Business presentations: Tips from creative writing

Summary: A cardinal rule of fiction is not to bore the reader. The principles of fiction can be extended to business/technical presentations.

Presentations are a staple of professional life. Yet it’s an activity rife with traumatic and cringeworthy moments for both the audience and the presenter. Moments where the audience may have to endure wooden, droning, and disjointed delivery. Moments when the presenter may face performance anxiety before delivery and a groundswell of insecurity afterwards because the best version of him/herself didn’t come out. Moments where, as an act of mercy to themselves and to any fumbling presenter, the audience may have to look away or scroll through their devices.

Admittedly, with both the hats of an audience member and speaker, I’ve experienced my fair share of such moments. For this reason, I've racked my brain trying to solve the puzzle of how to improve presentations.

Unsurprisingly, given the potentially daunting nature of presenting, there is a whole bunch of books and a cottage industry of training courses offering a glut of tips- ranging from how to structure slides, whether to use slides, whether or when or how to crack a joke, etc.  Among others, two books, the BBC’s Ros Atkins’s The Art of Explanation and Bill McGowan’s and Juliana Silva’s Speaking Memorably-The Art of Captivating an Audience, have some thought-provoking ideas.

Through my recent fiction writing experience, I’ve also found myself reflecting on what I could transfer from this creative craft to my day job, which often involves information-passing technical presentations.

“Hang on! What's the link? Isn’t fiction about entertainment?” One could protest.

"Yes. However, no different from technical/business presentations, fiction is also about hooking and influencing the audience," would be the reply. In this regard, a key maxim of creative writing, Don’t bore, can be extended to technical presentations.

So, to enjoyably enlighten audiences, how can presentations (via slides or social media) borrow from fiction? Below are some suggestions:

• A powerful start counts under all circumstances. It can be a quote, joke, or short story. As for which one, individual comfort and personality should dictate the choice, and the context, such as the nature of the audience, should be considered. Bottom line, it shouldn’t be predictable (e.g., every person always starting with a joke).

• Equally important to the opening is the ending. A powerful start hooks the audience for what follows. A powerful finish can hook the audience forever. It can even make up for a so-so middle.

• In fiction, compelling characters are a prerequisite for keeping readers glued. For technical/business presentations, the characters are the speaker and the personalities in the shared anecdotes. Compelling characters are relatable, credible, and authentic. "Why you?"  This is a question the presenter has to answer.

• Craft a plot. In fiction, the plot/story arc, with a seamless opening, middle, and finale, is key. Similarly, for technical presentations, a clear, logical, coherent, and evolving thread of content is needed. This will help avoid a meandering deluge of information being delivered between the start and end.

• It is also important to have a clear promise and to deliver what is promised. Bait and switch/ unmet promises are audience put-offs.

• It's about the audience, stupid! Fiction books are written to captivate the reader within the premise of a plot. They are not a platform or outlet for the author's unchecked expression on all and sundry. Similarly, a presentation is about influencing the audience through digestible content. It's not a forum for the presenter to show off how much they know or how clever they are.

• For fiction books, pacing determines whether readers get to the end. For instance, it shouldn’t take too long to get to the inciting incident. Readers have little tolerance for lengthy setups, and cutting to the chase is paramount. The same ought to apply to presentations. My patience is stretched when presenters overindulge in frivolous and bespoke small talk, erroneously presuming their audience is captive.

• Presentations should also avoid cradle-to-grave descriptions. Start with the punch line or key conclusion and then expound on the 'how we got there'. For instance, if depicting the oratorial brilliance of Martin Luther King, one can kickstart with the delivery and timeless impact of the ‘I have a dream’ speech' and only later touch on the background that led to that barnstorming performance.

• Related to pacing, be concise, especially when you promise to. Irksome are speakers who promise to be brief, only to then, in a droning voice, elaborate on each of the 14 bullet points drafted in Word document-like full sentences in the slide, along with explaining every nook and cranny of the 5 piecharts cramped into the same slide. Then it's more of the same for the next 28 slides.

• Also, avoid info dumps and overexplaining. Doing so in fiction is a reader turn-off. Similarly, unless absolutely necessary, skip through extraneous background and procedural information and don’t explain what is self-evident from the slides. On YouTube, if I’m seeking curry cooking instructions, I don’t need a class on the history of curry.

• Each slide should serve a clear purpose, as is the case with each scene in fiction, where clear thought is given to the objective of the scene, the characters involved, the flora and fauna, and the balance of narrative versus dialogue and action.

• Pay attention to transitions. In fiction, the linkage across scenes and chapters has to be well thought through. The same can be said about the talking points across slides. You should avoid stumbling into a slide with no clue of how to seamlessly enter and exit the slide.

• Audience engagement is bolstered via cadence in delivery (e.g., voice modulation, varied pace, tonal variety, and the delivery of messages with a conversational feel) and varied content (e.g., mixing visuals with narrative).

• Delivery should ooze with passion.

• Twists (unexpected conclusions) are welcome, but gimmickry and confected shocks aren’t.

In sum, a cardinal rule of fiction is not to bore the reader. The principles of fiction can be extended to business/technical presentations.