What is it with people today? They cannot have a discussion about any topic without slides, even when the discussion is between colleagues within the same division or department or area of expertise, and when there are only two or three people involved in the discussion.

To CFOs and other line managers who are counting the beans and looking for more productivity, I suggest imposing a moratorium on slide generation unless there will be an audience of 10 or more, and the slides will actually be projected. Otherwise, those offering their knowledge and suggestions should use some long standing tools such as agendas, reports, white papers or memos to communicate the order of topics, the key points for each topic and the call-to-action or follow up items.

A director of marketing (DM) for a growing firm is tasked with telling the director of sales (DS) how the marketing department is going to generate leads. This is a straightforward topic for discussion. I see three key points: 1) how many leads will be provided to the sales department in a given period of time; 2) how will marketing advise sales on the quality of the leads; and 3) how will marketing know that what they're doing is working?

The DM has two superiors, each of whom is telling her what bullets must be included in the slides she is preparing. They have told her that the DS "must understand" their thinking. So far the slides have expanded to include lists of bullets on the marketing objectives; the marketing strategies; the marketing tactics; the marketing creative direction; the marketing spending plan.

How big is the audience for this presentation? Only one person-the DS. The manager of the DM will be listening. And the "presentation" is going to take place over the phone!

The DM is an experienced marketing professional, she has many creative ideas, and a deep understanding of the decision-making process that goes through prospects' minds as they decide to act or not. She is passionate about the service that her company is offering to its target audience. Yet as she rewrites and revises the list of bullets for each topic using the exact words her superiors dictate, all of her passion and commitment is being drained away. This is becoming just another series of bullets, going on page after page, which she is then supposed to communicate to the DS, who will have the pages in front of him, and who could probably read them faster than she can speak about them.

Wouldn't a written document make more sense? The DM could pour her passion and knowledge into prose that communicates her commitment to the ultimate sales goal. Her writing would model the creativity she is bringing to the marketing work. She could spend her time developing a quantitative marketing plan that demonstrates the strategies and tactics more effectively than any list of bullets could do. There, in black and white, would be the results, rather than the static thinking that goes into getting the results.

Let's assume that the Director of Marketing earns $80,000 per year. That roughly translates into $40.00 per hour. By my calculations she has already spent 100 hours writing, revising, practicing, revising, and practicing some more. That's $4000.00 for a presentation to one person who will have the slides in front of him. Take into consideration the time the DS will spend listening to the DM speak about the bullets, and the time the DM's superiors have spent telling her what to write in the slides, and the total could easily be $8000-$10,000 just to communicate that the marketing department knows how to go about doing it's work. (Remember, objectives, strategies, tactics, and creative direction.)

For that amount of money the company should get real work.

• A list of media channels that reflects the strategies and tactics.
• The dates of publication or dissemination
• Methods of tracking responses
• An estimate of cost effectiveness-the number of responses divided by the cost of the media
• A rigorous system of evaluation so the marketing department can do more of what works and stop doing what doesn't work.

I repeat-this information would reflect the strategies and tactics and creative direction. It would be easy to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the strategies, tactics and creative direction from the results. In contrast, the presentation in its current form only lists ideas. There are no benchmarks or no quantitative estimates that would give meat and meaning to the bullets about strategies, tactics and creative direction.

Beyond the waste of money, the most troubling thing about this situation is that none of the participants considered any other form of communication. Someone decided the DM had to communicate with the DS, and the default delivery system was a "presentation" with slides.

How about you and your company? Do you default to "presentation with slides" mode instead of considering other delivery systems? What about agendas and conversation? What about written reports with the background, followed by a meeting agenda that focuses on the activities rather than the theory? What about a calendar and a spread sheet that makes the statement "Here is what were going to do, when we're going to do it, and the anticipated results"? There is overload of information in the business world. You don't need to add to it.

Differentiate yourself and increase productivity by demonstrating your actions not your understanding, and making a name for yourself, not as a great presenter but as a great and productive conversationalist.