Hi all!
So this is part three of my blog posts on the big decisions I committed to after a much needed two-week vacation following the most challenging study of my time at McKinsey so far.
So far, I’ve covered:
1. Decision one: More serious planning for down time
2. Decision two: Lean into ‘adulting on the go’
This blog covers the last one:
3. Think outside the deck, and encourage my teams to do it too
At the firm right now, we are doing a lot of thinking around how to create memorable experiences for clients, not kill you with PowerPoint. The objective has always been to engage in insightful conversations that solve problems and innovate solutions…the medium should not detract from it. PowerPoint is the most common tool in corporate communication today, but it doesn’t always deliver the most engaging experiences. Jeff Bezos has actually banned PowerPoint at Amazon in lieu of six-page memos, President Obama did his briefs in six-page memos, and Sundar Pichai discourages the use of bullets at Google in lieu of pictures.
Memos, pictures…these other ways of communicating really focus on narratives and telling stories. Attending the Harvard Center for African Studies (CAS) Board meeting during my two-week vacation, I was so struck by how many of the really impressive Board members I admire and respect tell stories to communicate. Many of these Board members are my friends, so allow me to brag on them for a minute. David Sengeh (in the dreads) is the Chief Innovation Officer in the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation for the Government of Sierra Leone, and Sangu Delle, second from left in top row, is the CEO of Golden Palm Investments. (In the pic above, I'm just casually hanging out with the Board Members including Hakeem and Myma Belo-Osagie, Folorunso Alakija, and lil’ ol me in the pink and green skirt….)
It is no coincidence that both David and Sangu are Global TED Fellows—they are fantastic story tellers. I have always been stronger at communicating orally than through PowerPoint or Word, but I have learned over the past seven years to be a PowerPoint (‘deck’) warrior at McKinsey (and earlier in college and grad school).
The inertia to pivot from decks (where it makes sense) is strong though—I worked hard to learn those short cuts!!! But my last project made it crystal clear, we must. PowerPoint had a 50/50 success rate in successful communication with my last client. We spent a lot of time as a team in Word, short memos, and what quickly became my favourite medium—pageless meetings with a white board or flip chart.
I’ve signed up for a bunch of beta testing for products McKinsey is piloting for communication (e.g., Pyramid), and I plan to test them voraciously. Let’s see if I can minimize deck creation on the next engagement…
Until next time,
A