For the past two weeks, I’ve been participating in a Brigade-wide TOCEX. For those who haven’t participated in one yet, a TOCEX is an exercise in which the Tactical Operations Centers are established, the staff at the Brigade and Battalion conduct planning via the Military Decision-Making Process, and (in our case) the plan is executed in a virtual environment. Often, these are incredibly challenging, frustrating, but incredibly necessary exercises to validate a unit’s ability to come together as a team and plan and execute a mission in a controlled environment.

During the Brigade’s Wargame (a step in the Military Decision-Making Process), the Brigade Fire Support Officer was talking about the desired effects of a certain fire mission on an objective, when the Deputy Commander paused us and asked the Brigade Fire Support Officer to define the words he was using when describing the effect he was expecting on the objective. It turned out that this was a necessary segue that forced the staff to reconcile their warfighting function’s definitions of certain actions and come together to use a universal definition that was understood and accepted by all.

Afterwards, the Deputy Commander pulled me aside and we had a brief, but in-depth discussion of this universal definition. He told me that there are three languages in a Brigade Combat Team: Infantry, Artillery, and Engineer. He continued to explain that the Infantry define their actions as what they can accomplish in the close fight, the Artillery defines what they can support in the deep fight, and the Engineers define actions in terms of ability to emplace and displace obstacles. Furthermore, we agreed that the organization must define its base language and the supporting languages must translate terms into the accepted base language. In our case, the base language was Infantry and the Artillery, Engineers, and other supporting elements must translate their languages to conform to the language of the Infantry.

I think that this is an important idea that spans much further than the Brigade Combat Team. All across the world, you have many different organizations trying to accomplish many different things. Like the military, a private corporation also has many different languages. You might have sales, accounting, engineering, research and development, and many others all potentially tied into a single organization. All of these different departments should strive to understand the main goal of the organization and be able to translate their language into the accepted base language of the organization. If a company is in the business of advertising, all facets must know how they tie into advertising and be able to talk within that realm. For example, if I run the IT Department for the advertising company and we lose our ability to display our customer’s ads, I’ve got a big problem. Not, inherently because the network is down, but because our company is no longer bringing in revenue from those advertisements. Likewise, in the military, if I cannot fire artillery, that is not inherently the issue. The issue is that I cannot support the Infantry to conduct their primary mission. It is easy to get caught up in the details and nuances of what we do and we often overlook why we do something.

The base language of the organization is not off the hook. It is true that the facilitating departments (or staff sections, subordinate units, etc.) must translate their languages into the base language, however, the lion’s share of the burden falls onto the base language to understand and be able to translate if the supporting department is not. A good commander or CEO must have the knowledge to understand all languages and be able to unify everything to the base language. Additionally, they must be able to see if the organization is straying from the universal language and is splitting into the departmental languages that are inherent in the organization. The base department cannot be an idle customer. Success of the organization depends on the strength of the base department. Many military and corporate organizations do many challenging and difficult things every day that can lead to success or failure. The first step to success is talking the same language.

I challenge all those who read this to take a few moments during their day to codify, in a few sentences, why they do something. What do you do to support success within your organization? Are you able to translate your language into that of what you are supporting? If you are, awesome! You are directly helping your organization succeed by unifying your thoughts and actions to that of your organization. If not, I urge you to seek out assistance so that you can. Simply talking to a member of that base organization and asking how you and your department can best facilitate their success goes a long way. If you are a member of that base department, do you know, at least a little bit, about all the departments within your organization? While challenging to say the least, striving to understand those that support you will go a long way in the development and success of the entire organization. Learning to talk the same language requires going outside of your department and seeking the knowledge of those around you. In doing that, you break down the walls and parallel efforts and create a single, unified effort to lead your organization to success.