Introduction
As the 2009 ice storm released its grip on the Central Plains and Midwestern United States, a perfect storm was forming that would affect all 36,496 retail post offices with their 623,128 employees.
After years of increases, volume dropped by 25 billion pieces of mail in 2009, resulting in a nearly 10 percent decline in revenue. Despite pursuing aggressive cost-cutting measures, the organization posted a net loss of just under $ 4 billion. No stranger to outsourcing, the United States Postal Service turned to strategy consulting firms. In exchange for a reported $ 4.8 million, Accenture, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) each examined a different part of the problem. BCG began by building a model to project mail volumes through 2020. Using the BCG model as an input, McKinsey crafted a set of strategic recommendations for the USPS mail business. In parallel, Accenture explored the possibility of diversification into non-mail products and services to improve USPS profitability.
Persuasive Content
The Situation-Complication-Resolution Framework
Among top-tier consulting firms, McKinsey is broadly regarded as best-in-class at constructing persuasive business presentations.
Ms. Minto’s incredibly valuable contribution to effective business communications involved the novel synthesis of a number of frameworks from other disciplines.
- First, she translated elements of the scientific method including hypothesis testing, inductive logic, and deductive logic into business-centric thinking.
- Second, she combined the military’s bottom-line-up-front (BLUF) technique with journalism’s inverted pyramid narrative style to create a top-down approach to business-centric writing.
- Third, and the thing for which she is most well-known, Ms. Minto recast 19th century German playwright Gustav Freytag’s dramatic story arc into the situation-complication-question-answer (SCQA) approach to drafting introductions to business communications.
In my opinion, Freytag’s exposition is Minto’s situation; Freytag’s rising action is Minto’s complication; Freytag’s climax is Minto’s question; and, Freytag’s falling action and denouement are Minto’s answer.
Even Freytag stands on the shoulders of giants, dating at least back to Aristotle’s three-part structure (protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe – or more accessibly, beginning, middle, and end) as described in his Poetics.
Since the question was “silent,” it got dropped. In addition, the term “answer” was swapped with its synonym, “resolution.” The resulting situation-complication-resolution (SCR) not only has a memorable rhyme to it, but also conforms to a beautiful three-act narrative structure.
Tip 1: Define the problem and make sure it is worth solving
The only way to know if you have gone high enough is to push yourself one step too far and then come back.
The McKinsey terminology for this process of problem scoping is called “moving up the issue tree.”
Associates are encouraged to express issues as questions in full sentence form, since doing so encourages clear thought and facilitates clear communication.
Tip 2: Identify constraints
In addition to validating whether or not the problem is scoped at the appropriate level, articulate the more traditional components of scope including constraints (also known as “guiding principles” to those who prefer a more positive spin.) Constraints may be organizational, but appear in other forms such as financial, environmental, regulatory, etc.
Tip 3: Build out the mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive set of issues
The McKinsey best practice for filling out an issue tree is to fully complete each level (outside-in for outline form; top-down for hierarchical graph form) before going deeper.
The limiting factor on most consulting engagements is a set of time constraints, including: the overall project deadline, a contracted quantity of billable hours, and scheduled (often weekly) meetings with the client.
Tip 4: Convert your issue tree into a hypothesis tree
Within one day to one week of an engagement kickoff, first-time McKinsey clients are often startled when the consulting team shows up with what looks like a full set of solutions to the issues that were just uncovered.
What appears to be a set of solutions is merely a set of initial hypotheses, proposed explanations that now must be rigorously tested. A good problem solver will search for facts, all the while updating the hypothesis.
A hypothesis tree is a set of decisive answers, represented in outline or hierarchical form, to the issue tree questions.
Tip 5: Prioritize your hypotheses for impact
During your first pass at prioritization, gut feel or back-of-the-envelope calculations are sufficient as you will have few facts from which to draw.
When prioritizing, it is common to use a two-by-two matrix – e.g . a matrix featuring “impact” and “ease of impact” as the two axes. Our focus on client impact makes it extremely likely that impact will form part of any prioritization. Other prioritization criteria include urgency (but beware the danger of being drawn into firefighting), fit with values and mission, strategic alignment, fit with capabilities, and option value.
