In my career, I've seen a lot of decks that would be considered perfect. They had everything they needed: beautiful graphs, all the data, and a clear structure. But despite the facts they were full of, almost all of them got one reaction: — Okay. Interesting. Let's think about it. That hit even harder than silence. The problem wasn't that people failed to understand, because they did. They had all the facts, but they didn't have a clear direction on what to do next. What people are missing is that there can be two very different goals in a deck: sharing information, and actually moving someone to a decision. sharing information, and actually moving someone to a decision. People in business who make decisions almost never come to a pitch for the facts. Facts are what your deck had to be built on. But what they need is a path: how to get from the point "we doubt" to the point of "we do." Why Facts Alone Don't Convince People To understand how this works, we need to turn to psychology. And it states: Our brains have a limited "working memory." When we're loaded with information, our ability to make decisions actually drops. And with the products that are already complex enough, it’s even harder to understand where you lead a person if you add beautiful but unnecessary content. The science backs this up. People understand things better when we get rid of the unnecessary parts. This is called the coherence effect. coherence effect coherence effect In short, if your deck tries to be about everything, it ends up convincing no one. All you do is make the decision harder. Why a Single Story Drives Decisions Better Than Multiple Arguments At some point, I started building presentations around one simple idea: Your deck needs to support a decision. What psychology calls narrative transportation works well here: when a person is immersed in a story, they argue less over the details and follow your argument as a chain of logic. If you want to build a journey-based storytelling, think of it as three questions you should answer: 1. Where are we now (exposition)? 2. What exactly is not working in the current picture of the world (climax)? 3. What is the next logical and safe step (resolution)? Your Deck as a Journey: Start → Tension → Twist → Finish A good presentation works the same way as a good story in a movie or book. Only with fewer characters and plot twists. Below is a structure that can be applied to a product presentation, an internal pitch, and a board update. Exposition Any story begins not with a hero, but with the world he lives in. In the beginning, it’s important to show the current situation clearly—so clearly that your audience recognizes themselves in it. Inciting Incident If there were no Joker, Batman would be just a man. In business, this antagonist can be a metric that has stopped growing, a process that doesn’t work, or even a risk that was once acceptable but is no longer. Rising Action Rising action is a series of attempts: We tried to optimize → it didn’t work, added people → the complexity increased, automated partially → new bottlenecks appeared. We tried to optimize → it didn’t work, added people → the complexity increased, automated partially → new bottlenecks appeared. Climax This is the moment when you give a solution to the problem. Just like in a book, unnecessary details only weaken the moment. Resolution The resolution shouldn't close every door and promise a utopia where everything works. Here, it is essential to show: What changes after this decision? What does the first step look like? What are the risks? How to understand that you are moving in the right direction? What changes after this decision? What does the first step look like? What are the risks? How to understand that you are moving in the right direction? In short We often think that presentations "didn't work" because they lacked facts. In fact, they lacked direction. Decision makers don't come for information (there's too much of it already), but for the path from doubt to decision. So, the next time you feel like adding "another important slide," ask yourself a question:"Does this move the person closer to a decision or just add information?"
