You have one hour to present, but 67 key items that support your topic. How do you decide which one will make the cut? Now, complicate things even more. The 67 facts, stories and supporting evidence have been provided by five colleagues who are helping you prepare for the presentation. Adding just one more layer of complexity, your audience has already provided five high-level topics to address.
This is a real situation I experienced, but something similar happens every day in companies all over the world. You have multiple stakeholders involved in preparing the message, more information than could possibly be presented and the audience has expectations of what will be presented.
Often this is solved at the whiteboard. This is a great place to get all the ideas out and visible, group them by categories and use a method such as multi-voting to arrive at the most critical supporting key points. (Read more about multi-voting in my free ebook, How to Take Charge and Run Effective Meetings.)
But, you’d need a pretty big whiteboard to fit 67 ideas!
In my case, the debate over the 67 ideas was complicated by the fact that each idea itself was complex, requiring nearly a paragraph of text to describe. Sometimes, it took a diagram of multiple components just to explain one idea. Everyone felt strongly about their ideas, pushing white papers around the table and arguing for their concepts to be included.
The solution? I ran around the office, collected six pairs of scissors and five envelopes and arrived back in the meeting room. I asked each participant to cut their idea down to the smallest sheet of paper possible. Some were reduced to a 2-inch square, some remained at full page, but none were longer than a single sheet of paper.
Each of the five envelopes was labeled with one of the five concepts the audience was expecting. All ideas were put into a pile and the group was instructed to take the ideas one at a time to put in the envelope of the related concept. Everyone did this quickly, as they no longer owned the individual ideas.
Next, we went through each envelope, debating as a group what belonged and what could be removed and which were most important. In the end, we arrived at three supporting points for each of the five concepts that needed to be presented. One team member commented in the end that we had just developed a new board game. Everyone had fun getting through a difficult conversation.
The scissors allowed us create tangible objects that could be sorted. The envelopes aided in sorting. Removing personal ownership for each idea created an environment for collaboration. Out of this came a very effective presentation that was well received by the audience.
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After completing the Communicate to Win workshop, you will have the most compelling argument and the best ideas. With this complete package, you will gain the tools necessary to guarantee that you have the best ideas and that you can present them confidently so you will WIN. Read what participants say.
photo by Katrina Snaps. Used by permission.