Gen. David Petraeus – A Thought leader in the making

By Delaena Kalevor

On Friday November 9 2012, Gen. David Petraeus resigned as CIA director amid a sex scandal with his biographer. The retired 4-star general and husband of 37 years expressed his remorse and poor judgment in indulging in this extra-marital affair. Even though I greatly admire Gen. Petraeus, I agree he did not conduct himself properly.

However, I am not here to pass moral judgment on his character - after all no one is perfect. Rather, I would like to address his intelligence, candor and leadership; and highlight some of the management lessons that myself and other aspiring thought leaders can draw from his life. In my eyes, Petraeus is still a great soldier and I don’t care what conversation you’re having; but when you mention the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, Vo Nguyen Giap, Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, you should mention Petraeus. I’d hate for his otherwise stellar career to be defined by this single act of indiscretion and weakness.

Gen. Petraeus pretty much wrote the script on the US army’s counter-insurgency strategy during the Afghan and Iraqi wars. While, Donald Rumsfeld was blindly carrying on a bloody war of attrition against the Taliban/Iraqi insurgents, Petraeus was quietly but resolutely advocating his counter-insurgency strategy. Rumsfeld’s strategy was apparently to kill as many Taliban as possible to rid Afghanistan of their influence. That strategy of using overwhelming military might to break the enemy’s will is hardly effective. If it was, the U.S. would have defeated North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap during the Vietnam War. The U.S. dropped more than 7 million tons of bombs on Vietnam and Cambodia during the war (more the twice the tonnage deployed during World War II) yet Saigon fell to General Giap and communist North Vietnam; eventually marking their victory over the United States.

By the same token, America’s overwhelming military might, even though it killed hundreds of thousands of people, was doing little to break the Taliban and the die-hard Iraqi insurgents. At the risk of being isolated from the Pentagon and appearing as a renegade general, Petraeus continued to advocate his counter-insurgency strategy. At a point, he was even assigned to train the Iraqi army – a move apparently intended to punish him for his independent thinking. I say this because, in a war this important to US Foreign policy, being assigned to a training position (instead of a combat position) could be interpreted as a punitive measure. A training position such as this definitely seemed like a dead-end job.

Still, Petraeus continued to push for his ideas. He had the moral courage to fight for his ideas and he used a rare combination of persistence, tact, ambition, intelligence and humility to forcefully drive them home. Because he was an intellectual, he had thought things through for himself, come to the conclusion that the Pentagon approach was wrong and he had the confidence to push for the right ideas. This is Thought leadership!

His big break came when President Obama appointed him Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal. As commander of NATO forces, Petraeus now had the leeway to implement his counter-insurgency strategy. Instead of carrying on a war of attrition, he started to build relationships with Afghan tribal leaders in the hostile countryside.

NATO patrols, which hitherto involved raiding Afghan villages to interrogate suspected insurgents, had a complete overhaul. Petraeus recognized that the insurgents had infiltrated the civilian population and had embedded themselves among them. So instead of raids, NATO patrols involved visiting tribal leaders to ask about how "things were going", "what they needed", "whether they needed a well drilled for drinking water", etc. Petraeus gained the trust of the communities as a result and the insurgency started to decline. The strategy simply involved three steps: clear, hold and build - isolating the insurgents by gaining the trust of civilians; consolidating the trust and securing the area; and building infrastructure and institutions to help the people.

His counter-insurgency strategy was the turning point in the coalition’s success in Afghanistan and Iraq. He literally won the war for NATO without as many casualties. Sun Tzu, would have applauded Gen. Petraeus. To paraphrase the great Sun Tzu, sheer military might alone does not necessarily convey an advantage in warfare.

The great Gandhi, decimated the mighty British empire without a single violent act. And I say Gandhi decimated the empire because that is my interpretation - India was the British crown's most prized possession. It was vast, densely populated and it had a great civilization. As soon as they (the Brits) lost India in 1947, they lost most of their other colonies (including my home country, Ghana) in rapid succession. So Gandhi did destroy the once mighty British empire. Again, Sun Tzu would've applauded Gandhi. Winning a war is not about killing people. It's about winning them over - breaking their will, mentally. And this is exactly what Petraeus tried to do with his counter-insurgency strategy.

