The Rock in My Shoe

Starting now:

• Ignore Your Physiological Needs
• Ignore Your Safety Needs
• Ignore Your Needs for Love, Affection, and Belonging
• Ignore Your Needs for Esteem
• Ignore Your Needs for Self Actualization.

Suck it up, and for now think of your country first!  Maslow will forgive you.  But if you do not just this one time put your country first, then you will never be worthy of forgiveness by anyone.

Obviously you have no idea where to start.  So start with history.  Specifically, start with the Gettysburg address.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

• Are we not now engaged in a great civil war?
• Do we not now find this nation completely divided about how we shall go forward?
• Are you not now the whipping boy of the left?
• Does not your indiscretions of the past smear the image of all those who would seek constitutional government?
• Does not your image give more strength to the so-called progressive cause of government before country?

You know what you should do!

You know you should be a man!

You know you should resign!

Just do it!

The Rock in My Shoe

Daily if not hourly, doctors bear the responsibility of human lives.  Medical practice is built on the Hippocratic code buttressed by practitioner ego.  To ensure that this heavy burden does not snuff out the spirit of the healer, the whole course of their training builds their ego.  Their ego is empowered to assure them that no one could have done better.

Daily if not hourly, military leaders bear the responsibility of human lives.  Military leadership is built on the knowledge that teams win skirmishes, teams win battles, teams win wars.  With experience this knowledge becomes conviction.  The knowledge is based on fact, not theory.  When conviction is based on theory, we are at least one level removed from fact. That is the basis for the truism: If we do not learn from history, then we are doomed to repeat it.

Military leadership is empowered by history-based conviction.  Without conviction the fallback position is ego.

For the last six months or so, I have been observing the behavior of politicians in Washington DC.  By being elected they prove that they are pretty smart.  Then why are they failing to deliver products which meet specifications, are within budget, and are timely?  Perhaps even though they are not doctors, their egos tell them that no one could have done better.  But doctors start with “first, do no harm.”

Watching these politicians leads me to believe that in addition to being very smart, they have huge egos.  During the last six months they have repeatedly told us that there is a problem, and that they know the solution.  Based on their performance I have come up with a hypothesis: the intelligence of politicians is diminished in proportion to their egos. (I know, a hypothesis remains a theory until proven empirically.)

Independent of my theory, I believe it is obvious that there has been a gigantic leadership failure in Washington. A looming deficit and costs of $13 trillion* is bad leadership!

In the military there are two cures for this kind of leadership failure

• Both you and your organization die in battle or,
• You pull your head out of your ass and follow your convictions.

Sadly, it appears that only the first of these cures is on the horizon for you and me.

*$13,000,000,000,000 or one dollar for every heart beat of every person
living in Miami city, FL for the entire next year!

The Rock In My ShoeWe all have training wheels provided us by the evolution of the species. One-trial-learning, which I refer to as training wheels, helps us survive in new situations. Unfortunately, it is also the root cause of prejudice.

One-trial-learning is hardwired into our species so we quickly learn that some things are dangerous. The hot stove and the child learning not to touch it the second time cliché is an example.

This hardwiring also works the other way. When we’re very successful at a particular tactic we come to believe that it will always work. This is especially true in naive leaders. Charismatic young men learn that followers believe them without thinking.

But there are situations in which the training wheels come off before the rider has mastered the bicycle. That leads to bruises and nasty scrapes.

For George W. Bush the belief in his good-old-boy charm gave him confidence that he could count on the loyalty of people who had served his father. In fact their loyalty always was divided. In the end they served him badly.

Now we see a truly charismatic President Obama building his staff with people whose primary loyalty is to the former President Clinton.

I fear President Obama will be even more poorly served by his team than was President Bush.

One-trial-learning is hardwired in us all. It is our first survival tool. As such it is the true basis for loyalty. Secondary learning never overwrites or replaces the results of one trial learning.

I believe President Obama may find that he has sad results from choosing a staff whose members have divided loyalty.

The Rock In My Shoe

Upon reflection, it’s clear that my so-called creativity is totally contrary to the way all successful military organizations operate.

This will lead to a new blog posts which I shall write soon. It will be titled: “Cleanup By Finishing Up.”

The central idea is that people who leave things unfinished, also leaves a mess. Why does that happen? For me there two reasons, first:  I get bored and second:  the task is too big for me to finish in the time available.

Remedy for problem Number 1: Think Bigger,  I get bored when the problem is too easy.

Remedy for problem Number 2: Think Smaller,  if you’re going to eat an elephant you have to do it in small bites. When you have a big,  job divide it into smaller pieces and complete them one at a time.

I’ve begun to apply this technique this week.  I’ll let you know how it comes out.

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