Interviews > General David Petraeus
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The following represents an edited, condensed, and paraphrased conversation with General Petraeus and does not reflect his exact words.
Big Ideas and Vision—I have had the great fortune to work with some of the great diplomats such as Crocker, Negroponte, Jeffrey, Burns, Nuland, etc. over my career. While they invariably brought brains, interpersonal skills, great writing and briefing skills, were calm and determined under pressure, and exhibited physical and moral courage, most importantly, they got the big ideas right. The rest almost doesn’t matter. The most energetic and skillful diplomat won’t be effective if they’re working in the wrong direction. This filters downs and is true even for those operating at non-strategic decision-making levels. Getting the big ideas right is hard and does not guarantee success, but it does require judgement developed from extensive experience and an intentional focus on the big picture.
The best leaders spend time to identify the top priorities tied into the bigger mission and that will lead to success. Once identified, they distill and communicate these priorities repeatedly, they live them (e.g. practice what you preach), and they develop programs to support those priorities. Leaders then oversee implementation with positive expectations and clear, equal accountability. Leaders then refine and reiterate to continually improve and adjust as the mission or goal changes. But again, these priorities shouldn’t be arbitrary, they should be tied into the larger goal and mission depending on the organizational unit you’re leading. At the same time, speed and decisiveness are key. Organizations can get tangled up in knots waiting for a decision—needing to get the big idea right is not an excuse to endlessly study an issue or deliberate. Leaders need to have the courage and conviction to make decisions quickly with limited information. You can read or watch more about my ideas on “Strategic Leadership” at the project on leadership I did with Harvard's Belfer Center.
Information and Knowledge—Since the most important thing is to get the big ideas right, State needs to do a better job ensuring strategic leaders have the information and knowledge they need to get ideas right in the first place or to refine and revise the big ideas overtime. This requires telling hard truths, academic rigor, and a systematic/structured approach. Structured and consistent information and clear metrics makes decision-making easier, faster, and more accountable. One big difference between the military and State is that the DoD is much more structured in its information gathering, analysis, and presentation. The military has a famous reliance on PowerPoint and metrics which makes it easy to condense and compare information across areas of operation. State prefers cables or memos that provide highly specific, contextualized information, as well as well-argued analysis, instead of tracking metrics that can be compared across countries or regions. Part of that is the nature of State’s reporting which is highly individualized and country specific. However, State should try to counterbalance that tendency with a focus on producing information that can be condensed and compared. State reporting should attempt to also distill out what is distinctive or different about a particular situation. Good reporting takes time, experience, a knowledge of and a focus on the larger policy issues, as well as officers getting out of their comfort zone and experiencing different areas of operations or even different agencies over their careers. Memos have their place, but if strategic policymakers are to get the big ideas right, then they need rigorous, digestible analysis that can be tracked and measured over time.
Focus on Diversity and Recruitment—Diversity strengthens an organization, but achieving it requires that it be a top leadership priority and sustained commitment by leaders throughout the organization. Top leaders know they need to shape how the organization promotes and elevates personnel. But the formal promotion process is only one tiny aspect of who makes it to the top. Who gets promoted is partly a reflection of the formal process including recruitment and retention, but also who gets hired for the “right” jobs and who is given more responsibility and opportunities. No single program or change will be sufficient and truly effective leaders also use informal channels and mechanisms to shape the organization and influence who become the next leaders. State’s leadership will need to use their informal power and bureaucratic knowledge to ensure the organization values and promotes diversity. Unfortunately, these changes take time, but we need representation and role models now to improve retention and promote change. So State, like other organizations in the private sector, needs to seriously consider an extraordinary process to bring in talented folks from the outside at mid-and upper levels to promote diversity at a faster rate.
Encourage Good Esprit de Corps—The military has a strong tradition and focus on developing a “fighting spirit,” unit cohesion, and a general esprit de corps—something the State Department seems to lack. Every leader in the military knows that when they take over a unit, they need to foster that sense of mission and esprit de corps. Good leaders identify what makes their unit distinctive and build rituals and traditions that emphasize that and deliberately cultivate that shared sense of purpose (again tied to the larger mission). People want to feel part of a larger team and have a mission and purpose and are more motivated and effective when they are working towards something larger than just their narrow self-interest. The military excels at rituals and pomp and circumstance, but it’s possible, with deliberate effort, to develop a similar esprit de corps in other organizations. One key aspect is demonstrating a clear focus on the mission and communicating that with your team.
In addition, leaders need to communicate a clear focus on the mission, build a sense of camaraderie among their team, and establish open channels of communication. This requires systematically building relationships with people throughout the organization and not just with the people you directly supervise. This can be done through pomp and ceremonies—which the military does well—or through more informal channels. One technique is to routinely solicit big ideas from people at key positions throughout the organization and engage with them on those. This has three key benefits: first, it opens up lines of communications; second, it demonstrates you value their opinion; and, third, it fosters a habit of folks thinking about the big ideas (and if those aren’t right…).
