What a box of Rice Krispies and a tasbih taught me about connection

There’s a story behind this photograph, and I probably need to tell it.

Last week I was running a taster session at KAPSARC in Riyadh on Communicating on the Global Stage. The main theme was connection, because I believe connection has never been more important and yet, bizarrely, most organisations – and most presentations – are incredibly bad at creating it.

The good news is that some of the solutions are remarkably simple. One of them is using a prop.

During Covid, I worked with the senior leadership team of a large UK retailer. The HR Director had a particular challenge: she needed to explain the extraordinary complexity of moving 30,000 shop staff in and out of stores across six different regions as government restrictions changed. And she had ten minutes to do it. On Teams.

So she appeared on camera with six bowls and two large boxes of Rice Krispies. There are roughly 30,000 Rice Krispies in two large boxes, so she poured them into the six bowls and explained: “Those are our 30,000 employees, and these are our six regions.”

Suddenly, 30,000 wasn't a number on a PowerPoint slide. It was 30,000 people.

She then started moving the Rice Krispies around as she explained the nightmare of one region closing while another reopened, and how, sometimes literally overnight, you had to tell thousands of people that they were either coming into work tomorrow or they weren't. Somehow you had to communicate all of this quickly and succinctly, while ensuring that people still felt empowered and purposeful rather than lost, distracted and frustrated.

A year later, I met the senior leadership team again and asked them which presentation they remembered. Unsurprisingly, it was the Rice Krispies one. But what was really interesting was that they didn't just remember the Rice Krispies; they could remember pretty much the whole presentation. That’s an extraordinary achievement from a ten-minute presentation a year earlier.

The Rice Krispies had created connection.

Fast forward to KAPSARC. Someone asked me about using props and, rather than explain it, I thought I’d demonstrate. I said, “Okay, somebody give me an object. Anything.”

A gentleman sitting at a table to my right handed me his tasbih – his prayer beads. They were beautiful: black beads with rather lovely decorative metalwork, and I suddenly found myself holding something that was clearly personal and special to him.

I was standing in Riyadh, in a room where perhaps 95% of the people were Muslim, holding an object connected to their faith and culture, and I felt incredibly moved. So I told them. I explained that simply by holding these beads, I suddenly felt more connected to the people in the room, and then pointed out that telling them how I felt was itself creating connection.

None of this was planned. It was completely off the top of my head, but it was a lovely moment and, for me at least, a powerful one.

So what can we learn about using props to create connection?

First, know what you're trying to explain. My overall theme was connection, so although the object I was given was completely random, I knew the idea I wanted to connect it to. The prop isn't the presentation; it's simply a way into the idea.

Second, use the power of random. Our brains love making creative leaps. Put up a stock photograph of some suspiciously attractive young business people looking delighted and tell me, “Everyone in our organisation is happier,” and frankly my brain has already gone home.

But show me an apple and say, “This apple tells you something rather interesting about how much happier people are here…” and I want to know why. Perhaps someone left it on your desk for no other reason than to say thank you – a bit like the old cliché of a schoolchild leaving an apple on the teacher's desk. There’s a leap to be made between the object and the meaning, and our neurons rather enjoy making that leap.

Third, use something real. A physical object has a quality that a photograph on a slide simply doesn't. You can hold it, turn it around, look at it, pass it to someone. It also forces you, as the presenter, to explain it. Here's a real thing. Why am I showing it to you? What does it mean? What has it got to do with what we're talking about?

And that explaining is, I think, what we're actually trying to do when we present. In fact, I'm increasingly convinced that “presenting” is the wrong word. We're not really trying to present at all. We're trying to explain.

And when we explain well, we create connection.

Which brings me back to the photograph. Without the story, it's just a slightly odd picture of a tasbih draped over my book. With the story, I hope it means something.

And perhaps that's the point.