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For two weeks, Lieutenant Commander Nana Ehlers from the German Federal Armed Forces Command and Staff College joined our team for a leadership placement. A trained submarine officer, Ehlers undertook this deep dive into corporate leadership as part of her advanced training for the general staff and admiral staff officer program.
During her time with us, she integrated into our strategic briefings, shadowed various team leads, and in return delivered three powerful workshop sessions to our management team. One of her talks, titled "Mali and Crisis Communication. Who on Earth Volunteers for This" set a compelling tone. In 2023, Ehlers served as Chief Public Affairs Officer for the final German contingent of the UN mission MINUSMA. She managed the complex communications surrounding the withdrawal of German forces from Mali, including the high stakes logistics of long convoys traveling through the Sahel region. Her session detailed exactly how communication functions when environments are highly unstable and operational decisions carry immediate, real world consequences.
Crisis communication is a standard element of everyday agency life. Usually, our work centers on brand reputation, navigating public backlash, managing product recalls, or correcting poorly received announcements. While these are critical business challenges, they carry a completely different weight compared to extracting troops from a conflict zone.
The exchange with Ehlers focused precisely on this division. We wanted to understand where the lines between our two worlds blur and which core communication principles remain completely transferable once you strip away the military setting.
One core methodology Ehlers continually emphasized is BLUF, which stands for Bottom Line Up Front. This approach dictates that the absolute core message must sit at the very beginning of an email, brief, or statement. When navigating a crisis, burying the lead wastes precious time that no one has. While this sounds incredibly simple in theory, critical messages in commercial PR copy often slide to the bottom of the page.
Equally important is navigating an incomplete information landscape. In the military, leaders must make decisions using the best available data at that exact second, adjusting their course as new facts emerge. This decisive speed is highly valuable in the corporate world. Acting early with the verified facts you currently hold buys you critical time to control the narrative.
Finally, Ehlers highlighted the concept of Command Presence, which is the ability to project absolute methodological calm externally even when things are highly chaotic behind the scenes. A team that senses anxiety in its leadership will inevitably lose focus. This rule applies just as much to a high pressure briefing at the Ministry of Defense as it does to a critical client meeting following a major brand setback.
We know a troop withdrawal and a corporate PR issue exist in entirely different spheres, but the structural principles behind them are identical. Putting the core message first, making decisive moves with partial information, and projecting steady leadership are valuable insights we are actively integrating into our own crisis advisory framework.
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