The Significance of Ethics for Military and Professional Life

Ethics is of utmost importance: ask the CEO’s of leading corporations or America’s military leaders. Yet, at the same time, we might just as well dismally conclude that ethics is of no significance whatsoever! Just witness the private proclamations and even more the behavior of some of those same kinds of leaders when it comes to understanding, believing, and practicing what they preach.

Ethics is a bit like one of its key components: lying and truth-telling. No one publicly celebrates or advocates telling lies. Everyone testifies to the importance of the Truth. Yet everyone lies, and does so often: to spouses, children, friends, business associates, and the IRS – and usually feels that it is necessary or justified – at least in their very own “unique and exceptional” individual case.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Eating for Awesome Energy

Keeping blood sugar stable is not only important for someone diagnosed with diabetes, it is critical for everyone to maintain stable energy, balanced hormones, healthy weight and metabolism.

During a busy day you might put off eating, thinking, “I just don’t have time to eat right now.” Eventually you become so hungry and desperate the only foods that you can consider eating are simple carbs and sugar. In that situation, your blood sugar has dropped so low that things like cake, cookies, crackers, and sweets are the only bits of sustenance that can get your blood sugar back into a safe zone.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Get better sleep, tonight.

The National Sleep Foundation recently released new recommendations for how much sleep we need—from infants to the elderly. Some of the ranges for children and teens have changes but the standard seven to nine hours per night for adults stands firm. (To see the breakdown of recommendations by age go to www.sleepfoundation.org)

While some still use the adage “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” the reality is that lack of sleep is linked to health condition that could get you there sooner.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Myanmar and the whirlwind of change

Earlier this year I had the great pleasure to visit Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). I served as a member of an American delegation, and we met with a group of senior retired Myanmar military officers and government officials. Our discussions focused on Myanmar’s ongoing transition from more than fifty years of military rule to democracy and the implications for U.S.-Myanmar relations.

I came away from this visit with several overarching impressions. First, Myanmar is a beautiful country and its people are some of the most delightful and hospitable that I have met in all my travels. Second, due in part to its isolation from the international community the nation suffers from a host of problems. These include poverty, several distinct ethnic insurgencies in various parts of the country, human trafficking, illegal gun smuggling, counterfeiting, illicit narcotic production, unlawful fishing, and crime syndicates robbing the country of both precious metals and timber. Finally, it became clear that the elections planned for November of this year were critical if Myanmar wanted to continue on its democratic journey or revert back to military rule.

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Tanya McCausland Comment
Three Ways to Drink to Your Health

According to the USDA, the five most popular drinks consumed by Americans in 2010 were soda, coffee and tea, milk, 100 percent fruit juice and alcohol. This data is from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, which are re-evaluated every five years. Will soda budge from its number one spot? Let’s hope so!

The high amount of sugar in many beverages leaves us with off balance blood sugar while the caffeine leaves us wired and tired. Not a great combination for feeling energized, focused and ready to accomplish what’s on our to-do list. And I’m not just talking about soda! Coffee is of course a heavily relied on caffeine source. But, don’t forget that all those mixed and flavored coffee beverages are also loaded with sugar or chemical sweeteners. Fruit juice and alcohol are also very concentrated sources of sugar.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Five Foods that Fight the Flu

Some estimates state that Americans get a billion colds each year and there are over 200 viruses that can cause them. Colds can be just the sniffles or morph into pneumonia that results in a visit to the hospital. Many of us have just accepted that we will get sick at some point during the fall and winter months. What if this year you didn’t suffer from a stuffy nose, irritating cough or chills?

It is never too early to start building up your immune system so it is primed and ready to attack an oncoming virus. Interestingly, many foods contain the exact nutrients our bodies need to nourish and strengthen our immune system. Here are my five favorite foods for fighting off colds and flus.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Hurricane Katrina: Learning from a Tragedy

It is hard to believe that ten years have passed since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I had the great pleasure to be in Crescent City this past week as the tragedy of Katrina was remembered. As I was thinking about this commemoration it occurred to me that Katrina was clearly not only a natural disaster but also a leadership disaster at almost every level. Consequently, as we reflect on Katrina and mourn the nearly 2,000 people who lost their lives, leaders should think carefully on what can be learned from this crisis or any crisis to make ourselves and our organizations stronger and better.


