Make Your Bed

 

Issue No. 358 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 22, 2017) highlights the perfect gift book for graduates, your direct reports and yourself. Or…just watch the 19-minute video—viewed by more than 10 million people! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Make Your Bed! “If you want to change the world…” writes Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired), “…start off by making your bed.” “Start Your Day With a Task Completed” is the first chapter of the hot-off-the-press life lessons book from the author’s Navy SEAL training days. He learned the “make your bed” principle in those early days and became Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces as a Four-Star Admiral. (OK, that got my attention—along with his stunning 37 years of serving our country.) Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World packs a punch at the fast clip of one big punch every 10 short pages. Adm. McRaven’s 10 principles were delivered first as a university commencement address. His speech on May 21, 2014, to the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin went viral—with over 10 million views! Watch the 19-minute YouTube video here (and read a transcript of his speech in the back of his book): Who should read Make Your Bed? Leaders, managers, board members, parents, students, grandkids—everyone should read this. Here’s why: three “C’s.”    • The cadence of the speech is stunning. Each principle ends with the same tagline, “If you want to change the world…” and then his big idea. Example in Chapter 9: “If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.” (Pastor alert! Here’s your next sermon illustration. Powerful!)    • The content of the speech is (dare I say it) life-changing. If you have kids or grandkids heading off to a summer job soon, or a first year of college—this is a must-read. Chapter 10: “If you want to change the world, don’t ever, ever ring the bell.”   • The character-building insights are memorable. Examples: “You can’t go it alone. Life’s not fair—drive on. Failure can make you stronger.” So...Three Options: [  ] Option 1: Read the book (or view the video) for your own encouragement. [  ] Option 2: Buy the book for your direct reports. Invite team members to share one principle each week for the next 10 weeks. [  ] Option 3: Give the book as a graduation gift or birthday gift to a student you’re mentoring. To order from Amazon, click on the title for Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World, by Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired).  Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Adm. McRaven advises, “If you want to change the world…find someone to help you paddle.” How effective are we at paddling together versus building silos? #2. Imagine—you’re a Navy SEAL (up-to-your-neck-in-mud during “Hell Week”), per Chapter 9. What song would you sing to encourage your co-workers? (Sing it now!) A 19-Minute Hoopla! Event Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit Navy SEALS know something about teamwork and hoopla! So...the Hoopla! Bucket (Chapter 10) in Mastering the Management Buckets, challenges teams to “harness the power of hoopla! for celebration, recreation, intentional food and fellowship gatherings, and just plain fun…to show our team members how much they are loved and appreciated!” So…order the Starbucks unicorn frappuccino and plan a spontaneous 19-minute viewing of Adm. McRaven’s address.  For more resources in the Hoopla! Bucket, visit the webpage.   NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this blogsite   MORE STUFF!  • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast  ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s 2017 series on Max De Pree's book, Called to Serve. Read the 13th blog on "The Prospect Pipeline."

How Ike Led

 

