Focus Your Presentation on Solutions, Not Challenges

No one enjoys delivering challenging messages. Unfortunately, at some point, many of us find ourselves needing to present less-than-desirable information or describe ominous obstacles to progress. Perhaps your business or organization is experiencing tough times, a current course of action isn't working, or you simply need to address the perils in your path.

Whatever the reason, communicators of bad news are prone to a common mistake: Rather than trying to inspire their team with solutions, they overemphasize obstacles in a way that severely diminishes the message’s purpose and intended impact, leaving the audience feeling overwhelmed and disengaged.

A speech with this misplaced priority might be constructed like this:

1. The challenge
2. Challenge consequence #1
3. Challenge consequence #2
4. Challenge consequence #3
5. What we’re doing to solve the challenge
6. What the audience can do to support the solution

This framework is problematic because rather than focusing on ways to solve a problem (the primary purpose of leadership communication), it dwells on obstacles standing in the way of that solution. In the aforementioned structure, over half of the presentation is spent describing the challenge before it even starts proposing ways to address it.

The problem of burying solutions under challenges arose when I was counseling a client, Robert, who developed innovative ways to improve the quality of public schools in under-resourced communities. His presentations led with data on severe gaps in educational achievement, enormous challenges in attracting talented teachers, public safety concerns, and the devastating consequences of economic inequality and food insecurity. By the time he finished this bleak report, he was halfway through the entire speech.

While these elements established the need for his solution, he focused on them for far too long, weakening the impact of his most valuable takeaway: the breakthrough ideas.

Flip Obstacles Into Opportunities

So how do you balance challenges and solutions in a presentation? By turning obstacles into opportunities. Replace the first presentation structure with this one:

1. The challenge
2. What we’re doing to solve the challenge
3. How the solution overcomes challenge consequence #1
4. How the solution overcomes challenge consequence #2
5. How the solution overcomes challenge consequence #3
6. What the audience can do to support the solution

In this structure, the most important takeaway—a solution—is mentioned early and is consistently referenced throughout the speech. Each assertion of “how this is bad” is flipped into “how we’re making this bad thing better.”

In Robert’s case, we revised the speech to convey the challenge much more briefly and quickly transition to how reimagining school leadership and community involvement can increase economic parity and food security.

Notice the adjustment of the challenge-focused phrases “economic inequality” and “food insecurity” into the more optimistic conditions of “economic parity” and “food security” enabled by the solution. It’s the same information, reprioritized and restructured to direct the audience, not depress them.

Other examples of flipped messaging:

• Replacing “The carbonated beverage marketplace is saturated with soda brands” with “How our brand stands out in a crowded beverage marketplace.”
• Replacing “Government funding for cancer research is at an all-time low” with “We’re supplementing historically low government funding with other sources of financial support.”
• Replacing “Climate change will eventually destroy the planet” with “Our climate change awareness campaign can help save the planet.”
  
  

Send the Right Message

I frequently see challenges overemphasized not only in a presentation's content but also in its topics and titles. It’s better to flip the narrative. For example, the following topics and titles could easily switch from negative to positive, from gloomy to galvanizing.

Gloomy:

• The tragedy of animal homelessness
• The flaws in our juvenile justice system
• The devastating cultural consequences of the pandemic

Galvanizing:

• How innovative shelter programs give homeless animals second chances
• How modern rehabilitation programs are reforming our juvenile justice system
• How to undo the cultural consequences of the pandemic

These titles are more inspiring and inviting because they’re hopeful—and expressions of hope and optimism attract audiences more effectively than expressions of despair and doom. For example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington did not focus primarily on pervasive prejudice and discrimination but on his hope and encouragement for equal opportunity. U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address didn’t stop with the admonishment, “Ask not what your country can do for you,” but forcefully encouraged civil service and responsibility: “Ask what you can do for your country.” Each spoke predominantly—and memorably—of hope, correction, and solution.

Apply the “Hope Hack”

The word “hope” comes up often when leaders talk about solutions that aren’t fully proven yet. To incorporate the word in a message effectively, it should be used as a noun, not a verb.

Used as a noun, “hope” has baked-in optimism (“This milestone gives me hope.”), whereas hope as a verb is merely a desire with limited faith in the outcome (“I hope this situation improves.”). It’s the difference between pointing the way (projecting leadership, confidence, and vision) and crossing your fingers (conveying fear and admitting that the situation is beyond your control).

Extra Benefits for Leaders

Being a problem solver versus a problem describer is particularly beneficial for leaders, because it sustains your team’s morale, reinforces their sense of purpose, and elevates your own reputation as someone they can trust to steer the ship, not just marvel at the water.

Remember: The more time you spend on a point, the better it will be remembered.

The more optimistic your point, the more it will inspire.

The more your point recommends a solution, the more likely an audience will want to embrace it.

By staying in solution mode, whether you are presenting or talking about your presentation, you’re going beyond delivering information and education—you’re encouraging your audience to do the most and be the best they can be.

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