General Mattis makes the case that part of the leader’s job – a crucial part! – is to read, and learn from what he/she has read. Learn, as in “put into practice.” Here is an extended excerpt from his email:
The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead…
For all the “4th Generation of War” intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, the tactics are wholly new, etc, I must respectfully say … “Not really”: Alex the Great would not be in the least bit perplexed by the enemy that we face right now in Iraq, and our leaders going into this fight do their troops a disservice by not studying (studying, vice just reading) the men who have gone before us.
We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience. “Winging it” and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession.
This is not new to the USMC approach to warfighting — Going into Kuwait 12 years ago, I read (and reread) Rommel’s Papers (remember “Kampstaffel”?), Montgomery’s book (“Eyes Officers”…), “Grant Takes Command” (need for commanders to get along, “commanders’ relationships” being more important than “command relationships”), and some others.
As a result, the enemy has paid when I had the opportunity to go against them, and I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
Hope this answers your question…. I will cc my ADC in the event he can add to this. He is the only officer I know who has read more than I.
Semper Fi, Mattis
How many times have leaders found themselves in situations that require wise decisions and quick thinking, and they only have their own experiences to draw from? How many people rise to positions of leadership that require wisdom and depth, and yet they try to fulfill their roles without continuing the practice of regular, even daily, substantive reading?
General Mattis reminds us that nearly every thing we face has been faced before. As new as this strange new world is, it is not that new.
If you read his email in this entirety, you come away with a deep sense that the failure to make time to read — the failure to read, and learn from what you read — is tantamount to a dereliction of duty for any leader.
Read… you have to! And, read… your people need you to.
(Click here to go to the article, which includes the full email).
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For over 15 years, my colleague Karl Krayer and I have presented synopses of two useful business books every month at the First Friday Book Synopsis. Many of our synopses are available for purchase, with handouts + audio of our presentations, at our companion site, 15minutebusinssbooks.com. And, on this blog, we write about business books in some form or another practically every day. Bob Morris, our blogging colleague, reviews many, many books, on our blog, and on his own blog. I hope you will bookmark our site, and let us help you think about books which are worth your time.
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