I’m often asked to recommend the best book on PowerPoint, and it’s hard to select just one, because it truly depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Here are four of my favorite, along with links to more in-depth posts I’ve written about three of them.
So much depends on the size of the audience, and related to that is the level of interactivity you expect.
If you’re delivering a “ballroom” type speech to hundreds of people, your slides are going to contain very few words, and comprise mostly visuals that add impact and memorability to what you say. Nancy Duarte’s Resonate is excellent for learning how to structure your story and present it visually. Garr Reynolds’ book Presentation Zen Design can help even the most aesthetically-challenged non-designer put together something that looks good.
For most business presentations, you will probably be in a much smaller room and there will be a lot of back and forth discussion, so you need a briefing or a discussion deck, and Bruce Gabrielle’s Speaking PowerPoint is in my estimation far and away the best book for this.
Finally, as a reminder, visuals do not have to be slides; you can get the audience involved in putting together your story with interactive visuals, and for this I recommend Whiteboard Selling by Sommers and Jenkins.
Never forget that slides are tools, and the best tool to use depends on the job you need it to do.
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If you follow the advice so far in this series, you will definitely be the most credible person in the room, no matter where you are. And that is a huge asset. Like any asset, it needs to be protected, maintained, and cultivated.
- Cultivating your credibility starts with accurate self-knowledge. How credible do you find yourself, and how accurate is your assessment?
- Next, we discuss the importance of constantly increasing and refreshing your knowledge base and expertise.
- From that solid foundation, we proceed to taking stock of how others perceive us
- Then look at ways that we can manage the impressions others have.
CALIBRATION
I want to start this section with a strange question: how many possible answers are there to a yes/no question? Will it rain tomorrow? Will the Democrats win the House in the midterm election? Will that big deal you’re working on close by the end of the quarter? When you consider those questions, the obvious answer is that there are many ways to answer a yes/no question, when it deals with uncertainty. So, most people pick a number to estimate the probability.
What’s your track record in picking those numbers? In the long run, are you overconfident, underconfident, or right in the middle?
Calibration is a measure of how closely your level of certainty accords to the true facts. If you are generally accurate, you’re said to be well-calibrated. If you’re over- or under-confident in your certainty, you are poorly calibrated. The problem is—by definition—you almost always don’t know. If you’re overconfident, you’re going to overestimate how accurate you are. Most people are overconfident; one study that gave a quiz to over 2000 people found that fewer than 1% were not overconfident.[1]
In fact, studies have shown that the people with the least competence are the most likely to overestimate their actual knowledge. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect[2].
Overconfidence is not all bad – it encourages difficult efforts and can help you sell your ideas. It will tend to increase your credibility in a single situation, because listeners will take cues from your perceived confidence. Your level of certainty about what you’re saying will affect the confidence with which you express it, which will in turn affect how much listeners believe you.
But excessive overconfidence can definitely hurt your credibility by increasing the odds that you will be shown to be wrong. We all know people who are often wrong, but never in doubt – just watch any of the early stages of American Idol to see this overestimation displayed to a painful degree.
Some very few people are underconfident in their estimate of certainty.[3] They are less sure of their knowledge, which certainly lowers the risk of being proven wrong, but also limits their influence. Their uncertainty may show through in their expression, or they may be less apt to speak up on behalf of their position or interests.
If you’re well-calibrated, you are less likely to run ahead of your facts and get yourself into trouble, which is a good thing for long-term credibility.
But there’s also an external aspect, which is others’ perceptions of how well-calibrated you are. Some people are automatically discounted; does your sales manager automatically cut your forecast by 50%? That would be a sign that she doesn’t think you’re too well-calibrated. Others may develop a reputation for understatement, and their listeners may take what they say to the bank.
So, being well-calibrated will improve your credibility in two ways. First, it will help you avoid the extremes of over- and underconfidence. Second, by being perceived to be well-calibrated, or self-aware, you can be more credible to your listeners.
How to improve your calibration
Calibration can be improved through training and experience. It begins with awareness of the problem and acceptance of the fact that you are probably susceptible to it. Here are a half-dozen ways to get better.
