Complete freedom tends to lead to unoriginal ideas”—and makes you a terrible presenter!
The quote is from David Epstein’s fascinating new book, “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.”
What does Epstein mean? How can “complete freedom” be a bad thing? And why does it make you a terrible presenter?
Daniel Willingham: “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It’s designed to save you from having to think.”
Creativity research shows that when given complete freedom, we follow “the path of least resistance.” We take the convenient route & minimize cognitive effort when creating presentations.
How so? Many presentations seem the product of assumptions like these:
❌ I can’t run out of content—the meeting might end early! Plus, more content will lead the audience to believe I know the subject (see sample slide image at top of this post).
❌ Adding slides is “free.” There’s no limit on the number of slides I can use – computing power/bandwidth/etc is free, PowerPoint usage is unlimited, pictures & graphics are freely available on the Internet.
❌ If it’s interesting to me, it must be interesting to my audience, too.
❌ The order of slides doesn’t matter all that much. I just need a good table of contents or at least to group the slides under a logical list of topics I’ll cover.
❌ For delivery: I have plenty of time to unspool my ideas, I can use as many words as I need to express those ideas, to explain those graphics, to give this presentation.
Any one of these is a deadly sin. Taken together, they produce the dreaded Death By PowerPoint.
How does Epstein propose we fix this mess? Through paired constraints, a two-phase process developed by Barnard psychology professor Patricia Stokes:
1️⃣ Use “preclude” constraints to stop using your typical or familiar approaches to creating presentations, for example forbid yourself to apply the assumptions listed above.
2️⃣ Use “promote constraints” to force you into creating presentations using a new, improved method.
That’s all for this post. In part two we’ll share specific paired constraints you can apply to your presentations.
*”The Compelling Communicator Series” addresses destructive, common mistakes in messaging (presentation) design & delivery. Oratium helps executives avoid these mistakes, thereby improving their effectiveness not simply as speakers but as managers & as leaders.