Authors: Colin Powell
It Worked For Me (13 page)
W
hen I start out with a new front office staff, I have always found it useful to give them a sense of what I expect from them. They are nervous, anxious, wanting to please, but walking on eggshells. Here is a summary of my opening guidance, written down several years ago by a former aide but here somewhat modified. I have passed out the original list many times over the years:
HOW TO SURVIVE AS MY AIDE—OR WHAT NOT TO DO
Don’t ever hesitate to ask me what to do if uncertain.
I trained my assistants never to act on instructions from me that they didn’t fully understand. If you are confused, ask me to explain again exactly what I told you to do. If it still isn’t clear, debate it with me to make sure you’ve got it. If you still aren’t sure, then I am the one who is confused. I don’t have a clear enough understanding of what I want you to do. It is time for me to sit and think my way through it again. Invariably, I find a fault in my analysis.
Don’t ever sign my name, or for me.
I got this from an early boss of mine in the Pentagon, John Kester, a fastidious lawyer and a stickler for quality correspondence. Kester never let anyone sign his name or use an autopen machine. His signature created a legal document that had to stand up in court or anywhere else. Another habit of his: the only date he allowed on a document was the date it was signed. It was a legal document.
I followed those rules throughout my career. As Secretary of State it was my job to sign the elaborate commissioning certificates given to presidential appointees throughout the government who had been confirmed by the Senate. They came in by the dozens, but I signed each one, and when my son, Michael, was appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, I added a smiley face to his.
I had to make some exceptions to this rule. Public mail during Desert Storm came in by the thousands. Since I couldn’t sign every response, and believed every citizen who wrote me deserved and expected a response, I authorized one or two staff assistants to use the autopen machine for this purpose.
Never use money on my behalf.
I always gave my personal assistants a petty-cash fund to pay for daily incidentals. When they ran low, they asked for more. But never were they to go into their personal funds to pay for my lunch or for stamps or shaving cream. No exceptions. It is an abuse of position to allow otherwise. Never borrow from nor lend money to an assistant.
Avoid “The General Wants” syndrome—unless I really do.
“Jeez, you know the downstairs bathroom in my quarters is looking really shabby.” Before you know what happened, someone has ordered a total renovation for $15,000 and a contract has been signed. A $20 gallon of paint was probably all that was needed. But now you will be answering to Congress about why you overspent on your government house. Worse, the
Washington Post
is working on a three-page exposé. Even inexpensive-seeming repairs get expensive when post engineers add to the cost a portion of their overhead fee for maintaining not only your house but the whole post.
Unless you are careful or protected by the people around you, a simple observation or aside can turn loose bureaucratic monsters wanting to please the general or the boss. How many CEOs have gotten nailed for a $75,000 conference room table? When I really want something, you’ll know it.
Provide feedback, but be tactful to those who ask—talks between you and me are private and confidential.
Former New York mayor Ed Koch used to ask everybody in sight, “How’m I doing?”
Everyone wants feedback about how they are doing: what the boss thinks, how did the meeting go, is he okay or mad? Ed was asking his boss, the voters.
I need to know what my staff thinks about how I’m doing, and they need to know what I think about how they are doing. The information we exchange is private and privileged. What goes on in the office stays in the office.
Every organization loves, thrives on, and solicits gossip. And subordinates need candid feedback on what the boss thinks and feels, without asking the boss. Every effective leader communicates his feelings and reactions to the organization. But there are times when the criticism, praise, or course correction should not come from the leader but from someone close to him and seemingly empowered to speak for him. After one of my subordinates presented me a particularly poor briefing, my assistant might be asked, “Hey, how mad was the General?”
“Not to worry, he knows you’ll fix it by next week.”
Or, “I’ve never seen him so pissed. Man, you had better get your act together by the end of the week or he’s gonna drop you like a rock.”
The trusted assistant may have to occasionally fib or sweet-talk for the good of the organization. Egos are tricky things and must be carefully managed and massaged.
I’m no exception. I need to know how I’m doing.
I live on the speaking circuit. After each speech I never ask my client how I did. I have my assistant at the speaker’s bureau ask the client’s assistant how the event went and how did the General do. Assistants love to gossip and I get useful feedback. When we don’t get an answer, I know I was not at my best and had better review what I told them.
Alma and my family have nothing to do with the office. Never interrupt with calls from Alma unless there’s a crisis.
I love my family deeply and passionately. They are my life . . . but not all my life. Their place in my life does not extend to the office.
My wife, Alma, is aware that good fences make good marriages. She runs the house, me, and the kids. I run the office. She never gets involved in policy, personalities, gossip, or anything else at the office. She doesn’t cross-examine me over dinner about what’s going on. We had been married ten years before she could tell one rank insignia from another. She never forgot what General Bernie Rogers, Army Chief of Staff, told us when I went through charm school before being promoted to brigadier general: “Over the next couple of years, I’ll have to bounce several of you out because your wives will start acting like they are generals. I know you don’t believe me now, but just watch.” He was right. Alma is smart as the devil and always knows what’s going on, but we always preserved that strict boundary at the threshold of our home. She knows when she calls the office that I may not take the call right away.
What’s true of Alma is true of the rest of my family.
Never keep anybody waiting on the phone—call back.
I came up with this one before the days of voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, and that modern nightmare, phone trees. I just thought it was rude to put someone on hold and leave them for more than a moment. You are wasting their time. If you can’t put them through right away, tell them we’ll call back. And then make sure we do. I tried to never end the day without answering all calls.
