During my first day at work (I spoke no French), I had my first meeting with my new boss. During this meeting she started talking to her boss across the hall (in French) and after a while they started to seriously yell at each other. Comments were flying across the hallway in what seemed an increasingly heated discussion.

Now where I’m from people don’t generally yell at each other in professional situations. The Dutch I know are generally laid back and calm. They can be direct and angry, but in a professional setting, they rarely shout. When someone yells it signals impotence and lack of character on their part. It signals that they are not in control. In the Netherlands (as far as I know) yelling by a boss only occurs in the event of crucial failures. That is why I thought my boss in Paris was getting fired.

The French however are much more outspoken in their discussions. Perhaps I would even describe them as more passionate than the Dutch I know. In France whenever people raised their voice at me I felt somewhat disrespected and in the beginning even intimidated. However being a guest in this culture, the yelling lost it’s effect on me.

I learned that in an intercultural setting, things aren’t always what they seem. It also showed me that the Dutch way isn’t necessarily the right way. After 3 years in the French context I might even have taken on some of this behavior myself.

But don’t worry, if I ever yell at you, you won’t get fired.

Whenever you discuss an idea, business model, strategy or any matter whatsoever you need to somehow bring accross the subject to whomever you are it discussing with. When you have to do this with a document, the traditional way to do this is word. You could write a business plan or positioning paper with a lot of text and tables.

However this is actually where PowerPoint actually has a lot of use.

Makes you think about it:

Whenever discussing an idea with someone, it is always good to think about it before you discuss. Creating a PowerPoint presentation of the matter forces you to Think things through before you explain them. Also it forces you to make a good structure and a good story out of whatever subject you are explaining.

Synthesize & Schematize

When you are working with PowerPoint, you can still put as much text on a page as you could with Word or any other text editor. However you are challenged to summarize your content. You are challenged to say more with less. You are also challenged to prioritize content over other content. On top of that PowerPoint gives you the ability to easily integrate schematics and drawings. That will allow you to say even more then words alone.

Finally, PowerPoint makes it much easier to work with a lot of people if you have a good template. You can easily move slides around or insert and replace them. If styles do get mixed up, they are easily adapted to make it look whatever you want it to.  People tend to click through a slideshow quicker then print out a text-heavy document and read it.

The Big mistake

Finally your PowerPoint presentation is done, you are ready for your meeting or speech. Then comes the big mistake: You put it on the screen. Most presentations are made is such a way that they should never be allowed on a screen. They should be used like a word document. Printed, and then used for discussion during a meeting. Or else a phenomenon called “death by PowerPoint” will occur. If you want to make a presentation for a screen create a second version that conforms to the ”presentation zen“ norms. Some examples for how to transform a powerpoint :  Garry Renolds example slides, writer of the book Presentation Zen. Good examples of discussion document powerpoints can be found at the big consultancy firms like: McKinsey, BCG, Bain etc. Examples: BCGs love life

Conclusion:

Use PowerPoint, but choose how you will use it. As a discussion document, to print and to discuss sitting around a table . Or as a slideshow on a screen supporting your speech. Both cases require radically different presentations and perhaps you should create two versions…

So PowerPoint does have a use, in most cases it’s just not the screen .

Don’t forget to check your presentation before using it.

Embedded Excels!

A lot of people have data to represent and do this by copy-pasting an Excel graph into a PowerPoint. Not rarely does this lead to the inclusion of the entire Excel file! This might lead to sending additional / sensitive information and make the PowerPoint very large in terms of size.

Consistency

There is nothing more embarrassing than being in front of someone with a well prepared document and then finding out the figures don’t add up. Therefore it is vital to check the figures. On the slide (left vs right side / graph vs table) but also across slides and even chapters. If the viewers add up figures from different places, should they add up or is there a legit reason for them not to? Besides the consistency in figures there are other consistencies like consequently using  the same name abbreviation across slides / chapters.

Document size

PowerPoint can become very large. Usually this is solvable by compressing the images. However I have seen PowerPoints with several masters included. If you remove them all this might also significantly reduce PowerPoint file size.

Hygiene

One of the most difficult things for me personally to guard is what I call the hygiene of the file. This is not a show-stopper normally however it could be very disturbing. This includes the footnotes, titles, fonts, alignment of items and transparent shapes. If you make shapes transparent, this could lead to a very bad print quality.

To PDF or not to PDF?

If you can, I would always send a PDF. This prevents a lot of the possible errors I mentioned above. One thing it also prevents is the accidental sending of the slide notes. I would avoid using these altogether, but if you have to and forget to delete them, this can be very awkward.  A PDF solves a lot of these problems.

PowerPoint Check Cheet Sheet

I heard about these terms the first week we were here during intercultural training. I am in no way an expert so please forgive me any errors. Let me start by explaining the difference between the two terms:

Monochronic

A monochromic person has a very strict way of viewing time. Time is to be used efficient and spend on useful things. Meetings in companies need to have an agenda, start on time, follow the agenda and finish on schedule. During the meetings actual decisions are taken and real work is done. Monochrinic people like to have fixed projects with targets deadlines and outcomes. The most extreme monochromic concept is that of being able to waste time.

Polychronic

The polychromic are the opposite of this (you guessed it). For a polychromic person dealing with time is a more flexible thing. In a business context this can be seen in meetings starting later, with a limited agenda. The work is done outside meetings. For polychromic people time is more flexible. Every moment is a chance to build relationships with people and to discover new things. The most extreme quote I heard on this is: ” Life is in the hands of God, so why run for the train?”.

We have experienced that the French are generally much more towards the polychromic. For example, when the land lord made an appointment to send some builders over they showed up several hours late. Lines at the supermarket do not go very fast. At work meetings start late and begin with discussing non subject related things. The advantage of this flexibility is that it is easier to cancel or move meetings, there seems more time to relate to people. Although work and private are strictly separated.

The downside is that things progress less quick and efficient. There are less rules on outcomes and less targets. There is less to count on or plan, visitors for example are usually late.

So my question to you is: which one are you? If you come here your monochromic time view will be challenged if it is not at work it will be somewhere else.  I know mine has.