This episode of On Point features an interview with General Stan McChrystal, Co-founder of the McChrystal Group. Following his retirement from the US Army after 34 years, McChrystal founded the McChrystal Group, which is an advisory team that partners with businesses to improve the performance of their organizations and help build resilient and adaptable teams that can win in today’s dynamic environment.
This episode of On Point features an interview with General Stan McChrystal, Co-founder of the McChrystal Group. Following his retirement from the US Army after 34 years, McChrystal founded the McChrystal Group, which is an advisory team that partners with businesses to improve the performance of their organizations and help build resilient and adaptable teams that can win in today’s dynamic environment.
A retired four-star general, Stanley McChrystal is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture. As founder of the McChrystal Group McChrystal Group, he specializes in leadership consulting, leadership training, executive coaching, strategy alignment, team-building, transparency, communications, disciplined execution, networked organizations, and keynote speaking engagements.
In this episode McChrystal talks about wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps to attend West Point and be a military hero. We learn about his initial struggles at West Point, and how he went from the bottom of his class to improve his standing on the Dean’s List. He provides insight about navigating life as a junior officer, and then as a general officer in high stakes situations. McChrystal discusses a Rolling Stone article about his command group and how he handled the fallout and changes to his career that led to starting a new business. He also provides thoughts on mentorship, transitioning from the military to civilian life, and the importance of taking care of yourself.
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"I will tell you the people who decide whether you are successful, ultimately in the army, are your peers. Because as you go up that pyramid gets a bit narrower. Decisions are made when people, your reputation, what people say about you, whether people trust you, that sort of thing. And it goes all the way into promotion boards. And so I would say that think about being respected, being the kind of person people want on their flank, being the kind of person they want their son or daughter or brother or sister to work for. You be that person, and most of the rest of it just sort of takes care of itself." - General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal
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(01:44) Segment 1 - AAR
(02:05) Entry to West Point and Military Career
(02:59) First years at West Point
(07:59) West Point Academic Standing
(08:49) Meritocracy at West Point
(10:45) Mentors and Relationship with father
(13:30) Transitioning from Military and West Point
(15:55) Experience as a Junior Officer
(20:37) Progressing Through Ranks
(25:55) Time as Commanding and General Officer
(32:25) Building Mentorships
(35:45) Rolling Stone Article
(40:30) McChrystal Group
(41:27) Segment 2 - Sit Rep
(41:50) Running a Business
(44:45) McChrystal’s Big Four
(46:55) Empowering Teams
(48:45) Segment 3 - SOP
(49:15) Taking Care of Yourself
(54:45) Staying in Rhythm
(56:23) Foundations Built from Military and West Point
(57:55) Segment 4 - Giving Back
(59:45) Lessons from Sports
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West Point Association of Graduates
[00:00:00] Narrator: This episode of On Point features an interview with General Stan McChrystal, Co-founder of the McChrystal Group. Following his retirement from the US Army after 34 years, McChrystal founded the McChrystal Group, which is an advisory team that partners with businesses to improve the performance of their organizations and help build resilient and adaptable teams that can win in today’s dynamic environment.
In this episode McChrystal talks about wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps to attend West Point and be a military hero. We learn about his initial struggles at West Point, and how he went from the bottom of his class to improve his standing on the Dean’s List. He provides insight about navigating life as a junior officer, and then as a general officer in high stakes situations. McChrystal discusses a Rolling Stone article about his command group and how he handled the fallout and changes to his career that led to starting a new business. He also provides thoughts on mentorship, transitioning from the military to civilian life, and the importance of taking care of yourself.
Now-please enjoy this interview between Stan McChrystal and your hosts, Tim Hsia and Lance Dietz.
[00:01:16] Tim Hsia: welcome to on point. I'm your host, Tim Hsia west point class of 2004, and
[00:01:21] Lance Dietz: I'm Lance Dietz class of 2008.
[00:01:23] Tim Hsia: And today we are joined by a very special guest general Stan McChrystal class of 1976. Stan, how are you?
[00:01:29] Stanley McChrystal: I'm doing great. I'm from another millennium I guest than you guys. That's a little bit frightening.
[00:01:34] Stanley McChrystal: It's really a pleasure to be on. Thanks for having.
[00:01:36] Tim Hsia: Let's get into our first segment AR for our non-military listeners after action review in this segment, I'd like to touch on specifically what other veterans can learn from you, your process and your journey, when and how did joining the military come up on your
[00:01:50] Stanley McChrystal: radar?
[00:01:50] Stanley McChrystal: Well, let me go back on the AR idea, cuz if we can learn from what other people have done, the mistakes they've made, we where the landmines are, then maybe we [00:02:00] can avoid stepping on 'em ourself. So if, if I can do a little of that today, it'd be great. I grew up in an army family. My father was a soldier, a west point grad from 1945.
[00:02:09] Stanley McChrystal: His father was a soldier. My brothers were soldiers, my sister married a soldier. And so from my earliest memory, I wanted to be my dad. He was my hero. If he'd been something else, I would want to be that. And so he was a soldier, so I wanted to be like him. And he had gone to west point. So I just sort of reflexively thought, well, that's what I should do.
[00:02:32] Stanley McChrystal: In fact, I didn't apply to any other colleges. West pointers will enjoy this. I didn't get my acceptance until the last week of may and I had to report a month later and that's, I mean, that's white knuckle time because I'm getting up close. I hadn't been accepted anywhere. I had no plan. And then at the last minute, I guess they, they lowered the standards and they let me in.
[00:02:54] Tim Hsia: What was, um, your first few years at west point? Like
[00:02:58] Stanley McChrystal: not good. [00:03:00] I, I got to west point with this idea that I wanted to be my dad and he was an infantry officer and he was at, been in Vietnam and my brother had been in Vietnam. So that's what I was thinking about. I wasn't thinking about west point to me.
[00:03:10] Stanley McChrystal: It was just sort of a gates. You go through like a toll booth on the New Jersey turnpike. And so I showed up at west point not taking it very seriously. I'm 17 years old when I arrive west point is 170 years old. When I arrive, they took themselves very seriously. And so. Several friction points arose. The first was I got slugged in beast barracks.
[00:03:35] Stanley McChrystal: Almost nobody gets slugged in beast barracks. I got slugged along with a fellow new cadet, classmate of mine for perceiving to be disrespectful to my squad leader. In fact, they called it Disap probation towards a cadet superior. I didn't know what Disap probation meant. What had happened is he had come and he'd caught us doing something.
[00:03:55] Stanley McChrystal: And so he'd, he'd braced us in the wall and he'd yelled at us a while. And then he [00:04:00] walked away and we turned at each other and just kind of shrugged our shoulders and laughed. And he had circled around and caught us doing the shrug and laughing. And so, boom, I got slugged and then I didn't take my academics very seriously.
[00:04:14] Stanley McChrystal: I didn't have a strong math background when I went to west point, unlike some of my classmates. So I got put in one of the top sections of math initially because my S a T was pretty good math. And I sunk down to the 34th section of math. A lot of people didn't know there was a 34 section of math. And I mean, it was literally, I was down there with very few of us actually graduated that were in that group.