Test your calibration. ProjectionPoint has a test on their website that allows you to test your calibration. Simply seeing the results, if they are bad, will make you aware of the need to improve your calibration.
Separate fact from opinion. As Richard Feynman said, “The most important thing is not to fool yourself. And you’re the easiest person to fool.” Make sure you tell people when it’s your opinion and not a settled fact.
Keep track. Experience tends to reduce overconfidence and improve calibration, as long as you learn from that experience. It’s no accident that two of the best-calibrated professions are bookies and meteorologists. This is because they get rapid feedback on their decisions, and are held accountable for being wrong.
Practice productive paranoia. When you’re very confident and it’s important, try extra hard to find holes in your idea. Individually, you can take the time to list reasons why you might be wrong.
If you follow these practices, I’m 90% confident that your calibration will improve, and 75% confident that your personal credibility will also.
LIFELONG LEARNING
If you’re perfectly calibrated and you’re the top expert in your field, you will probably have Max Cred—for a while.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen well-educated people make is to coast on their learning. They’ve spent so much time at school that they think they’ve got it made—and they stay stuck…
That’s dangerous because knowledge advances so rapidly in so many domains, that you must continually update and refresh what you know if you want to maintain credibility.
According to a Deloitte study, “skills are becoming obsolete at an accelerating rate. Software engineers must now redevelop skills every 12–18 months.7 Professionals in marketing, sales, manufacturing, law, accounting, and finance report similar demands.”[4] And, not to scare you, but there is evidence from the medical field that patients of older physicians have a higher mortality rate than those of their younger colleagues.[5]
If even doctors, with all their years of schooling and their impressive credentials, can become obsolete, you must definitely keep learning throughout your life.
That’s why this quote from Michael Roberto is especially apt:
“You must have a restless mind, one that is never satisfied with its understanding of a topic—no matter how much expertise and experience you have accumulated on the subject.”[6]
Besides preserving your ability to constantly learn, you must also realize that the ability to unlearn is at least as important.
When things are stable, it is a virtue to learn something once and for all. A skill that becomes routine saves time and effort, freeing our mind for other things. And experts develop excellent intuition through the ability to unconsciously recognize patterns, which is why they can make swift, effective choices when needed.
But when that routine or that knowledge no longer fits the facts, predictions and choices can go awry. I saw a vivid and important demonstration of this in the late 80s, when I was studying for a graduate degree in Soviet Studies. When Mikhail Gorbachev came on the scene, with his ideas of glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet experts who were my professors were confused about how to interpret his words and actions. Drawing on their 40+ years of study, they interpreted Gorbachev through the lens of what they had seen before: it was another underhanded Soviet ploy to trick the West, or to make Reagan look bad.
Sometimes you learn things too well, making it nearly impossible to unlearn; military planners are famous for preparing for the last war. (Which reminds me of Mark Twain’s observation that, “the cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.”)
Lifelong learning – be more foxy
But it’s what you learn that also matters. If you want to develop maximum credibility, is it better to be a hedgehog or a fox?
According to parable the hedgehog knows one thing very well, and the fox knows a lot of things.
For developing credibility, there is a lot to be said for being a hedgehog. By concentrating on one area, you can focus your learning and develop deep expertise which can differentiate you from others and establish your reputation.
Hedgehogs tend to be more credible: they are listened to more and are more believable when they speak, because of their confidence and conviction.
But could there be a downside to single-minded concentration on one big thing? Philip Tetlock thinks so. Tetlock studied the track records of political commentators over 15 years, those folks you see on the Sunday talk shows who get paid to make predictions about what will happen during political crises and trends. He found that hedgehogs were not only wrong more often than foxes, but that they were less likely to recognize or admit that they were wrong when events did not match their predictions.
The advantage that foxes have is that they are more likely to seek out new information from a broader range of sources, and are comfortable with uncertainty and new information. They are also better calibrated, meaning that they have a clearer estimation of what they know and don’t know. When something happens that contradicts their view of the world, they treat it as new information, not as an aberration or an exception.
So, which is better?
In focusing on what to study and learn, there is no question that you should be a hedgehog early in your career, so that you can establish solid credentials and expertise in one particular area.
