I was shopping with a friend at a dusty, downtown shop full of home décor. They had dozens of hand painted signs with clever sayings and famous quotes. As a lover of words, I heard many of them before. But one caught my attention. It simply said, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” I’m a sucker for a quick turn of phrase or a reworking of a cliché. And I thought, how true. What a great way to reframe losing as learning. After all, a loss is a lesson. The sign reminded me how important it is to chose the words of your message with the knowledge that they can evoke very different emotions. And those emotions can lead to very different outcomes.
So today, we’re going to talk about the concept of framing and how it can make a big difference in your presentations.
So What is Framing?
Framing is the way in which your words can lead your audience members to focus on different elements of the problem or topic. For example, say your company was battling to win the business of a major client. In the end, you came in a second to a competitor. You can frame your presentation by saying you lost out on a huge opportunity or you can say that you came very close to securing a huge client. Both are true. But one focuses attention on what your company did wrong and the other focuses attention on what your company did right. This points to something Daniel Kahneman explores in his popular book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Which is “the fact that logically equivalent statements [may] evoke different reactions.” In other words, the truth can be presented in different ways.
2 Ways to Use Framing in Your Presentation
1. Reduce the burden on your audience.
Most people will always opt for the easiest path. This knowledge of human tendencies can dramatically affect how you frame your message. For example, Kahneman explores organ donation rates of neighboring European countries. He wanted to figure out why “the rate of organ donation was close to 100% in Austria but only 12% in Germany, 86% in Sweden but only 4% in Demark.” He says it’s a matter of framing. Austria and Sweden are both “opt-out” countries. In other words, it is assumed that everyone will be an organ donor unless you choose to opt out. Germany and Denmark on the other hand are opt-in countries. If you want to be an organ donor, you must check the box to opt in.
When you are giving presentations, consider what the easiest path is for your audience and how that aligns with your goals. Say you have the email addresses of your presentation attendees. You want to send out some information following the presentation. You’ll reach more audience members if you ask those who aren’t interested to opt-out rather than asking those who are interested to opt in.
2. Recognize patterns of risk.
The Association for Psychological Science says that “people tend to be risk averse when the problem is presented in terms of gains, but risk tolerant when it is presented in terms of losses.” Let me rephrase that. People are less likely to take a risk when they might gain something. However, they are more likely to take a risk when reminded of what they might lose if they don’t.
This means that you might be more effective if you remind people what they could lose rather than focusing on what they could gain. This is tied loosely to fear-based persuasion. When handled correctly, fear-based persuasion can be incredibly effective. Kim Witte and Mike Allen of the University of Wisconsin researched whether fear appeals really work. They found that “fear appeals appear to be effective when they depict a significant and relevant threat (to increase perceptions of severity and susceptibility) and when they outline effective responses that appear easy to accomplish (to increase perceptions of response efficacy and self-efficacy).” So if you have a presentation in which you are asking audience members to take a risk, point to what they might lose if they don’t act.
Framing isn’t about lying or manipulation. It’s just about how you phrase the truth. Remember that humans will almost always take the easy path. And they will probably avoid risk unless they think they might stand to lose something. This knowledge will help you to frame your presentation in a way that leads to greater success.
We base our presentation advice on solid, scientific research. Want to learn more about how to create a winning presentation?
