?
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Word slides and leaders do not mix.
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