[00:04:41] Stanley McChrystal: But, but it was really tough because I wasn't real mature in my study habits. So I didn't apply myself very well. We were doing subjects that I wasn't good at and had growing pains that putting up with the discipline. And so I, I got slugged in the next year and a half. I got slugged [00:05:00] three more times, which are for people who aren't west pointers.
[00:05:03] Stanley McChrystal: Those are big punishments. And so in my first year and a half, I became a century plus man, a hundred, 128 hours on the area, three months, special confinement later that was declared unconstitutional, but I'd already done my three months special confinement. And I was right at the bottom of the class. In fact, one week I was living in my plebe year.
[00:05:23] Stanley McChrystal: I was living with a guy who was really high in the class, used to be able to go to this one room in the barracks and get your grades. It was a big sort of a teletype computer and you type in your cadet number and then it would make this north and it would batch your grades. And it would say the grade in each class and then your rank in each class and then your cumulative rank.
[00:05:43] Stanley McChrystal: And so he went down one week and I had gone the week before and I, I was something like 1,260 outta 1,275 in the class. Yeah. I had 15 slots. I was, I was good. And he went and got his grades and he came back and I said, okay, what do you got? He says, I'm [00:06:00] number 12 in the class. I said, okay. And he says out of 1,250, and I'm doing the math.
[00:06:06] Stanley McChrystal: I said, wait a minute, I'm 1260. And so I, I rushed down the thing and of course I was still slightly under the, the number, but I had a tough time the first two years. And then a number of things happened to me. One, I think I, you know, you get enough scar tissue to start to get a little bit smarter. I met a girl and got serious about her and we'd been married for 45 years now.
[00:06:31] Stanley McChrystal: And so for the last two years I had sort of a purpose there. And then I had a new tactical officer come in and I had a good tactical officer the first two years, but I had a new one come in at the very beginning of cow year. He was doing interviews with all the cadets and just sort of one after another.
[00:06:48] Stanley McChrystal: And he brought me into his office and he goes, you know, nice to meet you this. He says, I think you are a good cadet and you're gonna be a great soldier. [00:07:00] And I sort of leaned over the desk. I said, you know, you must have somebody else's file here. You better, you know, get the paperwork straight. And he says, no, the things that you are good at, I think are gonna translate well into the army.
[00:07:13] Stanley McChrystal: And the things that you are sort of ham headed about you are not thoughtful. Don't matter. They only matter are at west point. And once you get through this, this will be fine. And you know, that guy, his name was, uh, David Bardo and he became my Battan commander later in special forces. And he just sort of changed my own thought on myself.
[00:07:34] Stanley McChrystal: The fact that somebody expressed that kind of confidence and those other factors all went together. And my last two years, you know, I did very well academically, very well in other things and almost balanced out, you know, those two misspent years.
[00:07:50] Tim Hsia: What you shared was really interesting for a few points.
[00:07:52] Tim Hsia: One is another guest, former secretary of the VA McDonald talked about if he had only enough time, he would've been first [00:08:00] in his class cuz when he was talking about it, he's like, oh, I was almost first in my class and I just need another semester. I would've first Lance. And I tend to think if we had just another semester, we had dropped even more.
[00:08:09] Tim Hsia: It seems like for you, you another semester would've, you know, you've kept going up to the right.
[00:08:14] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah. I would've never caught Bob, Bob and I were lieutenants together. There was a year ahead of me at west point. We were lieutenants together on the 82nd. You know, I wasn't getting nobody at the very top was here in footsteps for me.
[00:08:26] Stanley McChrystal: But the reality is I got up and I was on the Dean's list and I was on the, the superintendent. And so my last two years, life was pretty sweet compared to the first two.
[00:08:38] Tim Hsia: the, the other thing that's interesting is every guest has talked about. West point being as close as it comes in this world to a pure meritocracy.
[00:08:48] Tim Hsia: And I have, uh, dreams, or might I say nightmares sometimes about just how meritocratic it is? It's like they, no one cares if your parents were generals, no one cares [00:09:00] where you come from. And it's like, everyone just goes and they still have grades outside the doors and you look at it. And, uh, I, I'm curious your thoughts on that.
[00:09:10] Stanley McChrystal: I, I think that's true. I think west point went to an extraordinary effort. He still does to be a meritocracy. The only thing I would challenge is the metrics that they use in my class. The classes have six amazing collection of talent. There were three, four stars, both were way lower in the class than I was.
[00:09:33] Stanley McChrystal: And one was 12 from the bottom. So by one metric of the meritocracy, they might have looked at it and said, this guy is not gonna be great, but he, David Rodriguez is one of the most amazing soldiers we've ever produced. And the other guy was Rayo was chief of staff of the army. So when I look at that, you probably might not have by the strict numbers that predicted any of us to go anywhere.
[00:09:57] Stanley McChrystal: So I think it's fair, but I'm not [00:10:00] sure it always measures exactly what is gonna play out in the military.
[00:10:05] Tim Hsia: And I think that's a really interesting insight. And I promise you before this conversation, I've been thinking about it a lot, that a number of good cadets are great officers and great cadets are mediocre officers.
[00:10:17] Tim Hsia: And to your point, it's just a different metrics. And if you're not evolving to what the different metrics are, then you won't catch chop also really interesting. And this is something we Lance and I oftentimes try to have guest reveal as mentors, cuz we think mentors are really critical. I, I, I can speak for myself that there's been two or three.
[00:10:38] Tim Hsia: I, I like to call Fox Connors like Dwight Eisenhower's mentors that are really instrumental in our careers. And it sounds like David Barra, is that for you?
[00:10:47] Stanley McChrystal: He was, he was one of the first mentors I had first as a cadet. And then as a young officer after. Two years in the 82nd, I went over to his special forces battalion, and these were remained a friend to this day.
[00:10:59] Stanley McChrystal: So [00:11:00] you're really lucky if you get the chance to interact and develop a relationship like those, because one, it helps you grow. But also when you get the chance to become one, it does the same for you in reverse, sir,
[00:11:12] Lance Dietz: I just have a quick question. Uh, the, before we dive in deeper, I'm curious, you know, as you alluded to having a really rough first two years, but having a military family father who was incredibly successful in the military, how did those conversations go at?
[00:11:30] Lance Dietz: Did they happen? Was it, you know, Astan, what are you doing? Or stand on, worry about it. Like, it's gonna be fine. Like, I'm just curious, like how that interaction went with a military family as well. That we're very familiar with west point. Um, versus like for me, I don't come from a military family. So those conversations are quite different.
[00:11:50] Lance Dietz: Things are going well or poorly at west point, but I'm curious how it was for you.
[00:11:54] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah, it was not my father's style. He didn't push me to go to west point. [00:12:00] In fact, he very carefully didn't cuz he didn't wanna to push me into something he thought might not be right. So I kind of pushed myself. Uh, when I got there, he didn't push me in all either.
[00:12:11] Stanley McChrystal: I think he was a little bit amused at the challenges I was having. Cause I don't think he thought that they were as serious as some people at west point did. And also to be honest in, in those couple of years, my first two years, actually my first three years at the academy, my father was going through a, a difficult period in his life.
