Did everyone’s high school cross country coach only communicate through loud catch phrases, or just mine?
Hill practices were the most devastating. Drenched in sweat and caked in dust from our town’s dirt roads, we’d end up on half-mile-long inclines with nowhere to hide. And we couldn’t just turn around at the top of the hill and catch our breath jogging down … one by one, we’d hit the top of the hill, “shift” into a traditional sprint and “go” for another minute or so along a plateau. The exercise here was to tap into the different muscles that either powered us up the hill, and those for driving along a straightaway.
“Shift and go” became a common mantra, to the point of absurdity – so of course it’s on my mind nearly 20 years later. What else is on my mind? Communication. Let’s bring it all together.
Learning to be PAOs at DINFOS, our teachers taught us the value of “bridging” into a command messages after answering a reporter’s question. We were even given a list of 33 “bridging statements” excerpted from V.T. Covello’s Keeping Your Head in a Crisis: Responding to Communication Challenges Posed by Bio-terrorism and Emerging Diseases (yikes). Actual samples from the list include:
- “And what’s most important to know is…”
- “However, what is more important to look at is…”
- “And the one thing that is important to remember is…”
- “While … is important, it is also important to remember…”
Is this the best we can do? When you’re in the throughs of an engagement, answering hard questions, you can’t taper off just when you reach the top of the hill. Your organization’s message, why, and passion deserves much more than a clunky whimper about empty values and priorities.
Answer questions as best you can, and then shift into what you’re truly excited to talk about: protecting America and the role your organization plays toward that purpose. Don’t look for a bridge to take you into your command message; find a slingshot.
Get excited. Get mad. Own it.
Shift and go.
(Photo by Master Sgt. Matt Hecht, DVIDS)
