by Colin Powell
When necessary pruning is not done, good followers often slack off. But when it is done successfully, black clouds lift from over the team.
Even the best, most treasured, most successful members of a team can lose their edge and become underproductive. Leaders need to be ready to replace anyone who is no longer up to the task. Don’t reorganize around a weak follower. Retrain, move, or fire them. You are doing that person a favor in the long term. And you are doing your team a favor immediately.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Time to Get off the Train
One of my dearest military friends, Colonel Frank Henry, was a fellow brigade commander in the 101st Airborne Division back in 1976. A great commander and as feisty as they come, Frank occasionally got in trouble crossing swords with our division commander.
We were talking one day about our career prospects. “I don’t know if I’ll go any higher in the Army,” he told me; “but I’m proud I made colonel. The next thing I expect from the Army is to be told when it’s time to get off the train.”
I once shared that story with Larry King, the famous television host; he never forgot it. In 2010, his longtime CNN show, Larry King Live, was losing its audience. The information revolution was changing all media. It was becoming clear that CNN might terminate his show. Larry didn’t wait. He made a sudden announcement that he would be stepping down after twenty-five years on the air. When he made the announcement he retold my old Frank Henry story. He’d had a great ride, he explained, but he’d reached his station. It was time to get off.
I tried to maintain the same attitude throughout my career. Working hard and leaving to the Army the decision about where to get off became a touchstone for me. They never made promises about how high I would go. “Just do your job well and you’ll move up. We’ll let you know when you have arrived at your station.” I asked my conductor a number of times if the next station was mine. “Not yet,” he kept telling me. And I kept riding.
My family was pleased that I’d gone into the Army. It was a patriotic duty and they loved our country. But for a long time they had trouble understanding why I stayed in. My aunt Laurice, the family doyenne, was assigned to press me on the issue when I returned from my second tour in Vietnam. Laurice was a master at getting in other people’s business, and she was all over me. I finally got her off my case when I explained that if I worked hard I could retire as a lieutenant colonel with a 50 percent pension at age forty-one. For my immigrant family, a pension for life was the equivalent of a Powerball lottery hit. They never raised the question again.
I made lieutenant colonel. Everything after that became a frequent rider benefit and a blessing.
The Army has very strict up-or-out policies to keep the officer corps refreshed and to bring up young officers. I was honored and pleased in 1986 when I was selected for promotion to three stars, lieutenant general, to take command of the V Corps in Germany.
A letter from General John Wickham, the Army Chief of Staff and a longtime mentor, notified me of my promotion and new assignment, congratulated me, and ended with a notice that the assignment was for two years. After two years, to the day, if he hadn’t selected me for another three-star position, or if I hadn’t been selected for a fourth star, he expected that day to have my request for retirement on his desk. If I didn’t he would be waiting at the station with one of those old mailbag hooks to yank me off.
I wasn’t a corps commander long. After six months I was reassigned to the White House, first as Deputy National Security Advisor and then as National Security Advisor. These were positions of great responsibility and I was honored to be selected, but they badly mangled my military career pattern.
“We serve where we are needed and career progression be damned,” General Wickham reminded me.
As President Reagan was leaving office, President-elect George H. W. Bush offered me several high-level positions in his new administration. I visited the new Army Chief of Staff, General Carl Vuono, to get his advice.
“I’ve been away from the Army in nonmilitary jobs a lot in recent years, and I have options in the civilian world,” I told him, “so I assume it’s time for me to leave. But the Army is still my first love. I’d like to stay in the Army, but I’ll accept any decision you make.”
“The Army wants you to return,” Vuono said, smiling, “and we’re holding a four-star position for you.” That was one of the happiest moments of my life.
When I told that to President Reagan the next day, he only asked, “Is it a promotion?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“That’s good,” he said, in his simple, direct way.
President-elect Bush was gracious, but, I suspect relieved, since he now had another open seat in the first-class car he could fill with one of the many waiting in line for a job.
Over the years I’ve run into people who don’t realize a station is waiting for them or who believe they have an unlimited-mileage ticket. Four-star generals with distinguished thirty-five-year careers have come into my office whining and pleading not to have to get off . . . as if they were entitled to stay on.
Presidential appointees at the State Department who had served for years at the pleasure of the President were appalled when I told them it was time to retire or move on to another job. One of them mounted a lobbying effort to suggest that I couldn’t possibly do such a thing. I did it anyway. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was heard all over the department. That is, until the retirement ceremony was over and everyone else began to look at how their own career prospects had been affected.
Congress is probably the worst organization in this respect. I understand the importance of experience and the value of a decade or two of service. But thirty years or more? Give it up and give your great-grandson a chance. How many more federal buildings and roads do you need named after you!
