#132 Ret. Gen. Stanley McChrystal - The Essence of Leadership

0:00 And we did some operations that were pretty difficult. We lost I remember one instance when we lost Uh a little bird. Pilot. Actually two.

0:11 In a daylight fire fight using a weapon system that was designed for night. And the father of one of the pilots who was lost had to fair question afterward, he said what are you doing? Having that. My son flying that helicopter during daylight in its conditions.

0:28 And our response was, that's the only time we could get at the enemy, we had to do that. And he accepted that you know which is tough because of the loss. But I think I was pleasantly please that people were willing to accept really difficult decisions and orders.

0:43 If they understood the purpose clearly. Welcome to the Knowledge Project Podcast. I'm your host, Shane Parish. The goal of this show is to master the best of what other people have already figured out, so that you can unlock your potential. To that end, I sit down with people at the top of their game to uncover what they've learned along the way. Every episode is packed with timeless ideas that you can use in life and business.

1:25 If you're listening to this, you're missing out. If you'd like special member only episodes, access before anyone else, transcripts, and other member only content, you can join at fs.blog slash membership. Check out the show notes for a link. Retired four star general Stanley McChrystal joins me today. Throughout his military career, Stan commanded a number of elite organizations, including the 75th Ranger Regiment.

1:50 He's also the former commander of the Premier Military Counterterrorism Force Joint Special Operations Command, also known as JSOC. Today he's the founder of the McCrystal Group, an advisory service firm. that helps businesses challenge the traditional command and control approach to management. And he's also a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson. Institute for Global Affairs where he teaches a course on leadership.

2:15 For more than a decade, starting in 2001, I worked for one of the most secretive three-letter intelligence agencies in the world. And one of the reasons I wanted to sit down with Stan today was to expand my perspective through his eyes. In this wide ranging conversation we talk about risk and how we can mitigate it. Learning to make decisions under uncertainty.

2:36 how to make sure you're dealing with reality on the ground when you sit at the top of an organization. the timeline problem. What he reminds himself when he's under a lot of stress. Why civilian leadership is harder than military leadership, developing mental toughness, the advantages of studying history. Teaching self-discipline.

2:55 the impact of his famous once a day meal on the people he worked with. The greatest misperception other people have about him And why we don't hold people that fail to make a decision to the same standard as the people that do? It's time to listen. And learn.

3:14 Oh What is risk? I used to think of risk as something bad that could happen. And typically the intersection of probability and consequences.

3:29 So What's the chances that something occurs and if it does, how bad will that be? And and that sort of becomes a risk and you buy insurance and you try to dodge it and whatnot. Now I think of it a little differently. Now I think of it as a mathematical equation, and and this is the extent of my my math expertise, but If you think of it as threats

3:51 Times vulnerabilities. equals risk. Then you suddenly realize that threats for things that are out there that are inevitably coming our way, in most cases.

4:02 And then our vulnerability to them. And so if we can drive threats down low or to zero in a perfect world, which we usually can't. Then we'd have no risk. But if we can't control the threats that are out there, which we usually cannot. Then we've got to focus on our vulnerability to them.

4:20 And we have some agency over that. Not perfect, but we can do something about that, and that can decrease our risk. And so I think of risk as the result there and and what we're trying to to have some level of control over Is it fair to say that threats are effectively and our vulnerability to them is controllable or more controllable? I think it is. There were people who will would argue that If we are really good at predicting threats, we can dodge them, or some threats you can reach out and do something about. But I would say practically speaking, you're right.

4:58 We're really not very good at seeing where all the threats are coming from, particularly in a complex environment. And also we're not very good at predicting when they will come. So I think it's a fool's errand. To try to think you're gonna swat away every threat.

5:15 But you can do a lot about your vulnerabilities. And you you did you come to this idea through the immune system, or was that just a way to explain this? How did you use that? Well we came to the idea of risk first with This This gap.

5:31 between what I'd studied about the theory of risk and what people had tried to teach me in my career, and then my actual experience with it. Meaning I didn't actually have very good outcomes with risk, even if I'd gone through the checklists and the matrices and all the the sort of scientific approaches. And then I looked historically at the things just

5:52 really in my lifetime. And I think of the nine eleven attacks. Where we had all the information necessary to stop The world trade towers being hit. inside the US government, but we couldn't connect the dots.

6:05 Or the financial crisis. Where All of the bubble and the fragilities were knowable. But we couldn't Do my we didn't do very well with it. And then of course Covet nineteen. So

6:18 Because we've done so poorly at dealing with some pretty predictable risks. I wanted to study why is that? And that got me to the human immunished. This immunologist who I'd met at Yale.

6:33 taught me about the human immune system when we were working on uh project on counterinsurgency and She taught me that the human immun system is this extraordinary міракл. uh capability we have to detect Threats.

6:48 Assess them respond to them and then learn from it. And you say, Well okay, it's pretty good. I say, Wait a minute. They Actually estimate Ten thousand times a day we ingest a microorganism.

7:02 That could kill us. And yet They don't, for the most part. And it's only when our immune system is weakened that we become vulnerable to things that Otherwise wouldn't be a problem.

7:14 And so if we think of that analogy. then suddenly you think of uh the systems were part of the organizations were a part of the nations were a part of or even us individually. We have an ability to Detect assessed, respond and learn

7:32 And the question is how strong is it? How healthy is it? Determine our ability to withstand the threats that inevitably show up. Are there practical things we can do to increase our ability as people to detect, respond? um to these threats. Yeah, that's the good point. This is not just something you are born with, that you are

7:51 more resilient than the next person or your organization automatically has In reality, there are we have enumerated ten risk control factors that make up this system. We could have had twelve, we could have had fifteen. It's We try to make it manageable as we We captured it, but really they go around things like communication, the ability to communicate inside the organization.

8:15 Do we have a clear narrative and are we aligned on it? Do we have the ability to respond or act? Can we overcome the inertia of inaction? Or change our action if we're in the wrong direction. Can we get the timing right?

8:30 Can we swing at the pitch at the appropriate moment? Can we adapt when conditions change and the requirement is there? Do we Bring in the K uh all the different perspectives needed, meaning diversity. Can we overcome biases?

8:46 Does leadership provide an umbrella or connection for all of this. Now If we take each of those, they are a holistic system. But we can actually break out Almost like the human body.

8:59 We can exercise certain muscles, we can make them stronger. And then of course we can exercise the entire system so we're more resilient. And there are a number of things we can do. really on a a daily basis in our organization to make ourselves ready for that next threat.

9:16 I wanna come back to something you said about nine eleven where we had the information and we just didn't use it. Do you think that that's necessarily valuable. We'll always have information. uh and then we have to assess the credibility of that information. Like you can't chase down every single piece of information that comes in with a threat against the United States. So do you think it's possible to eliminate that risk to nothing by um

9:40 Internal controls, or how do you see that? Yeah, Shane, I think it's not possible. Or at least not realistic. And when we studied the nine eleven situation For the book. We found that there had been a lot of information, intelligence pumping into the system.

9:57 But if you compared it to the amount of overall intelligence pumping through the system, it's a very small amount. So having that signal. differentiate itself from the rest of the noise is probably impossible. Now some people will say, Well, big data will solve this. We use artificial intelligence and we'll crunch and we'll see patterns and trends. And to a degree that will be of help.

