Financial analysts clamoring for transparency from GE Capital got exactly what they wanted. On March 19, GE Capital CEO, Michael Neal, joined 15 other GE executives to ease Wall Street’s concerns about the stability of its financial division with a detailed 5-hour, 176-slide extravaganza.
Under normal conditions, this would most certainly qualify as “Death by PowerPoint.” But just as I was ready to tear apart yet another poor presentation, I received an email that completely changed my mind. It was written by an analyst who attended the presentation. Even though his butt has become glued to the chair by the end of the session, the information was exactly what he wanted to hear. “Investors were clamoring for this level of transparency,” he said. “GE was like, ‘you want details? ‘We’ll give you the g-d details!'” According this analyst, “I was grateful that GE Capital at least lifted the veil a little.”
In most cases, a 5-hour, 176-slide presentation and deck would literally suck the life- energy from your audience and most likely end your career (Nancy Duarte calls it “career suislide”). The GE case is unique, however, because the audience requested the enormous level of detail and expected it.
Neal and 15 executives spent 5 hours restoring confidence in the financial community.
“We wanted to know every level of detail,” one analyst told me. “Heck, we wanted to know how cap rate projections under the Fed’s adverse case scenario would impact sales of left handed monkey wrenches on the south side of the street in Indiana’s central time zone during a rainy day.” That last sentence was delivered with tongue firmly in check, but you get the idea. No amount of detail would completely satisfy these analysts, so GE had to pull out all the stops if they hoped to restore confidence in the financial community.
This is one case-and one case only- where 176 detailed slides actually made sense.