Leadership Secrets of the Australian Army: Learn from the best and inspire your team for great results

by Noel Turnbull

Good communication can’t be taken for granted. Wayne Jackson served in the Army for more than two decades and ‘never ceased to be both amused and bemused’ by how easy it was for an instruction given at a higher level to be corrupted by the time it reached the bottom. It was even worse when he went into business. Knowing the importance of clear and reliable communication, Jackson impressed on his subordinate managers the need to get accurate messages to the end of the communication chain, regardless of the time and effort required. He used a technique that military leaders call ‘back briefing’, by which a leader gives an instruction and then requires the recipient to repeat that instruction in his/her own words, thus confirming whether the recipient’s interpretation is consistent with the leader’s intended meaning. During his frequent visits to the operational levels of his business, Jackson would check on the extent to which this was happening by asking the frontline employees to give him their understanding of those messages. During these visits, he also ensured that each team had its own objectives and plan by requiring each local leader to tell him what these were, without reference to notes.