Remember, PowerPoint is a tool ... YOU are the presentation!

For many of us, a “PowerPoint” presentation is an important element of everyday activities. Just this morning, I have been working on one presentation that I am going to use next week and editing another one that a direct report of mine is planning to use in an upcoming customer meeting. I freely admit that I probably use or interact with “PowerPoint” more often than any other program on my computer. It’s a helpful, and at times powerful, communication tool. The important thing that I want all of us to remember is the word “tool”. The presentation is too often thought about as the destination or the work-product for a meeting. In my experience, this is not only far from the truth; it can also be a dangerous mindset. To illustrate my point, I want to share a story from early in my career well before “PowerPoint” was created.

The situation was back in the mid-nineties, when I was Director of Marketing and involved in what seemed like a life of death “save the business” pitch. My boss at the time and I had been working on the “presentation of presentations” to wow the customers, tell our story, and ultimately convince the CEO of this customer to sign a new multi-year contract. During those days well before “PowerPoint”, we built our presentations and ultimately turned them into slides, which went into a round Kodak slide carousel. There was always a core fear that the “locking ring” would somehow become dislodged, so I got into the habit of hand numbering the slides once we had the presentation finalized. Even then I was a bit of a nut about presentations!

Well the presentation came together, the slides were finalized and numbered, the carousel was loaded and locked, and we headed west for the meeting in Denver. There were four of us attending from our side, my boss and I, our Division’s President, and the local National Account Executive in Denver. From our customer’s side the CEO and his entire executive team planning on attending. Four of us and about ten or eleven of them … perfect odds!

The day of the big pitch came and we all gathered in Denver. The local National Account Executive had two key roles that day: 1) to handle the logistics to and from the airport and, 2) to insure that there was a working slide projector for the meeting. We arrived on time and headed to the customer’s office, nervous but ready with the slide carousel in-hand. Upon arriving at the offices, were shown to a large conference room, with s slide projector, a screen and a few flip charts. We were all set to go!

A few minutes later the room was filled the customer’s executive team and in came the CEO. After introductions were made, we all sat down and I turned on the slide projector to begin the presentation. As the first slide clicked into place there was an audible “POP” and the slide projector went out. The bulb had blown!!! Our local National Account Executive was visibly shaken and asked sheepishly “you all do have a spare bulb, don’t you?” Everyone looked around and it was clear that there was no spare bulb to be had. We had a slide tray filled with eighty or so slides and no bulb in sight; what were we going to do? My boss and the Division President both turned beet red, embarrassed and unsure of what we were going to do nest and the CEO started to look at his watch. It was time for some quick thinking!

I got up and pulled the flip charts out of the corners and said to my boss, “Jeff, we know this story so well, we really don’t need the slides. Let’s just use the flip charts.” Thankfully he followed my lead and what followed was one of those memorable business moments. We did go back and forth, telling our story by sketching the key ideas out on the flip charts and by the end of the meeting the conference room was covered with charts full of our notes, diagrams, graphs, pictures, and any imagery that could help tell the story. Somewhat amazingly, the ad hoc approach actually facilitated conversation and by the end, the customer team was all engaged and the CEO was directing follow-up actions and asking certain folks from his team to take certain sets of flip charts and work on them independently. In the end, it was one of the most successful presentations of my career, certainly the most successful of any that started with blown bulb!

The message of this story, now fifteen or so years old, is to remember that regardless of the technology, the concepts, questions, ideas and proposals that might be captured in a presentation are all actually part of a story, your story! Regardless of the situation, regardless of the technology, regardless of a thousand variables that all might go wrong, remember that you are the presentation. You need to always be prepared to tell “your story”, regardless of whether you have a perfect conference room setting or whether the bulb has just blown!

The Mantra for a New Year!

Last week began in the same way as most "post holiday" weeks. I had enjoyed a very nice Christmas and New year's holiday with my family with just enough time away from work to feel re-energized and ready to dive back in! My first week back was tightly scheduled, with meetings planned in Bakersfield, Chicago, and Denver before returning to Atlanta. As soon as I hit the airport Monday morning, I had a sense that it was not going to be a "normal" week!

