90Managing Yourself
When you dive back in, review your draft to see whether you’ve set forth
your ideas in a logical, focused, and clear manner. Have you stated your
main message clearly? Have you articulated any action items clearly? Is
the information accurate? Barbara Wallraff, a longtime editor and colum-
nist for the Atlantic, suggests that when you reread, you should ask your-
self, “How do I feel about what this says? How do I feel about the writer?”
In addition to the content of your draft, review your writing style. This
is the time to polish what you’ve written. Aim for unfussy language that’s
easy to read:
• Keep your sentences short. Your point will get lost in too many
complex clauses, so break them into separate statements. And
avoid loading up the text with unnecessary words.
•
Watch for language that’s overly formal. Readers will lose the
thread of your argument, or simply lose their will to understand it,
if your writing is stilted.
TIPS
How to write an email
When writing an email message, keep it professional and brief.
•
Pick a standard font in black. Anything else is hard to read and
raises questions about your professionalism.
•
Capitalize and punctuate properly. No lowercase “i’s” or miss-
ing question marks. Says business writing expert Bryan A. Garner,
“It takes less time to write a clear message the fi rst time around
than it does to follow up to explain what you meant to say.”
• Include a short, descriptive subject line. It will help your email
stand out in a cluttered inbox, especially if it’s a call to action
(“Prepare for Friday’s meeting”).
Communicating Eff ectively91
• Use the simpler word. “Transmogrify” is not a better way of say-
ing “change.” Contrary to popular belief, complex word choices
don’t make you appear smarter.
• Avoid repetition. “I’m excited about this exciting opportunity”
looks sloppy. The best way to catch these issues is to set aside your
writing for a few moments and come back to it.
• Create strong patterns. If you present A, B, and C ideas at the
beginning of the document, don’t refer to them as C, A, and B later
on. Also, make your lists parallel; if the fi rst three bullet points are
complete sentences, be sure the fourth one is too.
• Proofread for grammar and usage errors. Affect versus effect,
subject-verb agreement—don’t get caught making these common
but embarrassing mistakes. Keep a reference bookmarked on your
computer (for example, Mignon Fogarty’s “A Quick Guide to Avoid-
ing Common Writing Errors,” on HBR.org).
• Get to the point quickly. Put key information—what you’re ask-
ing, a deadline—up front. Don’t waste words buttering up the re-
cipient: “May I ask a favor?” is more eff ective than a paragraph of
praise and apologies.
•
Break up big blocks of text. People won’t read long paragraphs,
so trim the fat and press return. If you can, keep the length of your
emails to a single screen of reading.
•
Reread and revise before you send. Give yourself the opportunity
to fi x typos and tighten your wording. The more important or exten-
sive your recipient list, the more time you should spend on this step.
Source: Adapted from Gretchen Gavett, “The Essential Guide to Crafting a Work Email,”
HBR.org, July 24, 2015.
92Managing Yourself
Emails are a particularly tricky form to master, although we write
them all the time; for special tips, see the box “How to write an email.”
Once you’re happy with your draft, consider sharing it with colleagues as
well. As a proxy for your intended audience, they can give you feedback on
what is working and what isn’t.
Persuasive presentations
Presentations are a hybrid form of communication, a combination of oral
speech, text, and images. They’ve become one of the standard ways pro-
fessionals share information with groups and, increasingly, with individu-
als as well. While this format may seem less dense than a written report,
it’s more challenging to put together. Visuals compete with words for the
viewer’s attention, and the emphasis on images means presenters often
give short shrift to basics like structure and audience.
To create a powerful presentation, you need to distinguish the slide
deck itself from your presentation as a whole. Too often we elevate the deck
itself as the main event, but your voice should never play second fi ddle to a
screen. So what is the right way to combine these forms?
Step 1: Decide whether you’ll use slides
Slides can be a powerful ally in your ability to communicate with an audi-
ence. They can also undermine your presentation by giving people some-
thing besides you to focus on, so use them selectively. In smaller, informal
settings, it’s better to use a whiteboard or handouts than a big glowing
screen. When you do use slides, create them after you’ve prepared your key
messages.
Step 2: Plot it out
Fundamentally, presentations are a kind of storytelling, says Nancy Duarte,
who works with speakers at TED talks to improve the quality of their pre-
sentations. Duarte argues that an effective presentation, like a good story,
has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Within that structure, it juxtaposes
the status quo—“life as the audience knows it”—and then disturbs that sta-
Communicating Eff ectively93
tus quo by introducing provocative new ideas: “Right now customers use
our service mostly to get updates about their weather. But what if we could
provide them with other locally specifi c information on demand?” Use an
opening like this to set up a confl ict that the rest of the presentation will
work to resolve.
The middle of your presentation can be used to elaborate the prob-
lem and your proposed solution by going back and forth between the way
things are now and the way they could be. In the scenario Duarte started,
she imagines the presenter continuing:
Our backend is set up right now to provide meteorological data,
but the infrastructure we’ve created could incorporate other data-
sets that are similarly organized, like traffi c. However, our engi-
neering team does not have experience building out this kind of
capacity. But we’re prepared to bring on experts who have worked
on projects like this in the past.
Toggling between your current reality and a better, alternative future
creates excitement and tension. (See exhibit 6-2.)
EXHIBIT
Persuasive story pattern
Source: Nancy Duarte, HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Boston: Harvard Business
Review Press, 2012.
What
could be
What
could be
What
could be
New bliss
Call to
action
What is What is What is What is
BEGINNING MIDDLE END
94Managing Yourself
Make a hard sell at the end of your presentation. Don’t fi nish with a
long to-do list: “next steps” followed by a dozen bullet points is not ex-
actly inspiring. Either summarize key points for a compelling appeal to the
minds of your audience or, instead, speak directly to their hearts:
After the problems with our last major expansion effort, I know
we’re all afraid of failing again. But if the past few years have
taught us anything, it’s resilience. We’ve worked so hard to get back
in the game; fi nally, I think we have a project that takes advantage
of everything we’ve learned.
Step 3: Prepare your visuals
Once you’ve outlined the overall narrative, it’s time to make your slide
deck. Think “less is more.” People should be able to understand a slide in
three seconds, which means you need to streamline the content aggres-
sively. Here are Duarte’s proven rules for a great deck:
•
Slideshow ≠ talk. Don’t subject your audience to a read-along;
nothing is more likely to lose their attention. Don’t lay out your
entire argument on a slide. If you choose to use presentation notes
or a teleprompter, conceal them from the audience’s view.
• One idea per slide. People can only process a single stream of infor-
mation at once. Choose text or visuals that reinforce key points (for
example, an icon that illustrates a key metaphor) or that will help
the audience remember your takeaways (for example, a buzzword).
•
Storyboard on sticky notes. Their small size will force you to sim-
plify your content, and it’s easy to play around with the order. Cre-
ate a full outline this way before you open up PowerPoint and start
fi ddling around with slide formats.
• Fresh visuals. Brainstorm visual concepts, a lot of them. It’s better
to pick a slightly weird metaphor or image than something tired
and forgettable. For tips on displaying data, see the box “How to
make data pop.”
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