Free A Passion for Leadership by Robert M Gates Page B

never let a crisis go to waste, an important lesson for all leaders. Further, I would add, if a new leader manages a crisis effectively, it can have an enormous ripple effect, enhancing his authority and his ability to address other problems.
    My first management crisis as secretary was the result of a series in
The Washington Post
in February 2007 detailing the squalid living conditions and bureaucratic morass that troops recovering from their combat wounds had to deal with at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The Walter Reed scandal demonstrated that while the medical care was superb, outpatient wounded soldiers undergoing further treatment and rehabilitation were being neglected; they had to fight the military’s health bureaucracy at every step on their difficult paths. Both Walter Reed and the defense establishment more broadly presumed—hoped, really—from 2003 on that the war in Iraq would be wrapped up relatively quickly, we could begin withdrawing our troops, and we could get back to “business as usual.” There wasn’t much interest in disrupting established organizations, routines, and programs, much less creating and funding new ones aimed at meeting the immediate war-related needs of troops and commanders.
    Walter Reed provided me with an opportunity to address this mentality—and related shortcomings—in ways that also tackled the broader issues affecting the war effort. I declared that helping our wounded warriors and their families would be our highest priority “after the wars themselves.” Because so many different elements of the Pentagon were involved, I created the Wounded Warrior Task Force, which reported to me every two weeks on our progress. The task force was just the first of several I created to accomplish other priority tasks associated with turning the wars around. They would become an essential instrument for me not just on matters relating to the wars but on other problems in the department as well.
    I knew I personally would have to shape the Pentagon battlefields and devise strategies for winning the internal fights over providing better support for the troops. And the fights came fast and furious, including those over better armored vehicles (mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles) to provide significantly better protection for troops on the move—a program opposed by virtually all of the senior civilian and military leaders; improved intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and better detection of, and defenses against, roadside bombs (bureaucratic paralysis and air force opposition complicated solutions); reduced medevac times in Afghanistan—again opposed by nearly all the top brass. One action that certainly helped shape the internal battlefield for the years ahead was my firing of the Walter Reed hospital commander, the surgeon general of the army, and the secretary of the army less than three months after I took office. I made clear that when it came to getting the troops what they needed and taking care of them, I would not tolerate neglect, obstacles, or halfhearted commitment.
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    When I became DCI in November 1991, my strategy for change was to blitz the CIA and the other intelligence agencies with multiple initiatives for change, all with short deadlines. Unlike the Defense Department and A&M, where the need for change was questioned by more than a few, virtually everyone in the CIA and other intelligence agencies recognized that we had entered a new and very different world. Thus, there was little opposition to the overall effort, though there would be to specific proposals.
    In intelligence organizations, secrecy and “need to know” are integral elements of the culture, but I decided that there was nothing particularly sensitive about the structural and procedural changes I was contemplating or, for the most part, changes in the way we did our business. Thus, at the very beginning, I made clear that reports of the two dozen or so task