My flight to LA was on schedule but early that morning I started receiving messages from the folks in Bakersfield that there might be some impending travel challenges. My typical route has me flying to LAX, picking up a rental car, and driving the 115 miles to our offices in Bakersfield. The route is very direct, but requires going over the Tejon pass on I-5 (locally referred to as "The 5") which is just above 4000 feet in altitude. Typically the ride has tremendous views and it usually takes around 2 hours. Not so last monday! With unusually heavy rains in the LA basin, the mountains surrounding the city received significant snowfall, leading to the closing of the two primary routes into Bakersfield: the Tejon Pass and I-5 closed along with the Tehachapi pass on route 58. All of a sudden my simple little Monday drive became more than a bit complicated. Well, long story short and 6 1/2 hours later, I arrived in Bakersfield having taken the western route via the 101, through Santa Barbara and Santa Maria and then into Bakersfield on state route 166. Stunning views of the Ventura coast line and the mountains surrounding the Cuyama valley but what a ride!

On arriving into the office late that night the challenges only expanded. This ongoing inclement weather had lead to a variety of supply issues and the customer service concerns were starting to pile up. For the next few days, the work challenges and issues continued to mount as I headed back out of Bakersfield to lead a meeting in Chicago and then head off to Denver. I have to admit that I was feeling a bit "road weary" when I landed in Denver. The first week back from the holidays, three days into the week, and I was feeling like this? 2011 was starting with a vengeance! Well Thursday was a beautiful morning in Denver, lots of sun on the snowy Rockies. I was picked up early by an old friend who is starting to do some marketing work for us. We grabbed a quick coffee and headed to his nearby office. The office is very funky, lots of open space, great art, and a number of dogs roaming around. We set up our computers in a large conference room and got down to work.

After a few conference calls, i got up to stretch my legs and grab a glass of water. A very simple framed poster caught my eye and I went over to investigate. " Be Calm and Carry On", on a maroon background, topped by a crown (photo above). So eye catching, so simple, and so "on message" with how I was feeling. "Be Calm and Carry On", that was it, that's what I needed to do! I need to "Be Calm", manage my emotions, and not be too overwhelmed by the challenges in my way. The week had been a microcosm of travel, supply and customer challenges and rather than getting "cranked up" about things that were mostly out of my control, I needed to "be Calm!" Also when I'm not exactly sure what tpo do next, when it seems that every route of action open to me is blocked, I need to remind myself to "Carry On", keep moving forward towards the goal at hand. Quickly I thought of the closed mountain passes and the customer service challenges of the week and I said aloud, "Be Calm and Carry On." It might seem a bit cliche or overy simple, but immediately I started thinking and feeling a bit different about the challenges at hand. This reprint of a historic poster in a funky agency in Denver had hit home last thursday mroning!

The history of the poster follows, coming from an amazingly challenging time for Great Britain at the onset of World war II.




Keep Calm and Carry On was a poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, intended to raise the morale of the British public under the threat of impending invasion. It was little known and never used. The poster was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private sector companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of other products. There are only two known surviving examples of the poster in the public domain.[1]

The poster was third in a series of three. The previous two posters from the series, "Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory" (800,000 printed) and "Freedom is in Peril" (400,000 printed) were issued and used across the country for motivational purposes, as the Ministry of Information assumed that the events of the first weeks of the war would demoralise the population. Planning for the posters started in April 1939; by June designs were prepared, and by August 1939, they were on their way to the printers, to be placed up within 24 hours of the outbreak of war.




I am not a big believer of new year's resolutions, too many quickly forgotten aspirations for more exercise, more weight loss, fewer desserts, etc. but as I have thought about this inspirational motto, I have realized that it resonates as a theme or mantra for 2011. There will be challenges, possibly big ones in the year ahead. Whether at work, at home, or in other parts of our lives, there will always be challenges. The art of life seems to me not attempting to avoid them, but working on how to handle them once they arrive. As I head into the year, I will keep this simple idea, "Be Calm and Carry On" front and center as i face whatever may come. Take a moment for yourselves and see how this note of encouragement might be helpful as you face the challenges that will certainly come in 2011 and beyond.

Kuni's Chocolate Cake

Over the course of the essays on this blog, I have repeatedly written about my paternal grandmother, Lakie Pearl Hill Livesay, otherwise known as MaMa. The “Turkey Bag” story was candidly what inspired me to start writing this blog, inspiring me about the idea of leaving a “legacy.” Additionally I have shared the story about the “Tobacco Plug”, and last year I shared two of her recipes before Thanksgiving. Today, Christmas Eve 2010, I want to share some thoughts about my grandmother; but this essay is about my maternal grandmother, Kunigunda Lindemann Wark.

