Creating the Right Culture – Part 2
I was watching a gripping interview with Four-Star General Stanley A. McChrystal, the guy smiling in the picture. He’s the new Obama-appointed commander of US forces in Afghanistan.
You know, you can get a sense when someone speaks that, listen, now I must pay attention, this is not someone to be taken lightly. General McChrystal is clearly one of those.
He was talking, amongst other things, about how he creates the right culture in the units under his command and how the main difference between a great unit and an average unit is the expectations each member has for every other member in the unit.
General McChrystal has created a great culture of excellence, hard work, and reliability in his teams, but he now has the tremendous task of creating a favourable culture in an entire country, i.e. Afghanistan.
The strategy in a nutshell is, once you have an entire country with the right culture, in other words, an entire country accepting certain things as good, normal and beneficial to all, you can then start withdrawing the troops and they will gradually carry on and protect that culture.
So if General McChrystal has been entrusted by the US president to change the culture of an entire country (and he’s doing a great job so far), I think we can pay attention to what he has to say on the issue. Read more »
I attend a church in Sandton, and I never thought I’d say this about a church, but I absolutely love it there. It contributes to my life in a huge way and provides me with opportunities to contribute to other people’s lives which gives me a sense of fulfillment and significance in life. I’ve never felt condemned there, only ever inspired.