[00:12:31] Stanley McChrystal: My mother had pat passed away and he was going through some, some tough years. And so our relationship evolved a bit. And so I was supporting him as well as he's supporting me. So it was, it was a very healthy thing over time. But we all go through different points in our lives when, when challenges come up.
[00:12:51] Stanley McChrystal: And that was one for him and, you know, sort of by reflection one for me and my, my siblings as well.
[00:12:59] Tim Hsia: One thing you [00:13:00] identified was around how you can be met with obstacles at one point, and then success later. And a lot of people who listened to his pods cast are transitioning folks, folks who are transitioning from the military to civilian sector and Lance and I talk with a lot of transitioning folks.
[00:13:17] Tim Hsia: And one of the things that I often make sure I tell them is it's gonna be okay, meaning like this transition is really difficult, but you gonna have a great journey and probably tremendous success. It feels like if, and when you go back to west point, you probably tell cadets regardless of where they are, that they're gonna do.
[00:13:33] Tim Hsia: Fantastic. Would you say that's the
[00:13:35] Stanley McChrystal: case? Yeah, I, I would absolutely say that because you talk about the meritocracy at west point, you get very focused on certain things. I went up and spoke to cadets, you know, seven or eight years ago. And I told him, you know, I never learned calculus. I just didn't understand it.
[00:13:55] Stanley McChrystal: But interestingly, in my 34 years, as an officer, I never once was in a [00:14:00] position where if I could only integrate an equation, we were gonna be okay. And, you know, I think the, the professors in the audience didn't appreciate that, but that, that was the truth. You know, there are things that do get both tested and developed in an experience like west point.
[00:14:17] Stanley McChrystal: Many of those are interpersonal skills. They're personal commitment. They're, they're inner strength. They are more important than the academic subjects. Now, those are still important. I mean, you've gotta, you know, have basic understanding and be intelligent and be curious, but there are core things that can come through in people that help them through tough times.
[00:14:39] Stanley McChrystal: If you think back. And someone transitioning from the military goes into a civilian company and they're suddenly sort of culture shock. Well, if they go back to reception day, their first day as a cadet, there probably was a better culture shock that day, too. And when you start to understand that all days like that are periods like that have a [00:15:00] beginning and pretty quick, they get better and better and better.
[00:15:04] Stanley McChrystal: And so I would tell people going through something difficult the first day is typically the worst and every day after that is a little bit better. And if you go in with that mindset, no matter what kind of transition you'll make, you'll typically come out pretty well.
[00:15:19] Tim Hsia: Could you share a bit about your experience in the military as a junior officer?
[00:15:24] Stanley McChrystal: I went to I C in the summer of 60 or 76 and then the ranger school. So I got to my first unit, the 82nd in the late winter of 1977. And I had grown up with these ideas of the 82nd airborne division from world war II D day. And this elevated and the 1970s, 82nd was not that, in fact, it was struggling. I went to a battalion first to the 5 0 4.
[00:15:50] Stanley McChrystal: We had tremendous talent there. Bob McDonald was a year ahead of me as a Lieutenant. We had tremendous other talent, but it wasn't a very good battalion. If I [00:16:00] compare it to battalions, I was in 10 or 15 years later, we couldn't have held our own for 30 seconds. It wasn't that the quality of soldiers were bad people.
[00:16:09] Stanley McChrystal: It was just a combination of factors. The leadership had gotten weak. The army was going through a bit of identity crisis. We didn't train very effectively. And so a combination of things were pretty disappointing to me. On the one hand, when you're in the field with young paratroopers, their hearts, as big as all outdoors, and you love them.
[00:16:29] Stanley McChrystal: On the other hand, I had a battalion commander who wasn't a very good leader and he would always talk one thing. And then one morning when he was struggling to make reenlistment quotas, you know, that each, uh, battalion had, uh, targets, they had to make, we had barred, a young trooper to reenlistment, and he was an incredible dirt bag.
[00:16:52] Stanley McChrystal: I mean, he not, he should not just have been barred. He should have been probably in jail, but we had barred him from reenlistment in those days that wasn't common, [00:17:00] but the Battan commander on the last day of the quarter, Call down to the company or had somebody call down the company, got the soldier, brought him up to battalion headquarters and let him reenlist to make quota.
[00:17:13] Stanley McChrystal: And after all the talk about standards to see that happen was deflating. And it wasn't all like that. I mean, there were great leaders there too, but they were enough things like that. I think taught a lot of us that when we got into positions of response, greater responsibility, we weren't gonna let that be the case.
[00:17:36] Stanley McChrystal: And the idea of standards and values became more and more important to me because you've seen the cost of not having them.
[00:17:45] Lance Dietz: So I'm really curious too, just kind of as a junior officer, how your relationship with senior NCOs manifested and how sort of some of the training and guidance and mentorship at west point contributed [00:18:00] to a positive experience or one that was
[00:18:02] Stanley McChrystal: challenging.
[00:18:03] Stanley McChrystal: Well, my experience was good, but I made mistakes that, that probably I'm the, probably not the only person ever made 'em I got to a platoon and I had a, not an older guy, but compared to me, he was older platoon Sergeant and he was kind of a more conservative, sort of a guy. And I had these squad leaders who didn't really respect him because he, he was old school and they weren't, and they really weren't very good at all.
[00:18:27] Stanley McChrystal: And then there was a, a section Sergeant between them. It was a motor platoon and the section Sergeant was a young ranger qualified kind of charismatic guy, good soldier. But I came in and it was a sort of a power struggle inside the platoon and cause demographically in all, I was actually closer in age to the squad leaders and that young section Sergeant I didn't support the platoon Sergeant like I should have now he had some shortcomings, but the reality is [00:19:00] what I did was I wanted to be.
[00:19:02] Stanley McChrystal: Popular. I wanted to be popular with, you know, not just the troops, but I wanted to be powerful. You know, I didn't want to compete with a platoon Sergeant. And so I sort of unconsciously undercut him. I didn't, if you'd asked me at the time, I wouldn't have said I was doing that. But in retrospect, and I look at it, I didn't support him.
[00:19:22] Stanley McChrystal: Like I should have. Now the section Sergeant became the platoon Sergeant. I became more mature. He became a great platoon Sergeant and you kind go on, but you step back and you go, I made a mistake. I was in that instance, I was wrong and you can't make up for it. You can't fix it. All you can do is say, all right, I read that up.
[00:19:45] Stanley McChrystal: I'm not gonna make that mistake as a leader again, in the future.
[00:19:52] Tim Hsia: There's a number of our listeners who are either current cadets or current officers and both Lance and I are [00:20:00] not on active duty anymore. But when we were on active duty thing that we really cared about was progressing through the ranks. And I think it's somewhat taboo to very taboo actually in the ranks to say, how do I, I progress and grow my career and become potentially a general officer.
[00:20:19] Tim Hsia: And so I guess for those listeners who wouldn't ask that question, I'll, I'll ask that question. I know context is really critical here in the sense that the military has changed greatly since when you progressed. But what do you think some table stakes for officers who wanna become, I'm a general officer, what do they need to do and how should they think about their careers?
[00:20:37] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah, no, it's fair. You know, most of us didn't go in our career. I never thought about being a general officer. My father was the general officer, but I didn't think about that. I couldn't, I thought about maybe I could be a company commander. And then I became a company commander. I looked up and I said, I could be a battalion operations officer.
