Stanley, commander of the US Special Operations Command and the highest commander of the US military in Afghanistan? General McChrystal built the most effective American army in the world. In his new book "Empowerment", General McChrystal provides management ideas that business leaders can learn from military commanders.
A chess player who doesn't play at the board.
Chess is the ultimate strategic competition among players, which can effectively exercise strategic thinking and cultivate future leaders. All kinds of chess pieces, whether kings, queens, horses, elephants or soldiers, walk around the board in different ways. The largest number of soldiers, the most limited way of action. Post-action mode is the most flexible, largest and most powerful. Although Wang is relatively weak, this chess piece can never be given up.
In this extremely "centralized" situation, no chess piece will think independently when acting, no chess piece will look at the whole chessboard from its own unique angle and make suggestions for action, and no chess piece will say that it is in danger. Everything is in the hands of the chess player.
The task force in 2004 is like a chessboard, where the "chessboard" is unpredictable, and the "chess player" has to face the time limit every step. I can observe the whole chessboard, which enables me to command troops to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq like playing chess.
But I soon found that it is very unreliable to regard this battlefield as a chessboard. Even at the fastest speed, chess is still a turn-based game. Each opponent takes a step and takes turns playing the game. However, the 2004 war will not abide by this agreement at all. The enemy may use several pieces at the same time, or beat us up one by one in a very short time. They can't wait for us to take one step before taking the next, like chess players.
Al Qaeda works very fast, and we soon found that their changes were not the result of careful decision-making by its top management, but the timely response of the frontline troops, who were obviously comfortable in the new environment.
Our team was forged into a well-trained, unthinking "puppet chess" leader and trained as a chess master. After a series of fiasco in a short time, we knew it was necessary to make a change.
Work as a gardener in a vegetable garden
In order to make everyone understand better, I want to tell a story.
My parents bought a new house when I was a child. My mother uses part of the yard as a vegetable garden. She grows fruits and vegetables there. All kinds of beans are arranged neatly like an army, with potatoes on the right and lettuce behind. Fertilization places are also particular, and we will study how to save a few seconds of labor. If the vegetable garden is well managed and fully maintained, the vegetables can be harvested as soon as they are cooked, and the output of the vegetable garden is considerable. The gardener has created an environment in which crops can thrive. Previous work and careful care day and night enable each crop to grow independently at the same time.
Having been a task force commander for many years, I began to feel that to be a good leader in the new environment, what I want to do is more like a gardener in a vegetable garden than a chess player on a chessboard. For management actions, it seems natural to implement gradual control, but in fact, it is more effective to cultivate the whole organization and build its structure, process and culture so that all its components can operate independently. This is not completely arbitrary, because the efforts of each part of the team are inseparable from the insight into the overall situation, and all units can constantly gain the overall sense of enjoyment, so as to take the most appropriate actions according to the overall strategy.
In our team, just like in a vegetable garden, the gardener can't really "grow" tomatoes, pumpkins and beans. What she can do is to help build a good environment for crops to grow.
Maintain the organizational atmosphere and "empower" enterprises.
It is not easy to change from a "hero leader" to a humble gardener. But I made a choice. I must adapt to the new reality and reshape myself, just as the objective environment forces us to reshape the army. But how can we become a good gardener?
It is my main duty to create and maintain the atmosphere of teamwork. I will continue to shape our organizational network, and the enjoyment and empowerment of information is the magic weapon for the success of our combat operations. I found that only with the promotion of senior leaders can we maintain the rhythm of action, the transparency of information and the good cooperation between various units.
Our big team composed of small teams is distributed on many continents. How to make them understand the importance of communication and establish the corresponding organizational culture is a challenge. Written guidance is necessary. In order to make the latest situation public at any time, I enabled a secure internet interface and carefully sorted out every memo, which reflected both my thoughts and my "heartfelt wishes". If you want others to remember these things, you must emphasize them many times. Only when my subordinates can repeat or summarize what I have said and regard it as a necessary "fact" can I be sure that these words have been fully accepted by them.
1. Operational briefing is the most effective leadership tool.
I asked the whole army to speak freely at the operational intelligence briefing to show this new leadership style. Participants in the video conference are distributed in 70 locations. I will never cancel even one briefing on operational intelligence and force everyone to attend. I feel that if the briefing on operational intelligence is regarded as occasional, important leaders will not always attend and will eventually collapse.
Operational briefing should be combined with key information reporting and active interaction. Participants are thousands of miles apart, with different organizational and cultural backgrounds, and have never met each other. In this case, it was not easy to be honest with each other, but we did it.
Every day, several intelligence analysts (usually young people, whom I have never met) are asked to give brief updates on their positions, including 70 different positions. It is not a pleasant experience for them to introduce themselves to a general in his fifties on TV. I don't have to think much, I can understand their terrible mood at that time.
