If you use presentation slides in your work, how much time do you spend creating them? How confident are you that they convey your message clearly? How engaging and persuasive are your slides?
Since my early days as a “communication specialist” with McKinsey Japan, I’ve had the pleasure of coaching thousands of business professionals in honing their presentation skills, including overcoming nerves, analyzing the audience, structuring the story, boosting body language and voice, handling Q&A confidently – and even what to do when you go blank!
This is all about the presenter. But what about the presentation slides?
Slides are supposed to be supporting materials, but so often they end up being distracting or confusing for the audience (and a time-consuming pain for the presenter to prepare).
So I’d like to encourage you to take inspiration from the Japanese concept of danshari, (which literally means “refuse, dispose, separate”) to help you create clear and engaging slides.
This is a strategy for less effort in creating your slides and more impact in your presentations.
断 Dan = Refuse
First, for every piece of information or data you’re thinking of including in your slide, ask yourself, “Is it essential?”
People often include LOTS of information for two reasons:
- They don’t want to forget anything important when they’re presenting
- They want to show how much work they’ve done
The problem is that too much information can easily confuse your audience.
You can learn techniques to help you remember your content as well as how to recover quickly if you go blank (which is normal).
And when you present in a clear, confident, and engaging way, you don’t need to show how much work you’ve done because you’ve already gained people’s trust with your professional delivery.
捨 Sha = Dispose
Once you’ve decided on the information or data to include in your slides, dispose of unnecessary words, symbols, and colors.
Words – In addition to deleting nonessential words, you can also look for ways to rephrase more concisely. For example, change “outcome of the meeting” to “meeting outcome.”
Symbols – For symbols, I include punctuation. So if you’re using bullet points, you don’t need a period at the end. In fact, you may not even need the bullet points!
Colors – Are you using a pie chart with lots of segments and different colors for each? It’s hard work for your audience if their eyes have to go back and forth between the legend and the chart to fully understand what each color refers to. Instead, highlight just the one or two segments of the pie that you want to draw attention to.
Remember, your slides are to support your message. Your slides are not a textbook.
離 Ri = Separate
Separate yourself from the need to rely on your slides to remember your presentation.
If your content is so complex that you can’t remember it, how can you expect your audience to remember what you say?
Create a simple structure with a logical flow, so that it’s easy for you to remember and that you could present even without the slides.
When you separate yourself from your slides and no longer rely on them, you’ll feel more confident and you can focus on your audience. When you focus on your audience, you’re a more engaging and persuasive presenter.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to effective slide design, but I hope you find this danshari approach useful for your next presentation.
Declutter what’s not essential, keep your message clear and concise, and build your connection with your audience.
If you’d like to listen to me talking about this topic, tune into Episode 94 of the Sasuga! Podcast here.
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