The book is divided into five parts, covering the five essential components of an effective presentation (metrics, politics, logic, rhetoric, and graphics). The introduction to each of these parts focuses on the why of what is covered in the subsequent chapters. The chapters themselves then give explanations of what to do and how to do it. Each chapter begins with a summary approximately one page in length; if you are in a hurry, all you have to do is read these first pages of each of the nine chapters. The book also includes a number of appendices: Appendix A provides a set of worksheets that you can photocopy and use as you develop your presentation; B is a comprehensive case example of a typical PowerPoint presentation redesigned according to the Extreme Presentation method; C provides a set of sample slide layouts that you can use; D and E provide lists of additional resources and readings.

Electronic copies of the worksheets in Appendix A, along with other useful materials, are available at www.ExtremePresentation.com.

The best way to use this book is to work through a presentation of your own while you are reading the book: a presentation that you are already working on, one that you know is coming up in the near future, or one that you have already delivered but you would like to improve because you know you will have to deliver it again.

IN THIS FIRST PART OF THE BOOK, we will cover two of the five essential elements of an effective presentation: politics—understanding and influencing your audience—and metrics—setting a clear objective for the presentation and measuring whether you have achieved that objective. In this introductory section I will discuss why you should spend the time to consider the different personality types in your audience, and why you should set specific goals about what you want your audience to think and do differently after your presentation, and then in Chapters 1 and 2 I will explain how to do each of these things.

Different people have different learning styles and preferences for receiving information. If you can adapt your communication to these different styles, then your presentations will be more effective.¹

The problem, of course, is that most presentations are to an audience of more than one person—a group of mixed personalities—so how do you adapt your communication to different personalities? Should you even try? This section will review some of the different methods for assessing personality types and learning styles, and then answer the question of whether you should try such assessment.

There are a number of helpful taxonomies of learning styles. Two of the most popular are the Perceptual Learning Styles and the Index of Learning Styles. There are seven Perceptual Learning Styles: print (people who prefer to learn by reading), aural (listening), interactive (talking and discussing ideas), visual (viewing pictures, charts, and demonstrations), haptic (touching), kinesthetic (moving around), and olfactory (tasting and smelling—see James & Galbraith, 1985).

The Index of Learning Styles contains four dimensions: active (learn by doing) versus reflective (learn by thinking about the subject), sensing (absorb facts) versus intuitive (discover relationships and possibilities), visual (pictures) versus verbal (words), and sequential (follow logical steps) versus global (leap to insight).²

A third taxonomy that can be helpful is the popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI). The MBTI describes personality preferences in terms of four dimensions. These are “favorite world”: Introversion (focus on inner world) and Extraversion (focus on outer

¹McFarland, Challagalla, & Shervani (2006), in researching salesperson interactions with buyers, found that the most successful ones adapt their influence tactics to suit their different customers.

²Felder and Spurlin’s (2005) review of the research on the Index of Learning Styles concluded that it is both valid and reliable.

³See Myers, McCaulley, Quenk, & Hammer, 1998. For more information on the MBTI, see the website of the Myers-Briggs Foundation, www.myersbriggs.org/.

⁴ENTJ and ESTJ types represent 27 percent of managers, administrators, and supervisors (Macdaid, 1997). All other types, including all I’s, F’s, and P’s, make up the other 73 percent.

world); information: Sensing (focus on the basic information) and Intuition (focus on interpreting and adding meaning); decisions: Thinking (logic and consistency) and Feeling (people and circumstances); and structure: Judging (get things decided) and Perceiving (stay open to new information and options). One ’s personality type is written in terms of four letters, representing the person’s preference in each dimension (e.g., ENTJ, ISTP, ISFJ, etc.—where Intuition is written as “N” so as not to confuse it with “I” of Introvert).³

So how do we deal with this variety of preferences? Even though people have different personality types and learning styles, it is possible to design your presentation so that it appeals to all types, and Chapter 1 will explain how to do this in some detail.

If we are going to design our presentations to appeal more or less to all types, do we even need to think about the differences? The answer is yes, because if you do not think explicitly about what kind of personality types or learning styles are going to be in your audience, and how best to communicate with them, then the danger is not that you will design your presentation in a generic way. The real and more likely danger is that you will default to designing your presentation to match your own preferences—which will work for the members of your audience who have a similar personality type to yours, but not for those who are different from you.

