Can They See What I'm Saying? (The Star Moment)
Make ideas visible — through a diagram, a drawn napkin, or one unforgettable star moment — so the whole room aligns on the same picture.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
A verbal narrative alone underperforms; audiences understand and align far better when they can see what you're describing. This means using diagrams to show spatial relationships (is it inside, outside, attached to, above?), co-creating a drawing so everyone leaves with the identical picture, and engineering one 'star moment' — a dramatic data point, evocative story, or beautiful image — the audience will always remember.
Origin
One of Nancy Duarte's three core presentation tips ('can they see what I'm saying'), drawn from her work at Duarte Inc. helping tech companies visualize complex products and architectures.
Core principles
- 01A verbal narrative accompanied by a visual is understood; a verbal narrative alone is not.
- 02Leaders often see the whole picture in their mind's eye but serve up only a few mosaic tiles to the audience.
- 03Alignment requires everyone seeing the exact same steps, in the same order, so nobody leaves with a question in their mind.
- 04Sometimes the most powerful visual is no slide at all — words that paint the picture, with 100% focus on the speaker.
How to run it
- 1
Diagram the spatial relationships
When describing a product or system, show whether things are inside, outside, attached to, on, or above each other. Especially for architecture slides or how something flows through a complex system, a diagram accompanying the narrative makes it comprehensible.
- 2
Co-create the picture live
When alignment is missing, stand up and draw what you heard: 'I want to draw for you what I see — was that your intent?' Then let the room build the graphic together so everyone sees the same steps and insights in the same order.
Pro tip When there's no slide support — a dinner table, a meeting — pull out a napkin or walk to the whiteboard and draw so you can both see it.
- 3
Engineer a star moment
Include one thing the audience will always remember — a piece of dramatic data with big numbers, an evocative story, or a beautiful picture.
- 4
Bring the leader's mind's-eye picture 'to earth'
If you (or the presenter you're coaching) see a whole scene clearly, translate it into explicit steps — 'here's the seven steps to get to this amazing outcome' — rather than assuming the audience sees the full mosaic.
Pro tip Watch a speaker's hand motions — they often reveal a clear mental picture that hasn't been drawn yet; capture it as a diagram.
In the wild
A powerful CEO moved her arms in distinct ways describing a program no one could articulate. Duarte said 'I can tell you have a picture in your mind's eye,' walked up and drew it; the CEO said 'exactly.' The graphic then had to reach 100,000 retail workers.
→ Once people could see what she was saying, the stalled program 'had all the breakthroughs that needed to happen.'
A regional head planned to petition the CEO for $100M using five slides on a shared screen. Duarte's team instead built a simple mental model he could hold in his head and told him to draw three moments on a whiteboard, keeping eye contact and passion instead of hiding behind a computer.
→ He called back: 'I got 100 million bucks.'
Common mistakes
Relying on a verbal narrative alone for complex ideas
Without a picture, spatial or architectural relationships don't land and the audience can't follow how something flows through a system — 'if you only had a verbal narrative it wouldn't work as well.'
Putting technology between you and a high-stakes audience
Sitting side by side staring at a computer in a moment that needs passion and eye contact — like a huge budget ask — kills the human connection; drawing live in front of them keeps it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Presenters explaining complex products, architectures, or strategies who need a room to align on one shared picture.
Not ideal for
Moments where you deliberately want zero visuals so the audience is 100% focused on your words and presence (e.g., a King-style rhetorical speech).
From the transcript
“can they see what I'm saying would be what would be written on the note”
“you can use something in your talk that gives people something they'll always remember we call that a star moment and it could be a…”
“the concept of a diagram like when when you describe your product that you're working on is this thing inside of it outside of it…”
“that's where you pull out the napkin and you draw it so you could both see it”
“I see the final beautiful picture but I've only served up a you know a little tiny mosaic tile”
From the episode
Storytelling with Nancy Duarte: How to craft compelling presentations and tell a story that sticks