However, while non-formal channels are critical, you need to be careful that you’re not accidentally excluding certain groups. For example, in the military physical training was often a great way to build links with folks on my team, but this didn’t work as well elsewhere. At the Agency, I established a “Run with the Director” program so that anyone at HQ who could run a certain pace could join me for runs in the morning. I thought this would be a good opportunity to break down the barriers in a fun way and establish links to people throughout the agency. However, it was a bust because given time pressures and the pace requirements, very few could participate. It ended up becoming a way for me to get to know the interns! A more successful approach I initiated was a rotating lunch with the director and an effort to bring Chiefs of Station back to Washington for periodic consultations. I also started soliciting their ideas about key policy questions in their area and got them engaged and thinking about the big ideas.
Make Mistakes to Learn—One area where the military seems to do better than State is in its approach to mistakes and learning. The military generally has a higher tolerance for mistakes, but also clear accountability. The military is less risk averse and has a culture and process for learning from mistakes such as formal “After Action Reviews”, training exercises, red teams, etc. The military has established a clear expectation that people will make mistakes, even though it can have life and death consequences, because it is also essential for learning and improving. In contrast, while I’ve seen many bold Secretaries of State, the rest of the State Department was generally more cautious. Part of this is a question of political cover, but part of it is a risk-averse culture and the lack of an institutionalized learning process that sees mistakes as a key tool.
It is key that risk taking be done in a deliberate, controlled fashion and not just taken on implicitly or without awareness. In the military, it was key to establish with the supervisor or chain of command what was an “acceptable risk” and what the risk tolerance was for specific situations. There were clear discussions in advance about potential outcomes, possible mistakes, and redlines to avoid. This dialogue was key to ensuring that people were prepared to address and mitigate mistakes and to avoiding “non-biodegradable risks”— i.e. mistakes that will have a permanent impact. This discussion needs to be done early and requires open communication and an understanding of the broader context. Planning and preparation are key to calculated risk taking, but it is admittedly a lot harder to operationalize in the foreign policy context.
Supervisors should provide cover for good-faith mistakes which means that supervisors need to stand behind their people and protect them if and when they take calculated, communicated risks, and it fails. Protecting people when they make a mistake will go a long way to fostering a creative, less-risk averse culture. However, there also needs to be accountability for unexpected and unplanned risks. Subordinates should be held accountable for their planning (or a failure to plan) and their understanding of the potential consequences of an action.
Finally, it’s key that there is a process to learn from mistakes—it’s one thing for an individual to learn from a mistake—individual improvement is good and necessary. However, for the mistakes to be more meaningful, there needs to be a process for institutional learning so that the organization improves—this is especially true in situations where people rotate a lot. It’s not enough to just “document” lessons learned, because for the lesson to actually be learned there needs to be some organizational change—this can be a change in tactics, training, or management, or identifying a problem with the broader strategy. This means different things at different organizational levels, but the military has institutionalized this idea throughout.
To Succeed in the Field, State Needs to Maximize Success in Washington—The U.S. needs a strong and effective State Department, so I really welcome the Twenty-Five Year Apprenticeship effort. I also think Nick Burns has a good program up at Harvard that has a lot of potential. Part of the problem is clearly resources. I’ve long argued for more State Department funding and the Department should develop and use proxies, like DoD and others, to help explain its mission and advocate for its priorities, especially regarding budget and resources. State needs a bigger personnel “float,” extra staff beyond that needed to fill existing jobs, to enable continuing education, long-term training, or institution building (such as systematic after action reports) or for external details to other organizations. But State and those supporting State need a strategy to develop champions on the Hill and have a process of systematic relationship building with Hill leadership and staff. One thing that would help would be a few “celebrity” or “star” diplomats. It doesn’t need to be the Secretary, but a handful of these people, who shine and highlight the mission, can raise awareness, and foster a sense of pride about the organization. State should also maximize available pomp and circumstance—such as the Department’s 8th floor, as well as ambassadors and embassies abroad—to engage with key members, staff, and other policymakers. Don’t assume they know how State works. Bring them in and explain your work.
Overall, State needs to increase its presence and impact in Washington. People at State need to learn to work the interagency and the Hill which is central to being effective policy advocates. State should identify key talent and push as many as possible to the NSC, Capitol Hill, and other key agencies like DoD. These are “vantage point” jobs where staff learn broader issues and how to work the interagency. It also creates a voice for the Department in discussions and a reservoir of experience as those people move up the ranks. The combination of the relationships and skills will more than pay off and increase State’s relevance and also its effectiveness in the field.
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