Telling it like it is

Last week Admiral Mullen, the chief of staff, called for a starting over of the war in Afghanistan. This week he calls for us to pay more attention to our actions than our words. Some excerpts:

No, our biggest problem isn't caves; it's credibility. Our messages lack credibility because we haven't invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven't always delivered on promises.

The most common questions that I get in Pakistan and Afghanistan are: "Will you really stay with us this time?" "Can we really count on you?" I tell them that we will and that they can, but when it comes to real trust in places such as these, I don't believe we are even in Year Zero yet. There's a very long way to go.

The irony here is that we know better. For all the instant polling, market analysis, and focus groups we employ today, we could learn a lot by looking to our own past. No other people on Earth have proven more capable at establishing trust and credibility in more places than we have. And we've done it primarily through the power of our example.

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That's the essence of good communication: having the right intent up front and letting our actions speak for themselves. We shouldn't care if people don't like us; that isn't the goal. The goal is credibility. And we earn that over time.

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The Muslim community is a subtle world we don't fully -- and don't always attempt to -- understand. Only through a shared appreciation of the people's culture, needs, and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative. We cannot capture hearts and minds. We must engage them; we must listen to them, one heart and one mind at a time -- over time.

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He concludes his article, "Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics" in the Joint Force Quarterly with these words.

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.

I also hope we learn to be more humble, to listen more. Because what we are after in the end -- or should be after -- are actions that speak for themselves, that speak for us. What we need more than anything is credibility. And we can't get that in a talking point.