As a young Infantry Captain I was impressed with the support company commander when he briefed how many gallons of fuel they delivered, how much ammunition and pallets of stuff they issued. The numbers sounded great; I just wasn’t sure who got the gas and ammo and what they did with it.
Recently, while preparing for an engagement, a colleague of mine was gathering information, “in case we need it.” Even though we knew we wouldn’t need it.
When a commander asks for a slide showing the number of soccer balls distributed in X country (high numbers in green, low numbers in red), soccer balls quickly litter the countryside…likely detached from what we are hoping to achieve overall.
Staffs produce slides that don’t get used or even read. Commanders set and meet metrics. As good military professionals, often we churn.
I’m lucky to work with well trained and educated, self-motivated and high-performing people. Sometimes we go out our best efforts in the wrong places.
We churn, we create work or worse we drive our organizations toward metrics that are misaligned with our culture and overall end-state.
The single, only way to get around this is to start with why. First determine what you want to achieve, then build actions and metrics around it. As a communicator, coach your commander into clearly stating his end-state, why we are taking action and what we are trying to achieve.
Drive your organization to communicate about effects, not efforts. Don’t waste time by counting soccer balls.
Photo by Senior Airman Joshua Kleinholz