However, when they give a briefing, I will pause and call their names to say hello. They are often surprised and moved by this. On the chain of command, they are eight grades lower than me, separated by Wan Li-how did this senior general know their names? The answer is simple. My team has prepared a list of people who will give a briefing today. This is a small move to relax them.
When they give a briefing, I usually listen carefully. Finally, I will ask a question. The answer is usually not very important, but I want everyone to know that I am listening. This also gives them the opportunity to show their knowledge and ability in front of the whole headquarters.
For a young member of the headquarters, I will praise his report even if his briefing is poor. Then others will give advice and see how he can improve. I don't need to give him advice in front of thousands of people. If we do well, analysts will be more confident, more responsible and more committed to our cause after the briefing meeting on operational intelligence.
Attention and enthusiasm are my most powerful actions. I also adopted what I call "thinking aloud". I will summarize what I have heard and explain my first reaction roughly. This practice will make the whole headquarters follow my logical track and understand my way of thinking, and they can also correct my thinking track when appropriate. In order to successfully implement authorization, I often ask my employees what kind of action is appropriate and ask them to tell me how to do it. Through the briefing of operational intelligence, we strengthened a message as a whole: we are facing all kinds of problems that we can solve.
2. Communication skills of battlefield patrol
If we want to do a good job of "battlefield patrol", we must carefully plan and implement it. Most of these visits have multiple purposes: to increase leaders' understanding of the situation, to convey guidance to the troops and to boost morale. A successful visit can achieve all the above objectives, while a bad visit will make the troops confused and demoralized.
Visiting the army can let you see things that you can't see in official reports. Before visiting the army, I'd better communicate the main questions I want to ask, and I'll try to get some background information before I arrive at my destination. At the site of the visit, of course, local leaders need to make a briefing, but at the same time, they should also interact with people at lower levels.
It is skillful to ask questions during the tour. The content of the briefing is mainly what subordinates want you to know, and the information they provide is often incomplete. I have a useful trick. At that time, we were visiting an intelligence unit, which claimed to have 250 intelligence sources. I asked a simple question: "Can you elaborate on your so-called best intelligence source? Which intelligence sources are useless? " This unit only admitted that the best information source they said was newly collected, but it didn't prove its value. We immediately understood that its information network had no practical value.
Later, when I talked with junior officers, I would ask the same question: "If I told you that you can't go home before we win the war, would your performance be different?" At first they thought I was joking, but they soon began to think seriously.
Once the question "What will they do if they can't go home before the end of the war" is reconsidered, most people will adjust their strategies and take a longer-term view on how to deal with this problem. They are all smart and experienced people, who can immediately realize that the solution of the problem needs a long-term vision. When I leave, I will ask every soldier to keep what they say when performing their duties.
I won't talk to them condescendingly, I will try to understand and respect their perspective. Many times, soldiers who have worked hard all day under harsh conditions will feel that their leaders are far away from the world they live in, Wan Li. If there are only beautiful words without practical actions, it will only lead to ridicule from subordinates. If I can't do something for them after listening to their questions, I think it's better to tell them frankly than to pretend that I can change something for them. Frankly showing my respect for them can also win their respect for me.
A little interaction will make subordinates feel frustrated, so if you ask questions, please leave enough time to listen to the answers. The soldiers spent days preparing to give a briefing or show to the visiting "big shot", only to be told at the last minute that their work was meaningless. This is not a good way to boost morale.
Gardeners sow and harvest, but more importantly, they water crops, fertilize the land and remove weeds. They walked on the wet dirt road all day and knelt beside the tender seedlings. The daily visit of excellent gardeners is not a formal and caring gesture, which can make crops stronger; The same is true of leaders.
3. The leader's mission
In order to make our organization adaptable, we must establish, guide and maintain an agile and lasting culture. The main responsibility of the new leader is to maintain the overall policy, no matter how tempting the macro-management policy is.
Perhaps for an organization selling decorations, its leaders find that they like everything related to decorations-design, construction and marketing, but in fact this is not the most important aspect for the leaders of this organization. The main responsibility of a leader is to be responsible for the whole organization.
What a leader says is very important, but his behavior is more important for forming a big team composed of small teams. Using new technology to monitor the performance of employees at all levels is certainly in line with frederick taylor's wishes, but at the same time, the leader must also allow team members to monitor him. In addition to guidance, leaders must also show personal transparency. This is a new concept.
As the world becomes more and more complex, the importance of leaders will only increase. Even the beating quantum in artificial intelligence can't express personal wishes, spiritual encouragement and enthusiastic praise, which need leaders to do. It is always difficult to persuade small teams to form a network with each other, but this culture can be cultivated and can thrive if it is maintained. What is needed here is a gardener-a person, sometimes completely lonely. In order to make the ecosystem work well, leaders should show their willingness to take on great responsibilities.