Book Review: The Compelling Communicator, by Tim Pollard
The true value of Tim Pollard’s excellent new book is conveyed by the subtitle: Mastering the Art and Science of Exceptional Presentation Design. While much of the literature on what makes a ‘compelling communicator’ focuses on cultivating delivery skills and stage presence, Pollard rightly consigns these topics to a brief Epilogue. Rather, his focus on what makes a presentation exceptional is around design and content. This makes the book of equal, if not greater, value to speechwriters and communications professionals as it is to those who deliver presentations.
Pollard is a welcome enemy of two of my own pet hates: Subject Experts who force an audience to drink from a firehouse, and executives who start out by building every presentation in PowerPoint, which he condemns as ‘absolutely the wrong way to start–it’s like laying bricks on each other as a way to design a new office building.’
The Need for Presentation Design
His indictment of the delusions that many, if not most, presenters suffer from is a telling one. Pollard is relentless in calling out the sorry state of business presentations in the world today, which include:
- Cramming in large amounts of irrelevant material that crowds out content that really matters to an audience.
- Subject experts who drastically overestimate an audience’s ability to absorb complex information.
- Delivering an unstructured message which confuses the audience. (Sorry Guy Kawasaki, just numbering points from 1-10 does not cut it.)
- In sum: content that is boring, confusing, forgettable, sender-centric and unlikely to drive people to take action.
The root of the problem is ‘selling the car using the owner’s manual’ by failing to identify the ‘big ideas’ that will grab the audience’s attention.
Mastering Presentation Design
The second part of the book is a step-by-step guide building a speech around a few big ideas to make an impact. This requires us nailing three key presentation design aspects:
- Selecting the content that deliver insights to influence the audience in the ways we want.
Building a comprehensive audience profile is a necessary first step. It forces us to think of the world in terms of the audience and how the arguments we present intersect with their world.
- Simplifying and sequencing the content, paring down excessive material and structuring a story that packs meaning into each word of the speech.
The importance of building presentations that tell a compelling story has been addressed by others such as Nancy Duarte, Justina Chen and Michael Hauge. Pollard gives us the practical tools we need to create presentations in a corporate setting that make effective use of stories.
- Engaging the audience with relevant information that grabs attention by appealing to both sides of the brain.
This starts by crafting an effective opening, creating supporting visuals that add impact and are relevant, and closing with a simple, memorable, proposition.
I especially liked Pollard’s sensible advice on supporting materials and handouts.
A Valuable Online Resource
A hidden bonus in the book is a complimentary six-month subscription to Tim’s Message Architect Software Tool which manages the process of designing presentations according to the steps described in the book.
It’s worth the price of the book to gain access to this software.
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Breaking News: Join me for a conference call with Tim Pollard hosted by the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable at 10:45am (Pacific) on Thursday May 18. Registration details for this no charge event are here.
By Ian on 05.09.17 7:52 am
Here’s a recording of the conference call Tim held with the Silicon Valley Speechwriters Roundtable.
By Ian on 05.21.17 6:32 am
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