Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

The Marines teach you, above all, how to adapt, improvise, and overcome. But they expect you to have done your homework, to have mastered your profession. Amateur performance is anathema, and the Marines are bluntly critical of falling short, satisfied only with 100 percent effort and commitment. Yet over the course of my career, every time I made a mistake—and I made many—the Marines promoted me. They recognized that those mistakes were part of my tuition and a necessary bridge to learning how to do things right. Year in and year out, the Marines had trained me in skills they knew I needed, while educating me to deal with the unexpected.

The Marines’ military excellence does not suffocate intellectual freedom or substitute regimented thinking for imaginative solutions. They know their doctrine, often derived from lessons learned in combat and written in blood, but refuse to let that turn into dogma. Woe to the unimaginative one who, in after-action reviews, takes refuge in doctrine. The critiques in the field, in the classroom, or at happy hour are blunt for good reason. Personal sensitivities are irrelevant. No effort is made to ease you through your midlife crisis when peers, seniors, or subordinates offer more cunning or historically proven options, even when out of step with doctrine.

In any organization, it’s all about selecting the right team. The two qualities I was taught to value most in selecting others for promotion or critical roles were initiative and aggressiveness.

Looking back, some things are clear: the required reading that expanded with every rank, the coaches and mentors imposing their demanding standards, the Marine Corps emphasis on adaptation, team building, and critical thinking, and my years at sea and on foreign shores had all been preparation for this job, even if I’d never sought it.

Much of what I carried with me was summed up in a handwritten card that lay on my Pentagon desk these past few years, the desk where I signed deployment orders sending troops overseas. It read, “Will this commitment contribute sufficiently to the well-being of the American people to justify putting our troops in a position to die?” I would like to think that, thanks to the lessons I was taught, the answer to the Gold Star families of those we lost is “yes,” despite the everlasting pain those families carry with them.

“We don’t get to choose when we die,” he said. “But we do choose how we meet death.”

You make mistakes, or life knocks you down; either way, you get up and get on with it. You deal with life. You don’t whine about it.

the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s tombstone: “A life is not important except in its impact on other lives.” That sentiment captured the credo of the generation that raised me.

You don’t always control your circumstances, but you can always control your response.

The first is competence. Be brilliant in the basics. Don’t dabble in your job; you must master it.

Second, caring. To quote Teddy Roosevelt, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Third, conviction. This is harder and deeper than physical courage. Your peers are the first to know what you will stand for and, more important, what you won’t stand for. Your troops catch on fast. State your flat-ass rules and stick to them. They shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. At the same time, leaven your professional passion with personal humility and compassion for your troops. Remember: As an officer, you need to win only one battle—for the hearts of your troops. Win their hearts and they will win the fights.

Competence, caring, and conviction combine to form a fundamental element—shaping the fighting spirit of your troops. Leadership means reaching the souls of your troops, instilling a sense of commitment and purpose in the face of challenges so severe that they cannot be put into words.

The Marine philosophy is to recruit for attitude and train for skills.

I had learned in the fleet that in harmonious, effective units, everyone owns the unit mission. If you as the commander define the mission as your responsibility, you have already failed. It was our mission, never my mission.

George Washington, leading a revolutionary army, followed a “listen, learn, and help, then lead,” sequence. I found that what worked for George Washington worked for me.

“Look,” I said, “the sergeant on-scene endorsed that young man. He sees character in that guy. Unless you know something the recruiter is missing, your duty is to advocate so that headquarters grants the waiver.” That recruiter was on the line to see that recruit graduate from boot camp. The recruit was accepted and proudly became a Marine.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise. - Colin Powell

Partial commitment changes everything—it reduces the sense that the mission comes first.

You can’t have an elite organization if you look the other way when someone craps out on you.

“If at any time you can’t meet the quota, call and I’ll send somebody to help you.”

Beyond that, for the rest of my career, I aggressively delegated tasks to the lowest capable level. I made sure missions were clearly understood. Ethics and honesty held everyone to the same standard. I grew comfortable delegating authority to people I saw only once or twice a month. Decision-making was decentralized.

I understood what President Eisenhower had passed on. “I’ll tell you what leadership is,” he said. “It’s persuasion and conciliation and education and patience. It’s long, slow, tough work. That’s the only kind of leadership I know.”

The word battalion originated in the sixteenth century, derived from the Italian word for “battle,” battaglia. The battalion is the last command where the leader has a face-to-face, direct relationship with the troops. It is large enough to fight for a sustained period on its own, and small enough to ensure a close relationship between the commander and the troops.

I made my expectation clear: I wanted a bias for action, and to bring out the initiative in all hands. I would make do with what I had, and not waste time whining about what I didn’t have.

Oh, the mission got canceled? Good… We can focus on another one. Didn’t get the new high-speed gear we wanted? Good… We can keep it simple. Didn’t get promoted? Good… More time to get better. Didn’t get funded? Good… We own more of the company. Didn’t get the job you wanted? Good… Go out, gain more experience, and build a better resume. Got injured? Good… Needed a break from training. Got tapped out? Good… It’s better to tap out in training than tap out on the street. Got beat? Good… We learned. Unexpected problems? Good… We have to figure out a solutions — JOCKO

Colonel Carl Fulford was a Vietnam veteran. A true southern gentleman, firm yet unfailingly polite, he never had to raise his voice. He simply assumed you would meet his high standards. And you did—because you did not want to disappoint him.

I’d just received a blunt education about any unit commander’s role as the sentinel for his unit: You cannot allow your unit to be caught flat-footed. Don’t be myopically focused on your organization’s internal workings. Leaders are expected to stay attuned to their higher headquarters’ requirements. In the military, we exist to be prepared.

