Why waiting for certainty is its own kind of failure, and what taking charge actually requires. In 1991, I commanded an Armored Cavalry Squadron of roughly 800 Soldiers and 50 armored vehicles. We were training at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, deep in the Mojave Desert, preparing for a major battle against … Read more
Integrity is not what you say in the boardroom. It is what you do when no one is watching. When I was a young lieutenant in Germany, I had a platoon of about 41 Soldiers. We patrolled the East and West German border, and when we weren’t out at the border outposts, we worked on … Read more
Why the little exceptions leaders make are never actually small. In the 1970s, engineers at Ford knew the Pinto’s fuel tank design had a serious flaw. In certain rear-end collisions, the tank could rupture and the car could catch fire. The leadership team ran the numbers. They weighed the projected cost of settling the wrongful … Read more
The Safety in Learning While in command during a major exercise at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert, we faced a professional enemy that was not about to cooperate with the plan I had developed. As we approached the critical moment of the battle, my staff could now see what I could not, … Read more
