They don’t teach you this in business school. But they’ll still give you an “A” for it.
The textbook teaches you how to draft a presentation. It doesn’t teach you how to deliver it. Here’s what happened in real life:
The MBA course focused on communications. It wasn’t a marketing course; it was a corporate governance course. The professor assigned a final project requiring us to form teams, with each team offering their presentation to the class.
We had a week to complete the presentation. It was the week I was away attending my company’s annual strategic planning meeting. I couldn’t help craft the presentation. This was OK. I was the only one on the team willing to give the presentation. I’d be back in time for that, but not back in time to rehearse.
One of my teammates didn’t like that. She was nervous about the grade. The other teammates apparently trusted me and let me go in front of the class.
I gave the performance you’d expect from a former AM disc jockey. It mentioned all the facts, but it was animated, entertaining, and completely different from what the class expected. My nervous teammate fumed.
The professor gave us an “A.”
Here’s the funny thing. I may have hit it out of the park in front of the large group, but if the Continue Reading “Are You A Promoter Or A Closer?”
The British–Iroquois Alliance and the Fractured Confederacy
Portrait of Samuel Kirkland by Augustus Rockwell
Internal disputes weren’t limited to the Green Mountains on the Province of New York’s eastern edge. But what unfolded there would pale in comparison to what was about to erupt on the western frontier.
Here, in the wild, untamed forests, far beyond the reach of authority, conflict took on a different character. Courts gave way to violence. Diplomacy gave way to force. Far from the centers of power, restraint disappeared. Local actors dictated events, and alliances, long maintained, began to crack.
The conflict did not simply reach the frontier. It entered the Confederacy itself.
Once inside, it would tear it apart.
Samuel Kirkland became that inside man. Ironically, long-time British Superintendent of Indian Continue Reading “The British–Iroquois Alliance and the Fractured Confederacy”