Tip 6: “ Ghost out ” your story on paper using the situation-complication-resolution framework
McKinsey is very explicit that its associates “get to paper” quickly by building a rough draft known as a “ghost” deck. Although “paper” is a loose term, most of the firm’s presentations really do begin as post-it notes, index cards, or full-sized pieces of paper divided into grids.
In a dot-dash outline, the storyline arguments are carried by dots (bullet points) and the supporting facts are sketched out with indented dashes (hyphens).
Tip 7: Test your hypotheses and iterate your story
Problem definition and the dot-dash approach mark the end of the first phase in developing a persuasive, data-driven presentation. This first phase must come before data collection and analysis because knowing the problem you are solving and the story you expect to tell guides you to what data to consider.
McKinsey strives to engage clients in co-creation to ensure the best solutions are uncovered and to secure buy-in for the resulting change needed to turn recommendations into action.
McKinsey’s USPS Situation
The situation-complication-resolution (SCR) storytelling framework requires only that each of the three components exist in the narrative.
When listeners are extremely anxious, begin with the resolution. This is known in military parlance as ‘bottom-line-up-front” (BLUF) and in consulting terminology as starting with the top of the inverted pyramid.
If your audience is overly complacent, begin with the complication to create a sense of urgency.
If starting with the resolution introduces (typically) too little tension and starting with the complication introduces too much, starting with the situation is just right.
Tip 8: Title your presentation with a “so-what” encapsulating your overall objective
First and foremost, titles must orient your listeners to your overall objective.
The most common alternative to the “so-what” title is the question title.
Tip 9: Make your presentation title SMART
Tip 10: Use an agenda slide to provide your audience with a roadmap
In dramatic storytelling, plots are designed to include long stretches of rising tension. To build emotional intensity, writers keep their audiences guessing with delayed resolutions to questions such as, “What is going to happen next?” While strategic storytelling has tension, business presentation designers strive to keep tension short lived because their goal is persuasion.
Tip 11: Keep agenda slide titles short and sweet so they can be ignored
Tip 12: Limit agendas to no more than five short items
The reason for this simplicity is that the purpose of agenda slides is merely to guide the narrative flow, not to impart information.
Tip 13: Add creativity to agenda slide design
Tip 14: Start agenda items with action verbs to signal in which mental mode you want your audience
When I design agenda slides, I always apply parallelism. In particular, I start agenda bullets with action verbs.
At their core, business presentations are about clarity and efficiency, not literary excellence.
Tip 15: Apply contrast to highlight the start of each agenda section
Tip 16: Start the situation with the current state of the fundamental issue
The beginning of a business presentation should orient the audience and not trigger strong objections. Note that just because something is factual and uncontroversial does not mean it is emotionally neutral. In fact, you want a mild degree of tension to hook your audience from the start.
Tip 17: To “own the flow,” each slide should trigger a question answered by the title of the next slide
Nearly every presentation has a summary node as either the first or second in each of the situation, complication, and resolution sections; in addition, many presentations have additional summary slides within sections to introduce new groups of idea.
Tip 18: Expand on the summary node with depth-first tree traversal
For starters, think of your presentation as a tree and each slide as a node in the tree. Tree traversal is simply the order in which you visit the nodes in the tree, or equivalently, the order in which you show slides in the presentation.
Brilliant minds figured out two basic methods for tree-traversal, including depth-first and breadth-first.
For presentations, use depth-first traversal since this method progressively introduces concepts and then “peels the onion.”
Tip 19: Only go as deep as is needed to introduce the problem
Go as deep as you need to introduce the problem. There is one successful outcome to a persuasive business presentation – the decision maker approves your recommendation. To that end, there is no need to show off your knowledge and your analytical prowess. In the situation, stop at the level of detail on which you intend to build in the complication and which you intend to rectify in your resolution. If you still want a rule with which to start, McKinsey often goes two levels deep – as they did in the revenue situation and will do in the third portion, the cost story, of the situation.
