You can change your organization.
Like anything good, command information requires you to take risk. Take it.
We’ve been lucky enough to be a part of organizational change, multiple times in different organizations. Here is how it can go:
Step 1 – Get your command team on message: Your commander and senior enlisted advisor likely have a schtick. They likely talk about a direction they want to take the organization; a way they want the organization to be an act. If they don’t have their talking points aligned, help them. Be bold and ask, “Sir, as a commander, what’s your schtick?”
Step 2 – Double down on the message: Figure out whatever medium you have and start emphasizing your command’s message. We’ve done this in a few ways – articles featuring individuals or groups that exhibit the message, unit YouTube videos, old school newsletter.
My esteemed partner and I started an old school, hard copy newsletter in one of our organizations. Every Friday we distributed them throughout the organizations shitters. No shit, we put them in the shitters. Each Monday unit members came in and read about people exhibiting the command team’s intentions. I remember a woman coming up to us with the newsletter in her hand with tears in her eyes because she was so touched by the example. She became a believer that Monday morning in the bathroom.
At another place, I couldn’t distribute the message via hard copy due to classification. I sent a weekly email, no design, no pictures just a weekly email describing unit members exhibiting the message. It was a sweet success.
Facebook posts, YouTube videos, tweets, announcements, command emails whatever…double down on the message.
Step 3- Destroy anything that degrades the message: You might have to break some rules. I walk softly around my place and carry a big stick. Sometimes I carry a drill. We literally rip down, take down, dismantle anything that doesn’t support the command’s message. This is really fun. If we hear someone say something publicly that doesn’t coincide with the message, we teach them. We take control of every screen, every sign, anything that has a message on it.
Guidelines:
Your permission is the command message. Stay aligned with the message and never seek additional approval.
Just do it. No need to announce what you’re doing before you do it. It’s a lot easier to stall a train that hasn’t left yet than to stop a speeding train.
Do it well. Don’t let the message be distracted by your shitty work.
In this case, you don’t speak for the command, you cite the command’s speech. Don’t let yourself get caught acting like you’re the commander, you’re just conveying what the command said and wants.
Now go and do likewise.
