The Creative Power of Constraints

I don't know how this will impact my "professional image", but I have to say -- one of my favorite movies ever is Dumb & Dumber.  I think it is one of the wittiest and most innovative movies and it certainly raised the bar for that type of comedy.  But, that's not my point.

I watched the director's cut version of it the other day with high hopes of even more insane hilarity and I was very disappointed.  Not only was it not any funnier, it actually dragged a little and got on my nerves.  Have you ever gone to the special features on a dvd and watched the deleted scenes?  I have never seen deleted scenes that I thought should have been left in the movie.  

Thank God for editors!!  Imagine if every director got to make movies as long as they wanted.  We'd be going to 3 or 4 hour  movies with about an hour's worth of scenes that would have been better left on the cutting room floor.  I don't think I've ever heard someone leaving a movie theater saying, "Gee, I wish it had been a little longer."

Have you ever heard someone leaving a professional presentation who said that, either?  When I watch the deleted scenes with director's commentary, I can tell that the directors really think their stuff is great.  They don't have the distance and perspective of someone who is not intimately connected to their project.  The same holds true for professional presentations -- you can tell that some speakers have put every single thing into their presentation because they think that everything is important.  To paraphrase one of my husband's favorite sayings: "When everything's important, nothing's important."

The best speakers can feel passionately about their presentation and, at the same time, put themselves in the position of their audience.  They can see the difference between "What's important to me?" and "What do I need to tell my listeners so that they can fully grasp the significance of my topic without being overwhelmed?"  This process of thinking like your audience is the same as the editing process for films.   

So, the next time you craft a presentation, put yourself in your listeners' seat and edit your content to fit their needs and perspective.  And even though it may kill a little piece of your soul to remove some of your PowerPoint slides and information, you'll probably be doing your audience, and yourself, a big favor.

-- Millie Shaw