3 keys to creating content that connects
One of the most popular classes at Columbia Business School in Manhattan seems a little different than the traditional MBA curriculum. Other courses teach the science of management, through analytical tools and techniques. But “Napoleon’s Glance: The Art of Strategic Intuition” teaches the art, through strategic intuition. Says its course description: This course offers a key skill for strategy, leadership, and decision-making in business, your career, and your personal life. Hundreds of students bid for just a few dozen spots each spring, eager to take part in a class that many say has “changed their life”.
A class that changes lives. This is the kind of consistent positive feedback Professor William Duggan hears every year. It’s not uncommon for Duggan to receive countless emails, calls, and visits from students who describe how their thinking, choices, and worldview have changed as a result of his teaching. Some have changed jobs or entire careers. Many return each semester to guest-lecture. Ask for a recommendation for a can’t-miss class, and Duggan’s is always at the top of the list.
Though this is a popular class, it’s largely untraditional by business school standards. There are no balance sheets or board decks. This catches many students off guard. He charts the typical learning journey of the majority of his students from skeptical or even resistant, to inspired and on-board. He knows that the pull of strong word-of-mouth and opt-in enrollment doesn't automatically create engagement. Duggan needs to lead his students there. So he does.
Framing: To get buy in
Class number one begins with testimonials. Duggan holds a printed sheet of paper in one hand and reads aloud verbatim feedback from previous students. Much of it acknowledges their early skepticism and resistance and its slow fade to the background. He names the skepticism and uncomfortableness before his new students can. And, he makes it real and perfectly okay. Where’s the finance lesson? Will this get me a great job offer? What will be different after our time together? He knows his students have questions and they want answers.
This feedback isn’t to make Duggan look good or boost his ego. Instead, it signals to his new students that people just like them have sat in seats just like theirs and felt just as they do. They hear a promise from people like them, not the professor, that it gets better. The printed paper is proof. Duggan gives them a worthy preview that works. Students are pulled in through curiosity, not by Duggan’s push.
Duggan knows his class material is somewhat controversial. It goes against what many of his students had been taught or thought about subjects like leadership, innovation, and strategy. In this way, it pushes many out of their analytical and logical comfort zone into one of intuition and feeling. Duggan’s framing makes it clear he isn’t trying to change anyone’s mind or convince them to adopt his point of view. Learning is personal, and he understands that. Instead, he slowly guides them from A to B, from one way of thinking to another, one lecture at a time.
This class requires his student’s participation. But not just raising hands. He asks for more. Because it challenges his students' minds and hearts, he needs their introspection and reflection too. To encourage this ownership, Duggan gives them responsibility and a role to play. Instead of printouts of his PowerPoint slides, his students receive what he calls “expert” handouts with real examples worthy of their high status.
Space: To help other absorb the material
Each week’s homework requires a bit of reading - that part is not unique. But the reflection is. Students are asked to send him a weekly note in response to what they’re learning and how it’s landing on them. This gives each student the space for personalization.
Whereas the first class began with feedback, future ones feature these weekly notes. Sometimes he asks for volunteers though often he reads snippets of weekly notes that stood out to him. This small gesture helps students feel that they were listened to and that their responses and work mattered. There is an air of anticipation of who will be picked like a magician at a magic show roaming the crowd to choose a volunteer. These gestures show an audience they matter.
He reaches in much more. “This has probably happened to you”, Duggan says at key moments with an emphasis on the word, ‘you’. “You can probably relate”. Though the stories he’s telling are about others, Duggan is a master at helping people feel that he’s talking directly about them. He leans on leading questions and the Socratic method to lead people to a conclusion while also convincing themselves of its truth. “Why is Walmart so successful?”, he wonders. Walmart must be successful, his students then assume. Duggan compares this tactic to a similar one used by children's television hero Mr. Rogers. “Shall we go to the toy room?”, Rogers often asked to gently lead people from A to B.
Duggan’s use of framing is an exercise in rhetoric and a reminder that even in a traditional lecture course, it’s how you deliver the material in the moment and not just the material itself that matters. Over the course of many years with this material, Duggan has accepted that he cannot depend or hide behind slides alone. He views it as his responsibility to connect the material with his students' needs. He knows it’s up to him to pull and personalize.
Though he leans on pull, this doesn’t mean that Duggan doesn’t push. Each semester he receives a fair amount of complaints. Students audibly resist at points. But, he has seen enough patterns of behavior to expect how and when the material will push up on people a little bit. Their responses signal discomfort - a good sign for learning and lasting change. He knows meaningful change hardly takes place without it.
Structure: To lead us somewhere
The class is structured into 3 chunks: business, military, and then art. A few lectures on each. Business is his students' primary language so that comes first. These early lectures offer something familiar and facts that few can argue with. Meeting his students where they are is one way he earns their trust.
Military follows, then lessons from art. Facts first, then feelings follow. But only once he’s earned the right. The class is three acts, like a movie. It’s a slowly built narrative balanced with equal parts logic and emotion at just the right times, each lecture asking for a bit more from his students.
Narrative structure is also expertly used not just in the framing of the class but in individual lectures. Each week students follow the hero’s journey of famous businesswomen and men, military leaders, and cultural icons who have mastered the art of strategic intuition. Their stories are meant to inspire students to learn this skill - but Duggan is careful to never make their stories feel out of reach or unattainable.
Instead of sharing fairy tales, Duggan makes the examples relatable and real. In doing so he leaves space for the audience to be a big part of the narrative. The stories provide a glimpse into his students' futures and a reminder they are the protagonists in their own story.
Students aren’t only the protagonist. They are the heroes. Zoomed out, the entire semester formed one big narrative and an opportunity to show his students the true learning wasn’t about Napoleon or even other leaders. It was always about them.
Duggan admits his role as an educator isn’t to share facts or tell a tale but to help his students see just this: they are the hero in their own story. Duggan carefully crafted a sequence of steps where his students would be encouraged and motivated to keep reaching. One class after the other. Every choice Duggan makes leads up to this realization. In doing so he skillfully partnered with them to help his students come to their most important realizations themselves.
We can study and learn from the quests, obstacles, successes, and failures of others and their stories. But none will be as powerful as putting ourselves and those we help in the driver’s seat of their own journey. Duggan knows: The more we can help others see and feel that they are the hero, the better-equipped others will be to share more powerful stories and have the confidence to go after the challenges and opportunities they need for each chapter of their lives.
Lindsey Caplan is a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist who helps HR & business leaders create experiences that boost motivation, engagement, and performance