24/7/365 Communication

We live in an age of rapid communication. And response. Even insistent messaging in which we are often begged for response now! Right this instant. You know how it is. And we observe this behavior on our buses, trains, planes and in restaurants. Yes even at our own dinner tables. Our kids do; we do it. Strangers do it and we laugh but then realize we are guilty as well.

The subject matter of our emails and instant messages? Whether by phone, I-Pad or computer tablet, we are engaged. Many topics are: schedules, help with finding phone numbers, addresses and email addresses for others. Some are emergency messages like: “I’m tied up and can’t pick up the kids at school; can you?” Or: “Don’t have enough food to make dinner; will have to go out or order in. Let me know what you want.”

If you are a tech worker you know that your job is 24/7. If you are in a supervisory or management role in a tech industry, you are on the job 365 unless you are definitively scheduled off the clock. In other industries your contacts may be less insistent or timely, but they are there just the same.

Now picture yourself in a high level staff position in a sensitive, government position. Your contacts are not only insistent but evolving persistently in wide circles of context and importance. Think a Pentagon job, or defense command. Or maybe Secretary of State with global happenings popping up all over all the time. Most often it is not knowable what is important. Everything is important or has the potential to be so.

So you would remain in touch with your organization. Vitally connected. Information flows coming in and out in a constant stream screaming for your attention. Vital attention.

In the burgeoning days of email expansion to hand held devices, it was an overwhelming flow of messages. Ask any Secretary of State before Hillary Clinton. They had the same problem and made the same mistake – not separating routine messaging from classified information. Or personal traffic, for that matter.

In many cases the information became classified later, not at the time. No matter, the information was then sensitive, became more so, and continues as such as we speak. That is the very nature of the job – handling delicate matters of state among many nations simultaneously. Although there is a staff supporting your work, it takes time to coordinate the information flow and reference partners quickly. In time things get sorted out but as they are happening it is a lot more dicey.

Today email communication systems have evolved and so too privacy and security applications. Not then, but now.

Kind of makes you wonder why all of a sudden this figures so huge in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, doesn’t it? Wonder why these matters were not raised for past Secretary’s of State? I know, they were not running for president, but they were also members of the Republican leadership. And everyone knows that Republicans have short memories about their own errors and omissions. But just watch them work at hunting out issues with Democrats. Now that is another thing.

We ask a lot of our public servants. They are on the clock 24/7/365. That alone can be exhausting. Now add 24/7 jet travel to countless points on the globe. And meetings in every time zone at the same time. Then coordinate all of that with your staff sites in key locations throughout the globe. And now – coordinate all of that with your headquarters staff in Washington DC. Simple?

I’d like to see you try it. And come out of the experience with the energy, foresight and strategic vision of Hillary Clinton asking to do more for her nation. Wow!

March 4, 2016