Issue No. 453 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting  (Nov. 24, 2020) features a timely new book by Susan Eisenhower on her famous grandfather, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. My grandfather (less famous, but an Oregon delegate to the 1956 GOP convention), ensured that I proudly wore “I LIKE IKE” buttons during Ike’s campaigns. (My sixth birthday was just two days before Ike’s 1952 landslide victory.) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2016 review of The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity. [2026 Update: See the list of 250 years of U.S. presidents and American history.]   “Let’s not make our mistakes in a hurry.” Attn: Grandparents! Could one of your grandchildren write a 387-page book about you? A fascinating book? A book about leadership? Attn: Grandkids (and Parents)! Read Susan Eisenhower’s account of her famous grandfather, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the U.S. (1953-1961). (Then tell your Grammy that when she becomes U.S. President, you’ll write a book about her!) How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions covers some tumultuous decades in the world, including World War II when “Ike” was a five-star general in the U.S. Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. But, as Susan Eisenhower relates, the war hero turned politician wasn’t really a politician at all. (Sounds good! Tell me more!) Both Democrats and Republicans vied for his loyalty and Ike, reluctantly at first, agreed to run as a Republican. He championed the “Middle Way” and defeated Adlai Stevenson twice to serve his nation eight years as U.S. President. And speaking of ballot counting, look at these stunning Electoral College numbers:    • 1952 Electoral Votes: Eisenhower (442) vs. Stevenson (89)    • 1956 Electoral Votes: Eisenhower (457) vs. Stevenson (73) The author wastes no time in describing the principles that guided Ike’s leadership style. While his military background obviously influenced him, he didn’t surround himself with “Yes” men. She quotes Gen. Andrew Goodpaster (“Ike’s trusted White House staff secretary and defense liaison”), noting the President’s bias toward “the long haul.” Gen. Goodpaster: “It is critical to determine which of all the areas of national affairs are the ‘long poles’ and which ones are the ‘short poles.’” She adds, “It should be noted that the long poles, if they are not kept sturdy through reinforcement and timely maintenance can bring down the whole tent.” (Memo to self: use this metaphor!) Goodpaster, who worked with the author at the Eisenhower Institute, often recalled Ike’s maxims:    • “All generalizations are false including this one.”    • “Let’s not make our mistakes in a hurry.”    • “Take your job seriously, but never yourself.” And the question most often asked by the President at cabinet meetings:    • “What’s best for America?—for the country as a whole?” SOUL-WRACKING PROBLEMS. Ike gave a 1960 speech “in which he eloquently recalled the airborne and the weather decisions he had made on the eve of the Normandy invasion, only sixteen years earlier. He noted that ‘for years thereafter I felt that only once in a lifetime could a problem of this sort weigh so heavily upon a man’s mind and heart . . . but I know in this age the President encounters [such] soul-wracking problems many times in a single term of office.” (Memo to self: pray for our presidents.) CHARACTER CLUES. “Corporate boards, consulting work, accepting speaking honorariums ‘I could decline out of hand,’ he wrote later. ‘I did not believe it fitting for me, a man who had been honored by his government with military responsibilities, to profit financially for no other reason than that my name was widely known.’” His granddaughter adds, “Aside from writing, this was a policy he adopted in the immediate aftermath of victory in Europe and retained for the rest of his life.”  COMRADES, NOT CRONIES. A cabinet official described Ike’s relationships with his team members, “We were comrades in arms, but not cronies.” And Ike leveraged the nuances of word choice. Susan Eisenhower writes, “The respect the president afforded his colleagues could be discerned in the way he would respond to an issue. Ike did not say at press conferences, ‘I have directed the Secretary,’ but rather, ‘I have approved the Secretary’s proposal.’” Ike once said, “It is better to have one person working with you than three working for you.” (Italics added by the author.) DON’T BE CUTE. The author notes that Jim Hagerty, Ike’s press secretary, recalled that Ike had several fundamental rules for press conferences: “[One], if an error [is] made, admit it in detail and spell it out so that it [tells] the complete story of the error, and two, . . . show a plan for preventing the recurrence of any such error. Then stand your ground. Be dignified but tough. Say it was an error. Say it won’t happen again and don’t say anything else. [And three,] Don’t try to be cute or cover up. It you do, you will get so entangled you won’t know what you’re doing.” DON’T CRITICIZE PUBLICLY. “As his presidency progressed, the president would also refuse to counter his critics, and would not criticize them publicly.” (Memo to self: practice this!) A FEAST! This book (published in August 2020) is a feast of leadership principles. I wrote 35 notes—all important—that I wanted to share with you, but I’ve run out of room. For example, the family snippets from Susan Eisenhower are poignant and memorable:    • The letters between Ike and his younger brother, Milton (president of three universities including Penn State), are revealing. When Ike encouraged Milton to skip athletics and be the family’s intellectual, Milton later told Susan, “In effect, your grandfather gave me permission to be myself.”    • “…the Gettysburg vegetable garden at their personal farm, often yielded produce that Ike and Mamie [the First Lady] sent to the White House, at no cost to the taxpayer, for state dinners as well as family meals. Mamie clipped coupons for the White House shopper and could often be heard to say, ‘Don’t run it on the eagle’—which meant not to waste taxpayers’ money.”    •  And don’t skip the “baby letter” account on pages 115-116. During the 1952 campaign, Ike personally signed as many letters as humanly possible—including hundreds to proud parents who wrote, “Our little Herman looks exactly like you!” At whistle-stop rallies, supporters would shout out, “General, we got your letter!” The “battered letters” had been “all over town—to various clubs and churches so others could see the general’s reply.”    • And LOL! The Republican National Committee complained about Ike’s excessive postage budget! After a second complaint letter from the RNC, “he quipped that [an aide] ought to write to the RNC and ask them: ‘How long has it been since you had a winner!?’” (Ike was the first Republican to win the White House since Herbert Hoover in the 1928 election.) My grandfather, Arthur B. Carlson, urged Scandinavians to vote for Ike. He often wrote weekly letters to the President and Vice President and received numerous personal responses. Note the 1960 first class four-cent postage stamp! While there’s little mention of Ike’s VP, Richard Nixon, be sure to read why the touted “missile gap” in the 1960 Kennedy vs. Nixon campaign was actually fake news. And if you want to go deeper on the 1956 global crisis over the Suez Canal (see Chapter 11, “Principles and Tenacity in Times of Crisis”), read Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols. (Read my review.) Plus, ponder Ike’s deep insights about the Holocaust—and how he strategically illuminated the horror. Finally, learn how Ike balanced risk and reward in the Delegation Bucket, when—addressing Far East issues early in his career—he dispatched an entire division (15,000 – 20,000 men) to Australia without asking for permission. “Rather than taking offense at this, [Gen. George] Marshall determined that Ike was exactly the kind of man he was looking for: someone who could make decisions and live with the consequences.” On behalf of grandparents everywhere, thank you, Susan Eisenhower, for a spectacular book! I like Ike—even more. (And thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.) To order from Amazon, click on the title for How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions, by Susan Eisenhower. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (12 hours, 24 minutes), narrated by Bernadette Dunne and Susan Eisenhower. (This includes a newly remastered version of President Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address.) YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Ike’s military staff engaged brilliant wordsmiths to draft the “victory” press release—signaling the end of World War II. General Eisenhower rejected every self-serving draft and, instead, he wrote one sentence to the Combined Chiefs of Staff! “The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945.” So…when should brevity punctuate our successes in our organization? 2) Susan Eisenhower quotes General Goodpaster who once said to President Eisenhower, “It must take guts to delegate.” Ike’s reply quoted the 19th century German general Helmuth von Moltke, “Centralization is the refuge of fear.” So…on a scale of one to five (five is excellent), how gutsy are we in the Delegation Bucket?   "You Can't Do a Thousand Things" Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  Speaking of presidential transitions (Oh, my!), here are two excellent books that all leaders in transition (now or later) should read: #1. To read my review and order from Amazon, click on the title for The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duff.   On President Lyndon B. Johnson, the authors note: “He moved Eisenhower’s portrait to a more prominent position, so that it would be visible in the background of pictures of Johnson greeting various White House guests.” #2. President Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff called his position, “Chief Javelin Catcher!” Here’s another must-read book. Jam-packed with leadership insights, I wrote two reviews for The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple. To read my review and order from Amazon, click on the title. When Erskine Bowles served as President Bill Clinton’s second chief of staff, he “carried around a card with the president’s top priorities written on it—and rebelled when Clinton tried to go off script. ‘One day the president came out of his office and he had another one of his great ideas,’ he recalls. ‘And believe me, they were unbelievably great ideas. And I turned to him and said, ‘Mr. President, you have got to go right back into that Oval Office, right now! “‘You’ve got to look at this list of things that you and I agreed you wanted to get done. Not that I wanted to get done, but you wanted to get done. If you will stay focused on those three or four things, I can set up the organization and the structure and the focus to make ‘em real. But you can’t do a thousand things.’”     For the master list of my book reviews (segmented within the 20 buckets/core competencies), visit the Book Bucket.                    NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.    JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Ever had outside eyes give you frank feedback on how you’re positioning your leader and your senior leaders on your website, in eNewsletters, or in print? Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE GAS PEDAL!  When is the last time you pushed PAUSE and sincerely said “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” to your board members? Read John's suggestions at the ECFA blog.

