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

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Building Better Presentations
How to Take Your Audience from A to B – cont’d
The “less is more” rule applies to storytelling as well, something Max Atkinson points out
in his book, Lend Me Your Ears. “Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan,” Atkinson
told us. “It’s incredibly short. Ronald Reagan’s speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day
included stories of less than a minute,” he added. One of my favorite stories requires just
500 words:
The Ultimate Elevator Story
I first heard this story during a workshop on brainstorming. The session leader wanted to
illustrate the point that brainstorms can fail to produce the best solution if they begin with the
wrong question. Rather than simply state the principle, he told this story, which is true, though
names have been changed.
The Ambassador is a 10-story apartment building in San Francisco. A single
elevator served the building’s tenants, who often speculated that theirs was the
slowest elevator in the entire state of California. Eventually, snide comments in
the lobby turned into an angry letter to the building’s owners, and the time for
action was at hand.
The Ambassador was managed by two brothers, Nicholas and Joe. Nicholas, the
older and more traditional thinker of the two, immediately saw the straight line
connecting problem and solution. He solicited bids from elevator repair companies
to modernize the building’s machinery and increase the elevator car’s speed. The
estimates ranged from $150,000 to $200,000, and Nicholas, nodding to tradition
once again, picked the one in the middle. For a tidy $175,000 the Ambassador’s
elevator would receive a brand new motor, controller, hoist machinery, brake, guide
rails, counterweight rails, and a spanking new buffer (that thing in the basement
which keeps the elevator from crashing through the floor and descending into the
center of the earth).
The machinery was installed, and Nicholas used a stopwatch to confirm the elevator
was, in fact, a few seconds faster from floor to floor. After allowing two weeks of
demonstrably improved service, he surveyed the tenants to ensure satisfaction.
Their responses stunned him. Without exception, the tenants saw no difference in
service. “Slow as ever,” was the commonly heard response. Nicholas was stupefied.
His stopwatch didn’t lie, and neither did his bank statement, which clearly showed
$175,000 less in the building’s account.
While Nicholas stewed, Joe – the more creative thinker of the two – contacted a
different group of vendors and solicited another round of bids. Within a week, the
work Joe had ordered was completed, and now the Ambassador had full-length
mirrors on either side of the elevator doors on every floor. Joe circulated a memo
to the tenants advising them that technicians had tinkered with the new motor in
the elevator (which, in fact, they had not). He assured them that the elevator car
was moving faster than ever and solicited their comments. No mention was made
of the mirrors.