Call Sign Chaos Learning to Lead Jim Mattis and Bing West New York: Random House [2019] It now became even more clear to me why the Marines assign an expanded reading list to everyone promoted to a new rank: that reading gives historical depth that lights the path ahead. In this briefing Why is this book worth our time? 2 #1 – This book will give you a pretty good history of Quotes from Call Sign Chaos recent decades of American military conflict, and action. It is worth reading for this alone. #2 – This book will help you understand the kind of 9 Presentation Outline decision-making that a leader is required to make. And, it will help you know how to make better decisions. #3 – This book will make you examine your own reading/studying habits. We all need to study more thoroughly. Quotes Quotes and excerpts from the book – (the “best of” Randy’s highlights): 1. If cabin pressure is lost, masks will drop….Put your own mask on first, then help others around you… pg. ix 2. To preserve our leadership role, we needed to get our own country’s act together first, especially if we were to help others. Pg. ix This is a book about leadership; 3. In my view, when the President asks you to do something, you “just do about a leader who learned it.” So long as you are prepared, you say yes. Whether asked to serve by how to lead in the Marines. a Democrat or a Republican, you serve. “Politics ends at the water’s The lessons are fully edge.” Pg. x transferable to other arenas. 4. The job is tough: our first Secretary of Defense committed suicide, and few have emerged from the job unscathed, either legally or politically. Pg. x 5. The Marines teach you, above all, how to adapt, improvise, and overcome. But they expect you to have done your homework, to have mastered your profession. Pg. xi 6. Year in and year out, the Marines had trained me in skills they knew I needed, while educating me to deal with the unexpected. Pg. xi 7. The Marines’ military excellence does not suffocate intellectual freedom or substitute regimented thinking for imaginative solutions. …Woe to the unimaginative one who, if after-action reviews, takes refuge in doctrine. Pg. xi 8. In any organization, it’s all about selecting the right team. The two qualities I was taught to value most in selecting others for promotion or critical roles were initiative and aggressiveness. Pg. xii 9. It now became even more clear to me why the Marines assign an expanded reading list to everyone promoted to a new rank: that reading gives historical depth that lights the path ahead. 10.… the Marine Corps’s insistence that we study (vice just read) history, paid off. Pg. xiii 11.Looking back, some things are clear: the required reading that expanded with every rank, the coaches and mentors imposing their demanding standards, the Marine Corps emphasis on adaptation, team building, and critical thinking, and my years at sea and on foreign shores had all been preparation for this job, even if I’d never sought it. Pg. xiii Call Sign Chaos 2 Those sergeants never accepted that we were giving our best effort; rather, they always pushed us to do more. 12.I’m old-fashioned: I don’t write about sitting Presidents. …I remain a steward of the public trust. pg. xiii 13.The habit of continuing to learn and adapt came with me when I joined the administration as a member of the cabinet, Pg. xiv 14.Yet at the end of the day, driving me to do my best were the veterans of past wars I felt watching me, and the humbling honor of serving my nation by leading those staunch and faithful patriots who looked past Washington’s political vicissitudes and volunteered to put their lives on the line to defend the Constitution and the American people. Pg. xiv 15.I didn’t care about making money. I wanted to be outdoors—and in the company of adventurous people. Pg. 4 16.Years later, I read the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s tombstone: “A life is not important except in its impact on other lives.” Pg. 4 17.How many parents would drive their teenager to the highway outside town so that he could hitchhike across the West? (I had started hitchhiking in 1964, when I was thirteen. It was a simpler time back then, with a stronger sense of trust in one’s fellow Americans). Pg. 5 18.I never enjoyed sitting in classrooms. I could read on my own at a much faster rate. Pg. 5 19.He was in jail, but his spirit wasn’t. …From that wayward philosopher I learned that no matter what happened, I wasn’t a victim; I made my own choices how to respond. … You don’t always control your circumstances, but you can always control your response. Pg. 6 20.Those sergeants never accepted that we were giving our best effort; rather, they always pushed us to do more. Pg. 6 21.Unique among the four services, every Marine officer is initially trained as an infantry officer. … But all officers begin their service together, learning the same set of basic skills and being shaped into one culture. …Every Marine is first and foremost a rifleman and must qualify on the rifle range. Pg. 6 22.Were you physically fit? Were you tactically sound? Could you call in artillery fire? Could you adapt quickly to change? Did your platoon respond to you? Could you lead by example? …You had to be as tough as your troops. pg. 7 23.…if I wanted my troops to follow me, I had to be as tough as my toughest men. Pg. 8 24.Everyone needs a friend, a purpose, and a chance to belong to something greater than themselves. Pg. 8 Call Sign Chaos 3 3 25.We would run countless laps on the flight deck when we weren’t practicing amphibious landings. We read everything from Starship Troopers to The Battle of Okinawa. Pg. 9 26.Everywhere we sailed, at every landing and every exercise in foreign countries, I was introduced to the enormous value of allies. Pg. 9 27.Have faith in your subordinates after you have trained them. pg. 10 28.History is filled with examples—like Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley—where audacity coupled with sound planning has prevailed over numbers. Pg. 10 29.I chose to find a home among warriors because I was drawn in by the cocky, exuberant, devil-may-care spirit of grunts. Pg. 11 30.My aims were modest. I thought, Maybe I’ll make captain. Pg. 11 31.The first is competence. Be brilliant in the basics. Don’t dabble in your job; you must master it. …That applies at every level as you advance. 32.Analyze yourself. Identify weaknesses and improve yourself. …if you’re not a good listener, discipline yourself. Your troops are counting on you. Pg. 11 33.Anything that doesn’t contribute to winning battles or winning Marines is of secondary importance. Pg. 11 34.Clear orders and relentless rehearsals based on intelligence and repetitive training build muscle—not once or twice, but hundreds of times. Pg. 11 35.Second, caring. To quote Teddy Roosevelt, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Pg. 12 36.Be honest in your criticism, but blow away the bad behavior while leaving their manhood intact. Pg. 12 37.Third, conviction. This is harder and deeper than physical courage. Your peers are the first to know what you will stand for and, more important, what you won’t stand for. Your troops catch on fast. State your flat-ass rules and stick to them. They shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. At the same time, leaven your professional passion with personal humility and compassion for your troops. Remember: As an officer, you need to win only one battle—for the hearts of your troops. Win their hearts and they will win the fights. Competence, caring, and conviction combine to form a fundamental element—shaping the fighting spirit of your troops. Leadership means reaching the souls of your troops, instilling a sense of commitment and purpose in the face of challenges so severe that they cannot be put into words. Pg. 12 38.“Command and control,” the phrase so commonly used to describe leadership inside and outside the military, is inaccurate. In the Corps, I was taught to use the concept of “command and feedback.” Pg. 16 39.George Washington, leading a revolutionary army, followed a “listen, learn, and help, then lead,” sequence. Pg. 16 40.There’s a huge difference between making a mistake and letting that mistake define you. Pg. 17 41.Partial commitment changes everything—it reduces the sense that the mission comes first. 42.From my first days, I had been taught that the Marines were satisfied only with 100 percent commitment from us and were completely dissatisfied with 99 percent. Pg. 18 43.“I’ll tell you what leadership is,” he said. “It’s persuasion and conciliation and education and patience. It’s long, slow, tough work. That’s the only kind of leadership I know.” Pg. 19 44.The battalion is the last command where the leader has a face-to-face, direct relationship with the troops. Pg. 21 Call Sign Chaos 4 45.Because a unit adopts the personality of its commander.