Nick’s example stuck with me: When tasked with supporting other units, select those you most hate to give up. Never advantage yourself at the expense of your comrades.

Once in the fight, I would not rearrange the organization. If a team bogged down or took heavy casualties, I would flank the enemy using another team. Strangers don’t fight well together, and it’s a precept with me not to reorganize in combat. I wanted the members of every team to know one another so well that they could predict each other’s reactions.

Fulford stressed one thing: Do not bog down once in the attack. If one thing isn’t working, change to another. Shift gears. Don’t lose momentum. Improvise. His message was simple: Do it. My fellow battalion commanders and I were absorbing the sure-footed spirit of this understated yet fierce warrior. Fulford left me confident that once the battle began, I wasn’t expected to call back for instructions. Use your aggressive initiative according to his intent.

Although in the flat desert I could see most of my units, I still delegated tactical command to the lowest capable level. Once in the attack, I wasn’t going to shout orders to corporals. The leaders of each element knew my intent:

Every commander and chief executive officer needs tools to scan the horizon for danger or opportunities.

If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you. Any commander who claims he is “too busy to read” is going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way. The consequences of incompetence in battle are final. History teaches that we face nothing new under the sun.

All Marines read a common set; in addition, sergeants read some books, and colonels read others. Even generals are assigned a new set of books that they must consume. At no rank is a Marine excused from studying.

the bonds that bind men together in battle.

Trust up and down the chain must be the coin of the realm. To instill that trust, the Marine Corps demanded that, as young officers, we learn how to convey our intent so that it passed intact through the layers of intermediate leadership to our youngest Marines.

Developing a culture of operating from commander’s intent demanded a higher level of unit discipline and self-discipline than issuing voluminous, detailed instructions. In drafting my intent, I learned to provide only what is necessary to achieve a clearly defined end state: tell your team the purpose of the operation, giving no more than the essential details of how you intend to achieve the mission, and then clearly state your goal or end state, one that enables what you intend to do next. Leave the “how” to your subordinates, who must be trained and rewarded for exercising initiative, taking advantage of opportunities and problems as they arise.

Subordinate commanders cannot seize fleeting opportunities if they do not understand the purpose behind an order. The correct exercise of independent action requires a common understanding between the commander and the subordinate, of both the mission and the commander’s intent of what the mission is expected to accomplish.

Slim wrote: “Commanders at all levels had to act more on their own; they were given greater latitude to work out their own plans to achieve what they knew was the Army Commander’s intention. In time they developed to a marked degree a flexibility of mind and a firmness of decision that enabled them to act swiftly to take advantage of sudden information or changing circumstances without reference to their superiors….This acting without orders, in anticipation of orders, or without waiting for approval yet always within the overall intention, must become second nature in any form of warfare.”

“Acting without orders…yet always within the overall intention.” That was how Colonel Fulford had led the 7th Marine Regiment in Operation Desert Storm.

As Churchill noted, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

Business management books often stress “centralized planning and decentralized execution.” That is too top-down for my taste. I believe in a centralized vision, coupled with decentralized planning and execution. In general, there are two kinds of executives: those who simply respond to their staffs and those who direct their staffs and give them latitude, coaching them as needed to carry out the directions.

Decentralized command at its finest. Start with “why”, the commanders intent, amd get the hell out of the troops way.

Guided by robust feedback loops, I returned to three questions: What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them? Shared data displays kept all planning elements aligned.

Memo to young officers: I can appear brilliant if I fight enemy leaders dumber than a bucket of rocks.

When you are engaged at the tactical level, you grasp your own reality so clearly it’s tempting to assume that everyone above you sees it in the same light. Wrong. When you’re the senior commander in a deployed force, time spent sharing your appreciation of the situation on the ground with your seniors is like time spent on reconnaissance: it’s seldom wasted.

In terms of numbers, geography, and demands upon my time, I had now fully transitioned from personal to executive leadership. I accepted the staff and commanders that the system had put in place. I made it clear that after ninety days, those who couldn’t embrace my priorities were to move elsewhere for a fresh start.

I focused the division on only two priorities: getting ready to deploy and how to fight under chemical attack. I canceled all division-level inspections that did not pertain to those two tasks. Attitudes are caught, not taught. I left it to the seasoned leaders to schedule the events they considered necessary for those two objectives. I wanted all training conducted as rehearsals for the coming fight. My aim was to create a restlessness in my commanders and make the learning environment contagious. I wanted them all to be asking, every day, What have I overlooked?

I don’t care how operationally brilliant you are; if you can’t create harmony—vicious harmony—on the battlefield, based on trust across different military services, foreign allied militaries, and diplomatic lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.

“OODA” loop, an acronym coined by the legendary maverick Air Force Colonel John Boyd. To win a dogfight, Boyd wrote, you have to observe what is going on, orient yourself, decide what to do, and act before your opponent has completed his version of that same process, repeating and repeating this loop faster than your foe. According to Boyd, a fighter pilot didn’t win because he had faster reflexes; he won because his reflexes were connected to a brain that thought faster than his opponent’s. Success in war requires seizing and maintaining the initiative—and the Marines had adopted Boyd’s OODA loop as the intellectual framework for maneuver warfare.

I followed British Field Marshal Slim’s advice that, in fairness to my troops, they had to know what their objective was and what my expectations of them were. Additionally, I needed to look the lads in the eye to get a sense of their levels of confidence and for them to directly feel the respect I had for those who would face our enemies.

“As officers,” he wrote, “you will neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor smoke, nor even sit down until you have personally seen that your men have done those things. If you will do this for them, they will follow you to the end of the world. And, if you do not, I will break you.”

Leaders eat last (if there is even anything left) Batt chiefs have suburbans to go find a snack later if need be. Let the crews eat.