At a workshop the other day at a bank, I posed the following question: “What would happen if the CEO of this bank decreed that all presentations can be no longer than 10 minutes?”
Here are some of the comments I received.
“So many of the presentations go on and on and no one is listening. If we knew that the presentation would last no longer than 10 minutes, we’d probably pay closer attention.”
“I’m not sure if that would be possible.”
“We couldn’t do it.”
“It would certainly make us think harder about what we were going to say.”
“We’d have to get to the point quicker.”
“We’d spend less time in meetings and could spend more time with customers.”
When the conversation died, I then asked, “Would the bank’s productivity increase or decrease?”
Everyone thought it would increase.