In conclusion, despite his moral weaknesses, Petraeus is still a great leader. The greatest of his generation. He should be remembered for his great deeds not his indiscretion.

What do Lionel Messi and Charles Simonyi have in common?

Have you ever used Microsoft Word, Excel or any of Microsoft’s office applications? If so, then you have Charles Simonyi to thank – he’s the geek that developed them.

Simonyi was born and raised in Hungary during one of the most difficult times in the country’s history. After earning his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford in 1977, he worked at Xerox where he was part of a team that developed one of the earliest PCs before he joined Microsoft in 1981. As an international student Simonyi struggled with work visa issues for a few years till he applied directly to Bill Gates for a job at Microsoft. Gates, seeing the potential in Simonyi paid for all the paper work required for Simonyi to have the unrestricted right to work in the U.S. Little did he know that Simonyi would eventually develop the most profitable of Microsoft’s products – Microsoft office. He went on to develop other pioneering algorithms and computer programming conventions that form the cornerstone of many Microsoft applications. After interviewing Simonyi, Bill Gates realized that the guy was special. He was gifted. So he went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure he could exploit his talent. And boy, did he exploit that talent. Where would Microsoft be without Microsoft office?

Ultimately, spotting exceptional talent and creating an enabling environment that maximizes that talent is what distinguishes great CEOs from good CEOs. Gates gave Simonyi the room to bring the full complement of his creativity to bear in developing office and in the end, a game-changing application was created.

So what does all of this have to do with football or Lionel Messi? Simonyi’s experience is similar to that of Messi in a few ways. Messi was born in the small town of Rosario, Argentina in 1987. Football scouts from FC Barcelona saw him play and immediately realized that he was gifted. In 2000 at the tender age of 13, the club paid for all expenses to relocate Messi and his family from Rosario to Barcelona. Messi needed his family with him because he had some health issues – he had to undergo treatment for growth hormone deficiency which Barcelona fully paid for. So just like Simonyi’s case, some C-level executive with decision making power saw the potential in Messi and decided to do whatever it took to exploit his talent. Messi didn’t debut for Barcelona until 2004. He spent four years in training at Barcelona’s football academy after his treatment. For someone to invest that much time and money in untested talent shows the strong conviction of FC Barcelona’s bet on Messi.

But it didn’t stop there. Just as Gates gave Simonyi the room to maximize his creativity; Barcelona’s coach Pepe Guardiola allows Messi room for creativity by setting up the attack formation around him. Messi is at his best when Barcelona plays the 4-3-3 or the 4-3-2-1 formation. Football may seem simple on TV but it’s a highly technical game. Realizing how gifted Messi is; Guardiola always tries to use this formation or variants of it (such as their deadly 3-4-3 formation) to ensure that Messi is at his peak performance. The results speak for themselves. Messi has won multiple UEFA Champions League titles with Barcelona in addition to winning the Spanish La Liga multiple times. He is the first footballer to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or for three years in a row.

So why does Argentina have the world’s best player yet hasn’t won a major tournament since winning the world cup in 1986?  Clue – it’s not because Messi doesn’t play his heart out for his country. Messi loves Argentina dearly – Spain offered him citizenship to convince him to play for the Spanish national team but he chose to play for his country of birth even though he and his family have lived in Spain since he was 13. So if he loves Argentina so much why isn’t he at his peak when he plays for his country? The answer lies in leadership (or a lack thereof). Part of the reason for Argentina’s lackluster performance on the international stage is because they lack a tactical coach who will exploit Messi’s talent.

Former Dutch international Johan Cruyff noted that Argentina’s technical bench needs to study Messi – figure out what makes him tick so they can exploit his talent.

Exceptional talent is rare and so when a team is lucky to have such people; they should be treated as such. Obviously football is a team sport but the likes of Messi and Pele belong to a class of their own – and should be treated accordingly. Finding that sweet spot – the optimal situation in which super-stars coexist effectively and efficiently with the rest of us, is often illusive. CEOs and coaches that find that sweet spot turn out to be the greatest.

Argentina’s new coach Alejandro Sabello named Messi captain of their national team in August 2011. It’s taken them this long to realize that the kid is gifted – let’s hope they’re able to exploit his talent to the fullest. It would be nice to see Argentina square off against arch rivals Brazil in the 2014 world cup finals which will be hosted…where else?… in Brazil.