by Colin Powell
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
One Team, One Fight
When General George Joulwan was our Southern Command commander some years ago, he ended all of his messages with the slogan “One Team, One Fight.” He greeted you in person the same way. After a while we started smiling whenever we heard George’s slogan. But it was a good idea—worth taking to heart. It was a constant reminder to his command that everyone had to come together as a team to prosecute a fight that everyone agreed had to be won. It remains a good idea.
I tried to capture that spirit as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chairman is an advisor and commands nothing. He works through influence and persuasion. The other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are also advisors, but the Chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force also have large organizations to run and protect. It was important for me to understand this duality of responsibility, recognizing not only their role as service chiefs, but also their larger duty as members of the Joint Chiefs.
I worked hard to create a sense of “One Team, One Fight.” I commissioned a manual to capture this spirit. In its preface I wrote the following:
When a team takes to the field, individual specialists come together to achieve a team win. All players try to do their very best because every other player, the team, and the home town are counting on them to win.
So it is when the Armed Forces of the United States go to war. We must win every time.
Every soldier must take the battlefield believing his or her unit is the best in the world.
Every pilot must take off believing there is no one better in the sky.
Every sailor standing watch must believe there is no better ship at sea.
Every Marine must hit the beach believing that there are no better infantrymen in the world.
But they all must also believe that they are part of a team, a joint team that fights together to win.
This is our history, this is our tradition, this is our future.
Fast-forward a few years to the State Department. The State Department consists of Foreign Service officers and the specialists who support them—civil servants and the Foreign Service local nationals who support our embassies. The Foreign Service officers are the most widely known. They are our diplomats and ambassadors—elite experts. Our Civil Service consists of professional and enormously capable support personnel.
Every year we observed Foreign Service Day, a day when retired Foreign Service officers returned to the State Department for rebonding and briefings.
I wanted to penetrate the cultural and other boundaries that existed between Foreign Service and Civil Service employees. With that in mind we introduced leadership training for mid-level and senior Civil Service managers and took other steps to emphasize their importance.
As part of that effort, I decided to change Foreign Service Day to Foreign Affairs (FA) Day and to invite retired Civil Servants to attend.
Whoops. We got noise from the Foreign Service community. They felt something was being taken away from them. There were mutterings that many would not attend. We worried about the turnout, but on FA Day, the auditorium was filled with Foreign Service officers and a significant number of Civil Servants. No one’s ox got gored. And the Foreign Service realized the value of this kind of bonding. “One Team, One Fight.”
Every good leader I have known understands instinctively the need to communicate to followers a common purpose, a purpose that comes down from the leader and is internalized by the entire team. Armed with a common purpose, an organization’s various parts will strive to achieve that purpose and will not go riding off in every direction.
I have also seen many organizations that resemble nothing less than warring tribes. They usually fail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Compete to Win
The military encourages competition. War is a competition, the ultimate test of purpose, preparation, determination, courage, risk, and execution. Business is a competition. In fact, in almost every human endeavor where there are two teams, groups, or sides, there is a competition.
People need to test themselves, prove themselves, not just to show that they are better than the other guy or the other team, but to show that they have trained and raised their skills as high as they can. Winning is great, and always better than losing, but perfecting our skills and capabilities is great, too.
In 1986, when I commanded the V Corps in Germany, the corps participated in two major international military competitions. One was called the Boeselager competition; the other was the Canadian Cup. These were World Series events. Boeselager was an annual competition to pick the best NATO cavalry troop. The Canadian Cup was an intense competition to determine the very best tank platoon. You weren’t competitive in these tests without putting forward an extraordinary effort to prepare the crews. Once you designated the unit that would represent you, every effort was made to find the corps’ best leaders and experts and transfer them to those units. You then gave them priority for training ammunition, access to firing ranges, and whatever other resources they needed. Other units had to sacrifice for these Super Bowl–level competitors.
A case can be made that this kind of competition is not healthy. You don’t go to war with your Super Bowl team but with every team in the league. Nevertheless, I did whatever it took to win, within the rules. I didn’t like the idea of shorting my other units, but once you decide to go for a win, you give it all you have. You mass your resources, you explain to those being shorted why that must be done, and you go for the win.
Although I was transferred to the White House before the competitions, the teams we put together went on to win both events. No one corps had ever won both in the same year.
A more down-to-earth example occurred earlier in my career, when I was a battalion commander in Korea.
Every day, I set aside time to walk through the battalion area checking things out. One day, I saw one of my soldiers approaching from the direction of brigade headquarters. He looked a little down and was wearing his dress uniform rather than our normal fatigues. He saluted, and I asked him what was wrong, fearing he was just coming from a court-martial.
“I’ve just been in the Soldier of the Month competition,” he told me, “before a board of senior sergeants.”
“How’d you do?” I asked him.
“Not good. Sorry, sir.”
