Best Slide Story

It wasn’t fair. Jessie got the promotion instead of me.

I’ve put in the hours. Countless late nights and weekends. My code was at least as good as Jessie’s, if not better.

“I fought for you, Felix. I really did,” my manager explained, “but none of the other managers knew who you were. Visibility is just as important to your career as technical brilliance.”

Before he left for his three-week vacation, my manager arranged for me to fill in for him at the Operations Review meeting. He said it would be the perfect opportunity for the senior leadership team to put a face to my name.

I had often helped my manager craft his slides for Ops Review. Doing it on my own was easy enough: for each of my team’s four projects, I listed the status, original and revised completion dates, recent milestones, current risks, and next steps. It was a lot of text to squeeze onto one slide, but I had it done in an afternoon. Clear communication was the best form of visibility, so I spent a few hours in a small meeting room rehearsing aloud to get my delivery just right.

When it was my turn to present at Ops Review, I stood at the front of the GoldenEye conference room, next to the TV screen that displayed my slides. Unlike everyone else, I didn’t read each bullet point word-for-word to the audience. Why read aloud the same words the audience is silently reading to themselves? Instead, I summarized my information in a conversational style, all while trying to make eye contact with the directors and senior managers sitting around the table. They rarely glanced up from their open laptops. How was I supposed to get any visibility if they never looked at me? I returned to my chair with a lump in my throat, wondering why I had put so much effort into this.

The last presenter at the meeting was someone I hadn’t seen before. I assumed from his fancy button-up shirt and tie that he was a new executive. But no, his name was Daryl, and like me, he was filling in for his boss.

As soon as he began his presentation, all eyes fell on him. His slides were rendered in a palette of blues and grays, echoing the company logo. The status of each project was represented by red, yellow, and green icons. The text was beautifully laid out. It looked more like a glossy sales brochure than a status update, and when he advanced to each new slide, the text faded and reappeared in a choreographed animation.

Daryl described his first project as “an extensible portal to realize virtual e-commerce potential.” The next one was a “back-end schema to energize holistic channels.”

While I’m fairly good at understanding technical terminology, I had no idea what Daryl had just said. But everyone else in the room nodded hypnotically.

Unfortunately, Daryl’s last slide was awash in yellow, indicating a project at risk, and he spent more time explaining what his team was going to do about it.

“Instead of boiling the ocean,” Daryl said, “our tiger team is ideating around multiple vertical integrations, thus disintermediating the pain points of this project’s ecosystem and allowing us to solution a best-in-breed scalable service.” He went on and on, describing how his “anticipated meta-architecture” would be based on “cross-functionally optimized blockchains.”

One of the managers whispered to his neighbor, “That’s excellent. A meta-architecture is far better than a standard one.”

I was confused. Did they really understand what he was saying?

After the presentation, Mr. Kendrick, the VP who chaired the meeting, asked Daryl about his slides.

“Oh, we didn’t have an official slide deck,” Daryl responded with great enthusiasm, “so I took it upon myself to design a set of slides that reflect our corporate branding with a look and feel consistent with the company’s core values.”

I didn’t have time to stay and introduce myself to Daryl after the meeting. Even if I did, I was uncertain I’d be able to comprehend anything he’d say. Unfortunately, Kendrick seemed to warm right up to Daryl, showering him with the same kind of attention that I wanted. If anyone was next in line for promotion, it was Daryl.

* * *

The next day, I had lunch with my friend Randy, who happened to work in the same team as Daryl.

“Oh, he’s a strange cat, all right,” Randy said. “On his first day, Daryl came in dressed up in a suit and tie and gave a slide presentation to introduce himself.”

“To introduce himself?” I said, pulling out a sandwich from my lunch bag.

“Oh yeah, fifty slides describing his ‘value proposition’ or ‘personal brand’ or something like that. He’s always talking about ‘pain points’ and ‘ideations’ and ‘deep dives.’ I have no idea what the hell he’s saying half the time.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I saw him present at Ops Review yesterday.”

“And?”

“Well, management must understand what he’s saying. Their eyes all lit up when he spoke. I was hoping the senior managers would get to know who I am, but they barely paid any attention to me. It’s hard to get noticed with Mr. Ideation stealing the show.”

Randy leaned in. “So why don’t you use the same fancy lingo in your presentations?”

I shrugged. “Because I have no idea what that fancy lingo even means.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Randy said slowly. “Just make something up that makes you look smart.”

I scoffed. “You want me to try to fool the executives?”