10:21 But I don't think it will be the panacea. I think there will still be too much noise. too much information pumping in. And so what we've got to do is accept the reality that We're probably not going to be very good at it. And so what we should accept is the fact. A significant amount of those threats will make it through whatever kind of

10:43 detection process we have. And so we're gonna have to deal with them the when our when they're on our doorstep. The most interesting thing I think about the nine eleven stuff is uh multiple departments had different information. And in the context of the information and that department, the information didn't sort of trigger a high enough threat. But if you aggregated all the information together, then you would have any of those departments would have acted on the information. Well that's exactly right. If you think about it.

11:11 It's um the analogy of the blind man and the elephant. You've got Blind men looking at the elephant, one sees a leg. Or touches a leg, thinks it's the elephant's like a tree, another holds it Tail think it's like a snake.

11:23 And none of them are wrong. But You remember there was a case in the nine eleven where you had some people doing flight lessons. And

11:34 That didn't rise to the level where the people who were aware of that said, red lights we've got to stop because they just couldn't connect that to the idea of hijacking and and doing what they ultimately did. And I think we'd be

11:47 overly critical. to say that they were all wrong that because they saw this narrow picture they didn't automatically see the big picture. And so Two two lessons for me. The first is We've got to try to connect organizations as much as possible to

12:03 complete the mosaic where we can. But we've also gotta be humble enough. To say it's unlikely we'll ever have a clear picture. So we gotta be prepared to deal with the unexpected. I wanna come to that later. Do you think we're getting better at sort of dealing with risk or are we getting

12:19 uh more risk averse as a society writ large. That's a great question. I actually hadn't Haven't answered that one before. I think Probably a little bit of both. We are probably getting better at our ability to share information. At least we have the ability to share information better. Technology allows that.

12:38 Uh we now have the help of augmented and artificial intelligence which lets us see trends. So we can s The effects of climate. Change? But then the counter argument is okay.

12:52 So what if we don't do anything about it? Are we really getting better? And so I would argue on the one hand there is the ability To assess the risk with greater accuracy and more timeliness. But we have problems in our society and our organizations now where

13:10 It's very hard to overcome inertia, either The inaction or The momentum we have in a certain direction because there are stakeholders, there are habits. There are fears. And so I would argue that

13:23 We probably not better. Although we could be. Do you think we're we're sort of almost setting ourselves up for that. I I'm just thinking in terms of like We seem to have

13:33 Um a lot more government around risk now than we've ever had before, trying to protect citizens from everything. And does that make us uh how does that affect us? Do we filter information the same way? Do we think differently about risk because now we can absolve ourselves of responsibility or Do you have any thoughts on that? I think it really is in two levels. The first is you talk about

13:57 responsibility there's a moral ha hazard here in that Organizations like Lehman Brothers. Who named a very capable chief risk ofфіcer. created an impression inside the organization that Other individuals didn't have to worry as much about risk because they had a person

14:15 Who is responsible for that? And they would They would cover it. And of course That's inaccurate. That wasn't even her role.

14:23 And she wasn't allowed in things like investment committee meetings where the biggest risk decisions were made. So I think there's there's That dynamic. And then there's another dynamic of I'll call it anonymity. And I think it shows up in particularly in American society.

14:41 Where Someone is r grows up in a town, they're born in a community. And they spend the first few years there, and then they go off to school. And after school they go live somewhere else. And during that period of life they are interested in certain things in the community. They're very interested in the schools and whatnot. Then they hit a retirement age.

15:01 And they move yet again, and they move to a warmer climate. And suddenly in that new environment. They're not interested in the schools because they don't have kids or grandkids in the community, so they don't have that same level of Responsibility To the entire

15:18 depth of the community. And you also haven't been there as long, so you don't feel like I'm going to be born, raised, and be buried here, and therefore my legacy is very important.

15:31 And I think that decreases our sense of ownership over risks. We tend to be more short term. And that more short term is

15:42 I think applies nationally as well. And you could argue to commercial organizations if they have a short term profit motive. and they can just make goals for a certain period. They're not thinking about I'm gonna leave this to my my sons or daughters and

15:59 And grandsons are granddaughters and therefore they don't have the same kind of long term view. I like that a lot. One of the biggest sort of like structural problems that I think of when I I think of decisions is the difference in timeline between parties. You can think of this as shareholders and CEOs, but you can also think of this as a mismatch between uh politicians and military leaders. As an outsider, it seems to me that politicians who operate

16:25 on a four year election cycle have different, more short sighted timelines, and this drives behavior. To what extent Do you think that's true, and how do you think about that? I think it's very true, in my own experience. Separate from politicians, you found different parts of the US government. The central intelligence agency took a longer term view.

16:46 They would operate in an area and they would build intelligence networks and capabilities because they were gonna be there forever. In some form or fashion. The military was typically there for much shorter periods in larger numbers, and so the military became convinced they had to do something in relatively short order. So we had to come in and because we had mass and expenditure, we gotta move fast.

17:09 Which could be weak because the military could be looking at expedience over long term. And then the State Department had a different view as well, and often they had a view that said We're not here to change reality, we're here to report it. And so

17:26 Those different timelines became Mm. at uh tension with each other. Now they could work together. They actually could be mutually supportive'cause they could Help each other.

17:37 She More Complete view. Politicians are the same way. I had Uh Mayor Mike Bloomberg one day tell me that he thought that

17:47 Only executives Meaning elected mayors, presidents and whatnot. Are likely to do long term infrastructure things. At the time he was talking about a project to make New York City more

18:01 resilient against things like Hurricane Sandy. Which was a huge expenditure. He said legislations or legislatures which thought on a two or four year cycle had a difficult time making that kind of investment because the payback wouldn't come quickly enough. And I think that's true in different versions

18:21 across many elected officials. It's hard for someone, as Margaret Thatcher said. When you make a decision, you shouldn't be thinking about its impact tomorrow. But the impact ten years from now. And it's hard for an elected official who knows they won't be in office.

18:37 ten years from now to make that kind of call. Is it also hard for you as a um you know executive or general to make that argument? uh to them where you think about the compromises that you make to have these immediate short term sort of steps or victories or that might undermine the long term sort of progress that you actually need to make or distract you. from something longer term, when you have to take a longer view, how do you offer that perspective in a way that people listen or sort of see it through different eyes? Yeah, I'd start by saying I think the military we we've done it imperfectly. The first is because the military has the temptation to have short term views as well.

19:17 A commander may have a two year command tour. And there's this desire to make certain improvements or achievements by then and and it's hard to take a ten or twenty year view? We think we do. But when I'm very honest, I think we we don't do it real well.

19:34 And then your really good question about how do you articulate that and tell people well We've gotta think twenty or thirty years out on that because that's how long it will take to create certain entities. We sometimes can make that filo soficly. You know, we can rhetorically say we need to do that.

19:53 But know full well that elected officials if they say American are gonna stay in Afghanistan for twenty or forty or sixty years. But that's a really hard sell. And that's a hard narrative to make to the American people. that melding between the military and policy makers

20:12 has got to be richer. And we've gotta all be more thoughtful long term. I would argue that probably after World War Two when we sent American forces back to Germany. When it was clear that the Soviet Union was gonna be a Cold War adversary.

20:27 Had we said we are gonna be there. Seventy years from now. that the American probably would have really had a problem with that. How do you simultaneously be completely honest?

