Effective Communication

By Joe Byerly

Have you ever had an idea you thought was solid gold, but when you presented it to your boss or coworkers it fell on deaf ears? Maybe it wasn’t that your idea was bad. Maybe it was you. Hear me out: Sometimes our ideas ARE solid gold, the problem is that we get so wrapped up in the idea itself and it’s ingenuity that we don’t pay attention to delivery.

And delivery can be as important.

But, before we explore delivery, let’s jump into the time machine and look at an idea in history that fell flat on its face when it was initially proposed: hand washing.

In the early 1800s, mothers who had just given birth died at an alarming rate in European hospitals. One in six died from what was at the time known as childbed fever. In 1846, a young 28-year-old Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis discovered a correlation between mothers catching the disease and direct contact with physicians coming from surgery. He immediately instituted hand washing in his ward and the disease significantly dropped off.

One would think that this innovative young doctor who had a solid gold idea revolutionized medicine across Europe and saved the lives of countless mothers, but he did not. It was another 21 years before British surgeon Joseph Lister published his papers on sterilization and hospitals across the world adopted his methods.

So why wasn’t Semmelweis successful? His delivery sucked. He had a tough uphill battle to fight against a conservative establishment who had its own beliefs and way of doing business. And unfortunately, he refused to play by their rules. He was argumentative and so fanatical in his beliefs that he struggled to get his leadership and peers on board with his new, innovative method.

By Joe Byerly

Emails- They are the bane of our existence, but they are how we communicate in the modern world. Each day, military leaders clean out their inboxes only to have them fill back up within hours. Unfortunately, quantity doesn’t equal quality. Too often, the purpose of the email is buried, with the sender seeming to aim for length rather than substance. Unfortunately, many of these garbled messages create misalignment in organizations, waste time, money and in some extreme cases–lives.

Why does it matter? It matters because being able to effectively communicate through writing provides leaders and staff officers with understanding and the ability to act. Additionally, when we communicate efficiently, we give the person we’re communicating with time back to focus on other things besides reading emails or multi-page SITREPs.

By Scotty Autin

Commanders-

I feel like most of us are missing an opportunity.  We’re missing a chance to get the command messages out to audiences and shape the narrative of our units.  More so, we’re missing a chance to talk directly to our Soldiers, their families, the larger Army, and even the American public.  

In a post late last year, Gen. Robert Abrams penned an article published on this site titled, “Social Media: Senior Leaders Need to Get on the Bus.” If you haven’t had a chance to read his article, take some time to read it before you proceed here.  It gives you a great understanding of why leaders need to be on social media. Likewise, the US Army laid out a comprehensive overview of how to use social media with most of it focused on the official accounts for brigade and above.  From here forward, for those nondigital natives like me, I hope to lay out a way that battalion commanders can leverage social media.

First and foremost, you have to think of social media as a virtual hangout as it relates to interacting and engaging with Soldiers and families.  It exists and your Soldiers are there and active in it. Whether or not you choose to be present, the thoughts, ideas, and narratives are progressing with or without you.  For me, I had the benefit of witnessing some really good leaders and public affairs experts that understand how to use social media as a force projection and multiplication platform.  With that, I’ll lay out a strategy that can help you wrap your head around how to be a leader on social media. This is based on three key points.

By Josh Powers

Last week, General Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier on Twitter) published a short article encouraging more senior leader engagement on social media. Titled Social Media: Senior Leaders Need to Get on the Bus, the article provides ten reasons why leaders should be more active in the digital space.  As demonstrated (blog posts, live casts, etc), I must disclose that I wholeheartedly agree with General Abrams’ perspective. Based on my own experience, I remain passionate in my view that there is something in the digital world for every military professional. I see it as a medium where we can learn, grow, and interact. Still, there is risk associated with engaging online and it is worth discussion. Many leaders in the profession have considered engagement but weigh perceived risk and reward only to ultimately abstain from engaging online. So what are they worried about? Over the past few weeks, I polled the Twitter audience on the topic and, based on their feedback, I offer a few of the main risks that keep our colleagues offline. 

By: L.M. Hughes

In the wake of #AUSADigital2019, one of the most brilliant conversations I’ve seen on effective leader engagement on social media, led by From the Green Notebook’s very own Megan Jantos, I kept noticing how panelists and commentators alike remarked that it was “one of the most packed panels they’ve ever seen at an AUSA event.” A good sign to be sure, but there was something I could not shake about the environment. A few hours later, while I was driving home, it dawned on me that things may not have been as optimistic as the stage set it up to be.

As varied as the experience of each of the panelist was, the collective message was the same: leaders timid about social media engagement take their finger off the pulse of the organizations they lead, be it at the company level, the Army level, or any echelon between the two. But what happens when one of those levels between actively disengages itself from social media? What happens when a senior leader not only fails to value the immense power at their literal fingertips, but also works to undermine that engagement by not being present for the discussion? Has #milTwitter, and subsequently that entire ballroom, become an echo chamber for what we want to hear about our own leader engagement, and does not necessarily represent an accurate sample for our current leader engagement?

By Megan Jantos

If you’ve spent any time on social media you will find that there are people who instantly attract your attention. You could be quickly scrolling through your digital platform of choice and when you see their posts you can’t help but read, like, share, or comment. If you’re really paying attention you’ll likely notice the presence of a particular emotion such as belonging, anger, joy or fear.

In Robert Greene’s book, The Art of Seduction, he teaches readers how to influence others using human psychology. The two-part book outlines nine seductive archetypes and the process by which each character may use their unique wiles to draw others close. Greene highlights numerous historical and literary examples to underscore his premise.

High-profile people are often polarizing, especially when these types of influencers are in the military. What is different for Army influencers is the scrutiny and risk that comes with a military affiliation. Not only are these folks doubling down publically on their reputation, but they must also consider the real-world risk to operations created by leading via social media.