Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes - The Goodman ...

pg. 10
“People go to nonprofit
conferences to learn
something to make their
organization better. I’ve sat
through a lot of workshops
and I’ve thought, two days
from now, will people have
any ideas they can actually
put into effect? That may be
the biggest failing.”
– Chuck Loring
Loring, Sternberg
& Associates
The Sorry State of the Art
Why the Average Presentation Earns a Below-Average Grade – cont’d
Common Problems: The Fatal Five
After covering the basic specifications (and getting more than we bargained for), we asked
respondents to evaluate several factors that can derail a presentation. We also gave them
the opportunity to suggest factors that may not have been listed in the survey. The results
were not surprising. Like teachers dissatisfied with their students’ work, the respondents
handed out one bad grade after another:
• The average grade public interest professionals gave to the presentations they attended
was C– (i.e., average score of 2.9 on a scale of 1 to 5).
• The average grade given to the visuals (most commonly PowerPoint) that respondents
observed in presentations they attended was also C–.
• The average grade given to handouts respondents received during or after
presentations they attended was C.
• When asked to recall presentations they had seen over the last few months, survey
respondents said they were more than twice as likely (54% vs. 25%) to see a poor
presentation as an excellent one.
As we analyzed the responses to both closed-ended and open-ended questions, we were able
to identify five factors as the most problematic for presentations. The “Fatal Five” are:
1. Reading the slides. More respondents complained about this behavior than anything
else – and by a wide margin. Many indignantly asked why a presenter would read slides
aloud when audience members were entirely capable of reading them for themselves.
Several others pointed out that not only did they have slides read to them, the text of
those slides was on handouts they had already received. (In presenting lingo, this is
referred to as the dreaded “triple play,” i.e., the same text is on the screen, read aloud,
and in a handout.) “Watching someone read PowerPoint slides is a form of torture that
should be banned under the Geneva Convention,” wrote one respondent.
2. Too long, too much information. How long is too long? If a presentation is boring,
respondents told us, even 10 minutes can seem too long. And boring presentations
appear to be rampant across the sector. On far too many occasions, said those surveyed,
presentations feel like unedited downloads of information that they must sift through
on their own to find relevance and practical application. “Too much of everything,”
answered one respondent when we asked what makes a poor presentation. “Too many
slides with too many words, too many points, too much data, too long, too didactic.”
3. Lack of interaction. The problem that first appeared when we asked respondents to
describe the typical presentation resurfaced strongly in subsequent answers to openended
questions. Many complained about being “talked at” for 30, 40, even 60 minutes
at a time. “[The] straight lecture format is boring and puts me right to sleep. I need
Q&A or the chance for the audience to leap in there in more of a discussion-style
format,” wrote one respondent. Several others commented on the frequently missed
opportunity to learn from their peers. “Presenters often forget that many in the
audience, particularly those, say, from 35 and up, have life and work experience that is