We’ve all been to presentations that make you feel like you’re being Punk’d. Maybe someone meanders for 30 minutes without a deck in sight—or worse, someone crams 300 words onto a slide and speeds past the main point.

Don’t give everyone secondhand presentation anxiety: Here are five questions you can ask to take your slides to the next level.

How many words are on my slide? We can sometimes rely too heavily on text to get our point across. It depends on your audience, but try to limit yourself to 10 words per slide, then let your speech do the rest.

Is there text that could be turned into a visual? Replacing clunky bullet points with simple diagrams helps your audience retain more info.

Are there any “visual cliches” in the slide? Unless you’re a Gen Z TikTokker making fun of corporate America, avoid a clip-art bull’s-eye target, bull & bear icons, or a handshake in front of a globe.

Are the data visualizations clear? If you’ve got them in your slide, make sure the key figures are shown clearly. Viewers probably won’t have time to analyze every data point in a chart, so make it easy for them to remember a takeaway.

Can my audience get the gist in <5 seconds? The more time they spend trying to figure out what’s going on in a slide, the less time they’ll spend listening to you.

Dive deeper: The HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations is a great resource for how to present different types of information.—KL

Last week, Pixar’s latest film, Elemental, became available on streaming platforms after falling flatter than a bouncy desk lamp at the box office earlier this summer. While Elemental’s opening weekend was the worst in Pixar’s history, since then the movie has slowly gained traction and hit $400 million in ticket sales earlier this month.

Pixar has gotten a lot of heat in the past few years by failing to come up with the next Toy Story good-cry plotline. So it’s high time the company emphasizes one of the basic elements of its success—namely, the “Braintrust.”

• Essentially, the Braintrust is (1) a screening of a draft of an upcoming Pixar movie and then (2) a meeting of writers, directors, etc., who spill their thoughts to the director in charge.

But there’s a fine line between giving constructive group feedback and roasting someone. Being radically candid in a group setting is often as precarious as a port-o-potty on a slope: If you’re not careful, you could be facing a real sh*tstorm. So here’s how to best use the Braintrust framework to help you pressure test an idea at work:

Separation of idea and state. As Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull puts it, “You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when challenged.” This mindset helps remove some of the emotional baggage that comes with your idea being poked and prodded in public.

Remove authority. One thing that really sets the Braintrust apart is that the directors receiving feedback don’t actually need to follow anybody’s prescriptive advice. After the meeting ends, they get to address feedback in the way that feels right to their storyline.

Ready and able. For any of this to work, everyone needs to be willing to receive (sometimes harsh) feedback, meaning we all need to understand the benefits of being challenged for the sake of the larger project.

• So make sure you’ve set up a solid foundation of psychological safety and buy-in before you start blowing up someone’s pitch deck.

Braintrusts are powerful tools to improve the iterative process with grace—and save everyone’s feelings. We’re not saying you need to drum up the next Ratatouille, but consider a scenario or project on your own team where you could set up a Braintrust.

Timestamp: Friday @ 4:55pm

Subject: What’s the status on this deliverable? Thx.

Just because your boss motivated you with scary emails and weekend work doesn’t mean you have to do the same to get the most out of your team.

• Instead, drive results by fostering a sense of belonging, encouraging ownership, and coaching the hell out of your team.

Bonus: A high-performing team is a cheat code for your own career growth while ALSO making your job easier. But you’ve got to put in the work up front.

Building High-Performance Teams is the Brew’s one-week virtual course on all things hiring, coaching, and yes, firing. It starts this Monday, August 28—you don’t want to miss out.

Reserve your spot today.

What’s the best way to get “Baby Shark” out of your head after a family weekend at the beach? Fight fire with fire, and let a company slogan take the wheel.

See if you can identify these five companies based on their catchphrases.

• Quality never goes out of style
• We have the meats
• Stronger than grease
• Makes quitting suck less
• Belong anywhere

Read: You get a promo, and you get a promo. Take a page out of the corporate playbook and have a household CFO and COO.

Listen: The business of making garbage useful.

Dress to impress: How do the suits on Suits stack up?

Two ships passing: Here’s the scoop on fall weather and pumpkin-spice release dates.

Shop: Even though it still feels like “pit stains on the subway” weather, annual reviews are rapidly approaching. Set yourself up for success to boost your salary with the Brew’s Get a Raise toolkit. Bonus: Raise readers get 30% off for the next 48 hours by using code GETARAISE.