EU development policy: Time to articulate the Commander’s Intent, Europe's World, July 2010

This is a second-hand idea, but it bears repeating. The key to leadership is to communicate strategic intent in simple words. In the US army, apparently, this is called the Commander’s Intent. John F Kennedy illustrated the principle, when he called on the US to ‘commit itself, before this decade is out, (to) landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth’. The instruction was clear, unambiguous, and served to motivate thousands of individuals contributing to a huge and complex project. Bill Clinton’s advisers had the same idea: ‘there has to be message triage’, they told him, ‘if you say three things, you don’t say anything’..... (click on the link above to see the full article)