Even if you have one of the two most common personality types in management (ENTJ or ESTJ in Myers-Briggs terms: that is, extraverted, judgment-oriented thinkers) and you are presenting to other managers, the odds are that you will still only be appealing to a minority of your audience. You will be routinely turning off all introverts, perceivers, and feelers, who represent almost three-quarters of all managerial level employees.⁴

If there is a particular person in your life with whom you always seem to have trouble communicating—who never seems to “get” what you are trying to say— then this could be the explanation: that individual has a very different personality type from yours. Therefore it is worth thinking consciously about the different personality types that are likely to be in the room each time you develop a presentation.

And sometimes you will face a situation in which you are presenting to only one person, or presenting to a group with only one decision-maker. In that case, you can emphasize the communication elements of your presentation that will most appeal to that person’ s type—allowing him or her to understand you better and more quickly, and be more easily persuaded.

In this book we will use the MBTI because of its widespread popularity. The MBTI is a sophisticated assessment tool that should be administered by a qualified practitioner. However, its categories are also very useful for making a quick assessment of the personality types likely to be present in your audience, which you can then use to ensure that you are communicating in ways that appeal to everyone in your audience.¹ Chapter 1 will explain how to ensure that your presentation appeals to different preferences.

At least since the 1960s, people have been aware of the importance of setting behavioral objectives for any kind of educational effort (Mager, 1962). More recently, marketing scholars and practitioners have focused on the essential role of setting objectives and measuring results as a way to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of their efforts. In particular, they have identified the importance of both attitudinal and behavioral objectives: objectives for changing what the audience is thinking and doing (Ambler, 2003).

Yet people routinely develop presentations without a clear idea of the attitudinal and behavioral changes they are trying to achieve in their audiences. If you do not know what specific changes you are trying to achieve in your audience, then the chances are that you are going to waste time creating parts of your presentation that are not relevant to the specific objectives you need to achieve, or—worse—leave out important elements that you will need to achieve those objectives. In Chapter 2 , I will describe how to develop attitudinal and behavioral objectives quickly and effectively.

Understanding What Types of Communication Will Be Most Effective for Your Audience

Step 1: Identify the Communication Preferences of the Different Personality Types in Your Audience

It is important to think through which personality types are likely to be in your audience, and what their communication preferences are, because it will help you consciously break out of the (unconscious) habit of designing a presentation to appeal only to those who share your own personality type. Even if you start out by deliberately designing your presentations to appeal to all types, if you routinely skip the step of thinking about the different personalities in the room, then there is a real risk that over time you will revert to accommodating only your own personality type preferences.

There are several considerations to keep in mind to avoid defaulting to a presentation design that appeals only to those who share your personality type.

If you like details, for example, keep in mind those who prefer the “big picture.” If you like people to get to the point quickly, don’ t assume that everyone else is this way; speak also to those who want to know what other factors you have considered and rejected to get to this point. If you make your decisions based strictly on facts, expect that there will also be people in your audience for whom emotional considerations and people issues are of central importance.

For this first step of the Extreme Presentation process, you need to list the most important people in your audience (where “important” is defined as people whose minds or actions you need to change), estimate the personality type of each, and then work out the implications of each type for your presentation design. You can photocopy worksheets A. 1a and A. 1b in Appendix A and use them to list your most important audience members and their personality types and indicate the presentation implications of each (or you can download copies at www.ExtremePresentation.com).

* How to match your presentation design to different personality types, especially when you expect to have multiple different personality types present in your audience (which is usually the case).

You need to make a list of the most important people you are expecting to see in your audience, and try to estimate the personality type of each. The “most important” people in your audience are those whom you expect to have the most influence on whatever decision or action you are trying to encourage with your presentation. If you will be giving the same presentation to different audiences, then focus on whichever is the most important to you, or else design your presentation so that it will appeal to all audiences (more on this below).

In a perfect world, you would have each of your audience members fill out a formal MBTI assessment, but for most real-world conditions this is completely unrealistic. In firms that have made a significant investment in MBTI, different executives’ types are known in the organization, and so you may already have the information you need if any of these particular executives happen to be your audience. For every other situation, though, you will need to make an informal assessment. I find the following questions helpful:

* Does the person seem to become energized from being alone (Introvert) or from being with people (Extravert)?

