“Hey, look mister, we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast. And we don’t need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.”
– Nick, It’s a Wonderful Life
Public Affairs Officers: lots of the Army expects you to be a bit eccentric. And they don’t think it’s adorable.
We’re already the “creative” folks on the staff. We hang out on social media, talk about perceptions and feelings, and care about things like branding and aesthetics. Some of us even shoot photos.
Our Public Affairs jobs automatically increase our “special” ranking among the staff. Particularly at the brigade level in garrison, where there’s little strategic or crisis communications to do, it’s easy to come across as the fun and artistic outsider. Meanwhile, the staff is crunching on training calendars or jumping TOC at JRTC.
If you’ve got a big personality, work hard to buy down the ways in which you stand out. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of alienating yourself from the commander and her staff, who are too busy focusing on mission for your atmosphere.
Operationalize your team. Your commander has a mission and priorities. Align your Public Affairs actions. Sure, you could pull the “special” card and argue “Public Affairs just doesn’t work that way. We’re here to tell the story!” Might be fun for your creative folks, but ultimately, you’ll lose relevance and miss an opportunity to do meaningful work.
Manage quirks. Are you the PAO who wears funny shirts, takes a bunch of selfies, or tweets about yourself all the time? What do you need all this attention for? More importantly, why aren’t you shining a spotlight on your organization and soldiers, rather than yourself? Bring your personality, but apply it with purpose toward your mission.
Do the normal stuff. As a deployed BCT PAO, I joined the S3, S2 and few others on Monday nights to watch the VTC of our higher headquarters’ meetings … while other special staff dudes were long gone. I joined unit runs and group PT instead of taking photos from the sidelines. MDMP, AARs, you name it. Rather than demand different conditions or access because of our “special” position, please build relationships with your fellow staff officers. They’ll come to see you as an insider.
Be normal. It’ll feel okay.
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Our book, a collection of MaxDisclosure’s 2017-2018 posts, includes a whole section on the PAO’s staff relationships. We don’t make any money off the book, but hope you find it valuable. Order now.
(Photo by Staff Sgt. Jae Jung, DVIDS)
