Gene Zelazny - The Say It With Charts Complete Toolkit

Copyright 2001, 1996, 1991, 1985 by Gene Zelazny, and from Say It With Charts Workbook by Gene Zelazny, copyright 2005 by Gene Zelazny. Compilation and new material copyright 2007 by Gene Zelazny. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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To Ken Haemer

If we define originality as undiscovered plagiarism, then this book is original. Much of the credit for the ideas presented in this book belongs to the late Kenneth W. Haemer (formerly Manager, Presentation Research, AT&T). Over the years Ken was both mentor and friend. Thank you, Ken. I miss you.

If Ken made me think, then McKinsey & Company, Inc., provided me with a home to apply and advance my ideas. And so, let me also thank the hundreds of professional consultants I work with at McKinsey. Its a privilege and a pleasure.

Last, many, many thanks to all of you who have assisted in making this book a reality.

Introduction
SAY IT WITH CHARTS

Section I
CHOOSING CHARTS

Section II
USING CHARTS

Section III
SAY IT WITH CONCEPTS AND METAPHORS

Section IV
PLAY IT WITH CHARTS

What do you mean, what does it mean?

Its 9:00 a.m. on the third Tuesday of the month, time for the monthly meeting of the Steering Committee. To set the rest of the days proceedings in perspective, the committee chairman has asked a bright, fast-rising managerlets call him Frankto prepare a brief presentation on the state of the industry in which we compete and our companys performance as a stepping-stone for new investment opportunities.

Intent on doing a good job, Frank has done much research, worked on his story line, and prepared a series of visual aids to help him say it with charts. Like most of us, Frank realizes that charts are an important form of language. Theyre important because, when well conceived and designed, they help us communicate more quickly and more clearly than we would if we left the data in tabular form.

When charts arent well conceived or designed, as were about to see in Franks examples, they serve more to confuse than to clarify. Lets sit with the audience and listen to Franks presentation as we comment, quietly, on the effectiveness of his visuals.

Frank begins: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My purpose is to present a brief overview of our industry and our companys performance. My objective is to gain your support for expanding into developing countries. Ive designed a few visual aids to better place my findings in perspective.

First, let me point out that we compete in a healthy industry. As you can clearly see from this exhibit, for the 11 measures of performance shown across the top and the three types of companies within the industry listed down the side, performance is excellent.

And there you sit in the audience, wondering whether your eyesight is failing, as you try in vain to read the numbers.

Frank continues: Within the industry, our performance has been outstanding. For instance, our sales have grown, considerably since 2000, in spite of the decline in 2002, which, as you know, was the result of the strike.

Oops, you whisper, did I just miss something? I could swear I heard Frank say that sales have grown considerably, but what I see is a series of pie charts that show our major products share increasing. Oh! Wait a minute. I see! Hes referring to the figures underneath each pie .