Talking One Mission with Governor Schwarzenegger

Talking One Mission with Governor Schwarzenegger

“I was in the SEAL Teams for over a decade,” I said, “and it was rare that a group of us were together when someone didn’t quote Conan or the Terminator.” My opening comment got a quick laugh from none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, as a dozen of us settled in around a large conference table for a meaningful, two-hour discussion on leadership in the information age.

If you grew up in the ‘80’s, you know that Schwarzenegger didn’t just dominate the screen; his characters epitomized tough for an entire generation.  He was an icon of my youth. Years later, when I was studying at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, the action-hero had transitioned. He was the governor of the state, overseeing the sixth largest economy in the world, and nearly forty million citizens. Rather than resting on his stardom, he’d become a leader, something our Nation needs now more than any time in recent history. 

So, it was truly an honor to spend two hours last week talking to a small gathering at the Schwarzenegger Institute, with Governor Schwarzenegger at the head of the table. The event, part of a series of round table discussions designed to explore the themes of One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams, was put together by Bonnie Reiss, Global Director of the Schwarzenegger Institute.  Along with the Governor, the table was occupied by a dozen other successful and well established screen writers from Los Angeles (including my good friend Brian Durkin, current writer on my kids’ favorite show, MacGyver). My teammate from the McChrystal Group, Ash Alexander-Cooper (retired British Special Operations) and I fielded thoughtful questions from the impressive and seasoned group.

In One Mission, we describe how bureaucratic models that were perfected and scaled in the 20th Century are an insufficient solution to the speed demanded by the information age. Encountering this problem, the Special Operations community went through a multi-year cultural and organizational transformation, under the leadership of General (Ret.) Stan McChrystal, to create a hybrid-organization that retained the stability and structure of a bureaucracy while also incorporating the norms of a distributed and interconnected network (network being the organizational model that Al Qaeda in Iraq had stumbled into). Stability and speed were combined through a communication model based on inclusion and transparency. Organizational trust across traditional boundaries became the cornerstone of the organization. In time, a multi-thousands-large counterterrorism enterprise began to function like a small and agile team.

Ash and I walked the assembled group through the cultural transformation we’d experienced, and offered several examples of where McChrystal Group has applied a similar model in multiple businesses. 

The first question came from the Governor. “This is very interesting,” he said, “but let’s talk through how this sort of model can work in the public sector. Governing requires short term engagement with your population, as well as long-term strategic planning - and they're often in conflict. During our drought, water became a hot issue, and voters were interested in long-term planning to build water storage infrastructure, so political leaders had an incentive to focus on the long term. But as soon as the rain came, those infrastructure projects did a free fall down the list of voter priorities and the incentive to have a long-term vision became much weaker. How do you balance the competing demand of a long-term vision with the short term need to be re-elected by talking about what the voters want right now? Have you experienced anything similar?”

It was a thoughtful point, and recognizes an important part of the Team of Teams model. Indeed, the hybrid structure that our leadership created for us in the Special Operations environment afforded both short-term, decentralized action and long-term strategic planning. We’ve seen this same thing play out in multiple several businesses over the past few years.

Mature organizations cannot simply decentralize and hope for the best. That would lead to chaos (akin to the chaos left in the wake of any terrorist network’s operations). But they cannot hope to maintain the strict, command-and-control models that worked so well in the industrial age. Problems on the ground are changing faster than new information can be processed and turned into guidance.

Leaders, whether they’re running a state, a military unit, a fast-growing startup, or a large enterprise must be comfortable moving along two lines of effort in parallel. First, they should look critically at the bureaucracy they have, and leverage its strengths: stability, long-term planning, predictability. Second, they should consider where their teams need to move with greater speed and autonomy to stay ahead of changes on the ground. The Team of Teams model was built by our senior leaders to manage this balancing act. It is a model based on servant leadership, on rapid communication cycles, and on creating an interconnected organization grounded in trust.  We felt this pressure on the battlefield, the Governor felt it in running the state of California, and you’ve likely felt a version in your own business. The problem is ubiquitous in the information age.

From there, our conversation pivoted to a series of quick exchanges with the writers around the table who wrestle to get the military story right. What I found most impressive in their questions was what they weren’t asking. No one was hunting for insider information or catchy gossip. Their questions were about culture – how these years of conflict had changed things inside the military; the toll of these ongoing conflicts on individual soldiers and their families; the disconnect between military culture and the general population. How can we capture this; who has done this well; where do you see us getting it wrong? These were not people looking for soundbites, but a table of professionals demonstrating the very serious side of a too-often mislabeled industry. Ash and I couldn’t have been more impressed, and we were thankful for the time with such an impressive group.

Our thanks go out to Bonnie Reiss, the Governor, and the members of the Schwarzenegger Institute for the invitation and vision. Now, more than ever, cross-aisle conversations are critical. Within your own organization, throughout your industry, or inside the city you call home, these types of relationships are more necessary now than at any point in my lifetime. Many thanks to The Terminator and his fantastic team for driving such an important dialogue. 

Lazarus Dokas

Conserving our Natural Capital - fusing technology & innovation with bleeding-edge scientific research.

7mo

Thank you Christopher for your service and sharing a great article. Gone are the days of following rigid out of date/obsolete framework. Without insulting you or anyone elses intelligence here. This is simply my take. We all need to move with the times whilst practising skills which enble us to swiftly adapt to a fast paced world with ever changing conditions and challenges. Its all about creating a healthy culture where people with positive mindset can thrive whilst working holistically towards common goals. Innovation/creativity has no limit ! It is key when it comes to survival and creating solutions to existing/future problems. Lazarus D

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Chris Gibson, MBA

Vice President, General Manager, Bil-Jax, Inc.

6y

Good article. Large organizations with old leadership models of behavior and decision making can learn much from the principles of servant leadership and decision making across the organization based on a shared purpose and empowered execution.

Brad Carr

U.S. Marine Officer (Ret)

6y

Glad to see Ash is still rowing!!

Jeff Bragg

Vice President, Everest Insurance

6y

Fuss, superb piece once again! Thanks

Patricia Saint

Executive/Team Leadership Coach I Organizational Change Leader | Author | U.S. Marine Corps (retired)

6y

Servant Leadership is a "practice" in out military services . . . it defines the culture . . .

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