20:40 W what you think the long term requirement is and yet successful in having your message accepted. Yeah, it sounds like a really tricky thing'cause there's things that we wouldn't get involved in if we knew sort of how long that they would last. And maybe some of those things we should and some of those things we shouldn't. I tell people with parenthood. How often do people come to me and say

21:01 Congratulate us, we're gonna have a baby. And my response is no you're not. You're gonna have a person. And you're gonna have'em for at least eighteen years. And my son, I've only got one son, he lives next door to me, so

21:14 He's thirty eight. So it's great. But it's a relationship that's Forever. And and thinking about that sometimes is hard.

21:24 Totally. How would you go about teaching somebody to make decisions under uncertainty? How do you teach soldiers to do that? First teach him that certainty is an impossible goal. When I was a brand new lieutenant, I asked my father, how would I know if somebody that I worked for or worked for me was going to be a good commander in combat? And I asked him, How would you tell him peacetime? and he says, You won't. You won't know.

21:50 Because people have capabilities or or coping mechanisms that in peacetime look fine that don't Play one or more. But when you're in combat then I I asked him, Okay, uh when you're in combat, how do you know? He said some people keep asking for more information.

22:06 And what they're trying to do is drive uncertainty to zero. So that there's really not a question on the right course of action because you know everything. But you can't do that. It's not achievable. And so they become hesitant. They become tentative and they become focused on getting more and more information to

22:26 to ratchet the uncertainty out of the situation, and they don't act. And Good commanders know when they've got T Take a risk. There's a certain amount of

22:36 Absolutely. due diligence you do to get information responsibly. But there's a moment in which you have to act, either take advantage of the opportunity or negate the risk. And Part of that is learned.

22:49 And I think part of that is A person's makeup. I think everyone has a relationship with risk. And it doesn't really change. You you may get a little better with it, a little more experienced. But you have a certain

23:02 ability to deal with that uncertainty and and I think that comes from birth. I I think about this in the sense of When do you stop gathering information? And I I I have sort of a heuristic around this, which is called stop flop or no. So you stop gathering useful information, flop is your first loss opportunity. where you know what to do. And at that point you can make a decision. I'm wondering if you've developed any heuristics over your career

23:28 that sort of can guide you in when to decide. I've never captured'em as clearly as you just did there. But my tendency is to make decisions too quickly. I have a tendency to get Too little information and shoot from the hip and make a decision and let's go.

23:45 And so what I did learn about myself was I had to bring people around me Who were not that way. And every once in a while I've I've been lucky enough to get some people around me who I say this n pejoratively, but it's unfair. Or handwringers.

24:00 They're always seeing the problem, et cetera. And what that does is it gives us a balance because I will sometimes be irresponsibly Rapid. superficial. And if I've got people who want to look under every stone and and sort out everything We can meet somewhere in the middle. They pull me.

24:18 to a reasonable area and I can pull them to where we need to be. So It did do that.

24:24 But one thing we do practice that I learned from a a mentor of mine, and that is sort of phases of decision making. There's a phase in which you gather information and you get inputs from everybody. And then there's a point at which you make a decision. And he used to very clearly announce and he taught me to do the same. Phase one and phase two are different.

24:45 Phase one, I want all your inputs, I want this. Once we've made a decision and we're in phase two. Unless you have information that substantively changes our feeling of reality. We're in the execute boat.

24:59 And and you were focused. And It's not fair to come back and revisit the decision just because you didn't like it. Unless something Real has changed.

25:10 Shut up and row. Yeah, I I like that a lot. Uh Jeff Bezos has the disagree and commit. It's okay to disagree, but you gotta commit once we decide which direction we're going in. Are there types of decisions that you made sort of or that you force yourself to slow down with more than others, because you you're faced with only difficult decisions, right? You you no no easy decision is getting to you. And yet you're you have to make all these decisions. How do you decide which ones to make quickly and which ones to take your time with?

25:39 One technique that's worked very well for me is you start with what action would need to be executed to be effective. And then you back plan and figure out how long it would take to implement that action. And so That's your decision point. You must make the decision, which gives you time to uh propagate the decision out to everybody and then time to actually act on it. And you go by the point, the last possible time you can make that decision.

26:07 And have an effective outcome. That's very useful. Because I mentioned that I tend to make decisions too quickly. I find if I go on and say This is when the decision has to be made.

26:19 And there may be no value in making the decision before that. No advanta. It doesn't get better. So that taught me that I had a lot more time in many cases to gather more information, increase my conviction, all that kind of thing over the decision. Uh so so that's kinda number one. And then

26:41 I think Also it's As soon as I think I know enough, and I'm not kidding myself about it. You know, I tend to make the decision there, you know, I I had a conversation earlier today with someone about a phenomenon we've probably all seen.

26:59 Someone comes to you and says I think Old Stand's not performing very well. And I think we may have to let Stan go or reassign him. But I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna give it three months. Yeah.

27:11 Analyze it. And you go, Now what are you gonna know three months from now? about old Stan that you don't know now? And usually the answer is nothing. And what could he possibly do? Changing his behavior.

27:23 That's realistic in the next three months it would change it. And the answer is often, well, nothing really. So you already know the right answer. You're just Delay'em because it's uncomfortable. And

27:34 Often I see those tough decisions get delayed. Just because we don't like'em. We don't like to make'em. Yeah, that that's really interesting, right? We don't like to deal with the consequences of the decision, whether it's a hard conversation with somebody or uh, you know, we have to hurt somebody or Um

27:50 I it it's really and but they don't get easier. They don't tend to get easier with time. They actually get harder. Exactly. And you're better once you know the right answer. You're better to act. There are no easy decisions in battle. Troops are often put into moral dilemmas or situations where there is no right answer. There's something you you can't be taught. Is there sort of an experience that comes to mind that you can think of and and how do you assess people's ability to handle that degree of Uh or that type of dilemma.

28:22 Surprisingly good, Chain. Um particularly in professional military forces where people have a fair amount of experience because Most of them will know pretty quickly that there's not a good answer. We would do military operations where you are going to conduct it.

28:40 particularly in the counter terrorist world in Iraq during the the height of the fight two thousand five and six. We were designed to fight at night. But at times the opportunity came during daylight. And the only time you could get at the enemy was when you could find him, and that was during daylight, which was when they wanted to fight.

28:58 And so you have to make these decisions that say, Okay, we are gonna give away some of our advantage. Because we have to get'em while we can. And we did some operations that were pretty difficult. We lost I remember one instance when we lost Uh a little bird.

29:16 Pilot. Actually two. In a daylight fire fight using a weapon system that was designed for night. And the father of One of the pilots who was lost had the

29:29 had the fair question afterward. He said, What do you do in Having that. My son flying that helicopter during daylight in its conditions. And our response was, that's the only time we could get at the enemy, we had to do that. And he accepted that you know which is tough because of the loss.

29:46 But usually I found in the organization if you communicate clearly that this is the rationale that we are using, this is why we are doing this. that people were remarkably understanding and bought in. And sometimes what you do is you you help yourself because you make the argument that says, this is why we're doing this And you'll get someone inside the organization Who points out there's a better way.

