How many of those who spend their days in meetings going through the same power points over and over again could we get rid of without anybody noticing (other than other PowerPoint warriors)? How much money and jobs that, unlike theirs, achieve something would that save?
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I always took advantage of using the Chevron PP template. I was scheduled to present at the senior leadership meeting each month, so about 3 months before the ranking season began, I purposely embedded subliminal advertising into the Chevron logo that constantly flashed the viewing audience the reenforcement of “I like this guy”, “He’s the best employees we have”, “Promote him”, I’ll give him him a 1+ ranking”, “He deserves a good raise”. You know, this trick really did work.
Always use the Chevron PP template. I got scolded for that before presenting. I guess folks care about the look and feel, not so much on the information in the slides.
The no capital letters thing….wow… I had almost forgot about that. Intended to demonstrate our “humility” to the entire world. Such a game changer. That told you everything you needed to know about where we were headed.
@heid, you gave IT GMs too much credit if you think they have their own messages just don’t know how to communicate…in reality, the IT GMs don’t have any messages. They rely on their hard working teams on the messages and the change managers who have no technical competence do their communication change magic to produce pretty power points with nonsense messages. Sadly our IT GMs have no clue that the messages are now worthless, the teams are left baffled, and that’s the norm in IT
These "behavioral change managers" who just facilitate leadership team meetings and create powerpoint decks that misrepresent the message because they don't actually have the knowledge to properly communicate to the organization.... guess how much they cost?
$250-300/hour. That's right. That is why IT is always so expensive and pass on those savings to the business units. Each and every one of the GMs have a multitude of "change managers" because they don't know how to communicate their own messages without these overpriced people.
Agreed - no capital letters is the worst. A graphic artist has the power to edict how we communicate?! What a world.
I always get a kick out of it when, every few years, SR issues an edict that a "new" PP template is to be used for all presentations. The one a few years ago 'thou shalt not use capital letters' was probably the most hilarious.
If you rely on PP slides with more than seven lines then your presentation skills are a$$.
PowerPoint warriors are just like grammar correctors - they want to appear important, but don't add anything at all to the subject at hand. That said, what's really missing is a population well-educated on how to use PowerPoint (or Excel, or how to write an impactful memo or email). Not in university, not in Chevron. Everyone is expected to be a PowerPoint Pro, when precious few are.
We have PowerPoint warriors because we have management that can’t understand simple concepts without pictures. They can’t stay engaged long enough to read a slide with more than 7 lines, let alone a memo or brief to explain a proposal.
We need more chief disruption officers.
More transformative slide decks.
I just sharted.
Just one more!