Real-Life Communication
You are a naval officer assigned to a ship stationed at a naval
base on the Atlantic coast. As chief petty officer, you are responsible for
supervising the diving team aboard your ship. You schedule assignments, decide
which divers will be diving on any given day and decide how long the dives
will take.
This week, everyone on the base is gearing up for a celebration
to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the North Atlantic -- a famous sea
battle that helped turn the tide for the Allied forces in the Second World
War.
On the weekend, there will be a public ceremony honoring naval
veterans, with high-level government officials attending. Many ships have
adjusted their schedules to arrange to be in port this weekend, and several
will be holding public tours.
As part of the preparations, your crew
has been assigned the task of performing underwater repair work on several
older ships in port. Two of the ships need painting, and one also needs a
new propeller. The painting is completed early in the week with no problems.
However,
on the day you have scheduled your crew to replace the propeller, a storm
blows in.
Even in good conditions, currents can be extremely dangerous.
A diver in excellent physical condition might be able to swim at a rate of
30 meters per minute. However, currents often flow at a rate of hundreds of
meters per minute.
Usually, divers compensate for the current by going
against the surface water flow. That is, they move along the bottom in the
opposite direction from the way the water is flowing at the surface, then
let the current help take them back to their starting point.
However,
when the current is very strong, this method doesn't work. Today, the current
is moving faster than usual, and it is unsafe to work underwater in these
conditions.
You cancel the assignment. No other opportunity arises
to complete the work before the ceremony.
Early Monday morning, your
commanding officer telephones. It is soon clear that he is not pleased. As
he demands to know why your crew failed to complete the repair work, you quickly
realize that blame for a less-than-perfect weekend is going down the chain
of command.
No doubt your CO has already heard from his
superiors. Still, you do your best to explain the situation, providing technical
details about the strength and speed of the current.
Midway through
your explanation, the commanding officer interrupts, telling you to put the
facts down in a letter. You start writing it later that morning.
Since
the letter will eventually be going to non-military personnel who are probably
non-divers, you realize that it is pointless to include a number of complex,
technical details.
How can you write a letter that explains the situation
in a way so that a non-diver will understand?