Death By Bullets

12th Oct 2006 @ 7.58am

We all inwardly groan when the PowerPoint turns out to be slide after slide of bullets. We all have experienced the workshops which end up with a stack of crumpled flip-chart paper filled with lists - which some poor soul has to type up and email to everyone, who don’t bother to read them.

Actually, there’s more than boredom at work here. Scientifically, bullets don’t work. Cognitive psychologists have established that lists are remarkably hard to remember because of the recency and primacy effects. What this means in everyday language is that people mainly remember the first and last items on a list but not the rest of it, and - most dangerously - their memory is guided by their interests. They remember what they like or find interesting, but they do not recall the whole.

This effect means that individuals will have different interpretations of the same information. Now, imagine this individual communicating their interpretation to others - it will be distorted by their interests and likes, and the next group in the chain will again interpret and so on. That’s where the famous Chinese Whispers kicks in. Result: confusion and lack of consistency.

Bullets also dumb down the content. They are typically lists that offer a series of things to do that could apply to any organisation, in a very general sense. The brevity and lack of connection between bullets forces us to leave out critical context, links and explanations.

Imagine reading a book, or listening to the radio, where everything was distilled into bullets. Businesses have to deal with complexity, explaining and linking issues and solutions into a holistic picture. But then leaders break all this good work apart again into simplified lists, and wonder why their people don’t respond as they expect.

The answer is to tell a story - a well structured narrative that is compelling and filled with proof points. Just like a great book or film. We remember stories far, far more than we will bullet points, and crucially they lead the listener or viewer to a much more consistent appreciation of the content.

posted by Paul Honeywell
filed under Engagement