My grandmother, known affectionately to her friends as “Kuni” was a true New Yorker. Having been born in Manhattan in the early 1900’s, she lived her life in and around that magnificent city. Growing up in a small town in western Pennsylvania, our annual visits to New York were exotic. I remember fondly the rides on the subway, lunches at automats in Manhattan, and summer visits to Jones Beach. I still remember sleeping on my grandmother’s living room floor waiting to watch the lunar landing live on TV in the summer of 1969.

I have very fond memories of “Kuni,” my very proper German grandmother. The picture above shows her, my grandfather Wark and Aunt Lorraine standing behind my sister Alice and me many Christmases ago. I remember how my Grandmother was always so well dressed, was always so kind and gentle with us kids, and I remember her teaching us the card game “Crazy Eights” after dinner one warm summer night in New York. Simple and delicious memories of long ago!

One very clear memory is that my grandmother was a wonderful baker. There was always something sweet to enjoy in her kitchen during our visits. What follows is the recipe for “Kuni’s Chocolate Cake,” a simple and delicious small square cake that I have baked a number of times, always to rave reviews. Try it for yourself


kuni's recipe1



As I close this essay with very fond and sweet thoughts in mind, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Regardless of faith or tradition, the aspirations of hope, love, and “peace on earth, goodwill to all mankind” resonate as strongly today as they did thousands of years ago!

Merry Christmas!

Unexpected Inspiration on Concourse E

Monday morning is always a wild scene at the airport in Atlanta. Last week, my Monday flight was taking me to LA, and I was there in plenty of time for my 9:30 flight. After grabbing a coffee and a paper, I headed to gate A-10 to find out that my flight had been cancelled for mechanical reasons and that I had been moved to the next flight at 11am. After the wave of frustration passed, I realized that I had an extra hour or so to spend at the airport…how to spend that time????

My first inclination was to find an outlet, crank up my computer, and start working on one of a number of items that were on my short list for the week. For some unknown reason, an idea came to mind that I could use this extra window of time for a bit of exercise. Leaving the A concourse, I decided to walk out to Concourse E and back, a distance of more than a mile probably taking me somewhere between 30-45 minutes. Off I went with roller-bag and briefcase in tow!

As I made my way to the far end of the airport, it hit me that I could grab a water on concourse E, then head back on my walk, so I went up the escalators with hydration on my mind. At the top of the escalators is an exhibit of MLK jr., a little treasure in the airport that I had totally forgotten. The first exhibit case held a gray suit which Dr. King wore on a visit to see President Johnson when they discussed the voting rights act. A little further along, I was surprised to see a pair of glasses and a Timex watch both everyday items for an extraordinary man. The last display contained two gold medals and upon closer scrutiny, I realized that one of them was the Nobel Peace Prize that Dr. King was awarded in the winter of 1964. I was amazed! For many years I have been very inspired by Dr. King’s acceptance speech from that event and over the past ten years I have shared that speech with hundreds of work associates, friends, and colleagues. Here in the airport that I travel from/through every week is the actual medal awarded to Dr. King, connected to the speech that continues to resonate for me on some universal themes: the “isness and oughtness” of mankind, and that we are not merely “flotsam and jetsam” of history.

As I came around the corner of the display, I was surprised to find a small interfaith chapel tucked behind the exhibit. I took a moment to sit down, pause for a moment of reflection (remember the essay "PBR") and I looked up that speech, once again freshly inspired.
You can find it at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance.html.
Take a moment a read it for yourself. I am confident that you will find some inspiring thoughts that will affect your day/week and maybe your life.

Totally forgetting about my water, I gathered my things and left the chapel to head back to concourse A. When I returned to gate A-10, I had taken a bit more than an hour for my “little adventure.” An hour that could have been filled by emails, work calls, and other “pressing” issues instead was filled by a walk, a medal, and an unexpected moment of inspiration.

The Tyranny of the Urgent ... 5% for #2!

Over my career I have often been faced with situations where there was just too much on the plate at any one time. This reality of operating at or over personal capacity is pervasive in today’s economic reality when we all feel the need to maximize our professional impact in order to improve often lackluster business trends. When one combines this economic pressure with full personal lives including significant spouse/partner relationships, active growing children, aging and possibly ailing parents, etc., the “over capacity” reality is unfortunately common and pervasive.

While I often dream of a simpler, less frenetic lifestyle, I have come to terms with the reality that for the next number of years, my life will probably become more busy/full/hectic, not less. With that sobering assumption in mind, I wanted to share a simple model that I have found helpful in attempting to prioritize a “over capacity“life.

