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Mar 17 2014

Enter the Snowflake

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When Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense he was famous for a piece of paper called a “snowflake.” A snowflake could be just about anything the secretary wanted to communicate.

Since I didn’t directly work for the secretary I only occasionally saw a real snowflake. I did see what happens when someone thinks they have a better idea.

At the headquarters where I worked, we also had snowflakes but what might have seemed like a good idea in its original form became sadly perverted in subordinate level application. In our case the snowflake was a short synopsis attached to the top of a staff package. It very briefly described what the package was and what action was desired. In other words, this wasn’t a way for the boss to communicate but was a way for us lowly staffers to make it easier for the boss.

Here’s the thing. In fine military tradition, a staff package, no matter how simple or complex was summarized on a form called a Staff Summary Sheet. This piece of paper showed all the different offices the author thought needed to coordinate and then contained a synopsis of the issue and recommended actions. It was considered extremely bad form for the summary to exceed a single page, even for the most complex issues.

Enter the snowflake. After the staffer had carefully assembled the package and summarized their work in a short and concise way, he or she now had to attach a snowflake.

The snowflake was exactly half of a standard sheet of paper. It was addressed to the final decision making authority and, in only a few sentences, was to summarize the summary.

One boss I worked for actually took it a step further and requested a short, hand-written note attached to the snowflake. That’s right. He wanted a summary of the summary that summarized the summary.

Are you doing this to your people? Are you making their lives more difficult in order to make your life easier?