Famous Quotes & Sayings

Stanley McChrystal Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 32 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Stanley McChrystal.

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Famous Quotes By Stanley McChrystal

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Humans are great optimizers. We look at everything around us, whether a cow, a house, or a share portfolio, and ask ourselves how we can manage it to get the best return. Our modus operandi is to break the things we're managing down into its component parts and understand how each part functions and what inputs will yield the greatest outputs . . . [but] the more you optimize elements of a complex system of humans and nature for some specific goal, the more you diminish that system's resilience. A drive for efficient optimal state outcome has the effect of making the total system more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances. — Stanley McChrystal

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We must be bold . . . as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. — Stanley McChrystal

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fuse generalized awareness with specialized expertise. — Stanley McChrystal

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As the world grows faster and more interdependent, we need to figure out ways to scale the fluidity of teams across entire organizations: groups with thousands of members that span continents, like our Task Force. But this is easier said than done. — Stanley McChrystal

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I would tell my staff about the "dinosaur's tail": As a leader grows more senior, his bulk and tail become huge, but like the brontosaurus, his brain remains modestly small. When plans are changed and the huge beast turns, its tail often thoughtlessly knocks over people and things. That the destruction was unintentional doesn't make it any better. — Stanley McChrystal

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The temptation to lead as a chess master, controlling each move of the organization, must give way to an approach as a gardener, enabling rather than directing. A gardening approach to leadership is anything but passive. The leader acts as an "Eyes-On, Hands-Off" enabler who creates and maintains an ecosystem in which the organization operates. — Stanley McChrystal

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In battle, refusal or hesitation to follow orders can spell disaster. But at the same time, the rigid hierarchy and absolute power of officers slows down execution and stifles rapid adaptation by the soldiers closest to the fight. — Stanley McChrystal

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physical space has for a century been used to facilitate and enforce efficiency and specialization. Along with factory assembly lines, the architectural frames of white-collar work have evolved to maximize efficiency. — Stanley McChrystal

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It is now a building in which individuals toil independently in accordance with top-down, need-to-know reductionist planning. They might as well be spread around the globe. — Stanley McChrystal

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In popular culture, the term "butterfly effect" is almost always misused. It has become synonymous with "leverage" - the idea of a small thing that has a big impact, with the implication that, like a lever, it can be manipulated to a desired end. This misses the point of Lorenz's insight. The reality is that small things in a complex system may have no effect or a massive one, and it is virtually impossible to know which will turn out to be the case. — Stanley McChrystal

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sharing information would help build relationships and the two together would kindle a new, coherent, adaptive entity that could win the fight. — Stanley McChrystal

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From the first, I realized that being organized was the key to real compassion. There was a natural tendency for Annie, me, and other key leaders to flock to the bedsides of injured paratroopers or spend time with grieving, frightened family members. But organizing and focusing the paratroopers and spouses of the battalion allowed us to have a greater impact. — Stanley McChrystal

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Fast-forward to March 17, 2014, when the Los Angeles Times was the first news company to break a story about a nearby earthquake. Their edge? The article was written entirely by a robot - a computer program that scans streams of data, like that from the U.S. Geological Survey, and puts together short pieces faster than any newsroom chain of command could. This program earned the paper a few minutes of lead time at most, but today, those minutes are critical. — Stanley McChrystal

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Catchy acronym in the consulting world, "MECE," which stands for "mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. — Stanley McChrystal

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Efficiency, once the sole icon on the hill, must make room for adaptability in structures, processes, and mind-sets that is often uncomfortable. — Stanley McChrystal

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There's likely a place in paradise for people who tried hard, but what really matters is succeeding. If that requires you to change, that's your mission. — Stanley McChrystal

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It had been in 1985, through the headsets of a helicopter being flown by a veteran Night Stalker named Steel. Being called a customer put me off. It felt too much like business, too transactional - not how warriors should think of their comrades. I soon came to see that the Night Stalkers' constant use of the term was a skillful way of reminding themselves that they existed to support and enable the forces - the customers - whom they flew. The culture that formed around this word was one of the Night Stalkers' great strengths. — Stanley McChrystal

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Gentlemen," he said, "soon you will begin to wear the class shirt. You'll wear it every day of the academic year and, per uniform regulation, you will secure your collar with the collar stays that have been issued to you. "It may seem insignificant to you now," he continued, "but you're here learning attention to detail." For the next few minutes the combat-seasoned colonel compared neglecting to wear collar stays with forgetting ammunition for our soldiers in combat. Focusing on even the small things, he reasoned, develops a leader who never neglects the critical ones. — Stanley McChrystal

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Education is resilient, training is robust. — Stanley McChrystal

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Taylor despised workers' free association - their attempts to establish horizontal bonds - because it created too many — Stanley McChrystal

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Attempts to control complex systems by using the kind of mechanical, reductionist thinking championed by thinkers from Newton to Taylor - breaking everything down into component parts, or optimizing individual elements - tend to be pointless at best or destructive at worst. — Stanley McChrystal

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The heroic "hands-on" leader whose personal competence and force of will dominated battlefields and boardrooms for generations has been overwhelmed by accelerating speed, swelling complexity, and interdependence. Even the most successful of today's heroic leaders appear uneasy in the saddle, all too aware that their ability to understand and control is a chimera. — Stanley McChrystal

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Purpose affirms trust, trust affirms purpose, and together they forge individuals into a working team. — Stanley McChrystal

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Although we intuitively know the world has changed, most leaders reflect a model and leader development process that are sorely out of date. We often demand unrealistic levels of knowledge in leaders and force them into ineffective attempts to micromanage. — Stanley McChrystal

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These and similar moments from our military's past were on my mind as the enemy in Iraq appeared ever more sinister. I sought to emphasize in my force, and in myself, the necessary discipline to fight enemies whose very tactic was to instill terror and incite indignation. Maintaining our force's moral compass was not a difficult concept to understand. Armies without discipline are mobs; killing — Stanley McChrystal

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Building holistic awareness and forcing interaction will align purpose and create a more cohesive force, but will not unleash the full potential of the organization. Maintain this system for too long without decentralizing authority, and whatever morale gains were made will be reversed as people become frustrated with their inability to act on their new insights. Just as empowerment without sharing fails, so does sharing without empowerment. — Stanley McChrystal

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A leader's words matter, but actions ultimately do more to reinforce or undermine the implementation of a team of teams. Instead of exploiting technology to monitor employee performance at levels that would have warmed Frederick Taylor's heart, the leader must allow team members to monitor him. More than directing, leaders must exhibit personal transparency. This is the new ideal. — Stanley McChrystal

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If I told you that you weren't going home until we win - what would you do differently? — Stanley McChrystal

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Our actions, particularly interventions, can upset regions, nations, cultures, economies, and peoples, however virtuous our purpose. We must ensure that the cure we offer through intervention is not worse than the disease. — Stanley McChrystal

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As the demands of the positions differed, and as I grew in age and experience, I found that I had changed as a leader. I learned to ask myself two questions: First, what must the organization I command do and be? And second, how can I best command to achieve that? — Stanley McChrystal

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The rules and limitations that once prevented accidents now prevented creativity. — Stanley McChrystal

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It Takes a Network to Defeat a Network." With that, we took the first step toward an entirely new conversation. — Stanley McChrystal