Why one general’s quiet habit worked, and how to make it yours. Last week I told you about one of my role models, Lieutenant General Don Holder (USA retired), who visited the junior soldiers in a unit, asked lots of thoughtful questions, took notes, and never interrupted their answers. I keep coming back to that … Read more
The second Big 6 principle is the one almost every leader underestimates. One of the finest Army leaders I ever observed in my military career was Lieutenant General (Retired) Don Holder. He helped lead the Army’s doctrinal shift toward decentralized operations and empowerment, and in doing so he shaped generations of leaders. But what I … 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
Before you can lead people anywhere, you have to know where you’re going — and so do they. Alice comes to a fork in the road and looks up at the Cheshire Cat. She asks which way she ought to go from here. The Cat answers that it depends a good deal on where she … Read more
As I’ve described earlier, West Point and the Army made deliberate decisions to move from a culture of compliance to a culture of commitment, from measuring who could survive to investing in who could lead. That is a culture turnaround. It is one of the most transparent examples I know of what large-scale culture change … Read more
Defining The Culture of Commitment Not long ago, I was working with a car dealership General Manager who told me a story I have never forgotten. He was walking his service bays at the end of a long workday when he stopped to talk to one of the technicians (a young man named Jack, as … Read more