No matter what your job, you are there to serve. It makes no difference if it is government, military, business, or any other endeavor. Go in with a commitment to selfless service, never selfish service. And cheerfully and with gratitude take your gold watch and plaque, get off the train before somebody throws you off, go sit in the shade with a drink, and take a look at the other tracks and the other trains out there. Spend a moment watching the old train disappear, then start a new journey on a new train.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Be Gone
Leaving the train is not just about when to get off, but how.
There’s an old Army officer tradition. When you leave a post, you write “ppc” on the back of your business card and pin it to the officers’ club bulletin board or similar public place. “Ppc” is an acronym for a French term pour prendre conge, in English, “to take leave.” It was our final departing courtesy when we were making a Permanent Change of Station, with the emphasis on “permanent.”
There’s a more direct, colloquial way to put it: “When you’re through pumping, let go of the handle.”
I have seen too many executives in the private world hang on long after they have stepped down. They keep honorary, emeritus, or similar positions, which give them offices, assistants, and the ability to sit in and kibitz at meetings, enjoy the perks of office, and even receive compensation. Yet they have no responsibility or accountability.
In the Army, when it’s time to go, you go. When you’re an outgoing commander at a change-of-command ceremony, you get a medal, pass the colors to the new commander, give a short speech, and watch the troops march in review in your honor. You then shake hands with the new commander and walk off the field. If you do all this properly, your station wagon is behind the stands, all loaded up with suitcases strapped down on top. You, the kids, and your wife pile in, drive off, and head for the main gate while the new commander is going through his receiving line. It’s important to make sure the car mirrors are oriented so you can’t see behind you. It is even more important to keep the windows rolled up and the radio turned up high so you can’t hear the trash can covers closing on all
your great ideas. It’s over. You’ve had your turn at bat.
For several months, people will call to tell you how much you are missed and how much trouble they’re having with the new guy. It’s all nonsense. Be patient. The calls will end before the new guy has finished heating up his branding iron.
I always tell my successor that I will never call him, but he should feel free to call me with questions. If he is newly promoted and we had worked together, my job was to train him to replace me. Now he has done that.
I detest long turnover periods. Study hard before showing up. Know everything you need to know before taking over. But keep the transition period short. Be polite and spend a little time with your predecessor, but don’t overdo it. You really don’t want to hear all about his tour and he probably resents you a bit.
When I took over from Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State, we met three times over a two-month period, once in her home and twice in her office. She was a good friend and I benefited from her insights. But otherwise, I stayed out of her way.
Once I took over Madeleine was always available, but she never called me or took issue with me in public. Four years later I had a similar be-gone experience with my successor, Condi Rice. After your turn at bat, head for the dugout, the bullpen, or the parking lot.
Most turnovers are nonhostile. But when a leader has been relieved for incompetence or misconduct, the situation is always tense. The new leader has to sweep clean quickly as he takes over, but he shouldn’t beat up on the guy who got relieved. He has driven off post without a parade or medal. He knows what’s happened. He’s suffering for it. Don’t beat up on his professional corpse.
PART VI
Reflections
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Powell Doctrine
You can’t help but be flattered and honored to have a doctrine named after you. I haven’t figured out yet how it happened to me.
The so-called Powell Doctrine exists in no military manual. The term first emerged in late 1990 after President Bush, on General Schwarzkopf’s and my recommendation, decided to double the force facing the Iraqis. After Desert Storm the term entered the language, if not the manuals. It reflected my belief in using all the force necessary to achieve the kind of decisive and successful result that we had achieved in the invasion of Panama and in Operation Desert Storm.
In discussing what they take to be the doctrine’s most essential element, commentators have tended to use the term “overwhelming force,” but I have always preferred the term “decisive.” A force that achieves a decisive result does not necessarily have to be overwhelming. Or, to put it another way, overwhelming force may be too much force. It’s the successful outcome that’s important, not how thoroughly you can bury your adversary or enemy.
I have always held the view that decisive force should be used in addressing a military conflict. The reason is simple: Why wouldn’t you, if you could? After Desert Storm, during the question period following a speech to a naval audience at Annapolis, I was asked why I had sent General Schwarzkopf two additional aircraft carrier battle groups when he had only asked for one. My answer was simple: “I didn’t have time to go get the rest of them. This is a gang fight.” It was a great line, but my real reason was that I felt one more carrier than Norm requested added to the insurance policy that would give us ultimate victory.
The Powell Doctrine is often compared with the Weinberger Doctrine—six rules for the use of military force formulated by Defense Secretary Weinberger in 1984.