A crisis is normally defined as a sudden unexpected disaster, but leaders must recognize that they can unfold slowly over time. Sadly, many of the warnings about the impact of Katrina on the city’s troubled levees were ignored as it approached New Orleans. Crises can be analyzed by careful consideration of their three phases: before the crisis, immediate actions during a crisis, and the aftermath. Leaders must keep this in mind as they not only prepare their organizations to meet the challenge of crisis, react initially, but also learn from crises in order to strengthen them and prepare for new challenges in future.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Leadership is all about interaction: an interview with Dr. Jeffrey McCausland

I definitely believe that leaders can and must be developed. Still there are certain personality characteristics that may help someone become an effective leader. People who are extreme introverts and find it uncomfortable around groups can become leaders, but it takes a greater effort. This is not unlike high performing athletes who may have better eyesight, height, strength, etc. as part of their physical makeup giving them an edge. Still, in both cases the individual has to devote both study and effort to continue to capitalize on those inherent advantages.

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The Critical Importance of Mentors

I lost two people who were very, very important to me last fall. They had both been my mentors. The first was my mom who has been my personal mentor throughout my life. She guided me from birth and sacrificed enormously on my behalf. There is absolutely no doubt I would have never accomplished the things I have done without her wise counsel and assistance.

The second was a senior officer who took me “under his wing” when I was a young cadet at West Point. Don was a professional mentor I could always turn to for guidance and counsel specifically about my military career. He also provided critical advice and analysis for many of the national security issues that I became involved in while working in the Pentagon, National Security Council Staff in the White House, and other efforts that I have been involved in since retiring from the military. I always knew that he was only a phone call away despite the fact that we were not frequently assigned to the same location and might not see each other for several years. I could always call him day-or-night to seek his advice and assistance.

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Learning Leadership Lessons from History

Many of you are very familiar with the Diamond6 approach in which we use historical events as case studies to learn lessons from history. All the events we consider were “crises” for the leaders involved whether they are battles, emergencies in outer space, or political catastrophes. Each of them demonstrates that during a crisis the pressure of rapidly unfolding events compresses time. Consequently, the importance of the decisions made by leaders (both good or bad) during these trying times are much more stark and can be examined to enhance the learning experience. In each case study we carefully consider the evolution of the events of the “crisis” guided by a historical expert. As we move through the historical discussion we pause to examine what leadership principles and concepts are illustrated. Over time we have developed experiential learning seminars that use the battles of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Bull Run from the American Civil War and walk the actual fields for the maximum educational experience.

Diamond6 has also created seminars using more recent events such as the Apollo 13 crisis and the so-called Saturday Night Massacre from the Watergate crisis. These seminars can be offered anywhere. Still in order to maximize the learning experience we facilitated the Apollo 13 case study aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. It was a recovery ship for the Apollo program and is now a floating museum in San Francisco harbor. We recently conducted the Saturday Night Massacre seminar for the third time at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California.

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Confidence and Competence

I am a sports fan, and so I was excited to watch the recent Super Bowl. The game could not have been more dramatic and will likely go down in the annals of sports history as one of the most thrilling. Whenever the Super Bowl comes around, you can be sure that you will see articles in newspapers or magazines as well as television programs that examine great games or moments in Super Bowl history.  The game is a showcase of the abilities of superb athletes. Frequently, the quarterback or the coach for each team is a focal point for their competence and confidence. This is crucial to success in the big game because the members of football teams, like any organization, will be no more confident than those leading them.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Dr. Martin Luther Kind and Strategic Vision

Strategic Vision: By definition it could be a statement articulating an approach to an organization’s future direction and basic philosophical makeup. It is an aspirational, forward-looking statement of what an organization will look like at a point in time in the future.

Half a century ago this nation was experiencing a movement that began like a ripple in a pond. That ripple began to grow and swell into something many people could never have imagined. Soon it became a tsunami that overwhelmed and blanketed the country in change. At the forefront of that change were many Americans who envisioned a new national reality. One where ALL Americans would feel and BELIEVE that they were living in an indivisible union known as The United States of America. Of all the voices heard, there evolved one whose words and actions rang true to the basic tenets of our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence—The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
You want your picture on a quarter?

There are approximately 31.5 billion quarters circulating throughout our nation’s economy at last count, give or take several million. That is a lot of exposure for the person whose face appears on the “heads side.” Wouldn’t it be nice, even gratifying if our picture was on a quarter: A personal 25-cent bastion of immortality?

George Washington has held the place of honor since 1932. Today, among Americans, that name is almost cliché. Nationally, we are so accustomed to his generic description, “Father of Our Country” that we eclipse what the man, the icon, did to get on the quarter. Here’s a hint: You must be good before you become an icon. You must be extremely good, perhaps even sublime, to get on a quarter.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
What can corporate leaders learn from the military?

