Beyond PowerPoint: Jeff Bezos's Narrative Revolution in Business Communication
Why Amazon's CEO Banned PowerPoint and What We Can Learn from His Approach
Introduction: A Tale of Transformation
58% of people admit falling asleep during a business slideshow presentation. 😱
Enter Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, who decided to change the game. He banned PowerPoint presentations from executive meetings and replaced them with narrative-driven memos. This decision was not just a whim; it was a calculated move to enhance communication, foster understanding, and encourage meaningful debate.
Let's explore why Bezos made this choice and what we can learn from it.
The Ban on PowerPoint: A Bold Move
The decision: Bezos's ban on PowerPoint was a statement against superficiality and confusion in communication. He believed that PowerPoint allowed presenters to hide behind slides, glossing over essential issues.
The Reason Behind the Ban: The problem wasn't the visuals; it was the lack of narrative structure. Bezos wanted a well-structured narrative text, not just a list of bullet points. He understood that a narrative document forces the author to refine reasoning and focus on what's most important.
The Six-Page Memo: A New Era of Communication
Introduction of Memos: Bezos introduced six-page narrative memos to be read silently at the beginning of meetings. This format required clear, concise writing and deep thinking about the subject.
Structured Thinking: The memos led to enhanced understanding and encouraged more meaningful discussions. It prevented superficial coverage and ensured that everyone was on the same page.
The Impact on Communication: Lessons to Learn
Enhanced Understanding: The memos led to a profound understanding of complex issues, fostering more meaningful debates.
Avoiding Superficiality: By focusing on narrative structure, Bezos's approach avoids the pitfalls of PowerPoint, where ideas can be obscured and the hierarchy of importance is flattened.
What is a narrative structure for a business presentation, you ask?
You can use the HEROS framework:
1️⃣ Hook: Raise interest by introducing your point as a question. "We have analyzed why……"
2️⃣ Environment: Give your audience context. "In the past/Until now……"
3️⃣ Raise tension: Highlight a turning point. "BUT lately……"
4️⃣ Opinion/Option: State your point. "That's why we suggest……"
5️⃣ Success: Give a vision of success. "Then, we will be able to……"
The Power of Interactive and Progressive Disclosure
Avoid Death by PowerPoint:
Visual aids enhance understanding, but dense static slideshows have a habit of putting us to sleep. Infinite bullet-point lists and data-heavy charts presented all at once make information more difficult to process and remember. They overwhelm audiences and provide not enough dopamine boost to stay awake. A study proved that it takes only 6 minutes to totally stop listening during a presentation.
Progressive Disclosure:
This technique consists of starting with as little information on the slide as possible (often even an empty slide) and progressively adding information to it using animations.
It is useful to lower the cognitive load of processing information on bullet points, but also on graphs and charts, while retaining the look of the final document when everything is disclosed. Try showing only the context data and then using animation to reveal the relevant striking news to the audience! Enjoy the surprised look on your audience's face!
Interactivity and Rich Media:
Another possibility is to also include video and audio, offering higher levels of engagement and retention.
Conclusion: The Future of Presentations - A Vision
The need for effective communication is not going away, but we must look for next-generation tools that are:
Narrative-driven: Allowing us to tell stories that make information more memorable.
Interactive: Giving opportunities to play an active role in consuming information.
Rich media: Offering the chance to process information on multiple cognitive levels.
Trackable: Helping us learn from audience experiences using quantitative methods.
The Bezos approach to communication is not just a trend; it's a revolution. It's time for us to embrace this new era and transform our presentations into engaging, insightful, and effective tools for business success.
What is your take on the decision of Jeff Bezos? Did you try it? To which success?
I think balance is the key word in what we do. There are situations where a good powerpoint who only supports a talk makes sense but so many others when something else can be used.
Yes, I did create the training where you joined as well with 0 slides, using hand-drawings and it makes such a big difference in the engagement of the participants.
It is also needed to teach the right skills to be able to replace powerpoint with something else...