It’s cliché these days to say, “we don’t like slides.” Or to quote Mattis, “PowerPoint makes us stupid.”
I don’t know that it has any direct impact on one’s intellect. PowerPoint — specifically, the idea that slides should drive a conversation — can destroy an organization’s culture. Slides deny flexibility and prevent productive communication. Putting a concept in a “chart” locks it in time, immemorial. Leaders build leaders through human interaction; truly communicating with teammates to gain understanding and enable action requires a two-way discussion. The whiteboard is a catalyst for these discussions, to drive organizational success. I have a boss who actually enforces the no-PowerPoint rule, here’s why:
Warfighting is dynamic. Ever-changing. Success requires constant flexibility, adaptiveness and creativity. PowerPoint is none of these, even if you add colors and animation. Meanwhile, a whiteboard discussion is all of these. Mission command requires subordinate leaders to understand concepts, and in turn convey these concepts to subordinates to enable aligned action. A discussion on a whiteboard will get you closer to this than any paper slide or document.
The principles below guide the way I expect our team to communicate, build understanding and enable action.
Change. Plans only survive first contact. In our world, “contact” is constant and incorporates the security, political and information landscapes. When the plan changes (as it should, constantly) will you readjust the PowerPoint slides over and again? Restart the shift in the salt mine to get the workers to adjust? “Oops, the plan changed yet again.” Time for another PowerPoint? It’s impossible to keep up via PowerPoint if you are conducting military operations as you should. On a white board, we adjust on the fly in front of a room of engaged teammates. Wipe it clean with an eraser or sleeve, to change the plan, flex the blobs and adjust to the next thing.
Understanding. The white board mentality lends to our organization’s culture. I’ve seen this time and time again, in tactical units and strategic headquarters alike. A blank white board invites participation, creating space for creativity and discussion. It forces leaders to talk and subordinates to ask questions … and vice versa. When the staff creates PowerPoint, sends it via e-mail then holds a formal meeting about it, the conversation dies. When the conversation dies, understanding dies with it. Subordinate leaders may not be able to create the same exact white board the big boss did … which is exactly the point. We don’t want him or her to exactly mimic the commander, we want them to “get” the intent and relevant nuances. Leaders must describe the concept in their own words to their audiences. When we start discussions on a white board, our team members understand and internalize the concept.
Focus. None of us are in leadership positions because of our graphics design skills. “Beveled or not? I’m not certain what weight line we should use for this item, because I don’t want the importance to outweigh this item.” These terrible conversations about our slides’ design and style are endless; and more importantly, useless. It’s a distraction when we attempt to “describe” a concept in PowerPoint through the use of glowed-edge text boxes and double-sided arrows, 1.2-weight outline. Instead of focusing on the content of the concept, we inappropriately focus on the graphic depiction. There are not special effects on a whiteboard; you may have a couple color options, but you are otherwise free to focus on what matters: the actual material.
Culture. PowerPoint builders become PowerPoint consumers. Somewhere, there is a sad place where a bunch of lieutenants and captains are toiling away on the next PowerPoint deck. In this sad place, these future leaders are missing out on learning, understanding, and engaging. Their bosses give them feedback in slides’ design, not the operation’s concept. These young men and women grow up to be leaders who, instead of grabbing for a map, grab for the same slides they were trained to value. Instead of communicating from their hearts, like human beings should, they cling to pre-planned bullets, listed in the perfect font on a crappy slide. Our junior leaders will not be shaped by such experiences. A white board culture encourages mission command, learning and real human interaction: a culture to succeed today.
Easier said than done? Sure. Will we attempt to build slides to discuss why we shouldn’t use slides? No doubt. But the revolution starts here.
Photo by Spc. Jason Nolte