Tip 20: Repeat summary node slides when moving across after going deep
McKinsey’s USPS Complication
Tip 21: Explore issues and/or opportunities in the complication section
The complication section, Act II of the strategic story, built tension in a controlled manner by focusing on current and future forces of change. Though the word “complication” carries a negative connotation, these forces of change can exacerbate problems or explore opportunities.
Tip 22: Build up to contentious or counter-intuitive insights
Tip 23: Explore the influence of dynamic trends on the factors discussed in the situation
Tip 24: Deliver the collective impact of the complications on the fundamental issue
McKinsey’s USPS Resolution
Tip 25: Explore the mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive ways to resolve the complication
Generally, three levels of effort can be applied to solve any problem. The first level includes standard, low-risk actions taken as ordinary business process optimization. The second level includes radical, high-risk actions leading to fundamental innovation and change. The third level, one many decision makers fail to consider, is maintaining the status quo; the decision to “do nothing” is indeed a decision and can often be the best option.
Tip 26: Place low-impact resolutions in the Appendix to show they have been considered but ruled out
Tip 27: Prioritize recommendations in impact-, sequential-, or emotional order
Once brainstorming is complete, the storyteller must prioritize in order to determine which ideas to put into the story and in which sequence.
Choosing how to order actions in the resolution section is critically important.
A key principle in storytelling is that characters always take the minimum conservative action given the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Organizations (almost) always start fixing problems by taking standard actions. They pursue fundamental change (only) when the standard actions fail to achieve the necessary results.
The now familiar content organization best practices apply, including: bottom-line-upfront messaging, story-centric progression, and depth-order tree-traversal.
Tip 28: Handle objections as they arise
Characters in stories always take the minimum action required to address issues.
The Approach-Findings-Implications Framework
Tip 30: Use the Approach-Findings-Implications framework for informative presentations
At its core, SCR is a general three-act story structure establishing background in Act I, challenges and opportunities in Act II, and proposed solutions in Act III. Stanford University communications professor Matt Abrahams generalizes the model even further as “What? So what? Now what?”
Tip 31: Avoid presenting the random walk you followed in your research process
Occasionally, novice presenters build approach-findings-implications presentations that meander linearly through their research process. Unless the entire point of your presentation is to detail the discovery process, as in hunting for a cure for a debilitating disease, avoid sharing false starts, wrong turns, and random bits of information. Give your audience only what it needs, no less and no more, to comprehend your story, decide, and take action.
Getting reoriented, Act I of BCG’s strategy story described their approach for projecting USPS mail volume through 2020. The just completed Act II shared the findings gleaned using this approach. Next, BCG’s story moves on to explore the implications of those findings.
In general, business presentations should be completely self-contained with all questions resolved by the final slide.
The Situation-Opportunity-Resolution Framework
Each of the three strategy consulting organizations presented its findings to help the United States Postal Service find a path toward profitability using a different framework.
- McKinsey used the ubiquitous situation-complication-resolution framework. This should be your go-to framework most of the time when you want to persuade business audiences.
- BCG used the approach-results-implications framework, a worthy alternative when your material is more focused on sharing information than on securing a decision.
- Accenture used situation-opportunity-resolution (SOR), a subtle variation on SCR that comes in handy when you want decision makers to act in order to capture a set of benefits.
You can create just as much story tension by dangling a reward for a protagonist to win as you can by creating an obstacle for a protagonist to avoid.
In both the SCR and SOR frameworks the resolution releases the tension. The former does so by prescribing a solution to the complication and the latter by showing how to capture the opportunity.
Accenture’s USPS Situation
Tip 32: Protect your intellectual property and limit your legal liability
Tip 33: Do not include an “Executive Summary” at the beginning of your presentation
A business presentation simply begins with a compelling, SMART title to tell the audience where you are going. Executive summaries are often dense, bulleted lists of text spanning one or two slides. If you have ever delivered one, you know how tedious they are to get through. Worse, they raise more questions than can be answered in detail. Finally, once you deliver an executive summary you might as well end the meeting since there is little more to share.