Behind Closed Doors - Part 2

 

Issue No. 617 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Aug. 21, 2024) adds a “Part 2” to last issue’s mention of the memoir by Nixon’s and Reagan’s speech writer, Ken Khachigian. Totally captivating! Enjoy! Plus, click here to see book recommendations in all 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for more book reviews. Also, read my recent review of The 365 Day Leader: Recalibrate Your Calling Every Day, by Dick Daniels.  Really! President Ronald Reagan described his first meeting at the 1981 Ottawa Summit with the Big Seven (aka the “Group of Seven” countries): “…I was the new kid, and no one got around to introducing me, so when it came to me, I just said, ‘My name is Ron.’” (Imagine! The leaders of the UK, France, West Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada—all in the room, but no one introduced the new president of the US!)   Your First 90 Days? How About Your First 90 Hours? Behind Closed Doors (Part 2) Honest! I made 74 notes on the front blank pages of Behind Closed Doors. You’ll love the fascinating details behind every single highlight. (Really.) But here’s my problem: I spotlighted 10 stunning sections that are still competing for my attention-getting big opening. In my last issue I alerted you to three books and a movie that were in the queue. Here’s the first book: Behind Closed Doors:  In the Room With Reagan & Nixon by Ken Khachigian (July 23, 2024). Ken Khachigian’s  hot-off-the-press page-turner reads like today’s headlines. Honest! If you’re watching the breaking news this week from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (or like some of us old timers, comparing it to the 1968 Chicago convention), you’ll love the author’s tutorial in Political Speechwriting 401.  Known as the “Word Donkey” for the speeches he wrote for both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Khachigian’s 496-page memoir includes this entry from October 15, 1980 (Incumbent Jimmy Carter versus Candidate Reagan, former governor of California): “…Carter seemed to embrace a tax increase when he flubbed by claiming that among the factors causing inflation was ‘the government wasn’t taking in sufficient revenues to meet a greatly expanding budget.’” On Reagan’s campaign plane from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Lima, Ohio, Khachigian had orders to craft a new speech in response to Carter’s blunder. “Not a little panicked and stressed, I hoped my fingers would find magic words to emerge from the IBM typewriter to exploit Carter’s weird [there’s that word again!] connection of inflation and high taxes.”  “Fortunately, I was able to concoct one of the more inspired punch lines of the campaign. I rushed it to the typists, Shirley Moore and Michele Davis; Shirley put it onto Reagan’s half sheets for speaking, and Michele into press release format after Reagan made his edits. They used Wite-Out to correct typing errors, dried the pages under the plane’s air vents and typed over them.” (Reminder: 1980 campaigns had no email, no iPhones, and no Internet.) The punch line for Reagan’s speech: “We now know what Mr. Carter plans to do with four more years. Catch your breath, hold on to your hats, and grab your wallets because Jimmy Carter’s analysis of the economy means that his answer is higher taxes.” Khachigian adds, “The ‘catch your breath’ line made all three networks that night, so the last-minute change was successful.”  Now, during this 2024 campaign, you should listen for a replay of Reagan’s words (including these scripted by Khachigian): • “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” • “Jimmy Carter is fond of quoting presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, but I’ve noticed that there is one Democrat that he doesn’t speak much about, and that is Jimmy Carter.” You’ll appreciate the down-to-earth simplicity of Reagan’s campaign speeches and his presidential speeches. After Reagan won, Khachigian notes that “As president, he was now empowered to go beyond preaching the gospel and put it into practice.” A few more zingers: • “There’s no such thing as federal funds. ‘It’s your money.’” • “Business taxes aren’t paid by business; they’re paid by you.” • “…there are seven million Americans caught up in the personal indignity and human tragedy of unemployment. If they stood in a line, allowing three feet for each person, the line would reach from the coast of Maine to California.”  