Yet, as you get promoted to positions of higher responsibility, you’re going to find yourself dealing with more and more situations that your expertise has not prepared you for. In order to avoid Peter Principle, you have to become more of a fox; get curious about the wider world, broaden your knowledge, and learn to blend in different perspectives. Make your knowledge more three-dimensional, as I covered in the podcast about content: deepen your anchor in your particular discipline, but also go broader and higher.
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
Calibration and lifelong learning will take care of the internal aspect of your cred, but sometimes even that isn’t going to be enough. Credibility is an impression, and impressions can be fragile. You need to monitor, protect, and grow your cred over time.
How well do others know you?
It’s critical to have good sense, good character, and goodwill, but just having them is not enough unless others see those qualities in you. And according to Heidi Grant Halvorson’s book, No One Understands You and What to Do About It, the odds are that they don’t see you the way you see yourself.
She cites a study of 400 college roommates which found that it took an average of nine months living together for your roommate to begin to see you as you see yourself, and even then, the correlation was very low.[7]
So, what can you do about it? You first have to figure out how others see you, and then make changes as necessary to adjust their perceptions.
To figure out how others see you, there are several things you can do.
- Ask a trusted colleague or two
- Get 360° feedback
- Video yourself
- Get a coach
Protect and extend Your Credibility
I won’t spend too much time on company politics, but obviously it does exist, and sometimes people have bad intentions toward you, no matter, how honest, smart and likeable you are. People may whisper behind your back, misrepresent what you’ve said or done, or take credit for your ideas. You need to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on inside, cultivate allies, and actively and directly counter misinformation about you. As Plato said, One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
You also need to help your own cred along a bit. When it comes to your own reputation, you need to forget the better mousetrap myth: the one that says if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Sometimes the smartest people get outshone by others who are more gifted at touting their own accomplishments and knowledge. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford professor who writes about power in organizations, cites one study that showed that people who worked on creating favorable impressions received higher performance ratings than those who performed better but weren’t as good at managing their impressions.
Network – Max Cred is a team sport
Know who knows
Tap into your existing knowledge network; associate with credible people. Financial advisers often advise to use OPM, or other peoples’ money. It also applies to Cred: use OPC. A lot of the knowledge and information you need in order to be credible resides in the minds of others, so it behooves you to know who knows, and to be very discriminating in your sources.
That’s why one side benefit of knowing the factors of Max Cred is that you can become more judicious in assessing the cred of others.
Nourish your network
Become a source for others. If you use your knowledge and credibility to help others succeed, you tap into the power of reciprocity. You also develop a reputation as an expert which can become self-reinforcing.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of the Max Cred series. Let me quickly recap the central message of this series:
Credibility is your most precious personal asset in an organization, and if you want to have Max Cred, you must build a solid base of credentials and expertise, express it confidently and candidly, win respect by connecting with others and committing to something important, and cultivate your asset over time.
[1] Russo and Schoemaker 1992.
[2] Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999). “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”.
[3] Russo and Schoemaker say that public accountants are slightly underconfident.
[4] https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/learning-in-the-digital-age.html
Accessed 7/27/18.
[5] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2017/05/18/nice-older-doctor-you-go-well-turns-out-you-might-live-longer-younger-one/101822418/
[6] Michael A. Roberto, Know What You Don’t Know, p. 186.
[7] No One Understand You and What to Do about It, p. 17.
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On March 15, 1783, General Washington attended a meeting of mutinous officers in Newburgh NY who were angry about not being paid by the Continental Congress and who were agitating for a march on Philadelphia to take over the government. If this happened, the ideals for which they had fought in order to earn their independence from Great Britain would probably have died and the United States as we know it would probably never have come into existence.
Washington was there to try to talk them out of it, and how he did it is one of the most dramatic stories of persuasion that most people have not heard of.
When Americans think of George Washington today, most of us see the marble demi-god, and not the real man behind the myth. It’s easy to think that he accomplished everything he did through his position and authority as the commander in chief who could summon up his armies to back up his will. In fact, Washington had very little real power to get things done. Partly this was because he did not want it: he was acutely conscious of the need for civilian control, even when this meant that things would not get done, taxes would not be collected, and his army would not be fed. Washington bent over backwards to influence rather than to coerce.
