I’ll admit it: I’m an unabashed fan of the book Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Few books have so perceptively (and entertainingly) zeroed in on what it takes to create influential messages that will capture people’s attention and move them to act.
I think it’s significant, though, that the Heaths devote their longest chapter, not to how to dress up and convey your message, but how to craft your message in your own head before trying to communicate it to others. To help make this point, they draw on a pair of unlikely bedfellows: Improvisation and the Army.
The Heaths cite a military concept called Commander’s Intent, a succinct high-level statement of objectives that accompanies any plan or order. A sample CI might be “Break the will of the enemy in Sector A,” which would then be translated into more detailed CI statements at the lower tactical levels.
CI was adopted by the military as a way to address the maxim “No plan survives contact with the enemy” – i.e., advance detailed directives can never fully deal with the realities that troops face in the field, and thus quickly become obsolete.
In citing Army sources about what’s needed to make the concept work, the Heaths make this key observation about CI:
“Commander’s Intent manages to align the behavior of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders. When people know the desired destination, they’re free to improvise as needed in arriving there.” (emphasis added)
If a supposedly command-and-control outfit such as the Army is embracing improvisation in the name of carrying out a core message, shouldn’t the rest of the organizational world be sitting up and taking notice?
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