Randy lowered his fork. “Rule number one of working in a hierarchy is that you can always trick the people above you into believing you’re smarter than they are. You just need to say it like you believe it.”

I leaned back in my chair. “What? So, you go around pretending you’re a genius to everyone?”

Randy shook his head. “Not everyone. Rule number two says you can’t fool your peers or those who report to you. They’ll call BS on you right away.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “I don’t want to deceive the leadership team.”

“Look, Felix,” he said. “If you want to get noticed around here, you gotta look smart. Just do up your slides as you normally would and then translate them into Daryl-speak.” Randy rubbed his hands together. “I’ll help you. I have this AI tool. I can train it on Daryl’s presentations—he’s done a million of ’em for our team—and I’ll make your slides sound just like his.”

I hesitated. Did playing the visibility game really involve making stuff up to the senior managers? That seemed to be exactly what Daryl was doing, and he was reaping the rewards. But it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. Would I need to compromise my authenticity to move up the corporate ladder?

* * *

The next day there was an email from the VP’s office. He had been so impressed with Daryl’s slides that he was announcing that all future Ops Review presentations would have to follow Daryl’s format. A sample slide deck was attached to the email to use as a template “to facilitate thought leader-driven storytelling.”

Good Lord. Now Mr. Kendrick was using Daryl-speak. Could no one see that Daryl was playing the fake-it-till-you-make-it game?

Daryl’s template came with all sorts of instructions on what fonts and shapes were permitted. Certain colors were banned. Did it really matter that my text was charcoal gray instead of black? I didn’t see the point of all these rules, but I’d have to follow them.

Daryl was weird.

But the leadership team seemed to like his style. If I had any chance of climbing out of my stagnant role in this company, I needed leadership to like me, too. My boss was right: merit wasn’t enough. Rising up in this company needed a lot of hot air. So, I called up Randy and asked him to start working on his little AI project.

At the next Ops Review, I was going to out-Daryl Daryl.

* * *

I fidgeted in my seat waiting for my turn to present at Ops Review. I had used Randy’s AI tool and translated all my slide text and speaking notes into Daryl-speak. I didn’t understand it, and it took hours of practicing in a mirror before I could say things like “Quantum Agile Disruption” with a straight face.

Each presenter took their turn, all of them using Daryl’s presentation template for their slides.

“I really like how everyone’s using the same slide format,” the VP said. “The consistency looks very professional. Well done, Daryl.” I rolled my eyes. Daryl was quickly becoming the teacher’s pet.

The senior managers’ presentations were spoken in everyday English and their slides were jargon-free.

Until it was my turn.

I read my slides, using a strong voice to regurgitate the multi-syllabic bafflegab. All the managers watched me, nodding as if they understood what I was saying. I was terrified at first that someone would call me out, but it became easier as I continued. Unfortunately, one of my projects had moved from a healthy green status to a risky yellow this week. That project garnered more attention than the others.

I stated my well-rehearsed line with confidence. “We’ve engaged with multiple thought leaders to drill down and bring the low hanging fruit to the table, allowing us to move the needle to a new normal.”

The audience beamed and nodded. Except for Daryl. I couldn’t read his expression, but it wasn’t as approving as everyone else. He wasn’t the only one who could play the game.

Mr. Kendrick raised a finger. “How will the delays in the PLS program impact your schedule?”

I broke out in a cold sweat. A normal person would have answered, “it will delay us another week or two.”

I scrambled to mentally translate my response into Daryl-speak. “Yes, that’s on my radar,” I said, stalling to gather my next words. They came out in fragments. “Ah, using an agile methodology… um, our change agents will leverage… er, core competencies to… ah, pivot toward the… mission critical priorities and then… I’ll circle back with a revised estimation.”

Kendrick thanked me. Everyone else nodded and smiled. And with my heart still pounding, I took my seat, having successfully deceived my senior leadership team.

Daryl went next. Like last week, his presentation was laced with vacuous vocabulary. He occasionally looked my way, dismissively. I don’t think he appreciated that I was stealing some of his thunder. My use of Daryl-speak wasn’t as proficient as his, but I was okay sharing the spotlight. Some visibility is better than none. Although when I caught Daryl schmoozing with the VP as they walked out of the conference room together, I felt I hadn’t done enough.

* * * 

My manager was going to come back after Labor Day, so the next Ops Review meeting would be my last—my final opportunity to wow the senior managers. I spent hours refining my presentation, saturating my slides with as much Daryl-speak as possible.

