10/4/2020
I didn’t read for a few months. I was busy having a preterm baby and working a lot. My mind was less focused but, given everything else I was doing, that probably had nothing to do with the reading.
Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead by Jim Mattis
This book was recommended by both my father and my husband’s best friend (both USMC).
This book feels a bit like Dale Carnegie for war. I loved it.
General Mattis is highly quotable. Call Sign Chaos is full of tidbits on war, leadership, planning and learning. Published in September 2019, Mattis was already long gone from the Trump administration, but he adhered to the military ethos to stay apolitical. Of course, he’s since changed his opinion and published news articles critical of President Trump.
Two similarities with George Marshall:
They both spoke truth to power. Marshall was well known for speaking up to General Pershing during WWI and General Mattis spoke up to make sure his Marines were receiving the commendations he believed they deserved.
They both received congressional waivers to serve as Secretary of Defense before their seven year “cooling off” period finished.
Notables:
“Attitudes are caught, not taught.”
“If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you.”
“Partial commitment changes everything.” <— !!!!
“It wasn’t how well any one of us performed; our test was how well the unit functioned without us.”
General Zinni’s Three Categories of Information:
Housekeeping - anticipatory
Decision making - to maintain the rhythm of operations designed to ensure that our operations were functioning at the speed of relevance
Night orders - critical events - alarm information
George Washington’s Approach to Leadership:
Listen
Learn
Help
Then lead
Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
I loved the Crazy Rich Asians series and this was almost as fun.