Like McKinsey, Accenture appears to favor the word “context” over “situation.”
Tip 34: Annotations at the bottom of a slide should only be used to transition to the next slide
Sometimes the title and content on a slide trigger more than one natural question. In those circumstances, an annotation (also known as a call-out) at the bottom of the slide can make the transition to the next slide explicit. Thus, it can play a critical role in the flow of the story.
Tip 35: Prove bold claims
Tip 36: Use ellipses in slide titles to support the flow of the story
The use of ellipses (…) at the end of one slide title and the beginning of the next is a technique usually reserved for instances where the second slide answers a question triggered by the first.
Accenture’s USPS Opportunity
Accenture used the set of techniques for strategic storytelling with which we are now thoroughly familiar, including: bottom-line-up-front messaging, summary nodes, depth order tree traversal, and the question-answer-narrative flow.
Tip 37: Give each slide an independent title
Accenture’s USPS Resolution
Resolutions are ordinarily very direct – do this, then do that; final acts generally require little in the way of background context because all the characters and sources of tension are already known.
We already know that the best way to apply a set of recommendations to a new context using strategic storytelling principles is to use the situation-complication-resolution format!
The Pilot-Results-Scale Framework
Before exploring the visual component of strategic storytelling, you need to consider one more strategic storytelling framework, pilot-results-scale (PRS). As you might have guessed, this is simply another variation on SCR where the pilot (or small test) is the situation, the results of the pilot are the complication, and the recommendation to scale-up is, well, the recommendation.
“Piloting” is the simple name for this rinse-and-repeat process. Stated another way, the days of building the whole enchilada and seeing if they will come are over. The new era of building a prototype just good enough to excite early adopters and scale up through rapid iteration is here.
Data-Driven Design
To Slide or Not to Slide
Just as persuasive content structure traces to a one-time McKinsey employee, so too does persuasive content design. While his mentor Barbara Minto focused on structure, Gene Zelazny concentrated on design and delivery.
If slides help you get to “yes,” use them. If not, don’t.
When do slides hurt? I can think of at least three instances, starting with engaging a hostile audience due to risk aversion or the all-too-common personality conflict. If you put slides in front of skeptics, they will assume a whole range of negative motivations.
Slides are a barrier not only to collaborating with a hostile audience, but also to brainstorming with a friendly one.
There are three appropriate uses for slides during a brainstorming session:
- The first is to clearly establish the problem you want solved. The problem definition may include the ultimate objective as well as any guiding principles or constraints in effect.
- The second is to share the procedure to be used for the brainstorming session, including any ground rules.
- The third is for on-the-fly capture of ideas.
One instance of when the excessive use of slides can do more harm than good is during corporate training.
Tip 39: The larger the audience, the simpler the slides
Tip 40: The content in the body of the slide must unambiguously prove the slide title
Tip 41: Match the design treatment in the slide body to the message in the title
To support a given message, a speaker can draw from a range of design treatments, including: text, graphs, tables, diagrams, and images. Though each of these five treatments has infinite variations, each form typically serves a specific function. Text is best suited for drawing attention to key insights. Graphs convey time-series trends, composition (including rank and share), distribution, and correlation. Tables are an alternative to graphs when precision is required, the quantity of data is minimal, or when data is non-numeric. Diagrams illustrate processes and relationships. Finally, images function in opposite ways. Either they pair nicely with emotional speeches, or they convey extremely complex, often technical, information that would otherwise take a thousand words to explain (just imagine assembling furniture using an instruction manual without images).
Tip 42: Design each slide so that it can be covered in three minutes or less
Tip 43: Use animation sparingly (if at all)
In most circumstances, it is better to show all of the content, let people mentally process it, and then allow time for their eyes to shift back to you. Builds have other disadvantages. First, they delay discussion since listeners, out of respect for the speaker, wait for all of the content to appear. Second, by allowing content to appear and disappear, builds allow designers to layer content. If your slide does not look good when all content elements are shown, you are probably abusing the build feature.
