Page 115 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

106 DELIVERY

that tell us nothing, does not make the cut. Slides that have no busi-
ness in the presentation should all wind up in the hard copy or
document.
It is true that a picture can be worth a thousand words. But a
simple picture that says a lot is worth a thousand times more than a
complicated picture that winds up adding very little and saying next
to nothing.
Here are some PowerPoint guidelines:

Keep it simple—just one point per slide. Don’t make the common
error of thinking that if you pack a slide with numerical data, mul-
tiple graphics, and bullets you are being economical and effi cient
and doing your audience a favor.
The more dense the slide, the more incomprehensible it becomes
(not to mention the fact that the numbers and letters keep getting

smaller the more you try to fit in). Actually, you are making the
processing of information a lot harder than it has to be, because what

does it profit us to use fewer slides if the audience doesn’t get it?
-

The more information you pile on, the larger the distraction and the
more likely your audience will be out of sync with you. And the more
you pile on, the bigger the chance for confusion and questions that
may lead to frustration.
-

The more information you give, the more likely you are to drift
away from your theme and into the weeds, and the more likely you
are to go off on tangents and wind up telling your audience more—a
lot more—than they want or need to know.
In most cases, you can easily break down even the most complex
slide into several separate images.
Exception to the keep-it-simple rule: Sometimes design engineers,
scientists, teachers, or technicians by necessity have to show complex