In presentations, it's very helpful to start with the executive summary. Say the answer first, and then cascade into the details. This concept is so I guess popular and prevalent that if you were in a room of people and you knew there are a couple of them who are consultants, and you actually just said the words pyramid principle, it's unique enough, and it's specific enough that the consultants would probably turn around and look at you. That's how common this thing is. The title says it all, and this probably isn't a surprise to you. If you've ever tried to schedule a meeting with your boss's boss or an executive, somebody important makes a lot of money. What you'll find is it's very difficult to get on their calendar. A couple of things, executives, they have a lot of stakeholders. A lot of people want a piece of their time. They are being bombarded with requests and calendar invites. It's not uncommon to take one month to get on somebody's calendar. Number 2 is sadly, a lot of these people, they don't even control their own calendars. Different people are putting appointments on the calendars already. Don't be offended if you have trouble getting in touch with somebody. Then the last point, I think is really critical is, not all executives are the same. You have ones that are responsible for marketing, and others that are responsible for manufacturing. Frankly, they worry about their own problems. It's silly to expect for a marketing person to be worried about other things unrelated to what they do. Finally, here in the bottom, you can see that executives are always asking the same question, which is this, so what? What exactly do you want me to do? What's important? The title says, these are things you typically don't like to hear, and I have heard them many times. Things like, I didn't realize we're meeting today, or well, I know it's a one hour meeting but I've got about 10 minutes, or haven't we seen this already? Isn't this just a little bit repetitive? All these questions are indications that one, maybe you didn't set up the meeting correctly or the expectations of what we're going to try to do, it also is indicative of the fact that executives are busy. It all gets back to the main point of this pyramid principle, which is you really need to get your point very quickly. Consultant is actually part of the reason we're effective is we don't waste time. You really want to focus the client's attention on really what's most important. You can see three different things here all super important. One is making sure that it's really easy to follow and understand. Know who's going to be in the room, the audience, how much time you actually have, the context. Is this at the beginning of a project or at the end of a project? The worst thing you want to do is go through an hour of presentation, and towards the middle of it, people are just fading away because they can't even follow or pay attention to what you're trying to say. Don't lose people's attention clearly. Then number 2 is to tell a story, please tell a story. In the age of videos, and Netflix, and movies, if you're not telling a story and compelling people to care, they're not going to care. Explain the why people should really care and build credibility and momentum as you go. The final thing here is, let's agree, they're not paying you and your consultant firm $300,000 to tell stories. They have a real problem that needs to be fixed. They're not going to believe the story you tell them without providing real data analysis, making it very bulletproof. What I will say though is to anticipate the questions before you get them. Do the preparation and do all the hard work before the presentation, but please, put the analysis in the back. Don't bore them, don't show them all the math that's done. Pyramid principle. Now that you've sold me on the fact that yeah, executives get busy, I got it. You've sold me on the fact that I need to get to the point, I got it. What does this thing look like? What does it really mean? Well, first, it was coined by Barbara Minto. Sometimes it's also called the Minto principle. She was a partner at McKinsey & Company, a very famous consulting firm. From her research, she discovered that always put the main point first, the executive summary, and then follow it up with the details. The sequencing looks like recommendations first, expected outcomes, and then other considerations or analyses that you might have. At the top, the answer, the executive summary, and then as you go down the pyramid, more and more details. What it means is, it's possible for you to just stay at the top, do the executive summary, talk about the recommendations and never get to the stuff at the bottom. That's okay because remember, it was a one hour meeting and the executive only had 10 or 15 minutes anyway. I've had some of my best presentations, my best discussions with clients when we never left the first page. You might ask, how is it a good presentation if you have 10 pages and you only cover the first one? Well, the first one had all the main things on it. That was the main point. Always be prepared with an executive summary up front just in case you never get past the first page. That does happen. Pyramids can look different, there's not just one type of pyramid. When you talk about the pyramid principle, there is multiple approaches and you can see two of them there. There's the one on the left which is, you should change, that's a problem. Here are some of the problems, here are some of the reasons of it, and here's how we're going to fix it. That's one approach. The approach that I like to use is the one here on the right-hand side, which is you should change, you should do A, and here are all the reasons why and all the implications, you should do B, you should do C. What's consistent across both of them is the idea that you should change. That is the first page, and then everything cascades down from there. The key takeaways. The first one is not that controversial. Executives, super short attention span. Say what you want to say because they're going to start raising their hands and start interrupting you as soon as you start. Number 2, this also allows the audience to focus on the areas that they're interested in. It's possible you have three points, but numbers 1 and 2 they already agree with you. There's no reason to go into more detail. They really want to talk about part number 3. In some ways it cuts to the chase where you and they agree on 1 and 2 already and you can focus on number 3. It's very empowering to them. It's almost like saying, here's a menu, here are the recommendations, we can go in order of 1, 2, 3 or you can tell me where you want me to focus this time together. Now, the logic needs to be easy. You cannot do a pyramid-type structure without really knowing what you're going to talk about first, second, and third. Be super clear. We're recommending A, B, and C, and recommendation A is supported by 1, and 2, and 3. Finally, here at the bottom it says that, this is something that we really need to work on ourselves. How clear are you and how quickly do you tend to get to the point when you're speaking? When you speak to your boss about a project or you speak to an executive sponsor about an initiative, are you the kind of person who rambles and then says the main thing at the end? If not, a lot of times what you want to practice is getting to the point as quickly as possible.
