During my consulting days, while working for a healthcare client, we made a beautiful PowerPoint deck — what else would a consultant do? 😊
But the client asked us to get the presentation jazzed up by their favorite visual graphics company. Naturally, we complied, and the presentation that came out was staggering.
McKinsey’s internal standards for slides itself were high enough but after the redesign, the slides looked like a work of art.
And in my opinion, that client was committing a blunder.
Good-looking presentations can be dangerous. Here is why.
When solving a business problem, you only ought to care about clear thinking, logic, and rigor. But when the slides are too beautiful, their seductiveness distracts you from the quality of the underlying analysis.
What you need is better thinking, not a Monalisa in PowerPoint.
And this is a fallacy we all fall for — be it in evaluating presentations, people, or even organizations. Unconsciously, we all get swayed by how people look, talk, or conduct themselves. When an office lobby is fancy, we think more highly of the company.
Packaging, by definition, hides what’s underneath. So if you truly care about value, consciously discount the packaging.
Optics often has zero correlation with substance.
– Rajan