30:11 Saying wait a minute, we can do this differently. sort of rises, but But I think I was pleasantly

30:21 please that people were willing to accept really difficult decisions and orders If they understood the purpose clearly. Is that sort of the commander's intent, or is there something deeper to that? The commander's intense That's part of it, but it's probably better for me to explain commander's intent in the idea that

30:41 You have a m in a military order, you have a uh what we call a mission statement. And it normally says Who what when where why. And how you're gonna do that. And it tells an organization, this organization will do this on Tuesday to accomplish this mission. But that's kinda sterile. It's usually a single sentence.

31:02 And what the commander's intent was designed to do. was tell everyone in the organization This is what I actually mean. And if everything goes to hell. As long as we get this done, accomplish this outcome

31:17 That's success. And so while I've got a plan that says we are gonna do it this way. If the plan falls apart Whatever we can do to accomplish this outcome is good, and it's letting All of the force into the commander's head.

31:33 Understanding What to do and so When the plan goes badly as they invariably do. you know, and you're picking the pieces up and adapting.

31:44 Everybody can pick up the piece and adapt by themselves. They don't need you to tell them exactly what to do. I like that because it gives a level of autonomy, right? If you lose radio contact or you lose something else, at least you have you have that next step. You know which direction that you're headed. Exactly. As a commander you You you have to make decisions with maps, not physical maps, but sort of abstractions of reality that have been filtered through a lot of people before it gets to you. And the decisions you can make are only as good as the information that you get. How do you make sure you're dealing with reality on the ground to make sure that you're really understanding what's happening? Yeah, that this is really important because

32:24 As you know, by the time it gets up to you, it's been sort of homogenized to the point where it looks neat and clean, and military units are depicted as symbols on a map, and you move military units around and The little symbol doesn't get tired. doesn't get frightened, you know, doesn't suffer casualties, but on the ground it's very human and very different than that. There are several things. First is

32:46 experience on the part of the commander, having been there. having looking at a movement Of an organization across a map, and you go, Wait a minute, I've made movements like that. I know what it does. How tiring it is, or Or difficult.

33:01 The second is Staying in communication with people as much as you can. Listening. You know, there's a lot of uh tex communication now. But there was incredible value in voice communication.

33:15 You could talk to a subordinate, and you could tell by the tone of their voice. How their morale was Whether they were upset, whether they were f shaky. And you could hopefully be a w reassuring voice to them.

33:29 That's hard to do in a in a printed thing. Finally, it's gotten trickier in recent years because we have the ability to get two dimensional depictions of the battlefield specifically from Unmanned area vehicles. Ін Iraq and Afganistan over every fight we could have.

33:50 At about ten thousand to twenty thousand feet, full motion video. So the commander could sit in the The command center and watch from above. A movie of what's happening, almost like a war game. And so you have the tendency to think that you have this godlike perspective.

34:07 You see all the forces, you can move them around like chess pieces if you want, because you have the capability communication to do that. What you have to remind yourself we had to keep Telling ourselves. You're not there.

34:21 You don't know how dark it is, how cold it is, you don't know you don't hear the crack of the bullet. You're not Hired. And so don't fall into the self deception that you have a better understanding of what's happening than they do.

34:38 Use that But position and that visibility To gain some perspective. But then listen, talk, do everything else you can.

34:47 and support the person on the ground because ultimately they do know better. They They have a much more visceral fill. of what's possible and what isn't, and you can help them with a perspective. But but you have to defer to them because they have a sense of it.

35:03 I think it's really interesting because we we think that our perspective is sort of all there is to see. And you know, the boots on the ground have one perspective, the person watching on the the video screens have a different perspective, and reality is a blending of sort of those two perspectives. But whichever perspective you're in is the one you default to. And it's interesting because in a chain of command in a corporation, in a government, or in a military, as you go up, you tend to have a bigger strategic view. And Down on the lowest level you tell someone to accomplish something

35:36 And they go, This is really hard. But from here it looks really important. So you say shut up and make it happen. Sometimes you're right. Sometimes you're not right.

35:47 Sometimes it's really not Worth it or smart. And Building trust and building communication all the time so you can get as rich a picture. So you don't try to move chess pieces around when it doesn't make sense.

36:02 Or Sometimes you have to push organizations to go when they don't want to. But but that's critical to have that That connectivity that's

36:13 Richer than just uh a sterile communication. Is there an example sort of that comes to mind where the information you were given and then seeing up close? uh the reality of the situation were just different. I mean I can't tell ya how many times

36:29 I would do that. I I once went uh out to this small area in Afghanistan. I say small, it was Far away from Kabul. And we've given a strategy out to them that says, Okay, this is how we're gonna deal with the locals and whatnot.

36:44 And I got an email. From a young sergeant a sergeant a staff sergeant, a squad leader. And he sent me this email that says Sir, with all due respect, I don't think you understand what's going on out here.

36:57 And of course, as a commander, my my feelings are hurt and whatnot. And we got in a helicopter the next day and I said, We're going down there, we're gonna see. So we went down to this area and it was outside of Kondah and it was an area that was a pretty tough fight. And it was the damnedest thing I've ever seen. In Afghanistan there's not a lot of wood to make trellises for grapes and things like that.

37:19 So they do it using mud walls. And those mud walls are about six to seven feet high, and they pack them together, and then the vines of The plant are inside the mud wall and the blossoms on the top. So what you've created is like suddenly being shrunk down and being into corduroy. And you are suddenly in this corduroy landscape for

37:40 Miles, literally square miles. Well think about that in a combat sense. You can't see over the the walls. Yeah. You could probably raise yourself up and then somebody'd shoot your head off. Instead you're moving in this corridor area that goes maybe a hundred feet before it turns. So the enemy, if you're it's like fighting in a big maze.

37:59 And the enemy all they have to do is get a one in, shoot down it, there's nowhere to go. And then Disappear. And then they could put mines and booby traps in that area, so you gotta be credibly so I I went down

38:12 to this organization and I said, I'm gonna spend the day with you. So we spend all day going on a combat patrol. And I came out of there going That's the most difficult thing I've ever seen, tactically. And he goes, Yep. We're in there every day, sir, and you're trying to get us to control this area.

38:30 And Really hard. And he was right. And we sat down and we talked. And

38:37 At the end of it I said, yeah, but I can't take away the requirement. We have to secure this. I can't make it easier. I can appreciate it. But my requirement our requirement strategically is this. So we got to get it done. So I don't think they were in love with what I said, and I certainly did wasn't in love with the situation.

38:55 But the reality was you close the gap between perceptions. And that's so leaders have gotta get out sometimes and get on the ground in the corridor and Feel it. You know understand how hard it is. And then sometimes you gotta tell people what they don't wanna hear.

39:13 But they know you know. And that's key. Do you think it would be beneficial for politicians to spend some time in um deployments or in theater? um, where they're actually getting a different sense. I mean, it's one thing to sort of like sit in Washington or wherever your headquarters is and make decisions that affect Um people, it's another thing to get on the ground and see it.

39:36 Yeah, and in in the defense of politicians, a lot of them did do that. Not not all of them by any means. Are those press tours though or are those like real engagements? It ran the gamut. There were people who were battlefield tourists and they were there to check the block and and tell people they'd been there, and there are other people who were literally When they got out there, they asked thoughtful questions, they focused on it, they tried to get as close as they could to the uh to the action and listen to to junior soldiers so they gotta A good view of it.