The chart above is a simple tool that I have often used to sort/prioritize the many professional and personal priorities that I try to juggle every day. The X-axis captures the element of” urgency”, ranging from high to low, the Y-axis captures the element of ‘importance”, again ranging from high to low. Use this graph to plot the many priorities that you are facing and push yourself to array your priorities broadly across the chart…not every priority is urgent and important!

Once you have taken a stab at the chart, pause for a moment (“PBR” once again) and take a look at the quadrants. Priorities in quadrants 1 and 4 should be pretty straight forward. Quadrant 1 items should get first priority on the daily to do list. They should be resourced well and you should be keeping an eye on them being executed well. Additionally, it is important that the quadrant 1 items are being accomplished and “checked” off the list. Lingering quadrant 1 priorities are dangerous, possibly leading to missing key deadlines.

Quadrant 4 should be equally straightforward. Push yourself to try to “prune” the quadrant 4 list! If a priority is neither urgent nor important, does it have to stay on the list? There are certainly instances where priorities that start in quadrant 4 “migrate over time into quadrant 1 so I am not suggesting that you eliminate all of these priorities. I am encouraging you to take a moment for some critical self assessment and try to eliminate as many of quadrant 4 initiatives as possible.

The real complexity of this model candidly does not lie in these previous two quadrants. The challenge that I have faced is how to handle quadrants 2 and 3. In the “over capacity” reality that I mentioned above, it is natural/common/typical to focus on the most urgent items first. At times it can feel that every day’s (every week’s/every months?) to-do lists are solely trying to handle quadrants 1 & 3. This dynamic has been coined “the tyranny of the urgent.” My experience has lead me to believe that this dynamic, “the tyranny of the urgent”, is a dangerous habit to get into. I believe this orientation is not only bad for business; it can be bad for your team and ultimately bad for yourself.

Bad for business: The danger of forgetting about priorities in quadrant 2 is that while you’re busily handling the pressing needs of the moment, important initiatives for the business are being neglected. We need to remember that the time marches on in business and before you know it will be next month, next quarter, next year, etc. If we don’t focus development time on items that WILL be important and urgent in the coming months, quarters.

Bad for your team: One of the items most often forgotten in this “tyranny of the urgent” world is taking time to connect and coach with your tem. We all need to remember that we are not the only ones who are operating in “over capacity” mode. Mt experience is that our team members are often in the same or worse situation. Finding the time to reach out and check in with your team NOT about some pressing item, but to see how they are doing and how we as leaders can help is an important activity that is rarely urgent.

Bad for self: Finally, my experience has lead me to realize that quadrants #1 and #3 rarely contain work on one’s own skills. Building skills is a vital and very important priority in all of our careers and it is too easy to always de-prioritize it because it is rarely urgent. Take a moment and read the essay titled “Execute, Excel, and Build Skills”. It is our individual responsibilities to continually build our skills, whether we are starting our careers or like me, 25+ years into a career that is still growing and challenging.

Finally, I want to suggest an easy to remember idea, “5% for #2!” If we can take just 5% of our time, ½ and hour a day or 2-3 hours per week, and force e ourselves to work on quadrant #2, I believe we can make real progress on this issue of the “tyranny of the urgent.” While I dream of a time when I can be engulfed by the “tyranny of the important,” taking a first step toward “5% for #2” needs to be the immediate action to possibly make that aspiration a reality!

Stay Loose Until Rigor Counts

“Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Thich Nhat Hanh



Over my career, I have had the chance to work closely with a wide variety of characters. The individuals have run the gamut across CEOs, colleagues, customers, consultants, subordinates…all in all, “workmates.” What’s important to note is that in my experience, there has been no correlation between title/level and wisdom. As I think about it, the individuals who I learned the most from and who inspired me the most haven’t been the CEOs. Don’t get me wrong, I have had the chance to work with some very inspiring senior leaders, some of whom have been CEOs of major companies. Unfortunately, the opposite has been equally true. On the whole though, I have had the fortune to broadly work with a marvelous, collaborative and inspiring set of “workmates,” a truth that I hope continues long into the future!

One specific individual has been on my mind, as I recently was reminded of a lesson I started to learn (still a work in progress on this specific area) in the early days of my career. This individual was a senior partner and founder of a prominent consulting firm that was doing a lot of work in the company and division where I was working at the time. Across numerous meetings, planning sessions, and one-on-one encounters, I would often hear him say “Levisay, stay loose until rigor counts.” He was pushing my thinking and my actions, wanting me to NOT jump to conclusions too quickly but to really WORK the problem/opportunity at hand. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether he was critiquing the depth of my thinking, the speed of my work, or whether there was some other issue. Today more than fifteen years later, his words continue to ring in my ears.

