( ESNUG 545 Item 5 ) -------------------------------------------- [12/12/14]

Subject: Wally Rhines on selling your ideas if you have no supporting data

From: [ Wally Rhines of Mentor ]

Hi, John,

In the ESNUG 531 #3 post there was an article on "Selling Your Ideas" where
Joe Costello, Aart DeGeus, Dean Drako and I provided our inputs.  My advice
focused on using data to create a credible conclusion for your listener.

A month later, mixed in with the 53 readers comments I saw this:

  "I would like to ask Wally what he does in those circumstances where
   there is no hard data to give direction?

   Steve Jobs ran off of visions and insight.  There was no data he could
   reference when he created the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad..."

       - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/0533-01.html

This was, of course, a very legitimate question.  

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First, I should note that my comments pertained to engineers presenting to
other engineers, who tend to be data-driven.

The most widely viewed presentations that Steve Jobs gave were to diverse
audiences made up largely of non-engineers.

Secondly, Steve had speaking and persuasion talents that most of us don't
have.  His employees referred to it as his "reality distortion field" that
seemed to surround Jobs when he spoke -- giving credibility simply from his
persuasive tone and way of interacting with the audience.

Finally, even presentations by Steve Jobs contained some data but generally,
he stayed away from product specifications and tried to emphasize and
explain the benefits the user would realize with a new product.

Can someone give an effective presentation totally without any data?

The answer is "yes".  One of Steve Jobs' most compelling, widely circulated
speeches was his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University.  To a
first approximation, no data was used in the entire presentation.  It was,
as Jobs said, "just three stories".

                

Interestingly, Bill Gates gave the 2007 Harvard commencement address and
also used no data, although he mentioned the importance of statistics in
analyzing the impact of philanthropic work in his speech.

                

Steve Jobs' use of personal stories was particularly engaging and, although
his stories involved no data, they did involve the reporting of true
experiences which might be considered a form of anecdotal data.


SPEECH PATTERNS

Looking at Steve Jobs' speaking approach more generally, we find that one
important aspect was simplicity of communication.  The following table shows
figures from the Seattle Post Intelligencer on speaking patterns, augmented
by data on my own technology oriented, data-filled speech patterns.

In the race for simplicity, I'm a clear loser, as are many (maybe most?)
engineers speaking on technical topics:

	Steve Jobs	Bill Gates	Michael Dell	Wally Rhines
Avg. Words per Sentence	10.5	21.6	16.5	17.1
Lexical Desity	16.5%	21.0%	26.3%	27.9%
Hard Words	2.9%	5.1%	6.4%	21.0%
Gunning Fog Index	5.5	10.7	9.1	15.2

       * -- Lexical density is the ratio of content words to
            grammatical words

       * -- Hard words have 3 or more syllables.

       * -- The Gunning Fog Index gives the number of years of
            education that your listener hypothetically needs
            to understand what was said.

So what does an engineer do if he doesn't have any data, but he needs to
give a compelling presentation?

If you have a non-technical audience, the answer is straightforward: Keep
it simple, tell anecdotal stories and, as Dean Drako recommends:

    "Pay attention to the audience in real time.  If you feel you
     are not connecting well, establish some direct interaction to 
     change that.  See what is resonating, and spend more time on
     topics that are peaking their interest, rather being tied to
     your original planned presentation."

         - Dean Drako in ESNUG 531 #3.

That is, alter your approach as you go if you're not connecting to your
audience and, as Aart De Geus emphasizes, "tell the truth".

If your audience is technically competent, the story telling, anecdotal
approach is riskier but, if you have dramatic talent like Steve Jobs or
Joe Costello, you may be able to pull it off.


GO TO THE DATA

But what if you are like the rest of us?  No "reality distortion field"
surrounding you and limited dramatic skills it makes for a difficult
foundation.  I come back to the data.

For a compelling engineering presentation to technically competent people,
you need to have data.  If you don't have it, go look for some.  You may
find that it justifies your thesis or, as I have frequently found, it
provides a totally new thesis.

Did you really just dream up this exciting new concept, or is it a result
of your observations of what the world is and how it might be different?

So, for starters, what is the situation in the current world and where are
the limitations?  There's lots of data to analyze.  The world doesn't need
to change if it's already perfect.

Next, I find that data analysis is a good place to start just to figure out
where you, and your audience, have acquired their current perspectives.

Most of the time I've found that actual data often conflicts with the well
accepted views of the world.  (What a great place to start researching!)
Preparing for a talk on "Consolidation of the Semiconductor Industry", I
had a belief -- one that shared by most semiconductor people -- that the
semiconductor industry was consolidating.

     

The actual data showed exactly the reverse.  In fact, the combined market
share of the Top 1, top 5, top 10 and top 50 semiconductor companies had
all been flat, or in continuous decline, for many years.  The truth was the
combined market share of the top 50 semiconductor companies has declined
12 points in the last 12 years.

Who would have thought?  We were just over-influenced by the consolidation
of semiconductor manufacturing and failed to consider the bigger picture.
My resulting presentation was dramatically better than the one I started
out to prepare.


AND IF NO DATA?

If you know that you're right -- but you have no data to prove it, my first
recommendation is to try to find some data.  If that's not possible, then
consider why you know you're right.  Was your idea influenced by some other
analogous situations that led to similar conclusions?  If so, that makes for
a great story.  If it's just a hunch, with no data, then treat it that way.

Identify why your conclusions are speculative and how they can be analyzed.

And finally, don't forget the engaging humor part of the presentation.  If
people aren't engaged enough to listen carefully, they won't ever hear your
proposed thesis.  Find a way to make the story interesting and you will have
an audience that evaluates what you have to say.

    - Wally Rhines
      Mentor Graphics Corp.                      Willsonville, OR

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Related Articles

    Tech vs. Selling your ideas -- plus Wally/Joe/Dean/Aart's tips
    53 readers respond to Aart's/Wally's/Dean's/Joe's speaking advice

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