What, When and How?

We sat under the shade of a big river gum waiting for a survival group. It was a languid Pilbara day. Graham Brammer OAM, Former SAS Patrol Commander from the Vietnam War was showing me how to work out precisely where we were with a pencil, small notebook, protractor and a piece of cord. Graham always had all three in his pocket. The technique was amazingly simple, as long as the work and observations were done with precision and care. The method had been developed by Graham, after combining several pieces of knowledge. He placed us within a few kilometers of our GPS Location — repeatable anywhere in the world as long as the sun was shining.

I learnt a lot by instructing with Graham. His patience and willingness to share what he knew, while adapting it to the experience level of the student really stood out.

I was delighted when Graham wrote a response to my recent articles about Why. His astute observations about what different characters need in different circumstances are worth sharing.

If you’d like to find out more about Graham’s career and contributions to Australia, go here. If you’d like some insight into the work of the SAS in Vietnam, Graham’s book “Uncertain Fate” is a captivating read.

I’m not sure that all personality types can easily resist needing to know why something needs to be done.

I found when delegating tasks that a subordinate would indicate their personality type by how they responded to the task allocated. There was always someone who needed to know WHY… There were those who just wanted to know WHAT needed to be done. There were others who needed to know WHEN it needed to be done by and those who wanted to know HOW you wanted it done (not that they didn’t know how to do it, but more about they wanted to know how you wanted it done so you would be happy with the result).

When delegating to a group I always covered WHAT needed to be done, WHY it needed to be done, WHEN it needed to be done by and when I would be around to check on what was done. The HOW I never covered as I had the right to expect that they would already know I also knew that those who needed to know the how would ask.

I found this most useful when delegating to an individual as I understood how much information I needed to provide to a different personality type to send him/her happily off on a task.”