Though there are similarities between Secretary Weinberger’s ideas and mine, I have never formally set down a list of rules. My views are not rules. I have always seen them as guidelines that senior leaders should consider as part of their decision-making process. The President decides if they are relevant or not to a particular situation. The military executes whatever the President decides.
My concept of the Powell Doctrine begins with the premise that war is to be avoided. Use all available political, diplomatic, economic, and financial means to try to solve the problem and achieve the political objective the President has established. At the same time, make it understood that military force exists to support diplomacy and take over where diplomacy leaves off. There is no sharp distinction between the two. Diplomacy that does not also imply the prospect of force may not be effective. If the readiness level of forces, deployments, exercises, and threats of use always remain on the table, we can often support diplomacy and achieve the President’s political objective without firing a shot in anger.
But when the President decides that only force will accomplish his political objective, then force must be applied in a decisive manner. Without a clear political objective, you can’t make an analysis of the required force.
In deciding what forces to use and how to apply them, planners must think the operation through in its entirety from start to finish. After you achieve your initial military objective, what then? How do you know when it is over, and how and why do you stay on or exit?
Later, as an operation unfolds, senior leaders must explain it to the American people and their representatives and to the rest of the world. Public support is not initially essential, but if you don’t gain it over time, you will have trouble continuing the operation.
All of this assumes you have time to think, discuss, and plan. That doesn’t always happen. Surprises happen. Crises suddenly erupt.
Presidents making critical decisions have to use all the information at their disposal, call on their instincts, and avoid being at the mercy of fixed guidelines or rules. The need to use force may come up urgently when, as the British say, “You are on the back foot.” You have to act, decisively or not, clear political objective or not, public support or not. Those are the trying times when you earn your pay.
These principles apply all the way up through the largest, most complex military operations. But they rest on nothing more than fundamental principles of war that go back thousands of years. They could just as well have been called the Sun Tzu Doctrine or the Clausewitz Doctrine.
In the American Army, they are taught as Principles of War. I first learned them as an ROTC cadet. As currently taught, there are nine of them:
• Mass
• Objective
• Offensive
• Surprise
• Economy of force
• Maneuver
• Unity of command
• Security
• Simplicity
The first two are the classical formulation of the Powell Doctrine, with the order reversed. Here is how they are defined in Army manuals:
Objective—Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and obtainable objective.
Mass—Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time.
Note the repeated decisive. Not only must mass be concentrated at the decisive place and time, but the objective must also be decisive. If you gain it, you win. (Clausewitz called this the “strategic center of gravity.”)
When we launched the 1989 Panama invasion, our strategy was to take out not only the dictator, Manuel Noriega, but also his whole government and military force and replace them with a president already legally elected but in hiding. We used more than twenty-five thousand troops in a coup de main to quickly eliminate the Panamanian forces as a threat and consolidate our position. Then we shifted to protection of Panamanian society, installation of a new president and government, and reconstitution of the military. We were widely criticized around the world for unilaterally attacking a small country under what was believed to be insufficient provocation. The prompt and successful outcome of the operation quickly silenced criticisms. Today no American troops are in Panama, and in the two decades since the invasion the Panamanians have held four democratic elections.
President George H. W. Bush initially tried to counter the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by means of economic sanctions and diplomacy, and he mobilized the entire international c
ommunity to support these efforts. Our military mission during that period was to deploy troops to defend against the Iraqi army moving farther south into Saudi Arabia. We achieved that mission.
When it became clear that sanctions would not lead the Iraqis to withdraw, President Bush, at the recommendation of General Schwarzkopf and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ordered a doubling of the size of the force in Saudi Arabia. The principal political and military mission of that force was clear—“eject the Iraqi army from Kuwait”—Desert Storm. We were certain the large force would be decisive, and so I was able to guarantee that outcome to the President.
That was the President’s and all the planners’ principal objective in Desert Storm.
Neither during the planning, nor during the actual operation, was there any consideration of marching on Baghdad, nor was there any political or international inclination to achieve that objective. We would not have had UN support; we would have been unable to build an international coalition; and President Bush had no desire to conquer a country. At the end of Desert Storm, the Iraqi army was no longer in Kuwait. Kuwait was firmly in the hands of its government. It was a military and political success.
At the very end of his term, President Bush sent troops into Somalia to restore order and permit the flow of food and other sustenance to a desperate people. The operation began in full view of television cameras. And of course the press made fun of the Navy SEALs seen wading ashore on every TV screen. So much for surprise. The truth was, we didn’t want to surprise the ragtag irregulars who were making everyone else in that country miserable. We wanted them to see what was coming. We wanted them to be afraid of what we were laying down on them, and our visibility in the press helped us do that. In a few weeks, we accomplished the mission we’d set out to accomplish.