Kapp Notes: Want a Better Army? Eliminate PowerPoint

Monday, September 20, 2010

Want a Better Army? Eliminate PowerPoint

Recently, the Army started the first in a series of monthly sessions/discussions about what it doesn’t do well or could do better. The process is being called Unified Quest. After the series of meeting which will last until April, recommendations will be made to General George Casey. He is the the chief of staff, for internal reform on everything from combat maneuvering to homeland defense to cyberwar.

Want Smart Leadership? No More PowerPoint. If this year’s Unified Quest is any indication, PowerPoint hater H.R. McMaster, a one-star general serving in Afghanistan, is going to go from slideshow dissident to prophet in a few short years. Several participants derided the Army’s over-reliance on PowerPoint openly. One recounted stories of briefings in tactical-operations centers where otherwise intelligent officers simply read PowerPoint slides out loud — even as the slides were visible on an overhead projector.

Another observed: “That’s not the way our school system is oriented” in civilian life, making it difficult for young soldiers and officers, who are used to learning in a collaborative or social environment, to ingest information through rote absorption of slides.

No one quite articulated a vision of what comes after PowerPoint. (Keynote, maybe?) And some bemoaned “Death by PowerPoint” even as they projected their own PowerPoint slides. But it only takes a few well-placed cracks in a wall to send it crashing down. There may not be many more Lawrence Sellins — the officer who became an internet celebrity for his anti-PowerPoint rant — in the Army’s future.