40:06 It's hard to do usually in compressed trips. And when they fly over halfway around the world, they're exhausted when they get there. So there are challenges. But there were a lot who did it very well and I I really admired the effort they put in to try to to try to really understand because you know

40:25 The truth is, if you sit back in DC And you listen to what the military tells ya. You know, the military God bless us. We'll say what we want to be true.

40:36 It's not that we're lying. But We've been given a mission and we desperately want it to be going well, and so there's a tendency to portray it that way. Go go on the ground and feel it yourself. How do you think about the risk of not deciding, like not making a decision

40:53 especially in like a chain of commanding government sort of carries a risk, but people seem to punt on that. The the the people who don't make decisions, delay uh or avoid making the decision, the opportunity gets lost, but they don't get held to the same standard. as other people. No, they don't. I've described my experience.

41:14 with some bureaucrats when I was in the counterterrorism world Where you had to go up the chain of command multiple levels, sometimes to the White House for permission to do something that was a bit sensitive. And You'd get to a decision maker somewhere in route. And that decision maker would ask a question like, How much wood can a wood chuck chuck?

41:33 And I go, What are you talking about? It's got nothing to do with it. And they'd say, Well, I need to know that. And we'd go back and we try to gather that information. We come back And they would say, Well The opportunity's gone, you know, that the intelligence is no longer good.

41:46 And they would look at me and they go, You didn't come prepared. But what had happened was They hadn't made a decision to approve it and they hadn't made a decision to disapprove it, but So their hands were clean, they had no responsibility at all. Now

42:02 We still failed because we didn't take advantage of the opportunity. We in the The aggregate. And they were able to push back and say, No, you didn't come prepared. when it wasn't realistic to have come with that kind of information. And that's

42:16 to your point of sometimes Not making a decision Is making a decision, it's creating an outcome, but avoiding responsibility for it. And it's pretty common in bureaucracies where People are not incentivized to take risk.

42:32 Where people tend to be punished for bad decisions. But really not rewarded for good ones. Or even for contributing to a good one get made. Now there are a lot of good people who don't fall prey to this, but there are too many good people who do.

42:47 And so you that's why you'll find in many organizations that have layers a difficulty in getting really important decisions made. Talk to me a little bit about that asymmetry you just mentioned between not getting rewarded for good decisions and being punished for bad decisions and how organizations can go about changing that. Yeah. If you think about

43:10 uh any organization that punishes failure, whether they do it intentionally or unintentionally. United States Army In the period in which I served. was really bad about punishing any mistake by a leader.

43:27 So if a leader made a mistake in their personal lives, their conduct, even if they're fairly young leader at the time, That's a ding on their career that typically ended. their upward mobility. Uh You think of the navy if a if a ship's captain has a mistake.

43:44 often they pay for it with their career. But if you think about where you learn the most. You typically learn the most when you've screwed something up really badly. and you've gotten scuffed up for you've lost a lot of money or you've gotten physic or I you know, if you're young, you

44:01 you do something really ridiculous and somebody holds you to account for it. If you don't get a second chance, all that experience is gone. Now, what you don't wanna do is create an environment where people feel that they can be negligent or cavalier because

44:20 It's okay, they won't be held to account. But on the other hand, I think it's really important to say that If people haven't pushed the bounds a little bit, they probably haven't pushed as hard as we want'em to. So I would say that

44:32 The military has not been very good about that. We have not created an environment. And I see the same thing in civilian corporations. I hear leaders say I want people to take more risk.

44:45 I want Yeah, push the bounds, all the rhetoric that you hear about that. But then you ask them to point out The people who've failed significantly.

44:55 And where they are in the company now. And typically there'll be a a pause and a silence, and they might bring up an example of something really small. But the reality is people who made Big mistakes or push.

45:08 programs that didn't succeed. are very rarely rewarded. with A significant Move forward.

45:15 And so Everybody in the organization watches that. Everyone goes to school on it. And if you are safe and you don't make any mistakes It's possible to

45:27 To rise up. And that That's a negative. Message in itself. Because the safe

45:33 sort of bureaucrat. is rewarded when someone who pushes harder often is not. That's a really interesting point. I'm curious when you're under stress. What what do you tell yourself? What is that internal monologue?

45:46 Sound like. Great question. Um I want to say its voices say panic right away now uh Typically what I try to do when I'm at my best I have to step back and say okay, what is the problem I'm faced with?

46:02 And what is the outcome that I'm trying to achieve? Because you can sort of drown out some of the noise around it if you can focus on that and say what we really have to do is this. and achieve this particular outcome. And then I try to think, okay, what's governing my decision here? And I think it should be two things. I think it should be my values. Am I sticking to my values so I don't drift off those?

46:27 And two am I making a probability based decision. Because I can't make a perfect decision. I'm not smart enough to do that. But I can make a decision that is reasonable in judging the probability. And

46:41 If I get those two things right. Something that has a reasonable chance of success and reflects my values. then I'm probably dealing with the crisis. And can I communicate that clear? To my team. Can I

46:55 Give them the The kind of Atmosphere. That reassures them. Can I show clear confidence?

47:03 I can absolutely communicate this is a tough moment. It is a time for everybody to be focused on But not a time for panic because I haven't seen any situations where panic contributes to the The good outcome.

47:16 So you're trying to create the environment, create confidence, focus people on that, make a clear decision. Now here's the The out the thing about the outcome. It may come out wrong. And just because you got it wrong.

47:30 or you get a bad outcome doesn't mean the decision was bad. You can make the best possible decision. And bad luck or randomness. Similarly, you can make a stupid decision Get a good outcome and convince yourself you're a genius when you're not.

47:45 And so As you come through that, it's really important to come back and not. Not reinforce bad habits. Just because you lucked out. Because the organization is always going to school on what you do.

47:59 They are modelling your behavior. They are emulating you and if you do things The wrong way. Even Process wise or

48:08 In interpersonally All those things become reflected in young leaders. Once when I joined a battalion when I was a captain Uh All the lieutenants ran around with their T shirts on backwards.

48:22 under their blouse. And I thought I saw the first couple of guys and I said, These guys get up early in the morning, they they need to pay a little more attention. And then I saw most of the lieutenants were doing it and none of the captains were. One rank up. And so finally I had to ask, okay, what's up with this?

48:38 Well the battalion commander was a very charismatic guy. And he told people that in Vietnam They wore their T shirts on backwards, so less of their skin showed And the Vietcom couldn't see it as easily and wouldn't care.

48:53 And I thought that was questionable, but anyway, he was this charismatic leader who pushed it out. And that same charismatic leader later got himself in significant trouble. for his personal conduct. And he deserved to get in significant trouble for his personal conduct.

49:09 But he had created this. cadre of younger leaders that he'd influence tremendously. And so it became in my view. A a pretty dangerous situation where they could be led into thinking this

49:25 This person we admire so much, but shows this. Does that mean that's okay? And the answer is no. You've said that military leadership is easier than civilian leadership. I'm curious as to what variables go through your mind when you said that and why you think that a lot of people think civilian leadership is easier because you don't have to wear uniforms, it's not life or death. And you can give people more money.

49:50 And so it's easier. But I will argue almost for all of those reasons it's much harder. The military has a Very clear culture, you wear your rank and your resume on your uniform. People can see where you've been, what you've done. You can wrap yourself very clearly in the flag.

50:07 The reason for the military's existence in the mission is clearly stated. It sometimes gets confused, but The basic premise is very good. Military leaders don't have any money to distribute. And that's an advantage.