Khachigian’s robust memoir gives leaders and readers a front row seat to two U.S. presidents—and a reminder that back then, those speeches were crafted on an IBM Selectric typewriter! For more on Nixon, view Ken Khachigian’s talk and Q&A hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation on July 23, 2024.     In his recent talk for the Richard Nixon Foundation, author Ken Khachigian describes the hilarious fact-checking for Reagan’s word picture that the national debt was approaching $1 trillion. (Today, it is $35 trillion!) View Khachigian’s talk here. Reagan’s word picture: “If you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only four inches high, you’d be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills over eighty miles high.” Khachigian was skeptical of the math and asked Reagan: KK: “…if you’ll excuse the question, Mr. President, where on earth did you come up with the number for the thousand-dollar bills reaching up to the sky?" RR: “Well, by long division.” KK adds: “I chuckled quietly while picturing him with a yellow pad dividing mysterious numbers into 1,000,000,000,000.” So Khachigian asked his staff to fact-check that 80-mile high number, noting in his recent talk that there is no shortage of “nerds” that work in our government agencies. The stats on $1 trillion came back:     • Loosely stacked, the pile of $1,000 bills would be 67 miles high.    • Bound together, the stack would be 63 miles high! Reagan’s memorable word pictures reminded me of bestselling author Chip Heath and his practical book for leaders, speakers, and writers: Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers. Reagan’s landslide victory on Nov. 4, 1980, was stunning (489 of 538 electoral votes). And Khachigian was close to the action, including at Reagan’s first cabinet meetings in January 1981. The “Reagan Revolution” agenda? The author quotes David Stockman, “the young OMB director,” who said to the president, “I recommend you do what you pledged in the campaign.” (Really? You can do that?) According to the author of The First 90 Days (my 2010 book-of-the-year), “The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself [or herself?]; you get 90.” Yet Reagan didn’t need 100 days, or even 90. How about 90 hours? Khachigian writes about Reagan: “His energy and enthusiasm were infectious throughout five cabinet meetings crammed into less than two weeks to cut the budget, reduce taxes, and deregulate government. The weight of his presence was greater and more emphatic than history has given him credit, and seated behind him, I took notes to preserve a record of his historic undertaking.” Where were you when President Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981? (Joanne and I were in Manila in the Philippines. I remember paperboys in the streets hawking newspapers that featured “second coming” headlines.) Khachigian was asked by Vice President George H.W. Bush’s press aide to help draft a reassuring statement for the nation. (Imagine!)  And how timely: Last week in the WSJ, Peggy Noonan contrasts then Vice President Bush with current Vice President Kamala Harris. Read “The Vice President’s Biggest Speech. In July 1988, George H.W. Bush was famous but unknown—and down in the polls by 17 points.” You’ll love this front-row seat from a gifted speechwriter’s perspective. Captivating! Here are a few more teasers: • Press secretary Jim Brady on being selected: “I don’t know which of these is the worst. Number two is getting it; but number one is not getting it.” • A second-grader’s letter to President Reagan following the assassination attempt: “I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas. P.S. If you have to make a speech in your pajamas, I warned you.” (The President used that in his next speech!) • Having served Nixon, Khachigian became an important go-between for Nixon’s political advice to Reagan. Fascinating! The 75-page appendix includes copies of actual letters and memos from Nixon, then based in San Clemente, Calif., to Reagan and the author.  • Nixon quoted Churchill: “History will treat me well because I intend to write it!” (Khachigian conducted research for Nixon’s memoir, all 1,136 pages.) • Robert Novak, the legendary syndicated columnist and TV commentator, would often meet with Khachigian when he was in California “over pasta at Orange County’s acclaimed Antonello Ristorante.” (Note: I also read Novak’s memoir, all 662 pages!) • The best speech of Reagan’s career? “In the decade of our collaborations, the eulogy Reagan delivered on May 5, 1985, at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp stands alone as the most significant and consequential.” I was unaware of the pre-speech fallout from this momentous day. Chapter 20, “Crisis at Home,” is a case study in the Crisis Bucket—and it’s my favorite chapter. • Chapter 18, “Morning Again in America,” is also my favorite chapter! (Yes, you can have two favorites.) Khachigian describes his key role in creating the “Morning Again in America” documentaries for the 1984 re-election campaign and the GOP convention. He notes: “It can be more difficult to write a thirty- or sixty-second commercial than a twenty-five-minute speech. Telling a story in 110 or 115 words is agonizing…” GOOD NEWS. This is not a puff piece on Nixon and Reagan (or the author). Khachigian has harsh words for many White House senior staffers (“wannabe speechwriters”), and ego-driven officials who “were smitten with the disease of proximity to the Oval Office.” His relationship with Nancy Reagan (“chief of staff”) deserves its own book. TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: IN THE ROOM WITH REAGAN & NIXON, by Ken Khachigian (July 23, 2024). Listen on Libro (16 hours, 37 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy. BONUS: Watch the trailer here for the new movie, “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid, and opening Aug. 30, 2024.    YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Leaders and managers can learn much from the best and worst management practices in the White House. Bill Clinton’s chief of staff “carried around a card with the president’s top priorities written on it—and rebelled when Clinton tried to go off script.” Read more in The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. What are your CEO’s top priorities? Who’s holding your CEO (or pastor) accountable for results? 2) Watch for my next issue with a review of Tevi Troy’s new book, The Power and The Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry (Aug. 20, 2024). Listen on Libro (12 hours, 8 minutes). If you’re a longtime reader, you may recall I allocated two issues of Your Weekly Staff Meeting to review Tevi Troy’s 2021 book, Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. Click here for my “POTUS Pop Quiz.” QUESTION: What is one best practice (or one worst practice) of a recent White House occupant?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 16: Keys to Memorable Speaking and Writing Book #87 of 100: 15 Minutes Including Q&A For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #87 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.  15 Minutes Including Q&A:  A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations by Joey Asher    Books #87 through #91 spotlight five memorable books to enrich your speaking and writing competencies. Q&A is “presentation duct tape,” says the author of 15 Minutes Including Q&A. “It fixes everything.”     • Read my review.     • Order from Amazon: 15 Minutes Including Q&A     • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson). When speaking, begin with “the hook.” Asher writes, “Start by putting your finger on the business issue that your audience cares most about. A good way to arrive at your hook is to think, ‘If I were to ask my audience what worried them most about the topic I’m going to talk about, what would they say?’” “The hook often starts with the following phrase, ‘I understand that you are concerned about…’” Your three points should be like bumper stickers: short and memorable, supported by stories. “Great speakers use lots of stories.” And thinking about political speeches, I loved this line from then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who asked the press, “Does anyone have any questions for the answers I’ve prepared?”   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN        MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