“Thanks for your good try, soldier,” I told him. “Too bad it didn’t work out.” I felt a lot of sympathy for him. “By the way,” I asked, “when did you learn you were going before the board?”
“Last night.”
I patted him on the back and went straight to my office for a come-to-Jesus session with my command sergeant major and first sergeants. “We will never do this again,” I told them. “We will never throw our soldiers into a competition or into a battle, any battle, without preparing them and taking the necessary time to get them ready to win. That’s what leaders do; we prepare our troops.”
Our battalion won the Soldier of the Month competition for the next few months, until the other battalion commanders caught on and put in their own best effort.
Soldiers given a task they haven’t been prepared for lose confidence in themselves and, fatally, in their leaders.
But sometimes you can be surprised.
In 1976, I commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. We put together a team to compete in the division’s annual boxing competition—a pretty good team and a heck of a coach. We set out to win, but we had one missing link. We didn’t have a boxer who could compete in the featherweight class (120–125 pounds). Not until my adjutant, Jim Hallums, came in one day. He’d found a very small young soldier, Pee Wee Preston. Pee Wee had never boxed, and he was tiny. He would qualify for the featherweight competition. The real hook was that no other unit had a soldier who could make the weight. We would win the class by forfeit. We asked Pee Wee if he was willing to be on the team; he would probably never have to fight. He ag
reed to do it for the brigade . . . especially after we assured him that if he did, he would not have to go to Panama with his battalion for jungle training. Pee Wee was deathly afraid of snakes.
We insisted that he train just as hard as everyone else. He was taught the basics of boxing; he hit the bag, sparred, jumped rope, and did everything everyone else did.
The week of the tournament arrived, and our team was doing well. Pee Wee got in the ring twice, got the forfeits, and we got the points. But on the third night, disaster struck. One of the other units found, or imported, a Panamanian featherweight who was a miniature near double for the great Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran. This guy was going to fight Pee Wee. Yikes.
We told Pee Wee he could forget the deal; he didn’t have to fight. But he wanted to go ahead. His whole battalion was leaving for Panama late that night, and they were in the stands watching. He couldn’t let his guys down.
Pee Wee got in the ring, and the other kid raced across and proceeded to whomp up on him. Pee Wee never threw a punch back, but he took the other kid’s punches, keeping his arms up, protecting his head and body, the way he had been taught, and he made it through round 1. Our side was cheering tentatively: “Attaboy, Pee Wee! Hang in there, kid!” Round 2 was a repeat, but he kept going. He was in shape, and he wasn’t getting hurt. The other guy was looking winded and frustrated, just from the sheer effort of pounding on Pee Wee. The cheering for Pee Wee had grown a lot louder. He hadn’t thrown a punch, but he was game. He had spirit. Round 3 opened and the other kid came out slowly. He was tired and weakened from beating up on Pee Wee. He was not in shape! You know what comes next: Pee Wee landed a single punch, and the other guy dropped his arms and quit—a TKO for Pee Wee.
His buddies went nuts in the stands. Pee Wee was the 101st Airborne Division featherweight champion. He had been prepared for a fight we never thought he’d have to fight. But he had been prepared enough to win.
Later, unfortunately, when we went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for the XVIII Airborne Corps competition, the 82nd Airborne Division entered a real boxer, and Pee Wee lost. But no matter—he represented himself and us well.
There are many kinds of competition. You can have a constructive competition that goes beyond just finding a champion. I am a believer in lots of intramural competitions within units. Best supply room, best soldier, best clerk, best armorer, you name it. Do it every month, and do it with standards that make it possible for anyone putting forth the effort to win.
Without competition, we all become dull, unfocused, and flabby—mentally and physically.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Swagger Sticks
That’s an order!” has long been a cliché movie line, usually blasted out forcefully by duff, blustering generals, commonly referred to as “the Brass.” I hated the term, as much as I came to hate the term “striped-pants diplomats” when I became Secretary of State. Stereotypical images are hard to bury.
In my thirty-five years of service, I don’t ever recall telling anyone, “That’s an order.” And now that I think of it, I don’t think I ever heard anyone else say it. Yes, there are times when you want your instructions carried out without further discussion and carried out immediately, despite any reservations or reluctance. Just tell them to do it.
But there are often better ways to get what you want done than to huff and puff and bellow out an order. The leader must impose his will. Clever, gifted leaders, in sync with their units and culture, can often command with the most delicate touch. Time permitting, it is far better to gain buy-in from followers by explaining what you are trying to achieve and the important role they are about to play in accomplishing the mission. The American soldier is better led than driven.
