by: Dayren Santamaria January 3, 2022
Studying the type of presentation that fits your organization’s needs is key. Through meetings we communicate and through effective communication the growth of the project or company becomes evident. Two common types of meeting presentations are PowerPoints and Narrative Structured Memos. They are both helpful, but targeted to different audiences and for different purposes. Analyzing which type is more convenient and productive for your business will be rewarding and increase the organization of the staff and the company in general. With memos, concerns, issues, and new ideas can be addressed, explained, and received without interruption. Real-time feedback can also result in a prompt solvency of issues, or improved replacing ideas for troubled areas. Using narrative structured memos in meetings instead of PowerPoints can be the solution and elucidation to your distress.
Narrative structured memo is a document that states the information for the meeting in a grammatically well-written paper. Google doc is commonly used for this type of meeting presentation. Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos clearly states in interviews how important it was for the company to stop using the PowerPoint presentations. He studied the meetings and decided to improve them in a way that would make it effective. A company can succeed when leaders allow new ideas to coherently emerge from the team (Inc. 2019). Amazon.com, Inc. is an example of how successful a company can be when diverse new ideas emerge from effective meetings. One of the advantages of narrative structured memos is that different authors create and edit the memo until it is ready to be read. “The authors need to think precisely about key points. You can “wing it” verbally when you explain a bullet on PowerPoint but phrasing something in complete sentences requires more thought. Writing a document with sections and paragraphs to make a point requires clearer thinking than a set of slides with bullet points on each” (Kohavi, 2018).
Amazon is situated within the first dozen of fastest growing companies in the world (Fortune, 2020). Besides the private strategies this organization should have done to increase their success, there are a few public details that can be added to any company’s plan of actions. Some of these details are listening to the employee’s concerns and ideas of improvements, controlling the number of personnel on the meetings, and replacing PowerPoint presentations with narrative structured memos. The progressively success of Amazon is one of the benefits of transitioning from PowerPoint to memos. Another advantage of this transition is the ability to thoroughly understand what the authors are stating, while giving feedback to the authors with helpful additional ideas to improve the project or issues (Inc. 2019).
Narrative memos are explained in detail, and this fact allows employees or an audience to have an absolute idea of what is being stated. If a group of employees are presenting a new project to management through a detailed memo, the management is able to have a clear vision and the steps to follow to find the appropriate solution. If instead the employees use a PowerPoint presentation, questions and concerns will arise since this type of presentation synthesizes and concise ideas, techniques, and methods not always in an efficient manner. However, it is easier and faster to create a PowerPoint presentation than a narrative structured memo. Composing a proper memo takes time and skills. In my opinion, the time that takes to prepare a proper memo and the skills that it requires are the two disadvantages of narrative structured memos.
I have experienced meetings where PowerPoint presentations have been presented and a year later, the same problems arise on new presentations that state the same issues with different layout designs. It is important to be critical and understand when something is not working, so that as a business or company, we can move forward and toward maximizing profitability while keeping a safe and healthy environment. Memos could create problems to future presentations for audiences or employees that are more comfortable listening, looking at slides, and talking to respond with their feedback. Some of these issues might not be relevant in the future since technology keeps bringing new devices and applications that can read for us. Although, the audience and/or employees will have to comment back in writing to leave a feedback.
To decide which of these two types of presentation is more convenient for your meetings, you should ask yourself these questions. What is the purpose of your meetings? How effective would you like them to be? How clear would you like your presentation to be? How fast would you like to see results? Would you like to improve the literacy skills of your employees which might affect in a positive way the outcome of any project or task they want to pursue? Narrative structured memos are the answer to a better society. It increases our intellect, by allowing our minds and thoughts to wonder less, and to be fully occupied on important matters. All of these benefits are going to help your employees individually and consequently your own company.
References
Inc. (2019, July 15). “Jeff Bezos: 3 Rules to having an efficient meeting | Inc.” [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI9AGSq-kE
Kohavi, R. (2018, February 3). “Narrative not powerpoint.” ex-platform.com Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://exp-platform.com/narrative-not-powerpoint/
Fortune. (2020, August 5). “100 Fastest-growing companies.” fortune.com Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://fortune.com/100-fastest-growing-companies/2019/search/
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