Get out of my brain. I was reminded again a week ago of my old school tendencies when I asked a teammate to prepare a formal 1-page Information Paper Army-style with the 5Ws as a leave behind to transmit our message for a key leader engagement. All I needed was a short, consise tangible document that leader could social or hand off to their staff should they choose to, or chew on the topic at their leisure one day in the future. There is something to be said about old school methods, they are also helpful for knowledge capture, or for historical record.
Ha! I fully agree. When I reflect on my younger, dumber self, I feel like I didn't have the patience to really invest time and effort into such a product, regardless of who it was for. I know I enjoy writing this format now, so my challenge will be to motivate younger writers to invest their time and effort into this writing, and to want to do so on their own regard rather than as a "boss told me to".
This article brings to mind the model Amazon uses to streamline decision making: The 7-pg (max) exposition w 20 min of reading (silent and at start) to get everyone on track to have a meaningful dialogue. I have tried heartily to model, but get derailed by PPT and the famous and now notorious TLDR. We are all forced into ADHD.
For sure 100%- the Amazon case was on my mind when I wrote this. It took me quite a few years as an officer to transition to the "just get it done" and not thinking about it mindset, to a thought that we should put thought into what we do. But that is a hard transition- I argue that writing at the unit level can help ease that transition.
Ah yes BLUF, I can't believe that slipped my mind. So incredibly difficult to use BLUF when you are discussing how technology can be applied to a military problem.
I appreciate the article. A couple years ago, mostly out of 20 years of frustration that no one else had done it, I created a pretty solid word template using paragraph styles and text boxes. It’s been well received in my office spaces. I’ll email it to you. How many “rice”s on global?
Thanks for the good article. Totally agree that writing effectively is a lost art and being a civilian now experience the same frustrations with email communications. Good staff writing is as applicable in the military as the civilian world. It gave me some good ideas for work, thanks again.
Get out of my brain. I was reminded again a week ago of my old school tendencies when I asked a teammate to prepare a formal 1-page Information Paper Army-style with the 5Ws as a leave behind to transmit our message for a key leader engagement. All I needed was a short, consise tangible document that leader could social or hand off to their staff should they choose to, or chew on the topic at their leisure one day in the future. There is something to be said about old school methods, they are also helpful for knowledge capture, or for historical record.
Ha! I fully agree. When I reflect on my younger, dumber self, I feel like I didn't have the patience to really invest time and effort into such a product, regardless of who it was for. I know I enjoy writing this format now, so my challenge will be to motivate younger writers to invest their time and effort into this writing, and to want to do so on their own regard rather than as a "boss told me to".
This article brings to mind the model Amazon uses to streamline decision making: The 7-pg (max) exposition w 20 min of reading (silent and at start) to get everyone on track to have a meaningful dialogue. I have tried heartily to model, but get derailed by PPT and the famous and now notorious TLDR. We are all forced into ADHD.
For sure 100%- the Amazon case was on my mind when I wrote this. It took me quite a few years as an officer to transition to the "just get it done" and not thinking about it mindset, to a thought that we should put thought into what we do. But that is a hard transition- I argue that writing at the unit level can help ease that transition.
I would argue the Army was TL/DRing well before the internet, sir. We just call it the BLUF and, in theory, you're still expect to read the rest.
Ah yes BLUF, I can't believe that slipped my mind. So incredibly difficult to use BLUF when you are discussing how technology can be applied to a military problem.
I appreciate the article. A couple years ago, mostly out of 20 years of frustration that no one else had done it, I created a pretty solid word template using paragraph styles and text boxes. It’s been well received in my office spaces. I’ll email it to you. How many “rice”s on global?
Thanks for the good article. Totally agree that writing effectively is a lost art and being a civilian now experience the same frustrations with email communications. Good staff writing is as applicable in the military as the civilian world. It gave me some good ideas for work, thanks again.