When you get this mastered, you will know how to win the war in Afghanistan.
Glad we got that worked out. Well, not quite. General Stanley McChrystal, who heads up the Western forces in Afghanistan, wryly remarked when confronted with this stellar PowerPoint briefing slide: "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war".
An article in the MailOnline exposes how the US army marches no longer on its stomach, but on PowerPoint.
PowerPoint has become public enemy number one for many US officers who find themselves battling slide presentations rather than insurgents. Some have gone as far as to declare all-out war on the software after the military command was over-run with mind-numbing 30-slide presentations. General James N. Mattis, the Joint Forces Commander, isn't taking any prisoners in his approach. "PowerPoint makes us stupid," he growled at a military conference in North Carolina.
Brigadier General H.R. McMaster went one step further and banned the presentation package when he led an offensive in Tal Afar, Iraq, in 2005. "It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control," he told the New York Times. "Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable."
There is growing concern about the insidious spread of PowerPoint which has come to dominate the lives of many junior officers. Dubbed the PowerPoint Rangers, they spend hours slaving away on slides to illustrate every Afghan scenario. Lieutenant Sam Nuxoll, a platoon leader posted in Iraq, told military website Company Command how he spent most of his time making PowerPoint presentations. "I have to make a storyboard complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens," he added. "Conduct a key leader engagement? Make a storyboard. Award a microgrant? Make a storyboard."
General McChrystal views two PowerPoint presentations a day in Kabul with three more during the course of each week.
We hazard a guess that most middle and senior managers in large corporations are similarly enslaved and dominated by PowerPoint-itus. Bullet-point presentations have become a "Hollywood" substitute for sharp thinking and effective action.
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