General David Shoup was Commandant of the Marine Corps in the early 1960s. Although the things were an anachronism, it was still common back in those days for officers to carry swagger sticks or riding crops, a custom left over from our British colonial heritage. You see British officers carrying swagger sticks in World War II movies, and you might still see the tradition practiced in Commonwealth nations. I had a swagger stick back when I was a young lieutenant. I treasured it. Sergeant Artis Westberry, my instructor in ROTC summer camp in 1957, made it for me, and I proudly carried it to point out things to soldiers and to beat the side of my leg.
Even way back in those days, swagger sticks were slowly going out of fashion in the Army, but the Marines persistently held on to the tradition. General Shoup thought it was time to get rid of them. As Commandant, he could have just put out a one-sentence order banning the silly things. But Shoup was a very wise leader and took a slightly different tack. He put out an instruction that simply said: “Officers are authorized to carry swagger sticks if they feel the need.”
The sticks were gone overnight. I often wonder if he was laughing when he came up with that sentence. He knew his Marines. “We don’t need no stinkin’ swagger sticks.”
Every organization has “swagger sticks” that are deeply rooted in its culture. Yes, you can just wipe them out, but it is usually not hard to find a way to expose them as anachronisms and put them out of their obsolescent misery, to the delight and support of all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They’ll Bitch About the Brand
Many years ago when I was a junior officer, we were looking for ways to improve morale, get in tune with a new generation of young soldiers, and cut back the number of soldiers who were drinking too much and getting arrested for DUI or, worse, getting into accidents.
Somebody came up with the idea of installing beer machines in the barracks so troops could drink, if they chose, right at home. Our sergeants didn’t think this was a great idea. Unrestricted access to beer would encourage unrestrained drinking and result in rowdy behavior and beer brawls in the barracks.
The troops thought it was a great idea, predictably, and they pressed for it. No decision came . . . which set loose lots of bitching.
Would installing beer machines end the bitching and improve morale? Many of us thought so.
One of my savviest sergeants quietly pointed out to me the flaw in that thinking. “Lieutenant, putting machines in the barracks won’t end the bitching. They’ll just start to bitch about the brand of beer in the machines, except they will be drunk when they bitch.”
We didn’t put in the machines. And today’s Army has worked hard to keep alcohol away from troops. It’s a better, safer Army.
The big lesson I learned from this little episode: as you examine solutions, make sure you think them through down several levels into secondary effects, and when you arrive at what you believe will be a solution, you have to then ask yourself if you have the real solution, or if you have just let wishful thinking set you up for more problems.
This lesson applies to all kinds of problems, large and small. And bitching about brands can take place in all kinds of circumstances. Sometimes these are deadly serious. Let’s change the scene from beer in barracks many years ago to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2003, we marched up to Baghdad, the city fell in days, and the regime of Saddam Hussein collapsed. We saw these victories as a great success and the end of a big problem . . . with little thought given to what we would have to take care of once we had achieved victory.
Would opening the door to freedom bring stability and peace to that tragic country? Many American leaders thought so.
Too bad they didn’t have some savvy sergeant to quietly point out that we hadn’t answered the question about how the changes we started would affect the people of Iraq or the makeup of Iraqi society, which, it turned out, is a jumble of sectarian brands. Iraqis have been bitching about these brands for centuries. Their new freedoms didn’t stop the bitching, sparking disagreements and conflicts that turned our wonderful instant success into a terrible, nagging crisis. It took us years to achieve enough stability for American troops to be disengaged. For years wishful thinking drove a flawed strategy. Meanwhile, the argument in I
raq over brands continues and is liable to do so for years to come.
I learned a second lesson from the beer in barracks episode: surround yourself with sergeants—that is, people with ground truth experience whose thinking is not contaminated with grand theories.
Before we invaded Iraq, we should have listened to more people with ground truth experience in the region (these people were out there) and fewer idea-heavy, big egos in Washington.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
After Thirty Days, You Own the Sheets
In the old days before computerized and centralized management systems, taking command of a rifle company was a far more interesting and personal process than it has since become. All the property in the company was registered in a company property book, an ordinary ledger with entries written in ink. Before assuming command of the company, the new commander and the outgoing commander would conduct an inventory of all the property. Every rifle, bunk, chair, desk, sheet, and pillow had to be accounted for. If anything was missing, the outgoing commander had to search for it and find it, pay for it, or seek relief through a process known as a “Report of Survey.” After signing for the property and taking command, the new commander had thirty days to discover anything else that was missing or any other discrepancies. If during the thirty-day window he found anything missing, the new commander could initiate action that would either lay the problem on his predecessor or relieve the new commander of accountability. (Once I came up short on sheets and found what I needed at the post mortuary.)
As we used to say, “After thirty days, you own the sheets.” On day thirty-one any discrepancies or shortages became your problem.
I loved this stark, clear way of assigning responsibility and accountability. No whining, no complaining, and no blaming the guy you replaced. Above all, don’t waste time trying to cop a plea or blame the other guy. Too late, you’ve had your grace period. You own the sheets.