[00:20:53] Stanley McChrystal: I watched that guy. I could do that. And then kinda stairstep, but I will tell you the things that I think in [00:21:00] retrospect are the most important. The first is as quick as you can figure it out. And, and it's hard on any given day, figure out who you are and what your values are, figure out what you will do and what you won't do.
[00:21:13] Stanley McChrystal: And, and that's really important because if you don't get your, your values set, because everybody ought to have a set of what's right. What's wrong. And that sort of thing. And hopefully it's, they're good values, but you gotta figure out what yours are. If you're mallable and we've all known people who are, you're gonna blow, like could read in the win.
[00:21:32] Stanley McChrystal: The second is try to be as competent as you can in your business. You don't have to be a fanatic without a life, but learn your, learn your trade because people's lives depend upon it. The next is be a good follower. I don't think you can be a good leader without being a good follower. And that also means as you interact with your peers, your relationships to them, there are a lot of people that we've all seen.
[00:21:59] Stanley McChrystal: Some [00:22:00] who immediately think that if I ingratiate myself to more senior officers, that the, that that's gonna be the way I'm gonna progress. And in a very narrow sense, maybe they'll get you the next job. But I will tell you the people who decide whether you are successful, ultimately in the army or your peers, because as you go up and the, the pyramid gets a bit narrower, decisions are made.
[00:22:23] Stanley McChrystal: What people, your reputation, what people say of about you, whether people trust you, that sort of thing. And it goes all the way into promotion boards. And so I would say that think about being respected, being the kind of person people want on their flank. Being the kind of person they want their son or daughter, or brother or sister to work for.
[00:22:45] Stanley McChrystal: You be that person. And most of the rest of it just sort of takes care of itself. The last thing I'll say is the few people I knew who tried to map out their career said, I'm gonna do this. Then I'm gonna do this. Then I'm gonna do this. It didn't work [00:23:00] out very well. Even, even if they got to do all those things, when, when they stepped back those things, weren't what they thought.
[00:23:07] Stanley McChrystal: They'd be. The people I know that that enjoyed their career. Most they, they kind of generally followed the route, but they also were opportunistic if a good job or I could go work for a really good leader, or if I just feel that I ought to do this, do it because your heart and gut will tell you a lot more than some page in an officer professional development manual that says you gotta do XX and, and X.
[00:23:34] Stanley McChrystal: And at the end of the day, I'd remind everybody, you know, you may spend. 20 years to army, 30 years, 40 years, whatever rank you end up, where you end up is kind of irrelevant. It's the quality of that journey because I'm retired. What I live with now are the memories and the joys and the friendships and the relationships.
[00:23:55] Stanley McChrystal: And I don't think much about, you know, the last part I, where I, it [00:24:00] up
[00:24:02] Tim Hsia: to maybe three quick notes, riffing off what you said first is be competent general McCaffery. He, he said you have to be an expert. A leader should be an expert. The second thing is it feels a lot like your guidance, um, applies not just to the military, but outside the military holistically.
[00:24:19] Tim Hsia: And then the other thing that I felt you, you pretty much said is enjoy the process. Yeah.
[00:24:26] Stanley McChrystal: I would add a point to what general McCaffery said cuz while he's right. I would make sure. And I don't be the expert. Because, you know, as soon as you start thinking you are the expert, there's a danger, you stop listening to all the people around you.
[00:24:43] Stanley McChrystal: And there's nothing that makes the people around you better than when you say, I don't know, tell me, you know, help me out here. And, and you leverage all the people, sir. I
[00:24:53] Lance Dietz: I'd love to transition a little bit. I mean, it's fantastic to hear about like your time as a junior officer, but it would also be great to [00:25:00] hear more about two your time as a commanding and general officer, especially during a significant time of war for our country.
[00:25:09] Lance Dietz: And, and maybe I'll just start broad, but if you could just quickly give us an overview of some of the things that you did kind of in the early two thousands until you retired from the military and some of the key positions that you held just for our guests. And then we can dive into a few of those.
[00:25:26] Stanley McChrystal: Sure. I was promoted to general officer. In January of 2001, I'd been selected about almost two years before, but lists were going slow. So I actually, I was the act assistant division command for operations in the 82nd for that year. And in the midway through it, I actually pinned on one star. I spent about the last 10 years of my career as a general officer.
[00:25:49] Stanley McChrystal: Now life as a general officer is different from what I thought it would be, cuz I never saw my father in the field or anything. I didn't, I didn't know what he did as a general, but my [00:26:00] experience was on the, on the bad side, generals have to deal with a fair amount of politics, not, not politics in a big sense, but politics just in inter personal stuff, you have to make a lot of tough decisions and you have to do certain things that are almost ceremonial that, that some people love and, and I wasn't as excited about.
[00:26:22] Stanley McChrystal: But on the other hand, you have the ability and the experience now. And the power to make things happen. You can scratch some images and the more senior you get, the easier it is to do that. And so if you use that authority and leverage people have given you, you, you can start to make a real difference and you can feel that.
[00:26:41] Stanley McChrystal: And that's very rewarding. I found it very interesting that suddenly I was at war, a general officer and I was at war first. I, I was in the 82nd and then I went to be the core chief of staff at 18th airborne Corps. And that's when we deployed to Afghanistan. And I was that during the, when the [00:27:00] Corps became the command control headquarters for that.
[00:27:03] Stanley McChrystal: And that was interesting because you could orchestrate a lot of things. I came back and was put as the vice director for operations on the joint staff in the Pentagon. That was my first time in the Pentagon in my whole career. I didn't know where the restrooms were. I didn't know how anything worked.
[00:27:20] Stanley McChrystal: And I think the method to their madness was to John AADE was one of my mentors at that point. And he was the director of the joint staff. And so he pulled me into the Pentagon, threw me into this pretty high pressure job and, you know, Hey, figure it out. And I had that year to do it. I got a, a really interesting perspective that year because I got there in the late summer of 2002.
[00:27:46] Stanley McChrystal: And so the ramp up preparation and conduct of the invasion of Iraq occurred. And then I left 14 months to the day later. So I watched the invasion from afar, but, but did all the, the things that the Pentagon does to support on the one hand, it was [00:28:00] fascinating because you got to see how these decisions were being made on the other hand.
[00:28:06] Stanley McChrystal: We got some things wrong. We, the military, we, the us government, we just made some big mistakes and some of 'em were driven by the fact we let our processes, we didn't get enough conversation about big issues that later proved very problematic as Iraq became hard. So I came out of that and I went into joint, special operations command JAK.
[00:28:29] Stanley McChrystal: And I I'd been in that command as a ranger, but also as a staff officer earlier in my career. So I was familiar with it, but it was a very different experience. One to be in charge of it. And two, I stayed almost five years in command of it and we were deployed in the fight the whole time. So I got to opportunity to lead a really amazing group of people in a very important fight across the mid east.
[00:28:57] Stanley McChrystal: The, the hottest part of the fight was clearly Iraq. [00:29:00] So I spent most of my time there, but I stayed deployed almost the entire five years. And it was on the one hand, you say, well, war's terrible. On the other hand, it was the most fulfilling probably period of my life. I'm separated from my, my wife, which I hated, but on the other hand, I'm doing what I was trained to do people who are all doing it and were doing, you know, things that, that I was learning from.
