Here’s a hard truth: your fellow staff leaders aren’t sure the PAO can have a lasting impact. Maybe communication initiatives are too hard to coordinate, or maybe no one wants to fund them, or maybe they’ll get overcome by events.
Create and sustain urgency to get past these roadblocks.
Example: A higher headquarters PAO once asked me for help on a mission-focused task for their commander. I stupidly asked how urgent the request was … of course, the answer was “four-star urgency.”
The PAO was creating, not receiving, the task’s conditions. Either I could do it then, or he’d find someone else at the cost of my own credibility. No waiting.
Stephen Covey fans are familiar with the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, which distinguishes urgent and important tasks. In doing so, remember both adjectives can be self-prescribed. PAOs are leaders, and leaders don’t wait for someone else to tell them when something matters. Instead, we use our brains.
Five rules to drive urgency:
- Effects over efforts. The intended outcome can be urgently connected to your organization’s urgent mission. Articulate a clear effect, so the efforts will be deliberate.
- Set a plan of action, and milestones. Urgency is implied, so plan backwards from when you want to see effects. Drive your own timeline to include face-to-face discussions, instead of waiting for weekly staff meetings. Work is an all-day IPR*, too.
- Add next steps on the Board of Woe. Don’t go home until it’s done.
- Widen the net to speed up the cycle. Most projects, but especially communication ones, can get stuck in endless review cycles. Each review may make the project marginally better … but loses urgency. Give groups only one review, then escalate the next draft to the next level. Better yet…
- Go final. You’re a savvy, ops-focused PAO who knows the organization’s needs and priorities. When you can, help your leaders understand and anticipate your projects so the final draft contains no surprises – and no need for review.
(Photo by Sgc. Adeline Witherspoon, DVIDS)
