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" A fundamental principle that I learned in my career, and a principle that my consulting company McChrystal Group helps American civilian companies to adopt, is that winning units and organizations ensure that the time they actually spend - daily, weekly, and yearly - must hew closely to their priorities. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Group

American

Time

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" Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Professional

Integrity

Honor

" If you sit down with British officers or British senior NCOs, they understand the sweep of history. They know the history of British forces not just in Afghanistan but the history of British successful counter-insurgencies - Northern Ireland, Malaysia. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

You

Successful

Down

" When you go through some controversy and you see your face on the news in a negative way for 48 hours... you doubt yourself. And your friends make the difference. They become a safety net that come in and say, 'That's not the case.' And the relationships that you've built... come to the fore. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

You

Yourself

Safety

" President Obama had voiced strong support for the effort in Afghanistan during his campaign, pledging to add two brigades, which he did. But since the inauguration... the administration had signaled that the U.S. commitment needed careful assessment, and we needed to recalibrate the strategy and objectives. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Effort

Support

Strong

" In June 2010, after more than 38 years in uniform, in the midst of commanding a 46-nation coalition in a complex war in Afghanistan, my world changed suddenly - and profoundly. An article in 'Rolling Stone' magazine depicting me, and people I admired, in a manner that felt as unfamiliar as it was unfair, ignited a firestorm. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Uniform

War

World

" Public, noncommercial broadcasting is also giving kids social-emotional skills like persistence and self-control that are fundamental to success in school, not to mention in the military, the institution where I spent most of my career. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

School

Giving

Persistence

" What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Never

World

Seen

" I came to believe that a leader isn't good because they're right; they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Learn

Trust

Leader

" Our bureaucracy had excelled at compartmentalizing intelligence - we had a 'need to know' system - but by 2004, it was impossible to foresee what elements of our organization would and would not need to know a given piece of information. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Organization

Impossible

Intelligence

" We are alarmed that a known or suspected terrorist can go to a federally licensed firearms dealer where background checks are conducted, pass that background check, legally purchase a firearm, and walk out the door. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Door

Out

Walk

" I think, at the end of the day, you do better when you tend toward being transparent, even though there's some risk. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Better

Day

End

" With my resignation, I... left unfulfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight, commitments I hold sacred. My service did not end as I would have wished. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

End

Resignation

Left

" Trust is an amazing commodity. The Afghan people often talk to me about having to develop trust in America, because they believe that we deserted them in 1990 and 1991. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Trust

Amazing

Believe

" To this day, I am saddened by Ranger Tillman's death, as I am for the loss of every service member I served with, and for the pain such losses cause each family. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Service

Death

Family

" In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

See

Together

Society

" How we present ourselves matters a lot, and that's every American, not just at the senior levels. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

American

Senior

Matters

" How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

America

Trust

Society

" Anyone in a position of power is either corrupt or assumed to be corrupt, and the assumption of corruption is as bad as the reality of it. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Corrupt

Bad

Power

" Change is painful, and people are always reticent to accept a lot of pain. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Pain

Change

Always

" Over my career, I'd watched senior leader visits have unintended negative consequences. Typically, schedules were unrealistically overloaded and were modified during the visit to cancel parts of the plan. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Plan

Leader

Consequences

" Industrial technologies that allowed for increased mechanization in 19th-century armed forces also spurred Frederick Winslow Taylor to develop his 'Scientific Management' doctrine in Philadelphia steel mills. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Forces

Steel

Philadelphia

" Leaders must establish common purpose and build trust within an organization. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Organization

Build

Trust

" We should get to the business of providing at least one million opportunities each year for young Americans to spend a service year with peers who are different from them - by race, ethnicity, income, politics and religious belief. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Young

Service

Business

" Caution and cynicism are safe, but soldiers don't want to follow cautious cynics. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Soldiers

Want

" Leadership contains certain elements of good management, but it requires that you inspire, that you build durable trust. For an organization to be not just good but to win, leadership means evoking participation larger than the job description, commitment deeper than any job contract's wording. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Good

Commitment

Job

" I think every war certainly wears on national will and national patience, particularly a counterinsurgency. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

War

Think

Patience

" There's this intense media spotlight; there's a need to be transparent, and, 'Oh, by the way, I'm also trying to fight a war at the same time.' It's a challenge, but it goes with the job. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Challenge

Job

Media

" When I became commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, I was leading thousands of individuals, from Special Forces to the broader interagency effort. I quickly realized that while we had the most best and most effective operators and small teams in the world, we were unable to scale. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Effort

World

Special

" I think my biggest achievement was being part of a team of outstanding, entrepreneurial military leaders and civilians who helped change the way in which America fights by transforming a global special operations task force - Task Force 714 - that I commanded. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Change

Achievement

Way

" My dad was always the soldier I wanted to be. "

Stanley A. McChrystal

Always

Soldier

Wanted