Accomplishing the mission through people Published March 30, 2012 By 2nd Lt. Josh Heck 423rd Communications Squadron RAF ALCONBURY, United Kingdom -- "Mission First, People Always." It was a staple phrase at Officer Training School, repeated often to remind us of our priorities. The concept of taking care of people seems intuitive and obvious, since without people our Air Force would be a global assortment of aircraft and buildings sitting idly, waiting to be used. We must ask ourselves, what does it really mean to take care of people? Certainly as leaders we can't implement every suggestion given to us. They range from contradictory - to lack of understanding of the scope or big picture of a problem - to simply infeasible because of time or resource constraints. Leadership is taught at every professional development vehicle I've been to, and the advice is always to simply listen. Everyone knows it, yet it doesn't always happen. I recently heard the mentality, "Why bother making any suggestions, leadership won't do anything anyway." This is telling of at least two things. No matter how much you tell people you care about them and have an open door policy to resolve their problems; if you can't demonstrate it with actions, your words are meaningless. Second, that individual has tried to get something changed that's important to them. Either no one bothered to consider it, or it was considered and dismissed. No one ever got back to them with a discussion of, "We discussed your idea and while we think it has merit, it's not feasible right now because of time/money/etc." It's a simple conversation and hopefully will give that person some closure, knowing they were listened to after all. Mission first is sometimes misapplied, getting the mission accomplished while breaking the backs of the team who are putting in long hours and a lot of sweat to make things happen. I challenge people at all levels of leadership to look at how they're running things and realize people will work harder when they're internally motivated to do so, rather than directed to do so. A 2010 study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science by James K. Harter studied 2,178 business units in 10 large organizations, and found evidence supporting employee work perceptions having a direct increase on bottom-line measures. Simply, the more people enjoyed their work, the more likely they were to be innovative and use their time more efficiently while at work. This is no less applicable in the military; we have an obligation to do everything we can to make our organizations better and to do right by those we lead, and the easiest way to find out what will improve your organization? Simply ask, and listen.