如今电子通信工具已将人类彻底包围。德勤一项研究显示，美国员工（合计）一天低头看手机的次数近80亿次，研究发现自从智能手机诞生，美国的劳动生产率一直在下降。但商业世界需要将人们聚在一起分享信息，传递观点，让人们为同一个目标努力。还有什么更理想的方式么？

我要介绍一种更经典，但很少有人重视的解决方案：演讲。演讲之所以让人印象不佳，是因为大多数演讲都很糟。好的演讲要花很多时间准备：须仔细研究，理顺思路，还要字斟句酌，仔细挑选图片，还要安排好转场效果。然而，如果准备得当，演讲的效果比其他传播工具都要好（其实很不容易，因为现在传播工具很多）。演讲能强有力地表达观点，陈述很有说服力，而且不用把碎片化的信息甩向听众，或是抛出海量信息把听众绕晕。

20世纪70年代，我参加了高中辩论队，一起研究了认知失调的概念，后来我根据研究结果做了几千场演讲和启发式谈话。核心观点其实很简单：如果想让一群人接受你的观点，首先要描述一个听众面临的很困难或很痛苦的情况，有可能他们还没意识到，又或者他们认为问题会一直存在。不管什么情况，你得让他们脑子里只剩下两个矛盾的点：要么就是他们接受你的观点，要么就是固守原有观点。两者的冲突导致的不适感越发强烈，他们感觉改变势在必行。这时，你就可以提出对问题的解释，然后提出你的解决方案，将不适感一扫而空，只留下和谐。

不管你是在员工会议上介绍新战略，还是向客户推销产品，抑或跟团队讨论问题，这种方法都很适用。这些场合里，你都要努力推销自己的想法，希望听众接受，或是劝人们改变观点或采取某种行动。正如演讲专家南希·杜阿尔特指出的，你其实是在编一个故事，先设定困难，提出解决方案，告诉观众该做什么，然后告诉他们最后情况会如何改善。

我混迹商界多年遇到的最好的老师是IBM一位技术大师，他培训员工时就采用了这套方法。他讲了很多跟客户的故事，很多难搞定的挑战。每个故事里他都先设定困难，描述惨状（例如对方如何推诿搪塞），然后详细解释客户如何经历种种磨难也找不到毛病在哪。随后他就像大侦探夏洛克·福尔摩斯一样，抽丝剥茧找出核心问题，“啊哈”，轻松解决。在他的演讲中，我们学习了如何解决问题，理解了构建原理，当然也更接受了IBM的产品。他的培训课简直就是演讲圈里大师级别的。

一旦了解了这个方法，你会发现其应用广泛，TED演讲，重要讲话，教育视频、博客、文章，几乎所有说服性交流场合里都存在。与Twitter上“即时”碎片信息不一样，跟邮件也不同，演讲提供了充足的时间解释清楚，而且通过声音、表情和肢体动作让人相信应该按演讲人说的做。

你还可以在展示中加入很多漂亮的图片和图表抓住人们的注意力，但不能只在视觉上下功夫，真正重要的是强有力的观点和扣人心弦的好故事。我可能会觉得你用了很多美图，但如果不能告诉我接下来该做什么，或是我能从中学到什么，很可能在我印象里你就是做了个“挺好的演讲”，但不会有什么实际行动。

说到底，精心准备的演讲能让人集中精力，真正努力。如今各种各样的工具都在让人精神涣散，效率大受影响，注意力才是人们迫切需要的。

英文原文

It’s no secret that our digital communication tools are overwhelming us. A Deloitte study found that U.S. workers (in aggregate) look at their phones almost 8 billion times a day, and research shows that U.S. productivity has waned since the introduction of the smartphone. But the world of business needs a way to bring people together to share information and explain ideas, and to get them to reach for the same goals. So what’s the happy medium we’re looking for?

I’m going to suggest a classic, underappreciated solution: presentations. They often get a bad rap because they’re often badly made. A good one takes many hours to build: It requires research and clarity of thinking, and great care must be given to word choice, image selection, and flow. Yet when we do that important work, presentations can help us do something more effectively than almost any other communication tool at our disposal (which is saying a lot, because there are many). They enable us to make a compelling, persuasive argument — without overwhelming people with disjointed messages or a fire hose of information.

When I was on the high school debate team in the 1970s, we studied the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance, and I’ve since used it to create thousands of speeches and inspirational talks. The idea behind it is very simple: If you want a group of people to adopt your point of view, start by describing some difficult or painful issue they’re faced with. Maybe it’s a problem they didn’t realize they had, or maybe it’s something they recognize as an ongoing challenge. Either way, you’re forcing them to hold two contradictory things in their minds at once: either what they already believe and what you’re telling them, or what they know and how they behave. That dissonance ratchets up their discomfort, which makes them want to fix it. From there, you move to your explanation of the problem, and then to your proposed solution, which will replace the dissonance with harmony.

That basic formula can work effectively whether you’re articulating a new strategy at a staff meeting, pitching a product to a customer, or bringing up an issue for discussion with your team. In all these situations, you are trying to explain your idea, sell it to the audience, and ask people to change their views or take some sort of action. As presentation expert Nancy Duarte has pointed out, you are essentially creating a story, one that sets up a problem, suggests a solution, tells the audience what they should do, and describes how they’ll be better off as a result.

One of the very best teachers I ever had in business, a technical guru at IBM, used this approach in his training sessions with employees. He told lots of stories about customers and the daunting challenges they faced. In each story he would set up the problem, describe the painful symptoms (slow response time, for example), and explain all the gyrations the customer went through to figure out what was wrong. Then, like Sherlock Holmes, he would tell us how to diagnose the real issue and — “aha!” — fix it. We learned all about problem solving, architecture, and, of course, IBM’s products. His training sessions were master classes in the art of presenting.

Once you understand this approach, you can see it applied in TED talks, keynote speeches, instructional videos, blogs, articles, and almost every other form of persuasive communication out there. Unlike the “instant on” communication in Twitter, or even email, presentations give you time and room to make your case and — with help from your voice, face, and gestures — convince people that they should respond to your call to action.

You can also layer on lots of beautiful pictures and graphics to grab people’s attention, but visual candy does not substitute for a strong argument and a compelling story. I may find your images engaging, but if they don’t tell me what to do or what I must learn, I may just remember your talk as a “good presentation,” and never take any action as a result.

Above all, a well-crafted presentation gets people to focus their attention and their efforts. And focus is something we all desperately need when so many other tools are distracting us instead of making us more productive.

乔西·贝新（Josh Bersin）| 文  

*本文转载《哈佛商业评论》