* Does the person seem more concerned with principles and things (Thinking) or with people (Feeling)?

* Does the person seem driven to closure (Judging) or to opening up further possibilities (Perceiving)?

As you go through and try to estimate the different personality types of your audience members, if you are unsure in any way about any dimension of any personality, then leave that part blank. This is very important. For example, if you know that Joseph in your audience is definitely an Extravert, but you are not sure how you would classify the rest of his personality, then write down an “E” and leave the rest blank. The meaning of a blank is that you will need to appeal to both sides of that dimension—because you do not know Joseph’s preference. Therefore, a blank instead of a J or P means that you need to appeal to both J’ s and P’ s, so that whether Joseph is a J or a P, you will still be communicating properly to him. But if you guess that he is a J when in fact he is more of a P, then you will be presenting to him in a way that turns him off. It is always better to leave a blank than to make a wrong guess.

How to Match Your Presentation Design to Different Personality Types in the Same Audience

Once you have estimated the personality type of your most important audience members, then you can work out the presentation design implications for each of them and note these on Worksheet 1a from Appendix A.

¹For example, richer (multimedia) communication significantly increased online purchases of a complex product for iNtuitors and Feelers, but not for Sensors and Thinkers (Jahng, Jain, & Ramamurthy, 2002).

Different personality types like to receive information in different ways, and are influenced accordingly. These ways are summarized in Table 1.1 and explained in detail below.¹

As we noted above, in many cases, you are likely to have a mixture of personality types in your audience. In these cases you will need to design your presentation to appeal to all the types that could be present. There will probably also be some people whose personality types you do not know. The implication here is similar: with an unknown type, you need to design your presentation to appeal to all possible types, so that whichever one the person turns out to have, you’ ll be covered. In what follows, we describe how to design a presentation to appeal to each side of the four different MBTI dimensions, and also talk about how to address situations in which both sides are present or that personality dimension is unknown.

The first consideration is your audience’s “favorite world”—whether they are outer- or inner-focused, extraverted or introverted.

Introverts Introverts need time to reflect on information that they receive. The implication is that you should try to provide all or part of your presentation material—or some other relevant pre-reading—to introverts in advance of the presentation, so that they have time to think about your material prior to your presentation, especially if you expect them to make a decision by the end of your presentation. If you do not give them information in advance, they will probably be less comfortable with your presentation and less likely to agree to your recommendations.

There are times when you may not feel comfortable providing your whole presentation in advance (because it is highly confidential, perhaps, or because setting the context correctly is critically important). In such cases, try to send at least part of your presentation, or even some other relevant pre-reading, so that your audience will be more prepared for your presentation. The goal in this step—as in every other step in the Extreme Presentation method—is not slavish adherence to a process. The idea is to improve the persuasiveness of your presentations. We ’ re not striving for some theoretical ideal of perfection; we’re just looking for an improvement over what you are doing right now. With introverts, any amount of pre-reading is going to be better than what you are sending them right now, which is probably nothing.

Extraverts Extraverts, by contrast, need interactive discussion, so plan for lots of question-and-answer time during your presentation. If your presentation is scheduled to last one hour, do not expect to present more than thirty minutes’ worth of material, because the rest of the time will be spent answering questions and engaging in discussion. Extraverts process information by talking about it. If you expect the extraverts in your audience to make a decision during your presentation, you will have to allow them time to “digest” your material by discussing it.

Some time ago I was sharing the Extreme Presentation method with an admiral of the U.S. Navy. His staff consists mainly of JAGs (judge advocate generals), who are all trained lawyers and mostly extraverts. His concern was that if he ever opened up his presentation to questions, the questioning would take over and he would lose control of his presentation. As I took him through this material, he came to see how such questioning is a sign that his people are absorbing the information that he is presenting to them, because extraverts process information by talking about it. (For more information on the “ illusion of control” that presentation slides can give you, and why you are better giving that up, see Chapter 8 on layouts).

Both Introverts and Extraverts Together If you expect to have both introverts and extraverts in your audience, then you need to get pre-reading material to the introverts and allow discussion time for the extraverts. How do you get pre-reading to the introverts only? Don ’ t worry about that—send it to everyone in your audience; the extraverts will most likely ignore it.

