Blog post

Presenting the slide

July 21, 2011 · by Jan Schultink
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A decade ago when I just started my career at McKinsey, I always was very excited when I was asked to “present the slide” to the CEO of a client. Presenting the slide: the slide was primary, the presenter was secondary. There is nothing wrong with that. When designing your slide deck, just realize that this is the audience setting you are designing for.

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2 comments

Nathan Schor2011-07-21 14:45:24
Before getting to why I'm responding to this post let me first express my long overdue gratitude to your postings. I've been loyally following them for some tine now and find them consistently informative, adopting many of them to improve my presentations.
But this one troubles me. I always thought it was a principle of presentations - at least those designed to persuade, for example seeking funding, as opposed to merely inform or educate - that the presenter was the main focus with the slides acting in a supporting role. Yet here, if I understood your intention accurately, you imply a secondary place for the presenter. Obviously there are three components to a presentation - the slide, the presenter and the audience but you are not clear as to how they rate in importance, The order changes depending on the purpose of the presentation and perhaps that is why I found this post confusing.
Nathan Schor [email protected] 305.632.1368
Jan Schultink2011-07-25 07:17:15
In this particular setting: presenting research findings to the CEO, the presenter is actually secondary. Usually he/she is the focus point of attention.