Be effective communicators

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Leon Yonce
  • 790th Missile Security Forces commander
F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. --  I consider myself to be a fairly thoughtful person and a master of efficiency and multi-tasking.

Every day, I almost single-handedly defeat a virtual army of taskers and suspenses sent from higher headquarters and DoD agencies. I am the reigning champ of on-time responses to the wing command section.

My operations officer is so impressed, he has my official photograph mounted in his office. I think my smiling face keeps him motivated on his toughest days.

However, I do make mistakes on rare occasions. Unfortunately, I have failed to properly convey my message or task to someone else. To make matters worse, I caught myself uttering the feeble excuse, "I sent an e-mail" right after I realized the task went undone because of my oversight.

Let's say you are a filling in for your supervisor during their recent temporary duty assignment. You know your commander periodically tasks supervisors with specific guidance and firm suspense dates.

An example would be writing an informative article for the base paper describing your flight's significant contributions to the wing's mission. This is your duty, and you patiently wait for your eventual turn to impress the base community with your wit and insight.

You monitor your inbox and listen attentively at staff meetings for the commander to give you your task and due date. You are a cobra ready to strike with literary venom able to kill apathy and ignorance with a single drop.

Here is the problem.

After weeks of staff meetings and about a trillion e-mails, during a meeting your commander finally tasks you with the article the day before it is due.

People like surprises, but I find it hard to believe anyone would at this point ask for a celebratory "chest bump."

You have nothing ready for tomorrow, and you need more than one night to create something worthy of print. After all, this is the base paper.

This is serious, and you must tell the boss you are not prepared.

You uneasily stand and ever so slowly raise your hand. Once recognized, you state, "This is the first I heard of this, sir."

The room explodes with laughter. With a resounding thud, I ... I mean your commander, says it.

"I sent an e-mail."

Your mind races, and your breathing stops. When? There is no way you forgot about it ... you think.

I will state the obvious conclusion to this make believe situation. I, as your commander, dropped the ball hard. I failed to get my clear message to you in a timely manner.

In this scenario, I failed to follow our core values. Learn from my mistake; do what it takes to communicate your message effectively.

Whether it is a task, safety warning or congratulatory note, follow up if it is important. Our mission is too vital to allow "single-point failures" to defeat us.

Communication requires action. Make it count. You may have to pick up the phone or walk over to someone to ensure they received and understood the message.

I attribute the "trust, but verify" model of leadership to former President Ronald Reagan. It makes sense, and usually is a cheap and easy way to complete an assigned mission.

Communicate more often, and do not be on either end of those frightening and limited words, "I sent an e-mail."