[00:29:25] Stanley McChrystal: And I felt were important. And I, and I got to watch general officers interact with each other in war time. I'd always seen movies about it and that sort of thing. And it was really interesting because these were the same people you'd grown up with. So it wasn't like suddenly new people show up. It's old bill and Frank and Susan, you know, I knew you and you were a Lieutenant, you were a knucklehead then, and they're thinking the same thing, but you learned that the, the send you and the trust between those.
[00:29:57] Stanley McChrystal: Leaders is just critical. [00:30:00] It's corn of the realm. One of my other mentors, an officer named John vines was commanding 18th airborne cord. So that became multinational core Iraq, the most important combat command in the army at that point. And he basically said, what stand, what you need? You've got you just ask my core and we do it.
[00:30:23] Stanley McChrystal: And then later he jokes, he says, I'm the only person who can bounce a blank check. But the reality is those relationships become sacred. And you start to learn about all the things you did when you were younger to build relationships, to build your you, to be trustworthy and how important they become when you're in these meetings where you're almost having an out body experience.
[00:30:46] Stanley McChrystal: Richard said, wait a minute, I one of three or four senior leaders making strategic decisions. And I never thought I'd be here. I always thought this I'd read about it in books. And then you suddenly realize you're not only there, you gotta live up to it. [00:31:00] And so that goes back to my earlier part about get your values, right?
[00:31:05] Stanley McChrystal: Build those relationships, get competent so that when you're in that position, you're you are prepared for it,
[00:31:12] Tim Hsia: sir. I want to go back to the theme of mens terms again, just because you've highlighted. And if I were to use these names, people would say name dropped, but you, you have a relationship with the, these gentlemen Bardo AADE vine, as some, as someone who's a class of oh four, I'm very familiar with these names and very seminal leaders in us army.
[00:31:33] Tim Hsia: And so I'm curious, and this is something that a lot of junior officers and transitioning folks really care about. How do you thoughtfully. Build mentors. And, and, and, and it's a very complicated question. And, and so, and, and I'm, and I know it coming comes off as very like, uh, transactional, but I, I, I think a lot of people want to know this.
[00:31:53] Tim Hsia: Yeah. I'll,
[00:31:54] Stanley McChrystal: I'll start from the junior persons standpoint. Someone starts to do things that [00:32:00] are mentor-like and you start to build a relationship. There are several things you have to do. I think the junior person has got to, to show that they are willing and interested in having that relationship. You, you can't be too pushy.
[00:32:12] Stanley McChrystal: You can't say, gimme your time, this, this, this, but the conversations. So you gotta listen. There is also a time when, if your mentor says, I think you shouldn't do this, I think should do this. You gotta, you gotta make a decision there because general vines, you know, I was gonna go to one job and he got ahold of me and he says, no, I want you to go to this job next.
[00:32:36] Stanley McChrystal: And I said, Roger, And of course it was the great move cuz he, he was concerned about me later, John AADE when I was a Colonel and I was told I was going up to compete to go to the council and foreign relations for a, a year long fellowship. And I didn't want any part of that. I'd done a fellowship at Harvard for a year.
[00:32:59] Stanley McChrystal: I'd come into the ranger [00:33:00] regimen. And I was told I could go to 18 airborne cor be the G three and boom. And AADE called me and he said, Hey, go to New York. I said, why? He says, you've spent your whole life doing operational stuff in the army, go learn other stuff, go meet other kinds of people, meet business, people, meet political people, air your mind out a little bit.
[00:33:23] Stanley McChrystal: And you know, I could have said, nah, you're wrong, but, and I didn't do it just because he told me, but I did pay attention. And then there's that issue if. And I've had this a couple times. I've not done it to anybody, but I've had a couple junior people below me ask me, come and ask me for help. And they say, will you go see if you can get commander X to give me a job in his unit?
[00:33:48] Stanley McChrystal: And I go, that's what you want to do. And they go, yes, I do. So I go and I, I interact with that person. I say, this, this officer's great. I wish you'd hire her or him. And, you know, do that advocate for him. [00:34:00] And in a couple cases, the officer then got offered a job, but in the interim they'd gotten a better offer.
[00:34:07] Stanley McChrystal: And they said, well, I decided not to take that job. And I said, I'm not mad at you just don't ever ask me for anything again, cuz cuz I went out, you know, now if the officer had gotten assigned to something that was not their choice, Hey, that's fine. But he had asked somebody. And so if you asked someone to make a commitment for you, you really kind of.
[00:34:29] Stanley McChrystal: Committed you've gotta follow through, sir. I,
[00:34:32] Lance Dietz: I feel like we could go on for a couple more hours just on your military, you know, experience. I would like to transition to some of the stuff you've been doing for the past decade or so with, um, a crystal group. But one thing, if you don't mind me asking, you know, I would love to hear more about your decision to retire from the military surrounding, you know, the rolling stone article and so on.
[00:34:53] Lance Dietz: And you alluded to values, I mean, had to be an incredible decision to weigh, but if [00:35:00] you could share a bit just kind of on how you approached that situation and how you wrestled with it, I think would be really, really
[00:35:08] Stanley McChrystal: interesting. Yeah. It wasn't as hard a decision as people might perceive, but it was a painful one.
[00:35:14] Stanley McChrystal: Rolling stone had, had had a freelance reporter embedded with us on and off for just limited periods, not a lot. And he wrote this article that I thought was very unfair that portrayed my, myself and my command group as. Not professional and, and not respecting in particular, the vice president and whatnot.
[00:35:33] Stanley McChrystal: Again, I didn't think it was accurate, but that didn't matter. I'm in command. And this article ends up on my commander in chief's desk and it's a political sort of bombshell for him. And so as soon as I saw the article, I said, okay, this is, this ends it. So I was asked to fly back that day from Afghanistan, from meeting with the white house, I prepared my resignation and I went to meet with the president.
[00:35:58] Stanley McChrystal: He was a complete gentleman. [00:36:00] He said, what happened? I said, actually, I don't know. I, I haven't been able to investigate this, but here's the deal. I accept responsibility. And I said, I've got my resignation here. If you want me to go, go back and command, I will, if you want to accept my resignation, I'm gonna have no hard feelings about it.
[00:36:15] Stanley McChrystal: And he said, I'm gonna accept it. And he was good. And I bear him. No ill will for that decision. I wish you made a different one, but that's okay. I. Well, in an instant, my career was over. Remember, I'd been born in an army hospital, grown up in an army family, going to west point in 17, been in the army as an officer for 34 plus years.
[00:36:37] Stanley McChrystal: And suddenly it is over in that instant. It's not even just over, it's over on the front page of the newspapers and on TV every two minutes for however long cycle last two, three days. And it's embarrassing and it's hurtful to my father who was an 86 year old retired guy at that point. My son is in college.
[00:36:57] Stanley McChrystal: And, and so, and my wife, of course, [00:37:00] I can hardly describe what that kind of thing does. The key thing about that is clearly the lowest point in my life because I never thought I'd be accused of the kinds of things that article insinuated. I didn't think that was me. In fact, I know it wasn't me, but I had a choice to make, and a lot of people are gonna get a version of this choice in their lives.
