up and get started again. You are never caught up. I’ve lived by the proposition that solving problems is what leaders do. The day you are not solving problems or are not up to your butt in problems is probably a day you are no longer leading. If your desk is clean and no one is bringing you problems, you should be very worried. It means that people don’t think you can solve them or don’t want to hear about them. Or, far worse, it means they don’t think you care. Either way it means your followers have lost confidence in you and you are no longer their leader, no matter what your rank or the title on your door.
So go walk around and look for a problem; you will find some.
Don’t stop there. Try to instill a problem-solving attitude in your subordinates and staff.
In 1973, I was a battalion commander in Korea. One day I lit into all my commanders and senior sergeants about problems that kept popping up with the troops. I didn’t think my leaders were watching and listening closely enough to the troops, and I let them know I wasn’t happy. Later that afternoon I was taking my customary walk through the battalion area. As I came around the back of a Quonset hut, I heard SSG Walker, one of my best noncommissioned officers (NCOs), talking to his platoon in formation. It went something like this: “Now listen up! I got chewed out this morning by the CO about your problems. That ain’t gonna happen again. Now, if any of you clowns got a problem I want you to fall out and meet me in my hootch to tell me what it’s all about and I’m gonna solve it right now. Any questions?” I shook my head, laughing. SSG Walker’s troops seldom had problems he didn’t know about.
I’m a restless guy. I like to move. I don’t like spending long periods of time at my desk. In all my assignments, from lieutenant to Secretary of State, I always spent time going on walkabout, as our Australian friends call it. Sometimes I would wander around with no particular route in mind, and would show up in unexpected places—the State Department boiler room, for example, or the Pentagon Police Station. In my commands, I sometimes wandered where the spirit moved me and sometimes I followed precise paths through troop areas at predictable times. Junior officers, NCOs, and troops knew when and where they could ambush me with their problems. I found out things that would never or not easily flow through the staff or up the chain of command.
I followed up on every problem I got, but did it in a way that didn’t undercut the chain of command. I tried to make sure my subordinates knew not to be threatened by my roaming around, and I gave them first shot at solving the problem . . . unless they were the problem.
Problems have to be solved, not managed. You can’t get away with burying them, minimizing them, reorganizing around them, softening them, or assigning blame somewhere outside your responsibility. You have to make real and effective changes. You can’t fool a GI, you can’t fool a floor worker, and you can’t fool a store cashier. They know when something is wrong, and they know it first. They know when someone is not a good follower, not getting the job done. They are waiting for you to find out and do something about it. If you don’t, they will start slacking off. If you don’t see it, or having seen it, don’t care enough to do something, why should they care about you? Good followers who know you care not only do a good job, they take care of you.
There is a very old story from the days before Amtrak when we had passenger railroads all over the country. One day the president of the New York Central Railroad got an outraged letter from an irate passenger who’d taken a sleeper from New York City to Buffalo. The bed was full of bedbugs. Within a week, the passenger got a profusely apologetic letter from the president. “We greatly value your patronage,” it said. “We promise to have the problem fixed.” The passenger was
So go walk around and look for a problem; you will find some.
Don’t stop there. Try to instill a problem-solving attitude in your subordinates and staff.
In 1973, I was a battalion commander in Korea. One day I lit into all my commanders and senior sergeants about problems that kept popping up with the troops. I didn’t think my leaders were watching and listening closely enough to the troops, and I let them know I wasn’t happy. Later that afternoon I was taking my customary walk through the battalion area. As I came around the back of a Quonset hut, I heard SSG Walker, one of my best noncommissioned officers (NCOs), talking to his platoon in formation. It went something like this: “Now listen up! I got chewed out this morning by the CO about your problems. That ain’t gonna happen again. Now, if any of you clowns got a problem I want you to fall out and meet me in my hootch to tell me what it’s all about and I’m gonna solve it right now. Any questions?” I shook my head, laughing. SSG Walker’s troops seldom had problems he didn’t know about.
I’m a restless guy. I like to move. I don’t like spending long periods of time at my desk. In all my assignments, from lieutenant to Secretary of State, I always spent time going on walkabout, as our Australian friends call it. Sometimes I would wander around with no particular route in mind, and would show up in unexpected places—the State Department boiler room, for example, or the Pentagon Police Station. In my commands, I sometimes wandered where the spirit moved me and sometimes I followed precise paths through troop areas at predictable times. Junior officers, NCOs, and troops knew when and where they could ambush me with their problems. I found out things that would never or not easily flow through the staff or up the chain of command.
I followed up on every problem I got, but did it in a way that didn’t undercut the chain of command. I tried to make sure my subordinates knew not to be threatened by my roaming around, and I gave them first shot at solving the problem . . . unless they were the problem.
Problems have to be solved, not managed. You can’t get away with burying them, minimizing them, reorganizing around them, softening them, or assigning blame somewhere outside your responsibility. You have to make real and effective changes. You can’t fool a GI, you can’t fool a floor worker, and you can’t fool a store cashier. They know when something is wrong, and they know it first. They know when someone is not a good follower, not getting the job done. They are waiting for you to find out and do something about it. If you don’t, they will start slacking off. If you don’t see it, or having seen it, don’t care enough to do something, why should they care about you? Good followers who know you care not only do a good job, they take care of you.
There is a very old story from the days before Amtrak when we had passenger railroads all over the country. One day the president of the New York Central Railroad got an outraged letter from an irate passenger who’d taken a sleeper from New York City to Buffalo. The bed was full of bedbugs. Within a week, the passenger got a profusely apologetic letter from the president. “We greatly value your patronage,” it said. “We promise to have the problem fixed.” The passenger was
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