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A smoothly operating team can more swiftly move through the observe/orient/decide/act loop, multiplying the effectiveness of its numbers. Left untouched, processes imposed by unneeded echelons will marginalize subordinate audacity.
All hands had to be thinking all the time: What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them?
In the same spirit, any competitive organization must nurture its maverick thinkers. You can’t wash them out of your outfit if you want to avoid being surprised by your competition. Without mavericks, we are more likely to find ourselves at the same time dominant and irrelevant, as the enemy steals a march on us.
Risk aversion will damage the long-term health, even survival, of the organization, because it will undercut disciplined but unregimented thinking.
Leaders at all ranks, but especially at high ranks, must keep in their inner circle people who will unhesitatingly point out when a leader’s personal behavior or decisions are not appropriate.
Knowing that my own approach to decisions was not foolproof, they saved me on more instances than I can recall from walking into minefields of my own making.
History is compelling. Nations with allies thrive, and those without wither.
Over the 712 days I served as Secretary, we drafted the first defense strategy in a decade, gained bipartisan support for a budget to implement that strategy, adopted unpredictable deployment schedules to confuse our adversaries, accelerated the destruction of ISIS’s geographic caliphate, and worked to reassure allies of our steadfast support.
When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution.
After he lost his son Robert in Afghanistan, my friend and colleague in arms, General John Kelly, said, “I think the one thing [the parents of the fallen] would ask is that the cause for which their son or daughter fell be carried through to a successful end, whatever that means, as opposed to ‘This is getting too costly,’ or ‘Too much of a pain in the ass,’ or ‘Let’s just walk away from it.’ They were willing to go where the nation’s leaders told them to go and in many cases gave their lives for the mission. They were willing to see it through literally to their ends. Can we do less?”
was pleased to read this 2014 post on Foreign Policy magazine’s website by Marine Captain Jordan Blashek: “Rather than trying to remember 69 different TTPs [Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures], I would suggest that 2nd lieutenants focus on just one: ‘Think deeply about your job and figure out the why behind everything.’…To face the confusion of the modern battlefield…requires a nuanced mind capable of critical thought and the humility to ask the right questions.” Jordan Blashek, “68 TTPs Too Many! Or, Why Lists Like That Won’t Help Improve Our Junior Officers,” Best Defense (blog), Foreign
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