It is also important to keep transitions to a half-second; less than that is too abrupt and more is boring.
Tip 44: Lay out body content from left-to-right and top-to-bottom
A strategic story has three parts: the situation, the complication, and the resolution – usually in that order. Each part tells its own partial story with tension left unresolved at the end of the situation and the complication. Similarly, each slide needs to be viewed as a scene and should tell a story all its own.
Tip 45: Maintain strict design consistency
Strive to maintain strict design consistency. From slide to slide, stick with the same:
Fonts, inclusive of type, slide, and color.
Alignment and placement of elements such as titles, charts, and text boxes.
Colors and textures used in images, charts, etc. Every design element – colors, fonts, etc. – has meaning.
Text
Tip 46: Maximize contrast between the text and the background
Tip 47: Use solid colors for slide backgrounds
Any pattern or image in the background, no matter how subtle, draws the reader’s eye away from the text and makes it less readable.
Tip 48: Use large, standard fonts
Unless you are an expert designer, use exactly two standard fonts in your presentation, one for slide titles and one for body text.
Tip 49: Keep text short
Tip 50: Apply a consistent format to your slide header
McKinsey presentation slide headers use one or more of the following three elements, including: section titles, slide titles, and slide headlines.
- The first element is the section title.
- The second element is the slide title, sometimes referred to as a lead. This element is required as it contains the primary information content in the slide and carries the narrative.
- The third element is the headline. These are optionally found in slide headers below the title and are complete sentences that provide an additional level of detail.
Tip 51: Craft each slide title as a “so-what”
One of the guiding principles in creating strategic business stories is having your audience perform as little cognitive work as possible. Do not make them figure out what you are trying to say; instead use a “so-what” title to tell them what you are saying.
In general, I do not recommend using questions as slide titles since they make the audience do the work.
A better alternative is to span a title across multiple slides using ellipses.
Tip 52: Convert bullet lists into columns
Converting into columns information that otherwise could have been represented as a bland list. This technique is called “chunking” and was taught to me by presentation design guru Nolan Haims.
Tip 53: Use real quotes that you obtained directly
Designers have at least three options when including quotes in a strategic story.
The first, is the overwhelming force approach. The sheer volume of diverse, highly credible sources quoted means the audience can get the message without reading every quote in detail. The second option is to add contrast to one of the quotes most representative of the group. The third and most radical option is to show only the most representative quote.
Graphs
Tip 54: Use column charts for trend data with up to ten values
With a limited time-series of around ten values, a column chart (also known as a vertical bar chart) is most effective. Column charts are elegant and easy to read as long as the columns and labels are not squeezed too closely together.
Tip 55: Title graphs with a “what” rather than a “so-what”
The best practice for titling graph titles is to describe the y-axis followed by the x-axis. In a trend chart, “y over time” or “y versus x” is sufficient.
Tip 56: Remove all unnecessary elements from graphs
By removing unnecessary elements, the designer created whitespace for information rich annotations.
Tip 57: Use chart annotations in the body of a slide to explain critical inflections
I recommend numbering annotations in order to guide the audience through the flow of your story.
Tip 58: Apply high contrast to chart data that directly supports the slide title
Tip 59: Use a more subtle treatment for forecast data
When a trend chart contains a mix of actual and forecast data, use a more subtle treatment on the forecast data to indicate that it is an estimate.
Tip 60: Footnote sources, critical assumptions, and details too granular for the body of the slide
If your data is too detailed for a footnote, include it in an appendix slide at the end of your presentation.
Tip 61: Design stacked column charts to show an overall trend and its components
Tip 62: Orient and order legends the same way data series are oriented
Tip 63: Use line charts or scatter charts for trends exceeding ten values
Avoiding certain graph types that are inherently challenging to interpret.
Tip 64: Stick to one set of axes per graph
The standard convention for designing graphs calls for putting the independent variable on the x-axis and the dependent variable on the y-axis. By way of refresher, an independent variable is the input, cause, or stimulus. Time is the prototypical independent variable. A dependent variable is output, effect, or response.
