Free It Worked For Me by Colin Powell

grown to meet the increased expectations placed upon them; for others there’s simply not enough room. Not everyone qualified will climb to the top of the pyramid.
    You become a general. You no longer wear the insignia of your original branch, such as the crossed rifles of the infantry. When you are promoted to brigadier general they pin the star on you, give you a red flag with a single white star in the middle. You get a special General Officer’s belt to wear in the field. You get a special edition General Officer’s pistol. You are not in Kansas anymore. You are a vice president of the company.
    More years pass. You may rise higher up the pyramid and gain more stars. You may never see another infantry unit. You might even rise to the very top, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where you have responsibility to supervise other services and not just the Army. Your pyramid is no longer just the Army pyramid; it includes all the other military pyramids. You are at the pinnacle of our military pyramid and can go no higher. At the top, most of your time is devoted to the external environment: relations with allies, working with international organizations, the White House. Your job is to seek opportunities, identify risks, obtain resources, and serve as the lead spokesman for the needs, aspirations, and purposes of all the services. You will find yourself connected to other pyramids—the intelligence pyramid, the economic pyramid, the budget pyramid.
    If you get to the top, you have worked hard to know and improve yourself and to expand your vision beyond the constraints of the pyramid; opportunities have come your way; you have picked up a champion mentor; equals have left the pyramid; and you have been very lucky.
    You are probably not entirely comfortable perched up there on the tip of the pyramid. There are myriad competing demands, pressures, and gut-wrenching decisions. Mistakes have large consequences. You are a highly visible target. It is easy to fall off. In spite of these pressures and anxieties, you must never lose your connection to the whole organization. Even as you are looking outward, you have to find ways to constantly see down to the very lowest level of the pyramid and into the most remote corner. If you don’t know what is happening down there, you will make mistakes up at the pointy end.
    If you don’t rise that high you did not fail. Only a few can rise to the top. Most who didn’t continue to make the place work. They are no less important than the guy at the top, no less dedicated; they contribute no less to the success of the organization. I don’t measure your success by your rank or position, but by the contribution you are making.
    Many officers I have known should not have been promoted. They were people who performed well at their previous level but whose potential for the level above had been misjudged, and they failed. A few were so overwhelmed by the responsibilities and expectations of the higher level that they fell into depression. When we are considering moving people up, their previous record is important, but at least as important is their potential to be successful at the higher level. It’s not easy to judge that potential, but time and experience help.
    I always evaluated candidates by what I call the 50-50 rule. It works this way. I score 50 percent for their previous record. They had to have demonstrated proficiency, but that is just the ante to get into the game. The other 50 percent is that intangible, instinctive judgment I’d picked up over the years to measure someone’s potential to do even better at the next level. Though I was pretty good at it, I wasn’t perfect. I frequently made mistakes. I’d missed something in my evaluation, or I’d been swayed by friendship or insufficient diligence.
    As I moved up, I always kept in mind the story of the old general sitting at the officers’ club bar staring into his third martini. A brand-new second lieutenant