50:21 Because everybody says that Yearly bonuses motivate people. And I would argue Not really. They may be a requirement now because they're an expectation.

50:32 But intrinsic motivation is much more powerful than extrinsic Things like And everybody likes their bonus until they find out their deskmate got just a little more. And then suddenly the bonus becomes an item of dissatisfaction. And so

50:48 Civilian leaders have got to navigate a bunch of things, and then you add on top of that. The market. The market requiring certain behaviors. uh the fact that most civilian corporations don't spend much time on leader development anymore. They

51:04 They've decided that that's an expenditure that is not worth the cost. And so the vast majority of them Don't uh invest there. Whereas the military

51:15 For all its weaknesses. spends an awful lot of time developing leaders. And as I described, the military takes very average talent and gets above average performance. So I think military leaders actually have a significant advantage. Now one thing that

51:30 civilian leaders can do that's much better. Is they can make big decisions. A military leader in combat can make a big decision, but in peacetime laws, regulations. Tables of organization equipment. Really narrow'em down to a

51:45 Pretty small. area maneuver space they can train their unit, but they really can't do much outside of that. A a civilian corporation, whether it's private or public, if the CEO is decisive, they can go a hundred and eighty degrees tomorrow. Now they may take some scrutiny and And pressure on it.

52:03 But they can do it. And that's a big advantage. Oh, that's an interesting one. I hadn't really thought about that. How do we develop mental toughness? How would you teach somebody to uh develop mental toughness?

52:15 I think it's in several things. I think one of the first things is that You've gotta build a sense of who you are, and part of that is the organizational narrative. I am a member of this organization. I am proud to be that. That is important to me.

52:32 I identify with that. And they identify with a set of values. Some of which were associated with the organization. Some are my personal values. Those two things together give the person a sense of

52:44 Who they are. Admiral James Stockdale was captured and for seven years was held in captivity in Henoi the Hanoi Hilton. And he was tortured tremendously and he wrote some interesting things afterward. And he won the Medal of Honor for his conduct there. And he wrote that the things which made him

53:04 effective in his resistance to that pressure, because he couldn't stop the torture, he couldn't stop anything else. was his grounding in his faith. In philosophy, the study he'd done in philosophy because it gave him a sense of identity and gave him a sense of what's truly important in life. and was was more important than his physical well being at the moment.

53:27 Or his ability to control the environment, which he couldn't. But instead it gave him this sense of confidence and purpose, I would say, as a foundation upon which he stood, and he found Prisoners who didn't have that. very, very vulnerable.

53:42 And so I would say that When we talk about ourselves as leaders if we can ground ourselves In who we are, if we identify ourselves only with our rank or our position. Or our popularity.

53:57 uh or any those things as soon as the wind blows hard Or we get toppled. We're in a bad way. But if We are much more

54:08 careful or tightly moored to things which Can't be taken away from us. our integrity. Ar sense of commitment to others. No matter when you start to lose those other things.

54:19 You aren't threatened. There's there's you there that you can fall back on. You mentioned uh Stockdale. You're an advocate of studying history. What are some of the important lessons that you've learned from studying history and how have you applied them? Yeah, there there are a bunch of'em. One is that Leaders are important.

54:40 But the sun doesn't rise and set on leaders, great men or great women. You know, we had this tendency for many years to put our leaders on pedestals. And those people we admired, we admired completely. You know, they were perfect in every way. And of course none more.

54:56 And so we're going to an age now where we find the fault in everyone and we get very disappointed. When we find out that George Washington owned slaves and didn't. Free his slaves. When he died. We get very disappointed with other iconic leaders. Woodrow Wilson was a raging racist.

55:15 and yet he did much good for the nation. And so I think one of the first things I've learned from leaders is Don't expect perfection, expect humanity. Because if you expect

55:27 perfection and you you put your leaders on a pedestal. But you know you're not perfect. then that gives you an excuse for saying, Well, I can't be Abraham Lincoln So I'm just gonna be Lousy.

55:40 Because It's unattainable for me to be a great leader, so I'm not gonna bother. Well in reality Nobody is Ten feet tall.

55:49 So that means that all of us can be taller than we are if we hold ourselves to that standard. So that's sort of the first one. The second is You've gotta commit yourself to something. And

56:01 We talked about being more in values. But commit yourself to a cause or an organization. Or to people and sometimes to all of those things. And your commitment's got to be real. If it's If it's not more than you.

56:15 Your personal wealth or your personal ambition. Or any of those. If it doesn't have more to it. Then there's not much there. There's there's always gonna be this fragility.

56:28 And I also would argue that If you really want to be rich, or you really want to be famous, or you really want to be senior. All of those things are Are pretty attainable. But you can get there and find out if that's all is that all there is? There's just not.

56:44 It is not enough. To have money is not enough to have rank or something. Because It's empty. And I know that sounds

56:54 People say, Well, you know, at at my age that's easy to say But the reality is at my age it is easy to say because I've seen both sides of it. And I would tell you what's most important in life is not the extrinsic things. It is the intrinsic things. It's how you feel about yourself. It's how my granddaughters think of me.

57:14 matters a lot to me. And so you gotta figure those measures that are real for you. And focus on. The idea is to turn our future hindsight into our current foresight. Well said. Are there particular history books that have influenced you more than others?

57:33 You know, it's interesting. I I read a lot and I read history Almost exclusively. Only occasionally do I read Uh fiction. I've just finished reading

57:44 Carl Sandberg's biography of Abraham Lincoln. And it's funny, I've been teaching Abraham Lincoln in our course at Yale for twelve years. And I I know a fair amount about Abraham Lincoln, like most people do. But I went back and read, and Carl Sandberg wrote in the nineteen twenties this monumental set.

58:02 going through Lincoln. And he wrote in a way that we wouldn't write today. He writes like a poet. And he he describes things and he describes Lincoln in a depth. And so what I'd say is when you get a chance to study somebody beyond the Wikipedia page. Who w when, where, why? All right, that's

58:21 That's interesting. It doesn't tell you The person. And often it's incorrect. And Sandberg may be Obviously

58:29 A little out of his time now. But it gives you a sense of the man in a way that I think most books can't. And so I think sometimes going back to read those kinds of accounts. Or read what the person wrote. themselves in their letters or diaries. Can give you

58:47 a humanity that it's hard to catch otherwise, so I'm really into reading those. I'm not a big military historian. People expect me to. I like to read the Hoover Dam and stuff like that because I like big projects that took a lot of people cooperating to get'em done and and

59:07 The hard parts of'em. You sort of mentioned um Perfection and humanity uh within the last two answers. And It it reminds me that we're so focused today on that perfection that if we find a blemish with somebody, we sort of dismiss them outright. It's like we can learn nothing from them.

