Powerpoint Smart Quotes

As we’ve seen, one of the most frequently pursued paths for achievement-minded college seniors is to spend several years advancing professionally and getting trained and paid by an investment bank, consulting firm, or law firm. Then, the thought process goes, they can set out to do something else with some exposure and experience under their belts. People are generally not making lifelong commitments to the field in their own minds. They’re “getting some skills” and making some connections before figuring out what they really want to do. I subscribed to a version of this mind-set when I graduated from Brown. In my case, I went to law school thinking I’d practice for a few years (and pay down my law school debt) before lining up another opportunity. It’s clear why this is such an attractive approach. There are some immensely constructive things about spending several years in professional services after graduating from college. Professional service firms are designed to train large groups of recruits annually, and they do so very successfully. After even just a year or two in a high-level bank or consulting firm, you emerge with a set of skills that can be applied in other contexts (financial modeling in Excel if you’re a financial analyst, PowerPoint and data organization and presentation if you’re a consultant, and editing and issue spotting if you’re a lawyer). This is very appealing to most any recent graduate who may not yet feel equipped with practical skills coming right out of college. Even more than the professional skill you gain, if you spend time at a bank, consultancy, or law firm, you will become excellent at producing world-class work. Every model, report, presentation, or contract needs to be sophisticated, well done, and error free, in large part because that’s one of the core value propositions of your organization. The people above you will push you to become more rigorous and disciplined, and your work product will improve across the board as a result. You’ll get used to dressing professionally, preparing for meetings, speaking appropriately, showing up on time, writing official correspondence, and so forth. You will be able to speak the corporate language. You’ll become accustomed to working very long hours doing detail-intensive work. These attributes are transferable to and helpful in many other contexts.

My internship—landed with the help of a fraternity connection—was at Deloitte, a management consulting firm where smart senior people give clients advice and junior people, who have no idea what they’re trying to do, make PowerPoint presentations, run Excel models, and pretend they’re not frauds. It was my first real job in the business world, and I loved it.

Paper and digital prototypes, PowerPoint mockups, personas, filmed user testimonials, and 3D printed objects can be used to build excitement, communicate vision, and share understanding.

Even when they are successful in tapping into a more diverse set of knowledge flows, companies tend to concentrate on flows involving transfers of existing knowledge rather than creation of new knowledge. I read your white paper. You show me your well-polished and tightly scripted PowerPoint presentation. We certainly gain value from exchanging this knowledge. But we are able to create even more value if we can bring people together across different companies to engage in deep problem solving around a performance challenge so that they are creating new knowledge. Now we are not simply accessing knowledge that already exists, but driving performance to new levels that could not be achieved without distinctive new knowledge.

Many of us believe that we need to appeal to people’s rational minds to gain their support for our projects and goals. Just explain the merits of the case using logic and data, and others will rise up in support. And so we present rational arguments in lengthy emails and PowerPoint presentations in an effort to convince. And if we can’t snare people’s attention with one email, well, we just send another one, and another one. If they don’t “get it,” we hammer our argument even harder. We fall once again into the “do-more” paradigm of work, drowning people in an all-too-familiar avalanche of emails, slides, texts, reports, and data. Communicating more of the same when people aren’t listening or accepting our message doesn’t seem like a smart way to work.

Other groups joke about “leadershit,” “being waterboarded by PowerPoint,” “jargon monoxide,” “fad surfing,” “rule freaks,” “death by meeting,” “malicious compliance to stupid rules,” and putting customers in “roach motels” (making it easy to sign up for a subscription or service, difficult or impossible to end).

I swear we could get more done if half of Congress wasn’t incompetent and the other half bought.” “Well, certainly on one side of the aisle,” George agreed. “Hmmph. I’m pretty sure that’s both sides of the aisle, George,” the President responded. “Maybe there are fewer idiots on our side, but that just makes the whole thing that much sadder. Those guys are smart enough, and they’re using it for personal political ambition.” “Makes you wonder how you got in,” George said as he pulled up his PowerPoint presentation to review with the President. There wasn’t much on it, just a few code phrases that reminded George what he wanted to speak about and in what order. He could have used notecards, but that made him seem antiquated. One almost useless laptop later, he seemed up to speed on technology. Hurrah for him! “No, I got in because those who knew better thought they could manipulate me.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t too stupid to recognize that. I was just smart enough to make sure my eagerness hid any rejections of their requests until I got the job. Then they found out they could kiss my ass,” the President said.