Feedback

The PRT CO came by again today to do an AAR with the boys from MOT D. (Key: Provincial Reconstruction Team, Commanding Officer, After Action Review, Military Observer Team. Now you know what it's like to read any text that Nato produces - abbreviation after abbreviation). Anyway, while he was here he gave me some feedback on the performance of the PO during the incident, that I mentioned earlier. The feedback was good, and it felt good, because it was based on facts. All parties had been pleased with the way we had handled things and facilitated the operation. In the daily briefing, I forwarded the feedback to everyone and thanked them. Which reminds me: a few days ago, my Finnish collagues here gave me feedback on my leadership. They said that they liked the way in which I conducted the briefings, especially pointing out that now they finally could understand what was going on. They also thought that I was doing well in general.

Now feedback is the prerequisite for development. Positive feedback feels good, but as I said, the most important thing with feedback is that it's well founded. As it happens, I'm not at all certain that my leadership at the PO is at all as good as the recent feedback suggests. I don't feel at all sure of myself of on top of things at times. That has never stopped me from functioning or making decisions, though. After all, that's what I'm paid to do here. But make no mistake: I'm well aware of the risks and responsibilities of this mission. There is no room for complacency and always room for improvement. Aybak, Samangan, Afghanistan - it makes no difference. There are people out there who are trying to kill us - there are not very many of them, they are not very close, and they are not very effective - but it kind of puts things into perspective. We're all glad to have the boys in D back in one piece.