59:26 Because they're not perfect. There are a way that we can get around that, like mentally trick ourselves. You know, with my kids, I try to teach them. I'm like, you're like Sherlock Holmes, right? You meet somebody, you're a detective. And your goal is to learn something from everybody because everybody knows something you don't. But as adults we tend to um I get this all the time, right? We'll include a link in our newsletter that's

59:48 uh by somebody that's done something in the past and I'll inevitably get a thousand replies on Sunday saying uh, you know, I don't trust you anymore. This is crazy. Like, what are you doing? Why are you promoting this person? And it's like well, you didn't you didn't hear the idea that was in there. You didn't actually read the article, you didn't take anything away from it. Is there a way that we can Change that for society or go about doing that better? I think it's a question of maturity. I I'll get this wrong, but if I remember correctly. The Scottish poet Robert Burns had a

1:00:21 Problematic. Personal life. And Frederick Douglas once described The poet, and he said, You know, if we can't

1:00:30 Look at someone and take the good and And discard The bad Then we never get To get all the good that's in all the people who are

1:00:41 Hu flawed humans. My personal journey most This really has been with Robert E. Lee. I live about a hundred feet from the The house Robert E. Lee grew up in.

1:00:52 And I went to Washington Lee High School. I lived in Lee Barracks at West Point. I went to the same College is Robert E. Lee, and then I served in the US military, same one that Robert E. Lee spent thirty one years in. And he was a very effective soldier and in by most respects a very admirable person. In eighteen sixty one he made the decision

1:01:15 To join First The state of Virginia and then the Confederacy, and he spent the next four years trying to destroy the nation. that he had been he had sworn his allegiance to, and in fact. No commander in history

1:01:28 З кілмомерикан солдж. United State Soldier And Robert E. Lee. And so Obviously, on the one hand, I should hate the person who opposed

1:01:40 The nation that I've sworn my allegiance to. I should hate the slave Owner. As he was I should hate the person that

1:01:48 Did all those things. At the same time, there were so many things about his character and his personality. And his service before that. That I can't hate. And so

1:01:59 Where I've arrived at Robert E. Lee is that He's a human being. He's flawed. He's like me. There were many things incredibly admiral about it. admirable about him.

1:02:11 But on the biggest decision of his life he was wrong. He literally got to the fork in the road and went the wrong way. And So I'm not prepared to throw him on the ash heap of history and say he's an evil person.

1:02:26 I'm prepared to say he was a person who was wrong. And I know a lot of people have been wrong about a lot of things to include me. And so I think what we've gotta do is mature as a society. And decide at which point

1:02:40 A person can still be studied or admired for the good parts while realistically being judged for those things that they w they weren't good on. It it's interesting, especially in the context of this, and I don't know if there's a movement with Robert E. Lee, but there seems to be a lot of movements to erase people like this from history, where we rename the high school, we rename the streets, we want to forget that this happened.

1:03:08 What do you see as the consequences to that? Yeah. I I've got mixed feelings on it because On the one hand I think the idea of Confederate statues around because many of them were placed in a period in which The people who placed them were trying to make a statement about white supremacy in the South. There was a very clear loss cause narrative to them. And so at that point I think

1:03:30 Many of the memories of people like Robert Ely and other Confederate leaders were being leveraged. to make a different point on white supremacy, and I don't support that. I I find that abhorrent. At the same time, I think that when we overreact And we say that suddenly we go from

1:03:49 this adoration of someone to this just hatred, blind hatred of them. We we confuse ourselves. Вой і славері. And what we hate is the Confederacy. trying to destroy the United States of America.

1:04:05 And we hate the idea and the acts surrounding that, and we should. En so When I think of an African American in a a small southern town having to walk by the statue of a Confederate soldier. into the courthouse. To seek some kind of legal redress.

1:04:22 It's a conflicted message. And for the many years in which we have Have allowed that to to sort of send a message of hey Африкан Американ the Whites are in charge here.

1:04:34 That's completely wrong. At the same time. Наврі со конфедераці. Thought of themselves as a racist? Or own slaves, the vast majority didn't.

1:04:46 And so If we're unable to take a nuanced view of history. Then everything is binary. Everything's right, wrong, black or white. And I don't think that's any history I'm aware of a reality I'm aware of. So this is where we've got to get to maturity.

1:05:02 I think. How would you go about teaching someone self discipline? Is that something we're born with or something that can be instilled? uh like the military through discipl like through just through structure, or is it something that we can do Will ourselves to. Yeah. I think that

1:05:17 It is something that can be taught. You know, I joke with people, I still fold my underwear in my drawer at home. And people laugh at that. My wife laughs at that and says, Why do you do that? I said, Because they told me to do that at West Point And so I still do it because that's the right thing to do. Admiral Bill McCraven taught us to make our bed every morning.

1:05:36 And I've been doing that for years, but he's exactly right. There are there are habits you form That are good habits. I exercise every day. Not just because I should, but because it's habitual for me.

1:05:50 If I don't, something feels wrong. If you are kind to people by habit. It's a good habit, and I think all of those things of discipline. are really good habits that you hold yourself to expectation, standards, whatever it is.

1:06:06 I think organizations can have them, but we as individuals. And I do think you can teach them to people. I know that In the military. We take people from all over society, different parts.

1:06:18 And you put them through this. series of uh training events and a lifestyle. That forces them to certain behaviors. And they may not love it at first, but they start to stand straighter.

1:06:31 They start to fold their underwear. They start to do the right things and treat people And for the vast majority, it has a very good effect. So I think that those things we can do, and in some ways I would argue in today's society, we've gone a little bit lax there. We've said that everybody can act any way you want to act, and it's your right to do that. Because

1:06:53 You know, nobody should tell you what to do. I don't think that's right. I think there should be norms in society that say You don't act. Аутсайда з баунс Because

1:07:03 We won't have it. You don't yell fire in a crowded rest pro you know crowded theater. You don't do certain things because we society say Yeah. People doing that are outside the bounds of

1:07:17 what we can accept in society because it'll be bad for everyone. Now how tight that is it's Point of argument. But I think there should be self discipline. En force by ourselves first and for most. And then society

1:07:30 should expect us to have it as well. How how would you assess the judgment of somebody else, uh, in terms of sort of a civilian organization or even a military with somebody who had a lot of decision making authority? The first thing to do is remember that they are making judgments in the context. In which they operate. And unless I'm in that context or incredibly informed about it.

1:07:53 I'm a little bit careful on making judgments. Because If you haven't stood in somebody's shoes, it's easy to So that's the first one. But I would go back to what I said earlier if

1:08:06 If someone is making decisions with the right values. In a reasonable probability based assessment of what they think the outcome will be. Meaning Was there a reasonable chance that the decision they made would come out right?

1:08:22 And if those two things line up I'm okay with it, and so. When a president or a uh business leader makes a decision if they're If they're in the bounds of acceptability in those two

1:08:34 I'm okay with that. I mine I sometimes I wish there was a different outcome. But But to me that's good enough. Th there's sort of like an axiom in in clinical psychology, which is everybody's behavior makes sense from their point of view. So if you understand their point of view, like they're not doing anything intentionally to hurt other people or hurt themselves or

1:08:53 Um but you know they're they're processing different information or have access to different information. So I like the idea of putting yourself in their shoes to See that first. This is what is so noteworthy in today's society, though, because You know

1:09:08 It really in we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. in the the tough years of the war and rather than hate Al Qaeda operatives because they were bloodthirsty and and they would do horrible things.

1:09:21 You had to step back and say if I'd had their life journey And their perspective, I might very well have the exact same conclusions and and act, but he says they Did and that gets you back and say Just because I think differently doesn't make

1:09:37 Me right and them wrong. That's very important. We're in a critical time in our nation, I would argue, around the world, where disinformation is so important because what it is doing is it's impacting people's perspective in a skewed way. Як Пілтаю

1:09:55 White is black. Up is down long enough and you start to believe that that's correct. suddenly your perspective may be rational. But it's improperly informed.

