The Minto Pyramid Principle

ESSAY 2
Master Classes are the epitome of bridging the gap between theory and practice at Columbia Business School. (View link below) Please provide an example from your own life in which practical experience taught you more than theory alone. (Recommended 500 word limit)

I think I know all the tricks and tips for tennis serving – adopt my position, bring the racket back into the throwing position and shift my weight, toss, and reach up to hit the ball. However, without extensive training, I cannot serve.
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The Minto Pyramid Principle is the communication Bible^[a] for consultants^[b]. Just as Kurt Lewin^[c], the founder of social psychology, puts it “there is nothing so useful as a good theory”.

My first practice of the Pyramid Principle came outside of the consulting^[d]. Because of my accomplishments^[e] during university^[f], I was invited to go back to my Alma Mater ^[g]to share my university experience and give some guidance to freshman and sophomores in the school after my graduation. Given the constant travel and long hours in consulting, I treasured every single opportunity to contribute back to the student community.^[h] I spent quite some time preparing the themes and the recommendations for the young, with logic reasoning behind, just as the Pyramid Principle suggested.^[i]

When I arrived at the hall, the more than 200 young faces impressed me. However, though the organizer still commented my presentation as a success, my presentation did not impress them. I did not get full attention from my audience, and the interaction with them was not as smooth as I thought.^[j]

The experience taught me something not mentioned in the Pyramid theory – above all the absolute imperatives of a success speech, I need to adapt the message and format of any presentation to its audience, and to identify and address the potential sources of conflict ^[k]up front. I did not realize that my experience created a big gap between my audience and me. With this gap, the audience could hardly have any resonance with me, and would regard the seasoning and recommendation as a boring lecture. I watched through the video tape of the event for improvement, and found when I told some small stories, the audience had much better responses. ^[l]

During the past 2 years, I traveled back to my Alma Mater quite many times for organizing and participating in different events, as the recruiting ambassador of McKinsey, as a alumnus of my school on admission information session for freshmen, and as a elder sister to share experience and to coach the juniors. In my recent presentation^[m], I shared 4 stories of my consulting^[n] projects, illustrating how I applied what I learnt from the school to my daily work in each story. Not surprisingly, the presentation was a big success^[o].