Behind Closed Doors - Part 1

 

Issue No. 616 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Aug. 7, 2024) recommends a hot-off-the-press book on Nixon and Reagan—also a movie and two more books. Enjoy! Plus, click here to see book recommendations in all 20 management buckets (core competencies). “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Watch for the new movie, “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid as President Ronald Reagan, coming Aug. 30, 2024. View the trailer.   Attn: Presidential Candidates! “Read This Book!” Hey! It’s August and for my readers in the Northern Hemisphere, you’re wondering what book you should read on vacation this month. Here’s my top pick—plus two more books arriving soon: #1. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: IN THE ROOM WITH REAGAN & NIXON, by Ken Khachigian (July 23, 2024). Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (16 hours, 37 minutes).  This Thursday, August 8, 2024, is the 50th anniversary of the day that U.S. President Richard Nixon announced he would be resigning the presidency the next day. That was 50 years ago—but Ken Khachigian’s hot-off-the-press page-turner reads like today’s headlines. Has anything really changed in our presidential campaigns? Debates over if and when to debate. “Weird” references. Pollsters and policy wonks. VP picks. Name-calling.  Full Disclosure! I’m just 100 pages into this fascinating book (read my full review), but I can confidently recommend it because Joanne and I joined friends for a sneak peek on July 23 when author Ken Khachigian spoke at the Richard Nixon Foundation in Yorba Linda, Calif. View the 56-minute video here: In a talk on July 23, 2024, author Ken Khachigian revealed “inside info” about the preparation for the Frost/Nixon TV interviews which aired in four segments in 1977. Pictured (l. to r.) researcher Diane Sawyer, former president Richard Nixon, Khachigian (author), and presidential assistant Ray Price. Also shown: the briefing books for the interview. (View Khachigian’s talk here.)   When President Nixon resigned, he found seclusion in San Clemente, Calif.—also our home for the last 30 years. He asked Khachigian, who had served on his White House staff, to join him in San Clemente and help write his memoirs (all 1,136 pages!). But there’s more! Khachigian also served as President Ronald Reagan’s chief speechwriter, “trusted political adviser and favorite scribe.”  While you wait for my review and my notes from Khachigian’s talk, coming yet this month, read Tevi Troy’s review of Behind Closed Doors, featured in the July 26, 2024, Wall Street Journal. And speaking of Tevi Troy… #2. THE POWER AND THE MONEY: THE EPIC CLASHES BETWEEN COMMANDERS IN CHIEF AND TITANS OF INDUSTRY (coming August 20, 2024), by Tevi Troy. Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (12 hours, 8 minutes). Read my review. The author sent me his manuscript—and his insights are so, so timely! If you’re a longtime reader, you may recall I allocated two issues of Your Weekly Staff Meeting to review Tevi Troy’s 2021 book, Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. Click here for my “POTUS Pop Quiz.” #3. FAITH FOR THE CURIOUS: HOW AN ERA OF SPIRITUAL OPENNESS SHAPES THE WAY WE LIVE AND HELP OTHERS FOLLOW JESUS (coming Sept. 24, 2024), by Mark Matlock (foreword by David Kinnaman). Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (5 hours, 22 minutes). Read my review. Mark Matlock now serves as the executive director of the Urbana Student Missions Conference. Read my review of the 2020 book he co-authored with David Kinnaman, Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon. (Read my review of Matlock's new book, Faith for the Curious.)    YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Ken Khachigian’s color commentary in Behind Closed Doors spotlights memorable moments and one-liners in Reagan’s and Nixon’s presidential campaigns and White House years. (“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” was scripted by Khachigian.) What’s the most memorable presidential speech you’ve heard or read? What’s your favorite line—and why?  2) The authors of The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity note that Eisenhower’s people held rehearsals for Cabinet meetings. Kennedy was restless in long meetings; he hated them. (But after the Bay of Pigs debacle, he called Eisenhower for advice and changed his approach to meetings.) So…when you inherit a new boss (or board chair), how do you get-up-to-speed on your new leader’s style (and idiosyncrasies)?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 15: Feeble Faith and Flabby Worship Book #86 of 100: Let Us Prey For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #86 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.  Let Us Prey:  The Plague of Narcissist Pastors  and What We Can Do About It (Revised Edition) by Darrell Puls   Books #82 through #86 spotlight five soul-strengthening books to connect you with the God of the Universe. Hmmm. Had I read a book on narcissism earlier in my career, could I have avoided some big leadership mistakes relating to Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)?     • Read my review.     • Order from Amazon: Let Us Prey     • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson). NPD DEFINED. According to the diagnostic criteria of the American Psychological Association, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following…” Read my review of Let Us Prey. It includes three of the nine eye-popping statements about NPD. And get this! “…deep inside the true narcissist sees himself as godlike and God as a terrifying rival.”   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN        MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon. Inside Marine One: The World's Most Amazing Helicopter What's not to like about a 10,000-foot view of four presidents from the cockpit of Marine One, the president's high performance helicopter? Read my review of Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter—and you'll have dozens of quotable facts for impressing your friends.  And for more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.

Eisenhower 1956

 

Issue No. 221 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (June 30, 2011) highlights a timely book for my U.S. readers as we approach the 4th of July. Timely--because, hmmm, Egypt is next to Libya...and Congress and the President disagree...and, oh yes, an election is coming. If you think you have it tough, read this hot-off-the-press book on President Eisenhower. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.


President Eisenhower: "Plans are worthless but planning is everything." (Graphic: ChatGPT)
 

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Ike’s White-knuckle Crisis

OK. I know this is a stretch to cajole you into reading a book about a dead president. But hang with me a minute—and let me try.

Two-term U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs that “October 20, 1956, was the start of the most crowded and demanding three weeks of my entire presidency.” And according to author David Nichols, “During this period, Eisenhower embodied the wisdom of his preachment that ‘plans are worthless but planning is everything,’ enabling him to ‘do the normal thing when everyone else is going nuts.’”

There’s one big reason you should read this book: crisis management (The Crisis Bucket).  Nichols summarizes this stunning account—and Eisenhower himself—on the book’s last page with this one-liner, “By any standard, his was a virtuoso presidential performance—an enduring model for effective crisis management.”

Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War is unlike any book I’ve read. It covers mostly one year, 1956, with the greatest focus on Ike’s most demanding three weeks of his presidency. (I study leaders. Ike was a leader, not just a general.)

For starters—have you ever had a couple of weeks like this?

   --Eisenhower couldn’t convince Congress to use foreign aid to fund Egypt’s proposed Aswan Dam project, so after a soft commitment to Egypt’s President Nasser, Ike pulled the plug on the deal.

   --In response, Egypt’s President Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.

   --Oops! Western Europe is almost totally dependent on the flow of oil through the canal (with oil reserves of just 15 to 30 days).

   --Ike’s best friends—Britain and France, the nations he rescued in World War II—plotted secretly and devised clever smoke screens to keep the U.S. not just ill-informed but misinformed about their intentions. Read: bald-faced lies!

   --Britain, France and Israel go to war against Egypt.

   --Ike refuses to provide cover to his double-dealing, deceptive friends, and suggested they “be left to burn in their own oil.”

   --At one point, commenting on the flurry of cables between London and Washington, he quipped that it had turned into a “trans-Atlantic essay contest.”

Oh…and did I mention: The President had a heart attack on a trip in the fall of 1955, requiring seven weeks off in Denver, and then more surgery later in 1956 for a cancerous tumor the doctors and staff had kept from him.

Doctors told him to take it easy—and in that we get a humorous picture of Ike. He wrote a friend that he had been ordered “to avoid all situations that tend to bring about such reactions as irritation, frustration, anxiety, fear and, above all anger.” So he had snapped at the doctors, “Just what do you think the presidency is?”

Yet, he decides he’s healthy enough to run for a second term; Adlai Stevenson, his opponent, disagrees. Often. And quite publically!

“The real reason a President wants to run again,” suggested aide Sherman Adams, “is because he doesn’t think anybody else can do as good a job as he’s doing.”

Oops! Then during the campaign, the Soviet Union hustles tanks into Hungary.

 

So whatever your current leadership or management crisis is (you’ve had some doozies and will continue to have them), you gotta admit…it ain’t as challenging as Ike’s crises in 1956.  At one point he whined to his personal secretary, Ann Whitman, “why anyone would want such a job as that of the President.”

If you’re not a history buff or a dead presidents buff, you may find the first half of the book slow-going, even tedious perhaps—but the beauty of this one-year historical feast is the author’s amazing quilt of quotations he threads together from newly released sources like the top secret minutes of the National Security Council and Oval Office meetings.

But keep reading, because when Nichols (a former prof and academic dean) hits Ike’s three most demanding weeks of his life, it’s a page-turner—and I don’t use that phrase lightly. The crisis management insights and best practices are served up on almost every page. 

His campaign buttons announced, “I LIKE IKE.” Ditto. I was so sad when page 286 arrived that I even read the “Acknowledgments,” hoping for another crumb or two. I got ‘em!

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:

1) On addressing Ike’s response to the Soviet occupation of Hungary, the author writes, “This was standard Eisenhower doctrine, to give an opponent an escape hatch from a confrontation that could escalate into great conflict.” Think of your last crisis—did it escalate unnecessarily?

2) Nichols writes, “Eisenhower had long ago perfected the art of embracing a messianic mission and making it sound like a simple soldier’s call to duty.”  Does our organization have a big vision—and is it stated simply enough?

Top-10 Customer Hunches - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket, Chapter 2, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to learn how your customers will change.

Try a stand-up meeting. With bagels. 

“OK. For the next 20 minutes, we’re going to fill this flipchart with all of our best guesses on how our primary customer (per Peter Drucker’s definition) will change in the next 36 months.

“Then, we’ll vote for the 10 most likely changes and assign people to do some in-the-trenches customer research to discern if our hunches are accurate.  We’re going to do something very, very radical this month: talk to our customers!”

For more resources from the Customer Bucket, including book recommendations, visit the Customer Bucket webpage.

2026 Update: For more books on U.S. Presidents and American history, see the list and links posted at "250 Years of USA Books" at the Pails in Comparison blog.

MORE RESOURCES:

• BLOG: Pails in Comparison
• SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews
• JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon 
• WEBSITE: Management Buckets
• BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations

NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.