This past summer I was involved in a very challenging customer situation. We were working hard to try to finalize a new contract with a customer and the process went beyond all the established timetables. Every time we hit a deadline, the customer would extend discussions, add new requirements, change decision makers, etc. It was at one of those frustrating moments when the words “stay loose until rigor counts” emerged from my distant memory. While we were all feeling a great deal of frustration through the process, I kept trying to “stay loose” knowing that in a week, or maybe a month or so, we would actually get to the end of the contract discussions and we would need to be ready to act and close the deal. And indeed, months after the original deadline, the contract was finalized with a lot of “rigor” required in the last hours, ending in a solid successful outcome for the customer and our company!

Recently I discussed this idea with my current boss, and he used a phrase that connected for him which was to “stay open, stay wide” in situations like this. In today’s business reality, we are all maxed out multi-taskers, driven to achieve challenging goals and hopefully working to build our individual and collective skills in the process. (See the essay, Execute, Build Skills, and Excel.) The challenge for all of us is to find ways to “stay loose/stay open/stay wide” to the dynamic situations that we face every day. Whenever we feel the need to “force” a situation, we need to try to slow down long enough to ask whether the moment at hand is one to drive to action, or might it be smarter to “stay loose” and allow the situation to advance. I am not saying at all that we shouldn’t be action oriented or that we should not be focused on driving to closure. My encouragement is to find a balance that will allow and encourage deep thinking and reflection as situations develop and give us the chance to execute with excellence when the moment arrives!

The lessons of youth

After a recent week on the road, it was a delight to have a fairly open weekend to spend with my family, puttering around and running errands, cooking some meals with my kids, enjoying a dinner or two with my dear wife Jennie, all in all just enjoying being a family. In the midst of this pretty run-of-the-mill weekend I had an experience with my daughter Marie that I just have to share.

Marie is our ten-year-old daughter, bright, talented, energetic, and quite a force around our house. She has a strong personality and knows what she does or doesn’t want to do. That Friday afternoon, one of Marie’s friends came home from school with her for a playdate and a sleepover. This friend is a very sweet girl and we were all looking forward to her visit. As the schedule came together, Jen had to be with Bryson at an event that night, so I had the girls. After Marie’s dance class, we all piled into my car and headed out to dinner. While the restaurant was humming at 7pm on a Friday evening, we were seated quickly and Marie and her friend were completely on their game, ordering clearly, asking for calamari as a starter (very grown up).

After a dinner of pasta and ice cream, we returned home for a quiet evening. The next morning, the three of us went out for a bike ride in our neighborhood to try out Marie’s new bike. She recently turned 10, and received a new bike with hand brakes and gears – a big step up! She was nervous at first, but with taking it slow, and good encouragement from her friend and me, Marie took to the new bike quickly. We rode around our neighborhood for a little while and headed home to get Marie’s friend on her way for a morning soccer game.

Later that same Saturday afternoon, Marie asked me if we could go out for another bike ride, certainly a bit out of the usual to ride bike twice a day, but with a little nod from Jennie, I said sure. For the second time that day, we headed out, rode around our neighborhood and headed into a large neighboring park. This park is centrally located in Atlanta and has extensive walking/running/biking paths on scenic grounds with amazing views of the mid-town skyline. As we rode around, with Marie doing great on her new bike, the feeling that I wasn’t biking solely with my daughter blew me away, I was biking with a friend! As we headed home, Marie commented that while it was unusual, it was a good thing that we got a lot of exercise this day. She told me about the fact that it she had seen that it was the “Worldwide Day of Play” on Nickelodeon, and that instead of watching TV, we needed to be outside “playing.” Here I was, a 49 year old, getting a focused lesson from my media savvy, 10 year old daughter. What an absolute treat!

I share this story as just another example that life can (and should!) be lived as a continuous learning experience. The day we stop learning and gaining new experiences is the day we stop living! As I reflect over the essays and stories in this blog, one central theme should come through… that being that we all can learn a lot from a wide variety of moments, experiences, and situations if we only pay enough attention! Whether a walk by the Des Moines River in Iowa, or the Columbia River in eastern Washington, there were learning moments. Whether a sunrise on the coast of Florida, a chance encounter in the Customs Hall at Heathrow Airport, or an unplanned bike rides with my marvelous daughter, there were all learning moments. My encouragement is to stay open and available with your time, attention and focus, allowing learning moments to find you, wherever your path through the journey of life might take!