April 2, 2024
by Stephen T. Messenger
It’s too easy to hang out in the office all day. After all, there’s paperwork to do, meetings to hold, calls to make, and a thousand things to take up our time. There are only so many hours, and there are usually more administrative requirements than time imposed upon busy leaders.
When I arrive at the office, the workload immediately begins to pile up. The emails start flowing. The phone won’t stop ringing. The boss wants information. Evaluations are due. This needs to be signed… now! There are so many requirements and distractions that it’s challenging to keep up.
This natural busyness, while good, doesn’t encourage face-to-face connection between leaders and their people. Hardworking men and women are performing their duties well, but a common pitfall is to be so overwhelmed by office time that we lose the pulse of what’s happening on the ground.
It’s incumbent on us to get out and see the truth for ourselves.
Abu Ghraib
The Abu Ghraib Prison, located just west of Baghdad, was the site of disturbing torture and mistreatment of prisoners by U.S. forces in 2003 during the Iraq War. An Iraqi detention center before the war, the U.S. Army seized the compound and used it to house an estimated 8,000 detainees at its peak.
On November 1, 2003, the Associated Press published a special report on massive human rights abuses at the prison. In response, U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw all U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, claimed that prisoners were being treated “humanely and fairly.” Yet, they weren’t.
In April 2004, 60 Minutes ran a report on widespread abuse accompanied by horrific images of U.S. military personnel torturing detainees. Photographs of guards treating prisoners inhumanely were spread across the front page for the world to see.
Karpinski’s initial comments on humane and fair treatment were far from accurate. At the time, she was commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, in charge of 15 detention facilities in southern and central Iraq in addition to military units in other parts of the country—a huge job!
The requirements of this leader were immense, and her workload and stress in a wartime environment managing such an area were undoubtedly high. It would be nearly impossible for her to get out of the office, or combat headquarters in this case, to visit every facility multiple times. But in the end, she failed to understand what was happening in her organization.
From her interviews in December 2003, she described conditions as “better than many Iraqi homes,” at Abu Ghraib—this was two months after the initial reports of abuse and torture there. Her inability to get out of the office and see the true picture on the ground resulted in misinformation and an incomplete picture. The senior leader can’t distribute wrong information about their own organization.
In the end, she was relieved of command and demoted to Colonel.
The Siren’s Song of the Office
Of course it’s comfortable to stay in the office. Everything in there is meant to be comfortable. In it we have our workspace, the chair we like, photos of our family, and our favorite snacks tucked away in a drawer. Piled onto that is a never-ending workload of items that need to be accomplished. Why would anyone leave?
Yet we all need to resist the siren’s song of staying there. While the coffee may be good and the office is climate controlled, we have many people out there working on our behalf that are the heartbeat of the organization.
Getting out of the office and putting boots on the ground is critical to understanding what is happening for real. There are many reports and meetings that give you an idea of what “may” be going on in the trenches, but until we see them for ourselves, we never really know.
I’ll Believe It When I See It
I once heard a Sergeant Major tell me, “I believe nothing of what I hear, half of what I see, and I’ll figure the rest out by myself.” The first half of this quote was taken almost verbatim from Edgar Allen Poe. Now, I don’t ascribe to this type of mistrust in subordinates, in fact quite the opposite. But there is some truth that initial reports aren’t always correct, and information gets muddied in translation.
That’s why the kid’s telephone game was so popular. It’s where one person whispers the phrase to another who relays the message to the next person. By the time it reaches the originator of the message, the meaning has been changed completely, lost in translation by mishearing.
The same happens with reports on the ground. Reading through the history of Abu Gharib, there are varying reports on who knew what and when, where the interrogation orders came from, who forced whom to participate, and what leadership knew at what time. We’ll never know what really happened.
But when the initial reports came out of abuse, if leadership immediately visited the facility and physically saw what was happening, they could have ended it right there. Karpinski instead took the reports from the field and reported everything was fine without verifying the information.
By getting out of the office, we see our people and get to know them, are present to others, understand the successes and challenges on the ground, observe how our decisions are affecting the team, and validate what we think about our organization. All these inputs help us make better decisions from what we learn by being present.
Some simple ways to facilitate leaving our desks are:
- Hold meetings on-site. If we’re discussing the factory floor, have the meeting there. If we need to talk about security, walk the perimeter. Keep meetings out of our offices and conference rooms.
- Conduct one-on-ones in their space. I hate “summoning” people to my office. I would much rather meet them in their space, walk through their area to get to them, and see people as I go.
- Schedule admin time at the end of the day. After we’ve been out and about, we still need to get our stuff done. Dedicate administration time to close out the day and ruthlessly adhere to it.
We need to walk around to understand the pulse of the unit. Spending all day in the office prevents us from truly understanding what’s happening and limits our ability to know the truth.
Beware of the Office
There is always another report to read or signature to be signed in the office. The best leaders break away from the daily grind and dedicate time to spend with their team.
We must resist the temptation to hole up in the office all day. Go out and interact with people, see what’s going on in the real world, build relationships with others, and understand the true pulse of the organization.
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