#AshCarterLessons
We heard the Secretary of Defense speak. And found resounding takeaways. Even outside the five-sided box.
Last night we went to hear Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (and book author, physicist and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Ash Carter) speak at the JFK LIbrary. Full disclosure, we expected this to be sort of … wonky and unrelated to our own lives. But we found ourselves inspired. Here are our 5 aha moments. (#6: We’re buying the book.)
Find the best person for the job. Ash Carter was the person who made it possible for women to perform in all combat roles. (Woot!) When asked about that decision, he said he reached out to the leaders of every form of battle in the US (Air Force, Navy Seals, you name it) before making the call, and that mostly it was about access to the best people for an important job. About not unnecessarily narrowing the field when it’s so hard to find someone qualified and the work itself is so critical. I want to be the same way when I look for talent. To look at who might be, say, the best headline writer (not that I equate that with going to war, but still...), who might best push the work in unexpected ways, who might best grab a reader’s attention. Not who is the most familiar to me in that role for whatever reason (age, sex, exact experience).
Keep your hands on the table. One thing Secretary Carter said he did in meetings with the President was to keep his hands visible, above the table. It was a way to show he wasn’t keeping notes, wasn’t writing things down for some personal memoir, but was giving the full force of his attention to the matter at hand. Sometimes in meetings I’m in, people have open screens and could be looking at anything. I like this idea of not only focusing on the moment, but also showing the person speaking you’re focused on the moment. I also like the metaphor of showing-your-hand straightforwardness.
Give complete solutions. Secretary Carter said he tried to come to a situation with a complete, thoughtful solution, addressing the multiple threads of an issue. He got to this because it’s what he always wanted when he was at the head of the table, not just a solve for one slice of the problem. I like both the notion of offering your client or boss or partner a complete solution, but also the idea of approaching it with empathy, putting yourself in their shoes.
Put your best foot forward. Not in your mouth. In the calmest, most genteel, most matter-of-fact way, Secretary Carter said, “Most of the time President Obama took my advice. Sometimes he didn’t.” This balance of calm and passion is inspiring. It’s an example of something I’ve talked about before, approaching your work as if you were a consultant. You say exactly what you believe and provide the most complete thinking possible. But if it still doesn’t go your way, I’ve learned to let it go, knowing that I made my recommendation clear. Make your case and get on with it. Even the smartest people can reasonably disagree.
Take your values to the battlefield. “The United States takes its values to the battlefield,” Secretary Carter said. He was talking about the US accidentally hitting Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan in 2015. In other countries, they’d use some subterfuge to hide something like that. But we exposed even a painful misstep. They took the heat and disciplined those involved. At work, your values must stay with you through every up and down. Be honest when you screw up. Don’t run. Throw light on it. Learn from it. Even when the lessons are painful. Don’t compromise your essential self. That’s not who we are. And no accolade or consequence is as important.
Ash Carter’s book Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon is out now. At a time when integrity feels in short supply, we could probably all use 480 pages of it.