Why Jeff Bezos Does Not Permit PowerPoint at Amazon

In case you’re ever going to make a presentation to Jeff Bezos at Amazon, here is a tip–don’t make a PowerPoint presentation.As famous in an article in Observer about Bezos’ method, “In one episode of The Office, Dwight says of Ryan’s flashy PowerPoint slides, “PowerPoints are the peacocks of the enterprise world: all present, no meat.”Bezos is now well-known for not allowing PowerPoints, and his method and calls for for substantive conferences might be why he owns one of many few largest world manufacturers on the earth.

Workers taking part in conferences will write or learn six-page memos.

The start of the conferences is spent by assembly members studying these prolonged memos.

Why does Bezos demand this of his staff? In his opinion, PowerPoint:

o Fails to offer adequate informationo Is vulnerable to viewers interruptions.

A memo communicates well-reasoned ideas.

Understandably, if you’re the CEO of a worldwide model like Amazon and when your staff is assembly and making selections that may have a considerable affect on the expansion of the corporate and backside line, it’s important that well-reasoned communication takes place.Must you and I, as enterprise homeowners do it?That relies upon.I am personally somebody that likes to offer and obtain data in a condensed and concise vogue as a result of I am the final word decision-maker on nearly all elements of my companies. My companies will not be on the size of a worldwide model like Amazon. Nonetheless, I can see how the Bezos method is important.The Satan’s Within the DetailsI suppose we function in a world the place most individuals have very brief consideration spans. We’re all speeding from one factor to the following, and the very fact is that more often than not if you cannot seize somebody’s creativeness or curiosity in about 90 seconds, you’ve got misplaced them.Nonetheless, it’s a mistake to suppose that utilizing the PowerPoint method is the best solution to go for essentially–everything. As a enterprise proprietor, you are trying to develop and develop what you are promoting. One of the essential areas for you is your gross sales staff. For instance, for instance, you wish to perceive why your gross sales staff has projected a rise in income for subsequent fiscal 12 months of 10 %. You are going to make assumptions primarily based on these income targets, and you will craft an working funds that might doubtlessly mirror that 10 % improve in income.On this state of affairs, a enterprise chief can be good to take the Bezos method and require a well-thought-out, detailed and reasoned memo explaining the who, what, when, the place and the way of the 10 % improve in income.Taking Your Staff Via the PacesThere are many different conditions when it might be sensible to require that your staff ship to you a well-reasoned and considerate written presentation on their considering, which can affect the choices you’ll make as its chief. For example, you is perhaps trying to create a brand new job or division that will likely be expanded since you’ve been succeeding and wish to reinvest your revenue to develop the enterprise. You may also think about making a purchase order of hundreds of {dollars} of kit, beginning a brand new advertising and marketing initiative, or be trying to develop the footprint of what you are promoting. All of those are wonderful alternatives the place you must require your staff to take a pause and clarify their rationale to you as completely and thoughtfully as attainable.As Bezos defined based on the Observer article, “When you have to write your ideas out in complete sentences, complete paragraphs it forces a deeper clarity,” Bezos instructed Conor Neill, a enterprise coach at IESE Enterprise College in 2012. “If you have a traditional PowerPoint presentation, executives interrupt. If you read the whole six-page memo, on page two you have a question but on page four that question is answered.”Whereas I am unsure all enterprise leaders must demand that their groups produce evidence-based memos forward of every of their conferences, and that is not, candidly, the way in which I function my companies, I do see and perceive the worth of requiring a majority of these memos for vital decision-making conferences on vital subjects.