Think Three Levels Above You

Think Three Levels Above You

author: Lee Buttolph

I had a Professor once use the quote “Think three levels above you.”

This is really great advice and one I have used in the past.

I used to demand that my Marines write me emails that I could forward, unaltered, to my Commanding Officer (CO) and in turn, my CO could forward the same email, unaltered, to his CO.

All personnel along that chain should be able to read and understand the email.  This means, remove the jargon, don’t write so techy, write professionally, take your time, reread what your wrote, fix misspelled words, give context to the discussion and don’t speak ill of someone that could end up reading later what you wrote.

Use these great words of advice in other areas of your life.

“How would your boss’s boss solve this problem?”

“What are the company level ramifications to my job, not just how this relates to my department?”

“What type of customers does my boss’s boss want to me to target for new sales?”