What will they remember?
It’s the night before the company conference. Late into the evening, senior team members are racing to finesse their individual slide decks for the following day. Opening preambles are clarified. Dot points are extended. Summary thoughts are nuanced.
The following morning is go-live time. The delegates arrive, the music kicks in, and the CEO approaches the lectern through a cloud of dry ice. After a nervous start, it all starts to flow, and each presenter gets into their stride in front of a kaleidoscope of PowerPoint graphics.
Five addresses later, the team has done it, and the mood backstage is one of elation and relief. “Fantastic”, they think. “All our key employees know exactly where we’re heading next year.”
Except, of course, they don’t.
High on caffeine, cooked by too warm aircon, perched on uncomfortable chairs, and deprived of personal space (or freedom to visit to the bathroom), the audience does what it often does when exposed to dozens of slides and hundreds of messages — it immediately forgets almost all of them.
When prompted for anonymous feedback, they’ll try to recall a couple of obvious concepts, but what they’ll be most eloquent about is as likely to be the quality of the catering. It’s not unheard of for people to offer ‘delicious cookies at break time’ when asked to consider their high points of the day.
Our scenario is one that should resonate with everyone who needs to communicate with colleagues — and it’s a lesson that has a broader application beyond the company conference.
The urge to explain in granular detail every component of strategy, rationale and tactic should be tempered by a realistic understanding of the likely saturation point of their audience. Even the most attentive person is unlikely to digest more than half a dozen key themes in a presentation, so a speaker should consider “which 30 things would I like them to forget?” if their slide deck is of a typical duration.
The good news, however, is that ‘little and often’ is the other side of the ‘less is more’ coin.
Programs that break key content into bitesize chunks across a realistic timescale, using a variety of communications techniques, with easy-to-test comprehension checks built in, are more likely to succeed.
That way, the company event can be a real opportunity to focus on a vital few messages, while using the occasion to celebrate the culture that binds everyone together. That way, more employees will remember and act on more messages more often, while still getting the chance to enjoy the awesome cookies.