You will also allow discussion time, which the extraverts will be sure to take advantage of. However, if you also want the input of the introverts, make sure to allow the discussion to go on long enough. Initially, while the extraverts jump in and start talking, the introverts will be listening to the discussion and processing it. Introverts will not speak up until they have had enough time to think, so be sure to allow the discussion to go long enough if you want their input. One way to do this is to allow silent pauses in the discussion to go on beyond the point that you would normally consider to be comfortable, because it can take that long for an introvert to decide to speak up. Other ways to draw introverts into the discussion include taking a “s traw poll” and asking people to vote their preferences on a particular question (because once people have “expressed” their opinions by holding their hands up to vote, they are more likely to speak up), announcing a brief (two- to five-minute) exercise during which you will ask each audience member to write down their thoughts on the question and then share them, or breaking up the audience into small groups and asking them to discuss a particular point and then report back to the whole group.

The second dimension is information: do audience members prefer to focus on the basic information they take in or do they prefer interpretation and added meaning? The former are called Sensors and the latter, Intuitors.

Sensors Sensors need to see all the facts and all the details. These should be included on the presentation page or slide, or at least in an appendix.

Intuitors Intuitors need the “big picture.” To satisfy the intuitors in your audience, you need to provide an overview at the beginning of your presentation.

Both Sensors and Intuitors Together This is one of the more challenging dimensions to address both sides simultaneously, and this is also where most people will stumble if they do not think explicitly about audience personality type and default to their own. If you are an intuitor, you tend to focus on the big picture, and the sensors in your audience may think you are a smooth-talking flake. If you are a sensor, you will present seventy -five slides of delicious (to you) detail, and the intuitors in the audience will want to shoot themselves (or you) before you reach slide 9.

The way to satisfy both sensors and intuitors is to provide both the concept and the details, ideally on the same page. For example, let’s say that you are trying to communicate that your team has just assessed nineteen different new product concepts along three different criteria, and concluded that two of the ideas pass all the criteria. The sensors in your group will want to see what all of the nineteen ideas are, and what the criteria are, while the intuitors will really only be interested in the criteria and the two ideas that stood out. If you present all the details to satisfy the sensors, such as in the sample slide

in Figure 1.1, you are likely to overwhelm the intuitors in your audience. Alternatively, if you present only the big picture in something like Figure 1.2, to please the intuitors, then the sensors are going to be highly dissatisfied. What should you do?

In principle, the way to satisfy both those who are detail-oriented (sensors) and conceptually oriented (intuitors) is to ensure that the layout of your page reflects the idea or main message of the page, while the details are then placed around the page in appropriate locations. This way the intuitors are happy because they see the concept and ignore the details, while the sensors focus mostly on the details. For our example, we have drawn the three criteria as screens across the slide, shown which of the nineteen ideas are screened out at each point, and placed the two winning ideas on the right, as you can see in Figure 1.3’ (For a lot more information on how to do this, see Chapter 8, on layout.)

The third dimension is about making decisions. The two sides of this dimension are called Thinkers, who prefer first to look at logic and consistency when making decisions, and Feelers, who prefer first to look at the people and special circumstances involved.

Thinkers To satisfy the thinkers in your audience, be sure to identify the principles, costs, and benefits involved with your recommendation.

Feelers The feelers in your audience will want to know what the implications of your recommendations are for the different people and stakeholder groups involved in your project.

Both the reliability and the validity of the MBTI instrument have been challenged by Pittenger (2005). However, we use it here primarily to help recognize the variety of communication preferences audience members can have, and therefore this challenge is not directly relevant.

Personality Type	Typical Needs	Presentation Implications
Introvert	• Time to reflect on information	• Provide all or part of presentation in advance
vs.
Extravert	• Interactive discussion	• Plan for lots of discussion and Q&A
Sensor vs.	• The facts and (all) the details	• Make sure to include all relevant facts and details in presentation or appendix
iNtuitor	• The big picture	• Provide overview up-front
Thinker	• Principles involved, costs, benefits	• Identify principles, costs, and benefits
vs.
Feeler	• Whom this is valuable for, and why	• State implications for each person or group of stakeholders involved
Judger	• Conclusions	• Present conclusions up front
vs.
Perceiver	• Alternatives	• List all alternatives considered