Catch Phrases

I did it while I was on active duty in the Army, and those now serving do it as well. I'm talking about using "catch phrases" intended to motivate people to subscribe to certain ideas and concepts. When we wanted people to come up with innovative ways of doing things, we told them to "think outside the box". When we met with subordinates jointly seeking ways to improve operations, we told them, "there are no dumb ideas". We saw "challenges" and not problems. And, we wanted to "leverage" all possible variables to arrive at solutions. Today, people are using the same catch phrases but have come up with some new ones as well. We're operating in a "full spectrum" environment today, and planners are instructed to take a "holistic" approach in their thinking. We're "transforming" and "growing the Army" at the same time. For some phrases, people coin acronyms so that they don't have to spell them out, or waste any verbal energy saying the series of words. Why say "grow the Army" when you can speak "GTA". (In my time, GTA was a graphic training aide, so when I first read GTA in the Army Times, I wondered what the heck a training device had to do with making the Army bigger). And, it's easier to say "OPTEMPO" instead of operations tempo. One thing that's changed a bit from when I was on active duty, however, is that it seems to me more and more of these phrases today are being copied from motivational books primarily written to help inspire leaders and managers in the civilian world improve their business processes. That's not a bad thing…transferring specific elements of good business practice to certain aspects of the military…but to gain desired results from Soldiers listening to these motivational concepts, they need to be utilized in the right way and definitely not over done.