If you prefer video content over text, I explain this material with fun, musical examples in my YouTube video.
A lot of presentation advice out there focuses on what content to include, and what content to cut. Not enough focuses on the order of material.
In this article, I break down the right and wrong way to order points in your presentations.
What Not To Do
Consider the following passage and order of points. Is it effective, or could it be improved?
“There are two leadership responsibilities: creation of psychological safety and motivation of high performance. And you can split that into four quadrants: if there is high safety and high motivation that’s where learning happens, if there is high safety but not motivation people don’t want to be there, if you have neither safety nor motivation then you get apathy, if you have motivation but no safety you get anxiety”
Tons of important information. But a horrible order. The speaker talks about:
- High safety, high motivation (best)
- High safety, no motivation (so-so)
- No safety, no motivation (worst)
- High motivation, no safety (so-so)
Why do we have to start with the “best” and end with “so-so”? It’s like eating a four-course meal, with a fantastic appetizer … and average dessert. You’re left feeling “so-so” about the entire experience.
What To Do
Here’s how Amy Edmondson, bestselling author of “Right Kind of Wrong” delivers this message. You only need to watch about a minute from the video to get a sense of Amy’s technique.
This is her order:
- No safety, no motivation (worst)
- High safety, no motivation (so-so)
- High motivation, no safety (so-so)
- High safety, high motivation (best)
She starts with the “worst” and ends with the “best”.
Summary
In a presentation it may be tempting to give your most important, most interesting point first. But think about the consequences big picture: what’s left for your audience to look forward to?
Instead, ensure each point builds meaningfully to the next. Make the order feel so inevitable that if you were to arrange them a different way, the presentation would no longer work. Like a story that builds to a climactic conflict, or a piece of music that builds to a resounding finale, save the best for last.
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I’m writing a book on thinking quickly, speaking clearly, presenting convincingly, and supercharging your executive presence. My current focus: a section on the purpose of slides in presentations. This will be a deep-dive into correcting common mistakes made on business slides.
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