Commander’s Call was yesterday. The boss was getting us all together in groups, civilians, Senior NCOs, Junior NCOs, Officers, etc.. Two things that stuck out in my mind:

He noted that there were not enough chairs for the civilians and they were packed out into the hallways surrounding the ballroom and that we SNCOs had a LOT of empty chairs. He shook his head and said, “I’ve GOT to get that mix changed.”

As he was talking up his Command and Control Blog (you couldn’t get to it even if I did link to it), he made one of the most astounding, outside the box statements I’ve ever heard come out of a flag officer’s mouth. Other than giving me some leeway for perhaps not having the order he said them right, this is what I heard yesterday. Anyone else who was there and can make it clearer, please do:

“The metric is what the person has to contribute, not the person’s rank, age, or level of experience. If they have the answer, I want the answer. When I post a question on my blog, I expect the person with the answer to post back. I do not expect the person with the answer to run it through you, your OIC, the branch chief, the exec, the Division Chief and then get the garbled answer back before he or she posts it for me. The Napoleonic Code and Netcentric Collaboration cannot exist in the same space and time. It’s YOUR job to make sure I get my answers and then if they get it wrong or they could have got it righter, then you guide them toward a better way…but do not get in their way.”

JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT
General, USMC
Commander, USSTRATCOM

Just how cool is that?