"High-performance" is meaningless - avoid using it
|
In my workshops, I often use this slide: I'll then ask people to drop in the chat: "What percentile do you think 'high-performance' stands for if 100% is best? Answers flow in:
It's almost always like this. I do something like this to show people that while we often have an exact number, it rarely matches what people are thinking or perceiving. This phenomenon is usually referred to as the illusion of transparency. If you can get more specific and exact, you will improve the coherence of your message and limit the confusion in future discussions that build upon your numbers or takeaways. Instead, say something like, "Our team is in the top 5% across all global sales teams in terms of annual bookings over the last 2 years." Less fluffy. Once you tighten your language, the next thing to do is avoid Book report thinking. I teach all this and way more, helping you create persuasive and compelling slides (not just pretty ones) in my course Think Like A Strategy Consultant. |
Paul Millerd
Freelancer, creator & writer
The latest version of Claude can create PowerPoint slides. So I gave it a challenge. Turn this "bad example" I use in my workshops into a good slide based on the principles I share on strategyU.co I gave it this simple prompt that took me no longer than ten seconds to write: Take this slide and take the lessons on slide design on strategyu.co and turn this into a compelling slide, improve the fonts, get to one single insight, match the title and content, and have the title be a clear takeaway...
I started StrategyU to teach knowledge workers the tools, frameworks, mindsets, and approaches that I learned in strategy consulting. When I started this, I thought that my audience would be people in big companies stuck inside strategy, finance, or analytics groups that didn’t have access to training. This was one of the segments that have found value in my work but a second segment that surprised me has been small and medium-sized consulting firms ranging from 5 people to 200. Over the last...
If you asked me what my favorite type of fruit was, I could tell you in two ways. Way #1: “Well, I like fruits with seeds. Sometimes they’re sweet; sometimes they’re sour. They have green leaves on the top. They’re pretty small, too.” You might respond, “you mean a strawberry?” Then I’d say yes, and you’d know my answer. Or, I could tell you another way: Way #2: “It’s a strawberry.” This is the simple way to explain top-down communication. From the listener’s perspective, it is much easier to...