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Stories That Win Wars: The Role of Narrative in Military Planning and Innovation
Tom Gaines In military strategy, critical thinking, adaptability, and effective communication are essential. Traditional military instruction, focused on logic, data analysis, and protocols, often falls short in preparing leaders for the...
Unlock Your Potential Through Journaling
By Melissa A. Czarnogursky “The brain enjoys writing. It enjoys the act of naming things, the process of association and discernment.” –Julia Cameron I had the wrong perspective on journaling. Throughout my military career, mentors...
Multitasking is Bad for Your Brain
This post originally appeared on The Quiet Workplace By Michele O’Hagan In today’s job market, multitasking is the norm. “Ability to multitask” is listed as a “must” in nearly every job description. We pride ourselves on our ability to juggle...
Check Out the Military Review’s Series on Professional Military Writing
By Rebecca Segal In every job we serve, we learn. Whether you’re journaling to sort through your thoughts or crafting an article to share best practices, writing is an important part of the growth process. At FTGN, we focus on sharing those...
Reflecting on Gratitude- It Will Change Your Life
By Joe Byerly For as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve mostly focused on the positive aspects of leading others. However, not every day as a leader is a good day. In fact, leaders often experience very dark days.One of the hardest days of...
May 3rd Prospective Writers Information Webinar
If you are interested in writing for From the Green Notebook, or curious to learn more, please attend this webinar on May 3, 2024. It will include information on FTGN’s history, background, audience, readership, and a Q&A portion on writing for...
A Text to Garcia: Business Rules for Work Texting
by Joon Lee “We do NOT use Signal as our primary means of communication!” my fellow staff officer exclaimed. I sympathized—in our years of service, we’ve embraced the tenet that “we train like we fight,” that we must exercise our tactical systems...
3 Reasons to Attend The Next FTGN Writers Webinar
By Kevin Cutright Editor’s Note: Sign up for our May 3rd prospective writers webinar here. Not convinced? Read this piece. I was one of about 15 attendees in From the Green Notebook’s webinar for prospective writers in early February. I...
Warrant Officers Need to Write Well Too
by Mike Lima It’s not just officers who need to know how to write—it’s warrant officers too. Warrant officers now have many roles, including staff officer positions and numerous duties as action officers. As a staff officer, the primary...
Communicating Your Intent: Overcome the Illusion of Transparency
by Dr. Yasmine L. Kalkstein and Brian Gerardi My (Yasmine’s) early experiences as a leader, despite effort and good intentions, were fraught with failure. One problem I ran up against were complaints about my lack of communication. My...
Digital Tools for Effective and Efficient Writing
by Trent Lythgoe I’m always looking for the latest digital writing tools. I suspect a few of my fellow professors secretly mock me for using technological writing crutches. But I feel no shame. Writing is hard enough—I see no reason to make it...
FM-VOICE – A Framework for Improving Communications in Your Organization
By R.T. Rotte You’re a company commander, and your platoons aren’t doing what you want them to. One platoon is always a little behind on tasks or unresponsive to key information. Another platoon is executing the tasks and preparing for training,...
Stories of Service: Mentor Your Subordinate to Engage with the Public
By Brian C. Gerardi Each year, our nation observes holidays centered on its service members and veterans. These commemorations—Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day and Veterans Day—often include invitations (“tasked” or “asked”) to senior service members...
Three Books to Improve Your Writing
by Trent Lythgoe For most of my 22 years in the US Army, I thought I was a decent writer. However, graduate school taught me a bitter truth: I wasn’t. But after accepting my failings, I found a powerful tool to help me improve—writing guides....
Our Sloppy Over-Reliance on Texting
by Jack Hadley Farewelled by my unit and signed out on PCS leave, I stood at a German train station headed to the airport. Then my phone went ding! I reflexively glanced at it, feeling a small but noticeable tinge of stress. I was no longer a...
The Bear: A New, Relevant Source of Professional Development
by Zach Batton By and large, military leaders are not diversifying their sources for professional development. Once and Eagle, Black Hearts, Black Hawk Down, and This Kind of War are just a few repetitive staples in most reading/watch lists....
10 Rules to Live by on Social Media for Those who Serve
by Orlandon Howard “When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.” – King Solomon (1010-931 BCE) It’s easy to make mistakes when communicating regularly on social media....
Deliberate Communication: What We Can All Learn from Observing Senior Leaders
by Don Gomez Have you ever found yourself in a meeting or gathering expecting to hear one thing from a senior leader but instead hearing something completely different? Something seemingly unrelated to what you thought was important? “What the hell...
A Leader’s Guide to Navigating Social Media in the Military
By Kristy Bell Social media has blurred the lines between our private and professional lives in an unprecedented way, and has also, in some ways, eroded the idea of a “non-partisan military” that shores up our democratic ideals. This came to the...
Six Benefits to Sharing What You’ve Learned with Others
by Jakob Hutter Oscar Wilde once said, “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” When we talk about the role of knowledge in our organizations, we must understand it is essential to pass on the...
Writer’s Block? Find a Coach
by Catherine Putz and Tobias Switzer You finally decided to write. You’ve got something to say, and it’s burning you up. Maybe nobody is talking about it, or the national security establishment is just getting it all wrong. Tired of sitting on the...
Write for You
By Joe Byerly Many view writing for publication in the military as an opportunity to help others with their leadership approaches, inform them on some academic topic they learned about in grad school, or to share lessons learned from a recent...
Are you Scared to Write?
By Joe Byerly Every time I sit down to write a blog post or record an episode of the podcast, something happens inside my head. A voice asks me, “Who are you to write or talk about this?” It usually follows up with an equally damaging...
Why Leaders Need to Learn the Skill of Writing
By Joe Byerly Anyone who has worked directly for a battalion commander or above probably has experience writing “ghost notes.” These are emails a subordinate writes and addresses for their boss to send to other people. Ghost notes can be weekly or...
A Toast to Small Wars Journal
By Joe Byerly Much like many of the biggest comedians today can trace their beginnings back to the same comedy club, there are countless national security writers and senior military leaders who can trace their intellectual roots back to Small Wars...
Why I Write: Pressing the Button
By Joe Byerly The following is an excerpt from the book, Why I Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, scheduled to be published by Middle West Press in December 2019. The one-of-a-kind anthology from the non-profit Military Writers Guild features...
Editorial Responsibility within the PME Network
By Nick Alexander Opportunities for intellectual growth within the profession of arms seem limitless. With the advent of social media, the growth of #miltwitter, and the plethora of international profession of arms blogs, it has never been easier...
On Writing: Look Out! There be Sea Monsters!
By Joe Byerly A few years ago, I wrote a post encouraging military leaders to write for professional publications and online professional outlets. I confidently argued, though only anecdotally, that there were no sea monsters and leaders could...
Advice on Writing and Editing
By Jason Criss Howk Over the last decade, I was privileged to publish my ramblings in many different outlets from scholarly journals to slick mass media periodicals—large and small, paid and unpaid, known and unknown. On top of that, in the age of...
The Do’s and Don’ts of Letters of Introduction
By Scott Shaw and Chad Foster Writing letters of introduction to your future battalion or brigade commanders has been a staple of the basic and career course since we were lieutenants and captains (and before our time as well). This time-honored...
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