I was recently asked to give a talk by a corporate leader on this question and spent a great deal of time thinking about it. Having spent over thirty years in the US Army and commanded at several levels to include leading soldiers in combat, I hoped that I would have something useful to share. Since retiring from the military I have had the opportunity to speak on leadership and conduct many leadership workshops, so the question intrigued me.

One thing that makes examining the military organizations interesting is that they are all the same. A mechanize infantry or artillery battalion is designed respectively to have the same number of soldiers, same equipment, and an equal number of junior leaders. Each of them is supposed to have specific training and experience that qualifies them for their position. Despite this fact, some units perform better than others even if they are in the same location and have the same mission. The difference is often leadership throughout the organization. President Dwight Eisenhower defined leadership as “the ability to decide what has to be done, and then get people to want to do it.” This power is often the ingredient that separates success from failure. So what can corporate leaders learn by looking at the military?

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Critical Thinking and Myanmar


Last week I travelled to Myanmar as part of a US Track 2 negotiation team to discuss weapons of mass destruction with a group of senior retired Myanmarese officers. Prior to my departure I also taught a seminar to my students on critical thinking. It was a pretty eclectic week, and as I flew home it occurred to me that my trip to Yangon, Myanmar had expanded my understanding of critical thinking and its importance.

If you look for a definition of “critical thinking,” you may very likely find the following:

“Critical thinking is the ability to effectively receive information, evaluate the information, recall prior information, assimilate information by comparing differences and determining cause and effect, and evaluating the information to make decisions and solve problems”. It is closely related to the scientific method in our approach to problem solving and has been identified as a crucial aspect of any education.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Teambuilding

If you are a sports fan like me, you were enthralled by the performance of excellent teams during the World Cup. Everyone who follows the so-called beautiful game marveled at the teamwork exhibited on the playing field. Americans were delighted at the efforts of the U.S. national team, who proved the old adage that the total is greater than the sum of the parts.

As the summer progressed, sports fans were engrossed in speculation about what NBA team LeBron James would join, as his addition would make them a future contender. While his decision to return to Cleveland may or may not result in a championship, most sports fans appeared somewhat pleased that his decision was motivated at least in part by a desire to return to his hometown team. As the summer wanes, baseball fans like me are engrossed at decisions by major league teams to move young players from the minors to the major leagues or seek last minute trades to improve a team’s chances for a final run towards the World Series.

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Tanya McCausland Comment
CBS News – U.S. mission to rescue refugees unlikely

On a recent episode of CBS’s “Up to the Minute” Diamond6 CEO Jeff McCausland provided some keen insights into the current problems that the Iraqi military faces, especially in light of the strengthened ISIS forces. Jeff also discussed the challenges faced by refugees and the United States governments, proffering some enlightening thoughts on how the situation is developing. Take a minute and follow the link here to hear Jeff’s thoughts on the situation.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
Leadership for What?

I frequently begin leadership workshops with the following question: “how do you define leadership?” I find this an intriguing way to start a conversation as it gets a new group to begin to think about this complex topic and it ignites a broad discussion. In response you could Google the word “leadership”, but you will get a large and varied number of definitions.


After a while I tell the group that I prefer the definition provided by President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower once observed, “Leadership is the ability to decide what has to be done, and then get people to want to do it.” I find this particularly fascinating. Eisenhower was one of only a handful of five star generals in the history of our nation and subsequently served two terms as President. He was also President of Columbia University. You might imagine that having held these lofty positions Ike would have been use to just giving orders and expecting them to be carried out immediately and vigorously. But he was wise enough to realize that to get the maximum effort from any follower or team meant getting them to want to do it.

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Tanya McCauslandComment
The Doomed?

George Santayana’s enduring quote has been seen, or heard, by many of us since we were in secondary school. Understanding these words is one thing, but understanding, learning and acting based on this statement could be the single act of courage that transforms a leader from ordinary to extraordinary.

History is replete with the names of leaders who “set the example” they demanded their colleagues follow. Hitler, Saddam Hussein, James Jones, Kenneth Lay, Bernie Madoff. But these “leaders” lacked important qualities — ethics and integrity. How might history have been different if enough courageous people in these circumstances had stood together against the tide?  While that takes extraordinary fortitude on the part of the participant, is there a viable, acceptable alternative? Martin Luther King said about a particularly challenging period in our national growth, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

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