[00:37:24] Stanley McChrystal: The choice is I am going to marinate in my bitterness and I'm going to be an aggrieved old officer, and I'm gonna spend the rest of my career saying I got screwed. And a certain number of people will listen to you. They'll take you to lunch just to hear that story. If they don't like political leadership, but you know, it takes as much energy to be bitter and focus on that as it does to move forward.
[00:37:48] Stanley McChrystal: And I don't think you can do both at the same time. And so my, with the help of my wife, who's absolutely forward looking every day of her life from the moment I got [00:38:00] back to her, and I remember I'd been gone and I'd suddenly fly back and re resigned and suddenly I'm in the house saying the career's over her.
[00:38:07] Stanley McChrystal: And she just looked at me and she says, good. We've always been happy and will always be happy. And from then on what we haven't done at all is try to Reigate that. We've just said, okay, this is the new reality. And what we're gonna do is try to conduct myself in a way that anyone who believed in me beforehand is gonna say, yeah, I'm watching him now.
[00:38:30] Stanley McChrystal: I was right to believe in him and anybody who never met me. Wasn't going to define me by a single article in rolling stone. Instead, they were gonna look at me and they go, wow, that doesn't seem like what I read. And so here I am, 55 years old, the day that happens, zero plan for retirement. No, you know, some people have a clever roadmap.
[00:38:53] Stanley McChrystal: I didn't. And so what do you do? Well, first you get your mind, right? That's key. And I, [00:39:00] my wife was key critical of that. It's critical to still is. And then a friend of mine said, you wanna start a business? And I said, yeah, why not? How hard can starting a business be you know, little did I know we didn't have any money.
[00:39:13] Stanley McChrystal: We didn't have a plan. All we thought was we had learned some things in the military that might translate into business, not military lessons, but things about a new complex environment in the world. And so on the basis of that hypothesis, we started a business, which is now 12 years old and almost a hundred people.
[00:39:34] Stanley McChrystal: And it's been the most amazing it venture to be a part of, because it's so different from what I did, but yet the human side of it is so similar. It's still committed people trying to do great stuff. And, and I think if military people watch my example, if at 55, I can start a business and it can work and it can be a, just a great experience.
[00:39:57] Stanley McChrystal: You know, people much more talented to me if [00:40:00] they can do a lot more.
[00:40:03] Lance Dietz: Yeah, no, I think this is a great segue into our next segment, the sit rep or the situational report where we kind of dive into what guests are doing now, you just alluded to it with them, a crystal group. And what I find interesting too is you quickly had the opportunity to begin serving on public company boards, be it jet blue and nav star.
[00:40:22] Lance Dietz: And so would love to make, be, hear a little bit more about in general, what you're doing now with the a crystal group. And then maybe we can dive into some of those lessons and experience as well.
[00:40:33] Stanley McChrystal: Sure. And in my everybody's situation's unique, I came out of 55 with, you know, with no experience at all, but on the other hand, my name was well known.
[00:40:43] Stanley McChrystal: So I did get the opportunity of you to sit on a couple of corporate boards right away, jet blue airlines, Navar. And then over time I've sat 12 or 14 of them. You. And what it is is it's a chance to learn. It's a chance to go into things you haven't done before. I was on Deutsche bank. [00:41:00] USA's board for two years, you know, big bank.
[00:41:02] Stanley McChrystal: What do I know? But when you peel it back, there's all kinds of details. Whether it's an airline or a bank or an AI company, there are specific things. You, you just, I don't didn't bring expertise and, and whatnot. But what I did bring was pretty common. There's a leadership factor. There's a people factor.
[00:41:23] Stanley McChrystal: There's a common sense factor. And every party coming outta the military has that now younger graduates or, or younger, uh, people coming outta the military of any rank, they've also out the opportunity to go build a little more ex expertise than I did. They could go to business school or they could go, I didn't really perceive that I had time to do that, but they can do that.
[00:41:45] Stanley McChrystal: Build up that expertise, which adds on to experience they've already got. And takes 'em out. The big thing I've I think I've learned is that the basics matter, go back to Vince Lombardi and the green bay Packers [00:42:00] and the power sweep. It wasn't a brilliant play, but what it was, if it was executed with extraordinary discipline, then it was pretty hard to stop.
[00:42:11] Stanley McChrystal: And I think that if an organization now gets their their values, right, they understand what they are, who, what, who they're trying to be. We call it common purpose that they really can get that identity straight and people can, can feel connected to it if they can build trust inside that organization between each other.
[00:42:31] Stanley McChrystal: And that's harder and big companies, but it's still important if they can share information in a way that that stops the siloing and, and people. I got a secret. Those are basics, but if you get those basics, right, almost anything you try to do, whether it's open a bagel shop or a cryptocurrency exchange or anything else, those basics are the foundation upon which it all works.
[00:42:57] Stanley McChrystal: When I see companies fail now or struggle, [00:43:00] it's almost lever for lack of expertise in knowing what they have to do. It's usually not for lack of a, an available market being for 'em it's in those basics. It's in the communication, it's in the, how they treat people. It's in basic processes.
[00:43:16] Tim Hsia: We'll click on the basics.
[00:43:18] Tim Hsia: I remember vaguely as a cadet again, I'm dating myself to class 2004, but back in like 2001, 2002, when we had officers come in and do like OPDs, they would talk about, and I, I think I'm getting this wrong, but I, I hope not, but Crystal's big four. And it was like, like, and like, apparently like you back in the early two thousands, like there was big four, these are the basics.
[00:43:40] Tim Hsia: We have to do these things. And it almost feels like what you've just shared is the civilian version of the big four.
[00:43:47] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah. When I, I commanded second range of battalion and we'd focused on basics, but it, it had just, you know, made me more a believer. I went to take the ranger regimen a year later and my command Sergeant major, the regimental SAR major Mike [00:44:00] Hall.
[00:44:00] Stanley McChrystal: And I had known each other before, but we, we found we were absolutely simpatico. And I said, what we've gotta do is be really good at the basics. And he said, that's right. And we literally sat down and said, what do we gotta be good at? And it was marksmanship. It was physical ability road. Marching was one metric of that, uh, small unit drills and medical, the ability to, to save your body.
[00:44:24] Stanley McChrystal: And we, we talked about the big four and the way we used them was to keep people focused. Clearly they were gonna train on some other things also, but every time they heard from me, I was going, okay, where are we on the big four? Boom, boom. But I, I think people got so sick. They saw me coming and they, you know, started get nausea.
[00:44:44] Stanley McChrystal: But after a while you start to have young ranger private saying, no, sir, we focus here on the big four. Let me tell you about, 'em not knowing that, you know, I've been involved in them and it. I think leaders sometimes don't understand how important it is [00:45:00] to get a very clear narrative and just hammer it.
[00:45:02] Stanley McChrystal: Boom. Don't give up on it. Say it until you always say that the rule of three is you gotta say something three times before people believe it. I think it's 300 and of course, with turnover in units that see more true. So I, I still believe now that if you give people maing points of things like the big four, it's really powerful.