1:10:08 And so it's been based on Facts that aren't facts. And so you've reached conclusions that aren't good conclusions. That's very dangerous because we're in an era now where disinformation It's not more powerful than it was in the past, but it's more easy to distribute.

1:10:24 And so information technology makes it. It amplifies its effect, and that is dangerous. 'Cause rational people will do irrational things. sort of a good segue into the next question, which is uh I used to work in cybersecurity and I always wondered why the budgets were so skewed towards physical weapons like ships and planes. When the next war is clearly likely to be a cyber war. There seems to be a structural

1:10:49 allocation problem. What's going on behind the scenes here that keeps us anchored to the past. fighting the last war and not moving forward into the future. Yeah, Shane, I think it's several things, and I agree with you. And in fact, the next war may well be won or lost before people actually realize It's on. maybe so fast that

1:11:09 That's occurred. I think first is there's a natural const constituency for stuff. Aircraft carriers, tanks, plans, all those kinds of things. There's defense industries that make money doing it. There's a certain familiarity to it. If you don't have enough of these things, you worry that you don't have enough.

1:11:27 And the people making most of the decisions are My generation generally. And so we didn't grow up with cyber, we're late. Comers to having any appreciation for it.

1:11:39 So I think that there's that those habits that way. And then it's hard to get your mind around cyber. 'Cause you can't touch it as easily, you can't count it. You don't we keep so much of it secret, we don't know how strong the United States is with cyber or not. Because we can't define the next war clearly. It's hard to do war games or equivalent that

1:12:02 Show people What could or or will happen, and so за консерван. We underinvest. And I think that We also underappreciate our vulnerability. We're the most connected society in the history of man.

1:12:17 I joke. I bought a new refrigerator not long ago and it's Connected to Wi Fi. Yeah. Why why does my refrigerator is it gonna send me an email or what? But The point is

1:12:28 There are so many entry points now. To the networks. That they people don't opponents don't have to go after Fort Knox or or defence department. They can do bank shots into things. They can

1:12:41 hit power, they can hit confidence. They can hit bang. There's so many things to hit. That we are a target waiting to be struck. And so as a consequence, what we really need to do is take a look at our defense. And then have an overwhelming

1:12:56 uh offensive capability. That can target nation states. Now that doesn't solve the non state actors who can't be deterred as easily. But we've gotta be If we're not

1:13:08 at parity and above we're we're just extraordinarily vulnerable. It's interesting you mentioned nation states and non nation states. It used to be we'd have to worry about nation states because they could afford the physical infrastructure, the ships, the missiles, the bombs, all of that stuff. But now you have these loosely coupled groups of people. that can cause arguably as much, if not more, damage. That you never had to consider before. In fact, in some ways, if you think about

1:13:35 The challenge to consumer package goods. You have companies that used to make this range of products and they sold them and then you start to have a bunch of garage startups They go with niche organic graham crackers or y you name it. And they're they're only going after a small part of the market and they're not coordinated, but there's a pr a school of piranha. each of which is doing this, and they go after the consumer package goods, and they take away the high market high margin part of the business.

1:14:02 And they leave people They leave the big ones, the traditional ones, which are hard to fend off. much smaller ability to be viable. And you take that to military. We can have countless opponents and they don't all have to be coordinated.

1:14:16 They just have to share a general common intent to do us harm. Which makes them more difficult because you have to defeat each one. Not you can't defeat Them as a network. And that's uh I think that's the future.

1:14:32 Switching gears a little bit. You're famous for your one meal a day thing. It gets a lot of attention. I listen to a lot of interviews with you. Uh and I have a different question about it than I think I've heard you've been asked before. So I'm curious as to what impact that you think that had on the people who work for you. Yeah, I think it's it was a two edged sword. The people who were on my personal staff You know, we we in the during the war we called it the pain train. There was a pressure there because I

1:14:58 I eat one meal a day, and so during those other meal periods. I typically don't stop and make sure they all go to lunch or breakfast or whatever. I'm I'm tending to to be moving. I don't ever tell anybody eat one meal a day or'cause it's not right for many people. But I think there's kind of an implied pressure.

1:15:16 And there's this also this mythology that grew up around it, you know, that I've only eaten once a week. For you know, that kind of thing. And so people think if they don't do that that they're letting me down and that That's not the case. On the other side of the coin, you know there's a a value in sort of

1:15:32 Mythology sometimes. Because People started thinking, you know, McCrystal some kind of zen war'er. who, you know, the stoic who eats one meal a day and he's et cetera. He's never slept slept in his life. And that's not true.

1:15:48 But the reality is that those things which made me made the people that worked with me Intrigued. And In some cases, inspired by my commitment.

1:16:02 Were helpful. And most leaders have some combination of those things. That That help them be a little bit more effective in in leading people.

1:16:13 What's the greatest misperception that you think other people have about you and who you are? It's a great question. There was a period of time when People would say that I was aloof. And arrogant.

1:16:27 And If I was arrogant it wasn't because of what they saw, because I'm incredibly introverted. I mean, we did psychological tests in special operations when I was a young officer, and I literally pegged the chart on introversion. And I remember telling the the uh psychologist, I said, Well, I assume I'll grow out of that and I'll become an extrovert. The guy says, No, it didn't work that way.

1:16:50 You become more of whatever you are. You will develop some coping mechanisms. It won't be as evident to people because you'll learn how to do certain things in some situations. But for me Being around people is draining.

1:17:05 You know, I tell people I joke that if I die and go to hell, it'll be an endless cocktail party. We've got to make small talk. And So I think that there's Sometimes people will see me and I'm either quiet or aloof. And they'll misread.

1:17:21 the introversion for something that it's not. Uh, I wanna add with sort of uh or end, I guess, with one one last question, which is how do you define success? At the individual personal level, for me success has evolved over the years. I think it was much more. W if you'd asked me thirty years ago, I'd have said success. I'd probably said the first thing was my career.

1:17:44 I want to be thought of as a good soldier. I didn't have a rank idea, but I want to be respected. As a good soldier. I would have said, My family's very important to me, but I may have said that more because I thought I had to say it Now I'm at a different point in life.

1:18:00 And what's important to me now is My family and how I interact. I have three granddaughters, my interaction with those granddaughters is sacred to me. Their opinion of me is very important to me uh even when I'm gone. I want them to be able to look back at what People

1:18:17 Thought about me. And if it's accurate, I want them to to feel good about it. But I also View success as the people I'm around. Are they succeeding?

1:18:27 And am I in some way empowering that? Whether I get credit for it or not, am I giving people opportunities? Am I creating an environment in which they can Can function and be a Be successful. then that's that feels like a win. It's a different

1:18:42 set of metrics. They're more emotional. than when I was younger. But they're probably more powerful as well.

1:18:52 For me. That's a great way to end this. Thank you so much. Jen, you're kinda happy. The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Furnham Street. I'd love to get your advice on how to make this the most valuable podcast you listen to.

1:19:20 Email me at shane at fs.blog. You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at fs dot blog slash podcast. To get a transcript of this episode, go to fs.blog slash tribe or check out the show notes. Can you do me a small favor? Go online right now and share this episode with one friend who you think would love it.

1:19:42 Thanks listening and learning with us. Till next time.

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