lessonslearned Purple Prose
A commander’s colorful way of offering constructive criticism leaves a newly commissioned officer with a product he can be proud of — and four lessons he can take with him.
A
fter more than six years of enlisted service, I was given a commission and a first assign-
ment of adjutant of a training battalion. The commander also was new, and at one of our staff meetings, he mentioned a concern about the SOPs; many were out of date, and some could not be located in unit orderly rooms. I suggested we could redo them in a single document, with all previously separate SOPs attached as appendices, which would make addi- tions, deletions, and corrections easier to post. He agreed and, of course, put me in charge of carrying out this project. Many days of research and writing
went into this project, but I finally ended up with a complete package — a two- page SOP with 19 appendices covering everything from ammunition storage to vector control, all contained in a single, three-ring binder — that I placed in the commander’s in-basket. When I returned from lunch the next
day, I found the binder sitting on my desk and started looking through it to see what comments or corrections the commander had made. He always used a purple, felt-tip pen to mark his sugges- tions, but as I went through the binder page after page, I found no notations. I was feeling rather proud of myself — until I got to the last page. On the back of the page, the commander had written in his purple prose: “This suffers from a terminal case of appendicitis — recom- mend immediate surgery.”
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When I went in to talk to him about it, he said he wasn’t concerned about the number of appendices but rather about the content. “Too often we use military jargon to convince people we are smarter than we really are,” the commander said. “Write in plain English so your audience, like the private first class in the supply room, will be able to understand what he is supposed to do. You don’t need to use $10 words to sell a 10-cent idea.” Appropriately chastened, I went back
to work. It turned out he was right; the finished product was far shorter and actu- ally made more sense. From this experience, I learned four
things that have stood me in good stead through my military career and beyond. First, humor, judiciously applied, can take the sting out of criticism and still get the point across. Second, a leader doesn’t need to get bogged down in minutia; he or she gives clear, concise instructions and then trusts his or her subordinates to take care of the details. Third, no matter what you are writing or presenting, always remember who your audience is; you have to talk to them, not at them. Last, be brief. Unnecessary ver- biage and jargon don’t make you appear smarter, just obtuse. Wisdom can be found in many places, even in purple prose. MO
— David R. Ansell Sr. is a retired Army major. He lives in Albuquerque, N.M. For sub- mission information, see page 18.
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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