[00:45:21] Stanley McChrystal: So just
[00:45:22] Lance Dietz: tapping, like into that a little bit, one of, one of the four things that I've, I read on the website about kind of an approach that you have with teams, one being empowerment. And, and it reminds me a little bit of just, you know, almost I train the trainer sort of mentality. I'm curious now, like in the civilian world, like how you end up teaching this ability for a leader in a particular organization to empower the rest of the team below them.
[00:45:53] Lance Dietz: Next to them and so on because it does, in my opinion, like come a lot from [00:46:00] experience and like having been empowered and also being able to just curious how you all teach that a little bit.
[00:46:06] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah. And it's really important, Lance, because it doesn't come naturally. If you are in charge and responsible for the outcome of something, most of us say, well, if you want something done, well, I gotta do it myself.
[00:46:16] Stanley McChrystal: So you go down or you at least over supervise it, or you give 'em such detailed guidance on how to do it. That all they're doing is, you know, assembling as you told 'em. So the first thing you gotta change is you, you gotta start and say, I am willing to accept a certain amount of risk. Now, in some things you can be more specific on the quality that has to, to be.
[00:46:35] Stanley McChrystal: And on other things you can say, well, we just gotta get this done. Doesn't have to be perfect. Cuz these things do have to be perfect. Then you've gotta get your middle leaders in your organization because you'd say to your subordinate leaders, I want you to empower your subordinates. But the first time there's a failure.
[00:46:51] Stanley McChrystal: If you turn and bite the head off your subordinate leader, they go, wait a minute in self defense, I am gonna micromanage, cuz I don't wanna get my head bitten off. [00:47:00] Now you can still hold them responsible for developing and the outputs, but you've gotta, this is where art is different than just straight science and leadership.
[00:47:10] Stanley McChrystal: Gotta understand that there is a certain range of failure that's gonna occur when you decentralize things. When you empower people now, cumulatively, you're gonna get a much better performance cuz you get so much more good happening when people take initiative and they do things and you are gonna have a certain percentage of failure.
[00:47:30] Stanley McChrystal: But as I remind people, when Ted Williams had his hall of fame year in 1941, he failed 60% of the time. And so. If you've gotta get the culture of the organization, willing to understand that there is far more positive by accepting that certain amount of risk is people use their initiative and judgment than there is downside.
[00:47:55] Stanley McChrystal: But, you know, again, that's hard even all the way up the chain, because sometimes you're in an [00:48:00] organization with people above you or in a zero defect mindset. And so there's a certain amount of risk for leaders. And I tell people, when you take a command or you take a key job, you have to enter it. Like it's your last, if you go in there trying to be defensive and not making mistakes, cuz you don't want anything, that's gonna ding you for the next one.
[00:48:21] Stanley McChrystal: You're not gonna be as good as you can be. Now. I want you to, you know, I think people that'll be focused and, and work hard and don't be stupid, but there's a certain amount of risk that comes with responsibility and live with it.
[00:48:35] Tim Hsia: I think it'd be just in this sake of time, cuz we can talk a lot more about miss crystal group.
[00:48:39] Tim Hsia: We'd like to dive into our third segment, which is the so P or standard operating procedure in this segment, we talk about personal routines, habits and words to live by that have been instrumental to your success. We know. And we talked about this before recording about your breakfast, some lunch routines, but for those who don't know, could you share some of your daily habits and, and how you [00:49:00] think that helps you?
[00:49:01] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah, let me start with, I think the most important ones, the first is whether you're honest with yourself, you know, you gotta be able to get up in the morning and go to bed at night, look in the mirror and judge how you are gonna do that day and how you did that day. And invariably at the end of the day, I'll have things I didn't do well.
[00:49:20] Stanley McChrystal: I interacted with somebody wrong. I was a jerk, you know, any number of things and you've gotta be able to, to tell yourself that was not good enough. Otherwise it does become the new standard. You start to live. The second one is, how do you treat people? How do you interact with people? And this is a habit as well.
[00:49:38] Stanley McChrystal: The most impressive leaders I've ever known. They literally treat everyone with a level of respect that they deserve and people, in fact, crave it and, and respond well with it. They are in unfailingly, courteous to people at the lowest level of an organization or to the most meaning most meaning, uh, menial job.[00:50:00]
[00:50:00] Stanley McChrystal: And so that's another discipline thing, because again, it doesn't come naturally. Self-discipline in terms of what you say is key. You know, it's easy just to sit there and, and run your mouth and get emotional in every meeting, whatnot. And when you get very senior, nobody will stop you because there's, there's no bumpers there to do it.
[00:50:21] Stanley McChrystal: And so you see some people who you don't know, and then they get senior and they become total jerks. So the self discipline of what you say and how you act is key, and that. That takes an awful lot, because you can be tested particularly as you get very senior. And then the last is to be honest, you know, if somebody asks you what you think, you know, to the degree, you can't just be honest.
[00:50:46] Stanley McChrystal: It doesn't mean you have to be brutal. You don't have to walk around and telling people, Hey, I think you're stupid or whatever, but, but when you're talking about important thing, force yourself to be absolutely honest. And, and there are a lot of pressures not to be. You see people in society [00:51:00] all the time.
[00:51:00] Stanley McChrystal: So those are the core, then there's the other things you do. I, I am, I got a lot of bad habits. I'm not gonna enumerate 'em here, but I got a few good ones. And one of them is that I work at every day and I work out hard every day because it's core to me thinking about myself, my own self image. I don't want to get fat.
[00:51:24] Stanley McChrystal: I also believe that it's just really important to, to force yourself to do something. Even in a lot of mornings, I have no interest in working out. What I've learned is I later in the day I will feel so badly about it that I just wanna avoid that. And I've learned it's better just to work out no matter what.
[00:51:40] Stanley McChrystal: So I do the second is I eat one meal a day, not telling other people to do that, but I ate one meal a day because when I was a Lieutenant, I thought I was getting fat and I didn't have the self discipline to eat little meals. So what I did was I just said, I'm gonna eat one meal a day dinner, and I'm gonna eat whatever I want.
[00:51:59] Stanley McChrystal: So I'm gonna work [00:52:00] out. And then I'm gonna sort of, you know, deprive myself during the day. So I can reward myself at night that has worked for me. Again, it doesn't work for everybody, but in 40 years of doing it, it's a good rhythm for me. And it makes me feel. Healthier and better, you know, and I, not long ago, I came back and vote for a long time.
[00:52:20] Stanley McChrystal: People told me I was stupid, it was gonna kill me. And then that intermittent fasting came and people said, I was ahead of my time and that'll change again. And I'll be, you know, but, but I, I don't care. And then when I was interacting in the war, I slept about four hours a night, but I'm not re in that I did that because that was our, that was the cycle I had to do to do my job nowadays.
[00:52:42] Stanley McChrystal: I sleep a lot more. I sleep as much as I can, but I read every day too, you know, I sit down and I actually read and I read books and that's a discipline in itself. It forces you not to be on social media, doing something, whatever. I sit down [00:53:00] right now, I'm reading Carl, Sandberg's six volumes on Abraham Lincoln, and I'm proud of myself.