He relied more on personal credibility than on authority, and he had earned that credibility through his steadfast commitment to the cause. He had earned it through leading from the front in spite of severe personal danger often being at the front in battle after battle; he refused a salary during the war, even though his treasured Mount Vernon was being mismanaged and run into debt.
So, by the time Washington appeared in front of his officers, he had earned their trust, respect and veneration. But they had heard many empty promises and so were suspicious even of him.
And his speech was well-crafted and masterfully delivered. Washington began by scolding the anonymous authors for their actions, then softened his tone and reminded the officers that he had been with them from the beginning, suffering the same sacrifices and exulting in their common triumphs. He next appealed to their patriotism and then closed with a vision of the glorious example they could set for all mankind.
Yet in spite of this his speech did not go well. As he concluded, he noticed they still seemed uncertain, not sure how to react. Quite possibly, the fate of the young republic was balanced on a knife edge.
Washington’s heroic stature had brought him this far, but it was a small gesture that tipped the balance. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter from Congressman Joseph Jones of Virginia, to show the officers that Congress meant to act on their concerns. He looked at the letter but did not speak. The men wondered what was wrong. Then, he took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket, which he had never worn in public. Putting them on, he said, “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.”
These words electrified his audience. Witnesses said many were in tears as they listened. Finishing the letter, Washington did not say another word, but turned and left the hall. The officers unanimously approved a resolution affirming their appreciation for their commander in chief and pledging their loyalty to Congress, and the nascent republic was saved.
This story points out the incredible power of commitment, and how a speaker can demonstrate it.
What is commitment?
Commitment is involvement so deep that you can’t help but become an expert in your area.
Commitment is courage to stand by your cause and your beliefs even when it becomes difficult, costly, or risky.
Commitment is contribution to a cause, a team, an idea, a project; it’s about doing the work that others won’t.
Commitment is consistency in your work, your message, and your goal.
How does commitment contribute to Max Cred?
Let’s use our by-now tried and true gauge for credibility; how does commitment contribute to good character, good sense, and goodwill?
Good character
Commitment gives you moral ascendancy which others admire and defer to. We admire people who throw themselves into a worthy cause and go to great lengths to promote it. Have you ever had the experience of reading a news story about someone who is deeply committed to helping others, and felt a twinge of guilt? It’s perfectly natural, because you know their cause is just and you support it but you would never do it yourself. Certainly if they came to your town to speak about it, you would feel compelled to believe their words.
Good sense
There’s a magical thing that happens when you get fully committed into a cause, a project or topic. You get so absorbed into it, that you don’t even feel the effort it takes to learn so much about it, and to soak in detailed knowledge. It may be difficult at first to get your bearings around a topic, but as you gradually learn more, it becomes easier and easier to learn even more, and before you know it, you’re an expert.
I had a vivid demonstration of this myself recently when I attended a neighborhood meeting, in which the principal topic was a nearby development project that I’ve been heavily committed to oppose. Our City commissioner was there, and as he fielded questions, I occasionally added to, or corrected some details in what he said. Within a few minutes, he was asking me if I had anything to add to his answers. Afterward, a lawyer in the audience came up to me and asked if I was a lawyer or worked in the planning and zoning field.
The other magical thing that happens is that when people recognize your commitment to something that they also care about, they are much more forthcoming in volunteering information, so you tend to accumulate private information that is not publicly available, and that can lead to a virtuous circle, where more knowledge produces more inputs which produces yet more knowledge.
Goodwill
Others see your goodwill demonstrated in two ways: your contribution and your familiarity. Committed people are the major contributors to the group because they do the work and take the risks that others won’t. That contribution is admired and usually reciprocated in the form of deference to their opinions.
Commitment is about showing up; people who are committed come to all the meetings and are always around. We like familiar things. Merely being exposed to something can increase our liking for it. In one experiment, researchers flashed photos of faces on a screen so fast that observers could not recall seeing them, but afterwards they showed a preference for those faces.
How do you demonstrate it?