We had a surprise guest at Ops Review, our CEO, Mr. Thomas. His presence disrupted our normal seating arrangement. Based on our clockwise convention around the table, I would be presenting last. Visibility is good, I reminded myself, especially in front of the CEO. My polished presentation was going to make a powerful first impression.

The senior managers took turns presenting their slides and responding to questions. Then it was Daryl’s turn to go up. Everyone seemed dazzled by his slides, which admittedly, looked more beautiful than anyone else’s.

Most of Daryl’s projects had slipped into a yellow status, attracting more scrutiny and he had to defend his team’s response.

“We’re embracing more blue-sky thinking to reinvent our platform into a frictionless, intuitive user experience,” he said.

The managers around the table nodded like members of a cult.

Mr. Thomas raised his hand. “What does that mean, exactly?”

Daryl didn’t miss a beat. “It means that we’re planning to harness proactive models and architect distributed infrastructures to incubate virtual applications.”

Most of the managers nodded along, although a few began darting their eyes and exchanging glances with each other.

The CEO’s eyebrows furrowed together. “I still don’t understand.”

“We’re seeking to evolve a viral paradigm shift to—”

“Wait, wait,” Mr. Thomas said. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Daryl Hargraves, sir.”

“Good to meet you, Daryl Hargraves. You see, Daryl, you’re sharing very important information with people outside your team—people who are not always familiar with your department’s specialized vocabulary. So, you’ll need to use simpler language when communicating with us. I really want to understand how your projects are proceeding. So, let’s start over.”

Daryl backed up a slide and stared at the TV screen. It looked like he was having difficulty understanding his own presentation.

“Well, I um… I think this project here…” Daryl stammered like a tourist in a faraway land.

I cringed in my seat, embarrassed for him and wanting him to get through his discomfort quickly. Then I glanced down at my own slides on my laptop. The buzzwords were everywhere. Convergence. Disruption. Bleeding-edge.

My chest tightened. I had to change them all back into regular English words. And fast.

I looked back up. Daryl was now on his second slide, struggling to describe the real meaning behind the smoke and mirrors. Hopefully, his stumbling around would buy me enough time to update my content.

As I read each phrase, I had to decipher what it was trying to say. “Growth hacking?” What the hell did that mean? If only Randy’s AI tool worked in reverse. Then I could automatically translate everything back into ordinary words. I began deleting all the phrases I couldn’t immediately simplify.

Daryl was now on his third of four slides. I wiped the sweat off my brow as the CEO was walking him through his presentation like a patient kindergarten teacher prompting a timid student.

There wasn’t much left of my slides after expunging the extravagant language. I added a few phrases here and there to fill the void, covering only the most salient points.

Mr. Thomas eventually finished guiding Daryl through his own slides. The poor guy had fumbled his entire presentation and finally plopped into his chair. The other managers were respectfully silent, a far cry from their enthusiastic acknowledgments of last week’s Daryl-speak.

There were only five minutes left in the meeting when I took my place in front of the room. My presentation was so threadbare that I had consolidated all the information onto a single slide. It was concise and the distilled points only took me a couple of minutes to present. I spoke plainly in a conversational style. The hypnotic nods were gone, replaced by quiet attention around the table.

The CEO asked for my name and thanked me. “I’m sorry you didn’t get much time for your presentation, Felix,” he said. “But despite that, you did an excellent job summarizing your project status so succinctly.” He turned to address the room. “In fact, going forward, I don’t want any of you to spend so much effort making your slides so complicated—it’s not a good use of your time. I’d like you to limit future status updates to two minutes or less. If you need guidance on how to do that, I suggest you talk to Mr. Efficiency over here.” And he gave me a wink.

As we filed out of the room, I watched Daryl scurry down the hallway. Visibility was indeed important, but it wasn’t always a good thing.

* * *

I stopped by Randy’s desk and told him what had happened.

“I’m never going to use Daryl-speak again,” I said. “I’d be surprised if Daryl uses Daryl-speak again. At least with the senior leadership team.”

“But if Mr. Thomas hadn’t been there, it would have worked.”

He was right. It would have. And the managers would have eaten it all up. Reflecting on my deception left a sour taste in my mouth.

When I returned to my desk, I had received a Slack message from Mr. Thomas. ATS was forming a new executive communications committee, and he had invited me to take part. It was a chance to share my “excellent communication strategies” with executives across the company. It was the perfect opportunity to earn the visibility that I wanted.

I reflected on how fortunate I was that day. I couldn’t always control who would notice me and when, but from now on, I wanted to ensure that whenever someone looked at me, they’d see the real me.