Bhagavad-gita 1.27

When the son of Kunti, Arjuna, saw all these different grades of friends and relatives, he became overwhelmed with compassion and spoke thus.

Here we hear about the first characteristic of a leader – compassion. The dictionary defines compassion as “Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.”

The moral authority of a leader and the moral imperative of their vision derives from this quality in their character. Leaders are problem solvers. They identify a problem and seek to solve it. The problem that they seek to solve involves relieving the suffering of others.

Guy Kawasaki, former technical evangelist for Apple and venture capitalist, recommends the 10/20/30 rule for Powerpoint presentations pitching a company for venture capital (a form of vision casting). Basically the rule states that there should be 10 slides, the presentation should go for 20 minutes, and should use 30 point fonts.

The 10 slides are the following:

1.Problem
2.Solution
3.Business Model
4.Underlying Magic
5.Marketing and Sales
6.Competition
7.Team
8.Projections
9.Status and Timeline
10.Summary and Call to Action

The presentation begins with identifying the problem. Sometimes a presentation fails to identify the problem that is being addressed. A vision of a solution looking for a problem will be ineffective in motivating the people, in this case venture capitalists. The first thing they need to hear is: “What is the pain that your product or service will relieve?”

Arjuna is here mentioned as the son of Kunti. Women are generally more compassionate in their nature than men, so it is fitting that Arjuna is referred to as the son of his mother in this regard.