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Professional Reading Drop Box

So the 1945 v 2016 thread reminded me of a great book I read on cruise a few years ago about WWII aviators in the Pacific called the Twilight Warriors:

"April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Third Reich is collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are overpowering the once-mighty Japanese Empire in the Pacific. For a group of young pilots trained in the twilight of the war, the greatest worry is that it will end before they have a chance to face the enemy. They call themselves Tail End Charlies. They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail end of chow lines, and now they are catching the tail end of the war. What they don’t know is that they will be key players in the bloodiest and most difficult of naval battles—not only of World War II but in all of American history."

https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-War.../ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
 
 
Recovering LSO said:
A meeting without Power Point!? Pretty decent article - in spite of the misuse of the word "utilize" :)
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Interesting. But some thoughts:

- Not sure this would work for a multi-person brief to a commander (ie a staff briefing, with each staffer briefing their parts). Otherwise everyone could just add to a document and then have the commander read the document, but that's not the only point of a staff briefing.

- I also wonder about highly detailed points within a brief that can be read, but really require both a building block structure as well as clarification by the audience as you work through the points. I think about a Reserve brief I give that I can get through in about 40 minutes with time for 15-20 minutes of questions. I have a similar summary in a Word document, but so much of the intricacies of Reserve-ness is confusing, I really wonder if spending 20 minutes confusing everyone in a document is worth what will inevitably still be 30 minutes of asking what the hell does any of this mean.

BUT, when I give that brief, I try not to talk to every bullet point, but instead discuss the basic idea of each slide, which at least is kind of the idea of the flip meeting.

BL: I could see this being useful. I could also see this causing redundancy.
 
Gatordev said:
I really wonder if spending 20 minutes confusing everyone in a document is worth what will inevitably still be 30 minutes of asking what the hell does any of this mean.
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if you can't get your point across in a 6 page memo, will you be able to get it across in a powerpoint?
 
squorch2 said:
if you can't get your point across in a 6 page memo, will you be able to get it across in a powerpoint?
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Yes. If you've ever tried to brief and/or enforce the intricacies of pay/points/ascensions regarding SELRES, you'd understand it's not necessarily reading material. I can do it in 2 pages. That doesn't mean it makes any sense to anyone.
 
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“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead"

Interesting idea, but in reality you need to have many tools in your quiver to be able to make your point as applicable depending on boss' style, organizations accepted methods, type of meeting, type of content, etc.

Good communicators need to be able to use the elevator pitch, a short memo, an informational PowerPoint, a decisional PowerPoint, a speech, a succinct email, a detailed email, RFAs, action items, status meetings, working meetings, executive meetings, and formal reports as the situation dictates. Many situations will require several of these tools.

On the note of effective spoken communications I recently had the pleasure of taking Dr. Pfau's speaking course. He works with many organizations and if you get the chance to take his course I HIGHLY recommend it.

 
Some history. Some snark. Some smart.

https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/12/14/stop-calling-us-warriors/

"There is a cult – yeah, I said it, and I can already hear the personal attacks on me for hating freedom and patriots furiously being typed – around our special operations community, fed by book-writing retirees, civilians who want to feel like they are supporting the military, airsoft military wannabes, and seemingly every other dude out there on social media who has “MOLON LABE” superimposed over an American flag somewhere in their profile. Feeling uncomfortable yet? Well, you should, because this type of rhetoric is not only subversive to democracy but is positively antithetical to the ideals of the Founding Fathers who saw a standing professional army as one of the greatest threats to our republic."
 
Pags said:
Good communicators need to be able to use the elevator pitch, a short memo, an informational PowerPoint, a decisional PowerPoint, a speech, a succinct email, a detailed email, RFAs, action items, status meetings, working meetings, executive meetings, and formal reports as the situation dictates. Many situations will require several of these tools.
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Is big font included in that toolbox?
 
Decent thoughts From the Green Notebook.

"When we study the leaders who came before us, we begin to reflect on the leadership traits we want to develop in ourselves. We become better prepared to respond when the need arises, and we more clearly understand what is required of us to win in battle."
 
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