[00:53:05] Stanley McChrystal: I'm in the fourth volume and each one's about 400 pages. But, and I'm not saying people have to read that, but something where you just say, I have gotta keep educating myself, whatever the things are, decide what they are and then stick to 'em. And when they become habits, they become really good strong habits
[00:53:26] Tim Hsia: on this topic.
[00:53:27] Tim Hsia: I feel like you could probably do a masterclass course I'm productivity, given what you squeeze into a day in terms of workout. And, and I, I'm not saying this to be obsequious. I, I think I study a lot of people who, who get a lot of stuff done. And what you pack into a day is really remarkable. And I, my question is.
[00:53:50] Tim Hsia: I have this debate. And I'll some more context is I think the army in the military is fantastic in, in one regard, especially you get paid to work out. I tell people like it's amazing, [00:54:00] like only athletes and people in the military get paid to work out. It's amazing. And, and, and the one thing though, I think a lot of people struggle that are, I think generally is morning.
[00:54:11] Tim Hsia: Time is the most like productive time. We know that. And like working out feels very selfish. So like, how do you square that
[00:54:17] Stanley McChrystal: to, yeah. It's funny you say that because I work out in the morning and, and I tell people I do it because that's the one time you're typically not people can't take it away. Now they can start things earlier.
[00:54:29] Stanley McChrystal: And I just back up my workout and if I gotta get up at two 30 and work out at three, I'll do that. I don't like doing that, but I will do that. But for most of us, you control that morning more than any other time. Cuz if you say later in the day, how many time are there popup meetings or requirements and you feel guilty if you walk out.
[00:54:46] Stanley McChrystal: When I got to the Pentagon, I, I mention in 2002, I come in there and I've got this habit of working out and they say, you gotta work out every day. Don't don't do a thing. And then I had to be in my, at my desk, in my uniform [00:55:00] about five 15. And then during the day, getting to the, the, the gym, the, the Proac every time you left, people kinda looked at you.
[00:55:09] Stanley McChrystal: So there was a, a narrative that says, we want you to work out. And there was this process and, and cultural pull really that made it hard. You know, I tried to stick to it as best I can, but that's where I think sometimes an organization's rhythm gets off. An organization says, we want your work. I think they've gotta make it possible.
[00:55:31] Stanley McChrystal: They, you know, they've gotta make it good enough. It's just like we say, we want talented females in the workforce. We want all females in the workforce. We want talented ones. We gotta do things like childcare and whatnot. We gotta make it possible if you make it. So darn hard, you something and then wonder why they don't do something, you know, shame on us
[00:55:51] Tim Hsia: by observation through your career and what you've shared.
[00:55:55] Tim Hsia: And our other guest, it feels like advantages compound. And when you talked [00:56:00] about your habits, you talked about, are you honest with yourself? How do you treat people? UN family courteous discipline. Self-discipline honest to, and it seems like a lot of this foundation is hopefully baked into at west point over the army.
[00:56:14] Tim Hsia: And then it manifests itself into just productivity externally in how you, uh, live your life.
[00:56:20] Stanley McChrystal: You know, I never thought of it that way, Tim, but I think you're exactly right. I think if you do things that keep you in good health that keep you sharp, that keep you, you know, ready to do other things. Suddenly when opportunities arrive, you are more ready than you'd otherwise be.
[00:56:36] Stanley McChrystal: If you treat people well, if you develop relationships the day I retired from the military, we've talked about the, the circumstances. I didn't want to have a ceremony because I, I just didn't feel good, but I had a guy convinced me, I need to do it. And I had this group of people to show up to the ceremony, which we conducted in the evening.
[00:56:55] Stanley McChrystal: That was extraordinary. And it was like a safety net of people who [00:57:00] cared about me there to catch my wife and . And so all that you invest in relationships, pay back in spades. And, and so when you talk about compounding advantage, I think that's true in, in almost every segment of your life.
[00:57:15] Lance Dietz: So let's move on to the last segment which we call giving back.
[00:57:18] Lance Dietz: And I think you just alluded to a very great piece of advice there in terms of relationships, but for a lot of listeners out there that are kind of younger in their career or earlier in their career, is there any particular advice that you would give either to those leaving the military in the military to pursue a career there, but just in general, kind of parting thoughts on, on advice for some listeners?
[00:57:43] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah. It's prioritization. And that is during my military career, you know, my, my wife and I had one son and he lives next door to us now. And I'm, I'm incredibly close to him, but I wasn't, there was a lot of time I wasn't there and, and it would be fine if I was off at war, but we were at peace [00:58:00] and there were times when I could have been there that I was at work, doing things that were a marginal additional value, just cuz I had that habit.
[00:58:07] Stanley McChrystal: And so it's the prioritization. So if you want a good marriage, you better work at it. If you want a good relationship with your kids, you better work at it. If you want to be financially sound, you gotta work at that. You gotta be responsible. So all of those things that you do, you can just literally sit down and say, if I wanna be able to do a lot of pushups, I gotta do a lot of pushups.
[00:58:28] Stanley McChrystal: If I want to have these other things in my life, I gotta do the things that, that build that up. And the idea of giving to others is key. You know, people ask me what I regret in life. The things I did, there's very little, I did that. I regret there's a bunch of things I didn't do. I regret. And most of 'em are around family or things like that.
[00:58:49] Stanley McChrystal: I didn't make it to a, a ceremony or a retirement or a change of command or a wedding or something. And cuz I thought I had something more important. And in the moment I did and in the grand scheme of things, [00:59:00] I don't think I was right.
[00:59:02] Lance Dietz: Sir, this has been absolutely amazing. You know, thank you for taking so much time out of such a busy schedule to spend with Tim and myself and for listeners before.
[00:59:12] Lance Dietz: Last thing, before I let you go, you've alluded to sports a few times is great lessons for, for leadership. And I think there's a great time with the military and with business in general, and this is gonna air after the super bowl, but I'm curious if, if you are going to watch the super bowl and if so, if, if you have a prediction for the Bengals or the Rams this upcoming weekend.
[00:59:36] Stanley McChrystal: Yeah, it's funny. I watched the playoff games and I, of course the playoffs this year have been just amazing. And neither of these teams, I think were, they don't have the biggest name quarterbacks. They don't have quite the storied recent background to others. And so I think this one is gonna be an awful lot about, and interestingly enough, because both of 'em had tough, you know, roots through the playoffs.[01:00:00]
[01:00:00] Stanley McChrystal: I'm not sure where it goes. I, I mean, it could go either way. I don't, I don't lean towards Cincinnati or the Rams, but I, I just think that it it's gonna teach us all. You're gonna win between your ears. That's the side that's gonna win. It's not gonna be more talent. It's gonna be an emotional whole thing that I think makes the difference.
[01:00:24] Lance Dietz: Awesome. Well, thanks again, sir. And appreciate your time and looking forward to having you back on the podcast in
[01:00:29] Stanley McChrystal: the future. I'd be honored. Thanks Lance. Thanks Tim.
[01:00:33] Narrator: Thank you for listening to on point, please take a moment to rate and review the show. Wherever you're listening. It really helps us out.
[01:00:40] Narrator: We'll see you in the next
[01:00:41] Stanley McChrystal: step. So.