Pros and Cons of Two Key Briefing and Decision-Making Tools
I’ve been called a Powerpoint savant — though I’m still not sure that is a compliment. Throughout five years at Microsoft Singapore, followed by 25 years at Oracle HQ, Powerpoints were the most common tool for briefing executives and driving to a decision.
When Ariel Kelman joined Oracle from AWS, we switched to Amazon-style “Narratives” within the marketing organization and as the head of Global Advertising, I wrote Narratives for multiple US$60M+ investments.
If you are unfamiliar, Narratives are six-page, prose essays on a particular aspect of the business. Visuals, bullets, and rich formatting are all not permitted. Picture six pages of paragraph after paragraph of text — likely in a small font… plus dozens of pages of appendices.
I wouldn’t dare claim to be “the” expert on Narratives. But as an executive who often engaged diverse C-level decision-makers, I think I’m well qualified to share some things to love, and hate, about each tool.
WHY I LOVE AMAZON-STYLE NARRATIVES:
LOVE > Shows the Reality, Warts and All: As a long-form essay, everything is spelled out in detail. That makes it harder for a passionate advocate to bamboozle the audience. Even better, three years after a decision is made, you can go back to the original narrative and assess whether the claimed benefits actually materialized. If they haven’t, then detailed appendices should have highlighted the gotchas that caused the failure. You can celebrate success and learn from mistakes.
WHY I HATE NARRATIVES:
HATE > Visuals, Bullets, Rich Formatting Are Banned: As an example, the narrative paragraph below is an absolutely horrible substitute for a single chart / slide.
“Total company revenue continues to grow, but at a much slower pace than historically. During the ten quarters between the first quarter of calendar year 2017 and the second quarter of calendar year 2019, revenue growth year over year was 52%, 55%, 57%, 59%, 52%, 55%, 57%, 59%, 56% and 52% respectively. But revenue growth began to slow in calendar year 2019 and fell precipitously from 40% in the third quarter of calendar year 2019 through 34%, 28%, 25%, 22%, 18%, 15%, and finally 12% in our most recent quarter (the second quarter of calendar year 2021).”
Why are visuals banned? Reportedly, early in the adoption of Narratives at Amazon, people simply repurposed slides into the written document. To put a stop to that, they banned anything that was not plain text. Making participation by visual and auditory learners — often the most creative people in an organization — more unlikely.
WHY I LOVE POWERPOINTS:
LOVE > Forcing Us to Simplify the Story: Powerpoints are very effective when each slide communicates a single message. Done well, a knowledgeable person reading just the slide headers can understand the argument. Then the body of each slide either proves the message (with a factual chart for example) or it enriches the message (perhaps delivering a story to ground the claim). Powerpoint therefore forces you to simplify and clarify the messages you’re delivering to executives.
LOVE > Visually Communicating Complex Information: Here’s an un-sexy powerpoint version of the painful narrative paragraph from earlier.
Purposefully not creative — and further proof I’m not a designer — but for visual audiences far more consumable.
LOVE > Passion Can Sell the Idea: Good powerpoints help strong communicators much more effectively sell a recommendation. As you pitch, you decide what to highlight — or not — and you can adapt dynamically to better engage your audience. Narratives are designed to take away this advantage.
WHY I HATE POWERPOINTS:
HATE > The Danger of Getting Conned: During my career, I have definitely been charmed by a powerful presenter and regretted not catching a gotcha that was glossed over during the pitch. Narratives make this much harder.
THE FINAL VERDICT:
Merge the two approaches. Embrace the essay form that clearly spells out your proposal and creates a permanent record of the basis for a decision. But use visuals, bullets and formatting to make your story easier and faster to understand.
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Want to dig deeper into Narratives? Here’s a more detailed resource: https://writingcooperative.com/the-anatomy-of-an-amazon-6-pager-fc79f31a41c9