When I became Secretary of State I kept my doors open so I could keep track of what was going on in the outer offices of the suite. Too often I could hear the phones ringing until they got shunted into voice mail. Unacceptable. The front office of the Secretary of State cannot use voice mail. The phone will be answered after the third ring by a welcoming human, even if that human is me. And you really don’t want me to have to answer the phone. I want every call dealt with or directed for real to some place in the department where it can be dealt with. I want people to say, “Wow, I called the Secretary of State’s office and I got right through.”
I like meetings generally uninterrupted. I ask a lot of questions. I like questions and debates.
If I am having a meeting, I am having a meeting. Meetings should be open and probing, and they should be sacred time.
I like meetings that dive deeply into the issue at hand. You can only do that if everyone there feels free to ask questions that peel away the skin and get down to the core of an issue. And I like to be challenged. Don’t assume that I already know the answers. If I did, I wouldn’t need a meeting.
Meetings are sacrosanct. Don’t break in to tell me someone is calling or someone needs me. I believe in respecting the others at the meeting. I don’t want to waste their time. Their time is as valuable as mine. If you interrupt, it had better be urgent.
I’m a people/phone junkie. I like to remain enormously accessible.
The higher I rose, the harder I had to work to remain accessible to people strolling by and not be walled off by staffs and doors.
At State, I had wide-open doors. I worked in a small inner office with a beautiful formal meeting area between me and the office staff. I could keep track of what was going on, listen for the phone, and pick up giggles and snickers I could ask about later; people who needed to see me could look in to check if I was busy. Even when I have to keep my door closed, if someone needs to see me, just give me a heads-up and if I’m free, send them in.
I will develop ways of getting to know what’s happening.
So, don’t hesitate to tell me. The more senior you become, the more staff you have to protect you from yourself and to push their own agenda. They mean well, but they can insulate you from ground truth. You have to get out and walk the floor. Have trusted agents and friends call you when they think the emperor has no clothes. In the Army, chaplains, inspectors general, and sergeants major can always give you a ground truth perspective. Above all, never forget you were ground truth once. Never lose that bond with what is happening down in the subbasement.
Don’t accept speaking engagements without my knowledge.
In fact, don’t accept any calendar commitment without my knowledge. I am a nut about my calendar. I must control my time. It’s the only real asset I have. No appointment is accepted, no event is scheduled, without my personal approval. But unscheduled time is fair game. I try to keep my door open. If you really need to see me and I’m not busy or taking a nap, come on in.
Keep accurate calendars and records. And keep faithful track of calls and whom I have seen. I’ll always return calls.
The older I get the more important this one has become. My memory remains near perfect; it just operates a lot slower than it once did. Accurate calendars and phone logs have proven invaluable. They have rescued me on many occasions.
On the other hand, whether or not to keep a diary is not an easy question to answer these days—especially for people with a significant public presence. The information revolution, emails, the Freedom of Information Act, and now WikiLeaks suggest caution in keeping personal records. Such records are important for historical purposes, but I fear a lot is being lost to historians because of the sensible exercise of caution and discretion.
I once found myself in a federal court as a witness, brought in to try to clarify a few ambiguous words I had jotted down in a calendar book. Because they were just a few words and not a narrative, the lawyers on both sides had fun deposing me and filling in the blanks to their advantage.
I tend to get moody or preoccupied. I will snap, but that clears the air.
I try to sail on an even keel, but I’m human. Sometimes I am so consumed with an issue that I am oblivious, and even rude, to people around me. Sometimes I let my temper get the best of me, and I blow up. Leave me alone, stay out of the way, and I’ll be back to normal shortly. Don’t take it personally; I really just got hung up on the issue. I can’t have people around me who go fetal when they get caught on my gun-target line.
Be punctual; don’t waste my time.
Punctuality is a sign of seriousness, discipline, understanding the value of time, and simple respect and courtesy. One of the first things you learn in the Army is to be on time. In the Army being on time is no casual thing. You’ll remember the old war movies where leaders synchronize their watches so everyone can jump off at the exactly correct time. I was taught at the Infantry School to never be without a watch, a pen, and a notepad.
I insist on punctuality. The meeting starts when I said it would, with or without you. Show up late for an appointment and you might find it canceled. Meetings that start late and go too long waste everyone’s time.
Emergencies can arise, and meetings can start late or go long; but you can’t be late just because you didn’t organize your day. When people are kept waiting just out of indiscipline or poor time management my blood boils.
The media wrote stories about President George W. Bush closing the door on you if you weren’t at a meeting on time. One day I was delayed by an important phone call and was about a minute late to a cabinet meeting. The door was locked. It was then opened and I slipped in. Everyone laughed, but it was also a lesson. Some reporters on a slow day started a story that President Bush was dissing me. Nope, he did it all the time to others . . . even to Karl Rove, to my delight.
I prefer written information to oral. Writing encourages discipline.
I
do
love oral arguments and presentations. Sharp, well-organized briefings are good. But writing trumps oral. A well-written analysis of an issue, listing the alternatives and the opposing points of view, distributed and studied in advance, makes for a more productive meeting. In the quiet solitude of my home or office, I can find inconsistencies and weaknesses or strengths. I am then ready to hear the oral arguments, sufficiently armed not to be influenced solely by the performance skill of the protagonists.
I do lots of paperwork—and I like doing it.
I was always a good staff officer. I would normally grind through dozens of papers a day. I read fast. I know how to scan and how to weed out filler. And I enjoy it. I made it a habit in all my senior jobs to respond to all papers the same day they were sent to me. On those occasions when I couldn’t get to something the day it reached me, I’d work on it at home, and respond the next day. If you didn’t get it back within twenty-four hours, it wasn’t because I didn’t get to it. You better worry about why you didn’t. It usually wasn’t good news.
