{"498001":{"#nid":"498001","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Five Things You Should Know: A Conversation With Admiral Winnefeld, BSAE \u002778","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EIf anything gives insight into the character of Admiral James A. \u201cSandy\u201d Winnefeld, it\u2019s a critical decision he faced as a teenager. Unconvinced that a career in the Navy was for him, this future Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff turned down an admissions offer from the\u0026nbsp; U. S. Naval Academy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u201cNow, that\u2019s where my father went, so, for a while, I was the black sheep in my family. But I didn\u2019t want to take a slot at the Naval Academy from some kid who wanted it more than anything in the world,\u201d he said.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u201cI wanted to be happy, so I went to Georgia Tech because it was a strong school, with a great ROTC program that would help me decide.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThat decision \u2013 and many he\u2019s taken since then \u2013 have chartered a career defined by courage and vision, the building blocks of leadership. So we asked this highly decorated naval officer to lay out the five insights that guided him.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EBeing Sandy Winnefeld, of course, he gave us six.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E1. Embrace and lead change.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This comes from something I\u2019ve seen throughout my career: incredibly bright adults will work incredibly long hours perfecting fundamentally flawed concepts. To get beyond that, you have to challenge all assumptions, which requires creativity. And creativity is hard work. It requires a synthesis of different ideas, which, in turn requires a breadth of knowledge and, therefore, lifelong learning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce you do all of the things that allow you to be creative you have to go a step further and be bold. I think you\u2019ll find that the most successful change leaders in the world are the ones who can find that creative spark or bring together people who have that creative spark, and then have the guts to go out and try it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIf I\u2019ve had any success in that, I\u2019d give some of the credit to Georgia Tech, because, while we\u2019re a very good engineering school, I think we also encourage a sort of rowdy form of engineering. People on this campus are willing to try new things, to step out and fail, if necessary, and that is good training. My formative years \u2013 from 18 to 22- were spent in this environment where we were willing to take risks. We didn\u2019t just sit there. And it was a lot of fun.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI use this philosophy all the time. I speak to every single new flag or general officer in the US Military and I tell them a lot of things. One of the things I tell them is: you don\u2019t have a lot of time to make things happen. Don\u2019t bide your time until you can move up and become a general or an admiral. Most of them are only there for a few years. We\u2019re expecting you to perform, to be creative, and we can\u2019t wait. We\u2019re expecting you to push on us.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E2. Find a framework and fundamental principles that work for you, and use them as a touchstone.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Just before I went into the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program I was introduced to a set of operational excellence principles that just really work. Whether on the bridge of a ship or the cockpit of a plane, you normally find that if something has gone wrong, it\u2019s a violation of one or more of those principles. I come back to them again and again. The ones that come directly to mind are:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIntegrity\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EIf you can count on everyone in the organization to tell the truth, it will save you a heck of a lot of time trying to find out what went wrong. The key is, people need to know that they will not be punished for a sin of\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Eo\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003Emission. Give people room to make mistakes and they\u2019ll learn. It\u2019s the sin of\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Eco\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003Emmission, where you knew you were doing something wrong, that needs to be harshly addressed.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELevel of knowledge\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EYou have to know your stuff. A lot of people try to muddle through without knowing their stuff. In a way this goes back to integrity.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EInformed procedural compliance\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EMost of the rules in my business are written in blood and if you follow them you\u2019ll usually be fine. But you also have that little ticker file in the back of your head that tells you what to do when the rules don\u2019t cover it. That\u2019s when you fall back on your level of knowledge to figure things out.\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQuestion attitudes\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Don\u2019t just look at something and admire the problem. Try to figure out what went wrong. And don\u2019t stop with the first thing you think is wrong because it\u2019s probably something else.\u0022\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E3. Learn to express yourself.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It all starts with having something important to say. There is no substitute for that. Then you need to be able to think it through and organize your thoughts into something that\u2019s interesting and flows well. You should not overlook grammar and sentence structure either. Now it\u2019s not necessarily true that everyone who thinks clearly can also write well. They are two different skills. But I can tell you that if you don\u2019t think clearly, your writing will reflect that. It may not be fair, but when I see that someone writes poorly, I have to assume that that person also does not think clearly.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E4. Get your hands on good people and lead them well.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This takes a lot of work. You have to really search hard and not take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer. When you get the best people, it makes your own work a joy. If you don\u2019t work hard to find the right people, you\u2019ll pay the price. Once you\u2019ve got them, leading them involves holding them to the highest possible standards while you also take care of them and allow them to reach their full potential. Then have fun with them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI saw this in play the first time I had a command. I was the commander of a fighter squadron, and there was one other CO [commanding officer] - a good friend of mine - who thought like I did. We competed for the best people. Every now and then our superiors would tell us that we had to spread the best talent around, but we wouldn\u2019t take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer. I remember fighting very hard for a particular department head. I got him, and it was worth it. To this day, when we bring senior staff onto the Joint Chiefs staff, we work very hard to get the best people. And when they get here, we give them room to be creative, to make mistakes fast so they can learn to be empowered.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E5. Manage your time.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022If you are going to lead an organization powerfully, you need to manage your time. By this I mean: eliminate the unnecessary so the necessary can emerge and dominate. And this particularly applies to meetings: have an agenda and stick to it. Manage the time by switching the lines of conversation and recording the actions when they have run their useful course.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaybe it\u2019s just my metabolism: I cannot stand to be non-productive. It makes me restless. Like many people in other lines of work, I find that if I could clone myself, there\u2019d still be too much work to do. So I have to push out the things that don\u2019t matter.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPart of managing your time means varying your activity. I get 30 days of vacation a year and I force myself to take a week every quarter. I dread it when it\u2019s coming because I figure I\u2019ll be swamped when I return. But, when I take that time, I always\u0026nbsp;end up thinking \u0027This should be mandatory.\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere\u2019s a reason for that. When you are relaxing -- and you are not doing something that requires concentration -- your mind is still working. What\u2019s it doing? It\u2019s synthesizing ideas. That\u2019s when the front of your mind has the free time to take up some of those ideas that have been in the back of your mind. That\u2019s when creativity happens.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E6. Humility.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStriving for humility. I really believe in that. I tell our officers that they will lead organizations that are commander-centric, but that doesn\u2019t mean they are about the commander. The people you are leading need to know your vision and your rules, but it\u2019s not about you.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EUnconvinced that a career in the Navy was for him, this future Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff turned down an admissions offer from the\u0026nbsp; U. S. Naval Academy.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"If anything gives insight into the character of Admiral James A. \u201cSandy\u201d Winnefeld, it\u2019s a critical decision he faced as a teenager."}],"uid":"30502","created_gmt":"2016-02-10 11:03:56","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:38","author":"Sapna Mistry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"293511":{"id":"293511","type":"image","title":"Admiral James \u0022Sandy\u0022 Winnefeld","body":null,"created":"1449244313","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:51:53","changed":"1475894991","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:51","alt":"Admiral James \u0022Sandy\u0022 Winnefeld","file":{"fid":"199306","name":"adm_winnefeld.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/adm_winnefeld_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/adm_winnefeld_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2034662,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/adm_winnefeld_0.jpg?itok=ysghTqF9"}}},"media_ids":["293511"],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"136","name":"Aerospace"},{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"169762","name":"Admiral Winnefeld"},{"id":"506","name":"alumni"},{"id":"126111","name":"GT-AE"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["kathleen.moore@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}