The 'Water Cooler Test'

Early in my career, I sat through a presentation addressing the important topic of workplace health and safety. One of my veteran colleagues, perhaps knowing something I didn’t, skipped out on the session. Later that afternoon I ran into her at the water cooler and she asked me what she missed. I replied, “A lot of data,” but beyond that general impression I couldn’t remember much.

This could certainly be an indict of my mental acuity, but research suggests my experience is pretty typical. Shown a presentation consisting of 20 slides with each slide containing a single core message, an audience could only recall 4 messages after 2 days.[1] That’s a retention rate of 20%.

That’s scary.

That’s equivalent to your boss walking out when you are one-fifth of the way through your presentation or your client falling asleep 6 minutes into your 30-minute project update.

Ultimately, if your audience doesn’t remember what you said, it’s the same as if they never attended your presentation in the first place.

Given the fragility of human memory, you need to design your presentations to pass the “Water Cooler Test.”

In the above example, the presenter would have passed the water cooler test if I had been able to easily provide my colleague with the main points of the presentation when she asked about them a few hours later. In essence, the water cooler test is about shaping what your audience remembers from your presentation.

Here are four tips to help ensure all your presentations pass this critical test.

1.Know your takeaways.

Your audience will have no chance to remember your main points if you don’t know your main points.

Start planning a presentation by identifying your exact takeaway messages—those very specific things your audience must hear and remember for your presentation to be successful. If you have more than 4 of these main points, whittle down your list—people simply won’t remember more than 4.

2. Assign each takeaway a short, memorable headline.

At the water cooler, your audience is going to have a hard time reciting, “Analytical and empirical data indicate that our most recent customer campaign was well received.” It’s too long, too analytical, and too abstract. It’s also devoid of an emotional connection.

A memorable substitute is, “Customers loved our campaign!”

3. Don’t bury the lead.

Your headline for each takeaway is your lead. Don’t bury it as a conclusion to a drawn-out explanation of the data. Instead, present the headline first and then present the supporting information. It’s a simple, but important switch.

4. Make it visual.

Whether you use actual images in your slide deck or simply paint “word pictures” in your presentation, giving your audience vivid scenarios to envision dramatically increases the likelihood they remember your takeaways.

If you want to learn more about painting memorable word pictures, see our earlier Soundbite on the subject, here. This idea is also closely related to the power of strategic storytelling which we wrote about here.

In all, it’s disconcerting to think that our audiences only remember a scant amount of what we say. But the sooner we acknowledge that reality, the sooner we can start designing presentations where we control what they will remember.

[1] The Results are In: How Much Do People Really Remember from PowerPoint Presentations?