Commitment is the hardest of all Max Cred factors to fake, especially over time. In fact, one of the most visible ways that others have to gauge your commitment is that you put in the time, you do the work, and you show up often and consistently.
But on the other hand, just because you put in long hours working on your idea doesn’t automatically mean that others can see it, especially if they don’t know you, so do:
- Have others toot your horn for you.
- Refer to it once in a while. Even Washington, whose commitment was unquestioned even by his bitterest opponents, had to make a point of demonstrating it again. Some historians think his gesture was premeditated. If so, it was a masterful display of persuasion. Was it manipulation? Not according to my definition, because he had his followers’ best interests at heart…
- Take a public stand; let others see your sacrifice
But it’s also possible to overdo it, so don’t:
- Be tiresome. If that’s all you ever talk about, you will get old fast.
- Brag. Let your actions speak for you.
- Be arrogant or condescending to others less committed.
I’ve always been a huge proponent of the benefits of planning at all levels of sales, including territory plans, key account plans, opportunity plans, and especially sales call plans.
Most salespeople don’t do enough planning, preferring instead to rely on their gift of gab and their natural ability to go with the flow during the sales conversation. But when they actually do it, they find that planning helps salespeople think from the customer’s point of view; it ensures that major holes in their knowledge or positioning are identified and addressed, and it also can provide a generous jolt of confidence going into the meeting.
That’s why, when I teach sales planning, I often remind students of the “5 Ps of Planning: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”[1]
Better planning is a powerful prescription for poor sales results, but like any powerful medicine it has to be taken in the proper dose. There are some salespeople who take it a bit too far, and work hard to produce perfect plans. They try to craft just the right questions, word them very carefully, anticipate every possible objection and have just the right answer for them. For them, I need to add an advanced reminder in the form of 3 More Ps of Planning: “Perfect Plans Are Pointless.”
There are at least four reasons I can think of.
The customer has a vote. The first reason is so obvious that it has become a military cliché: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Substitute the word “customer” for enemy and it applies just as well to sales. You can craft your opening moves very carefully, and then be completely flummoxed when the customer tells you they have a totally different idea of what they want to accomplish during the call.
You will never have perfect knowledge. Despite the common misconception that we have unlimited knowledge at our fingertips, you can never know enough. For example, I strongly recommend trying to think from the customer’s point of view, but as recent research suggests we’re just not as good at it as we think we are. If even long-married couples have trouble anticipating how their spouse will answer some basic questions, you can’t know what your customer will think or say.
And even when you do have proper information, things are always changing (particularly since there are competitors involved), so a perfect plan is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge; by the time you get to the end you need to start over at the beginning. As Scott Sonenshein says in his excellent book Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less – and Achieve More than You Ever Imagined: “We end up planning for a world that no longer exists, while tricking ourselves into believing that it does exist because that’s what we planned for.”
Planning can lock in your thinking. Planning is about making choices, so the more you refine your plan, the more you narrow your focus and restrict your imagination. This has two consequences when things go off track during the actual contact with the customer. First, by limiting your thinking about other possibilities, you leave yourself unprepared for the unexpected. Second, you may have become so invested in your plan that carrying out the plan becomes more important than making the sale. I’ve seen salespeople fall so in love with their plan, that they ask their questions and then don’t really listen to the customer’s answer. They listen for the answer they’re expecting, and when they don’t hear it, they plow obliviously on to the next question. Or they keep going even when the customer is practically screaming buying signals at them!
Planning can give the illusion that something is happening. You take time to plan, to research the customer, and to think. When you produce that great plan, it can certainly give you a sense of achievement. And these are all necessary and important activities. But remember, nothing happens until you actually connect with the customer. The entire purpose of sales is to communicate useful information to help customers make a decision. Planning by itself is sterile, because it does not move the sale through the buying cycle one iota—and in fact the sale may be moving through the cycle on its own, or under the influence of someone else’s plan.
But please don’t take this post as advice to drop planning altogether. Remember the first word in the 5 Ps: Proper planning. Proper planning is not perfect planning. As the saying goes:
“Better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”
[1] Yes, I know there is a 6 P version, but this is a family blog
