ON EVERY BATTLEFIELD, leaders bring their team together and explain what they need the team to do. They might even draw it up. After they are done, the leader inevitably asks, “Does anyone have any questions?” In our entire careers, we can’t remember a single time when a teammate volunteered, “Actually, yes, I do have questions.” Instead, everyone shakes their head, mumbles “No,” and then runs back onto their battlefield as quickly as possible. The resulting “play” looks absolutely nothing like the play that the leader had communicated, demonstrating that the team did not have a good grasp on it at all, despite their lack of questions when asked if they had any.

To combat this, we recommend using a technique called a back brief. In the military, for any mission we embark upon, we give an operations order, which is often long, detailed, and complicated. When the briefer is done delivering it, instead of asking, “Does anyone have any questions?” he or she utilizes the back brief technique. The briefer will call on various members of the unit to brief back important sections of the operations order.

This does two things. First, it gives the briefer confidence that their message was delivered correctly and that their unit understands what they are doing. Second, it forces the entire unit to stay focused during the brief, knowing that they may be called on afterward. When utilizing the back brief technique, we tend to call on our best and most experienced people. It makes us feel good when they know the answers and can also make us look good in front of our superiors. However, this can be counterproductive because there is always a chance that your newer and less experienced people still do not understand what they are expected to do. Instead, in the Marine Corps, we would make it a point to call on our newest and least cerebral Marines, knowing that if they know the plan, our experienced Marines will as well. There are probably some Marines reading this right now thinking, “Hmmm, so that’s why I get called on all the time.”

We cannot stress enough to parents, teachers and leaders on every team the importance of utilizing the back brief technique. It will make your team better!