Law of the Hammer, Communication, and War
28th August 2009
Abu Muqawama and Small Wars point to a NYT story quoting Admiral Mike Mullen:
“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.
“I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”
As a persuasion and communication guy I am moved to quote Gretchen Wilson and give a big, “Hell, yeah!”
One enduring myth about communication is that communication can solve our problems. It can’t and it often makes things worse, especially when it tries to “put lipstick on a pig.”
My own experience with this disconnect occurred and still occurs with some of my health and safety colleagues who tried and still try to put lipstick on various crazy, inept, or ineffective ideas they’d developed to save citizens from themselves. My best persuasion effort won’t change the world if it pushes a stupid idea. If we are falling all over ourselves in Afghanistan, strategic communication won’t fix it.
The Admiral’s point is both simple and complicated. Simple – communication won’t win the war. Complicated – communication could help, but it must follow good policy and execution.
Communication zealots can fall prey to the Law of the Hammer – give a child a hammer and everything’s a nail. Mullen warns about zealots and hammers, but we don’t lose sight that when you’ve got a nail, a hammer might work.
But, first the nail, then the hammer.