Tip 65: Maintain design consistency across similar graphs in a presentation
When possible, place graphs on different slides rather than cramming multiple graphs with multiple languages on the same slide.
Tip 66: Do not distort graphs
Tip 67: Pie charts are acceptable for composition snapshots of up to five categories
McKinsey’s pie chart is easy to read for five reasons:
- Every slice uses the same color shade as the category in the left graph.
- Every slice is clearly labeled. (Avoid legends in pie charts because they require too much work to interpret.)
- There are not many slices. (Pie charts work best for two to five categories.)
- The slices are placed in clockwise, descending order.
- Every slice contains the actual number and percent contribution of reduced hours, making interpretation instantaneous.
Tip 68: Consider treemaps as an alternative to pie charts
Treemaps are an elegant alternative to pie charts and mitigate the perception problem by sizing rectangular tiles in proportion to their data values.
The biggest challenge in designing bar charts is figuring out how to order the categories. The short answer is that categories should be ordered in the way that is most logical to viewers and that supports your message.
Tip 70: Use waterfall charts to show the cumulative effect of changes
Waterfall charts should only be used to explain changes from one level or balance to another.
Tip 71: Use distribution charts to show the frequency with which phenomena occur
Tip 72: Use correlation charts to illustrate the interrelationship between two variables
Tables
Tip 73: Rely on tables when the audience needs exact values
When the audience needs to know a larger number of values with precision, tables are your only choice.
Tip 74: Use tables when you need to combine text, data, or images
Tip 75: Prioritize the order of table information from top-to-bottom and left-to-right (in Western cultures)
Images and Diagrams
Neither images nor diagrams feature prominently in persuasive business presentations, but for different reasons. Images, particularly vivid emotional images prominent in keynotes, are considered too lightweight. Diagrams are perceived as too abstract, too complex, or not data-driven.
Tip 76: Ensure that images add constructively to your story
Tip 77: Put text on image slides rather than images on text slides
Tip 78: Obtain royalty-free images licensed for commercial use
To ensure images are crisp on the screen, try to obtain PNG files rather than JPEGs.
Since technology is changing faster than I can write, find out the resolution of the screen on which you intend to present.
Tip 79: Resize images to fill the entire slide
Tip 80: Place high contrast text on images
Tip 81: Stick to a single metaphorical system across all images in a presentation
Tip 82: Use diagrams to represent processes, relationships, and geospatial information
However rare, there are several diagrams that are extremely useful for conveying certain messages, including:
- Chevron lists: To illustrate sequential processes of flows.
- Organizational charts: To illustrate any hierarchical relationship, not only those among people.
- Venn diagrams: To illustrate overlapping interrelationships between same sets of items.
- Network diagrams: To illustrate structural, but non-hierarchical interrelationships between components in a system.
- Maps: To illustrate the distribution of data by geospatial location.
Confident Delivery
Verbal Delivery
Tip 83: Engage your audience in intelligent, authentic conversation
In strategic storytelling, you simply need to allow your knowledge and your authentic, confident belief in your ideas to flow into your conversation.
Tip 84: Project the verbal authority of a peer
More junior people can raise their authority by: using pauses to eliminate filler words, feeling free to ask questions, slowing verbal pacing, and increasing vocal projection. More senior people must be mindful not to interrupt others, deliver monologues, or speak in a tone that leaves no room for disagreement.
Tip 85: Take every opportunity to hold the audience’s attention when presenting over the phone
Non-Verbal Delivery
Tip 86: Manage your fear
I have found the following best practices liberating.
- First, accept that speaking anxiety is perfectly natural and normal.
- Second, accept that you do not need to know everything.
- Third, release your expectations regarding the long-term consequences of a given presentation.
- Fourth, rehearse within reason.
- Fifth, arrive early to remove the uncertainty of tools and technology.
Tip 87: Project the non – verbal authority of a peer
The ultimate measure of success of a persuasive business presentation is whether or not the decision reached at the end of meeting is the best one for your company and stakeholders.
