Presentation Skills: Persuading a “Thinker”

From Wilder’s Presentations

“Thinkers” are open to new ideas, but are careful and methodical. They are guarded and cautious; convinced by hard facts and research information as they explore every advantage and disadvantage.

Thinkers are open to new ideas when you have the facts to back them up, and they rely on rationality and numbers to make their decisions. This is why they might not have the best social skills when they are quizzing you about the information. While they are proactive and do want to win, thinkers use logic and exhaustive analysis to make decisions. In a survey of 1,700 executives by Robert B. Miller and Gary A. Williams, 11% were thinkers.

Format: Thinkers like outlines. For example, a strategy recommendation outline can help you logically present several strategies and, based on research, chose the most successful one. Thinkers would not be happy if you presented just one strategy.

Executive Summary: Provide a brief executive summary of your talk and then say, "Now let me take you through our analysis including some customer research, past production figures, and future predictions."

Interaction: Set up your slides to encourage interaction. When showing charts, be sure they are clear and focused. Put the summary point of the data on the slide, but be prepared for thinkers to want to discuss the numbers in the charts. Make sure the numbers are big enough for them to read. You can ask during your talk, "What other information do you know or want to know that will fill in any gaps you see?"

How to Fail: You’ll fail to persuade thinkers if you:

• Show them slides with unclear information.
• Don’t explain the logic of your transitions from one slide to the next.
• Don’t send them any materials ahead of time and then surprise them with a presentation, pushing for an answer right away. Thinkers like time to make a decision so they can consider all the issues involved.
• Put wrong numbers on your slides or say something incorrect, then fail to correct it. Thinkers won’t make a decision on the spot but will spend time analyzing and processing the information you provided, so an incorrect data point or misstatement of fact can be fatal.
• Don’t really do your homework, instead laboring under the false idea or hope that your enthusiasm will convince them.

Slides designed for thinkers: Prepare clear slides with informative headings and organized content so the information really stands out. Don’t use a fancy background. Limit yourself to an interesting title graphic at the top. Instead of impressing, fancy slides only annoy thinkers because they find the information harder to decipher.

Begin your presentation with a slide that states the present situation and the desired outcome. List the key analysis pieces you will show. Show a timeline if appropriate to help the thinker understand the events in order. It may be best not to state your recommended solution at the beginning: a thinker wants to hear your logic and reasoning process, then your recommendation.

Thinkers do not want to see a slide with start dates. Instead, they want time to digest the information, consider what else is important, find holes in your process, and then decide on next steps.