>> this is washingn business eport with rebecca coer. rebecca: thank you for joining us for a fre look at business and finance and how it affects yoyou. this fourth of july weekend, we have a one-on-one interew with a four-star general. do you have whatt it takes to be a professional speaker?? three questions and answers to see if you have wh it takes to turn your expertise into big bucks thepeaking ccuit. first, a new bk by a a four-star general. hihis years as a senior commander

in iraq and afghanist forced him to learn under fire. in his new book he takes his leadership lessons from the battlefield to the boardroom teaching businesses how to better take charge andnd move forward. general mcchrystal, welcome to washington business report. this book is your effort to teach the business world some of the strategies you use to be successful in the military world. what does team of teams mean? >> if you ink about it all of us have been on some kind of team. maybe we have been on a really good one, where you could finish each other's sentences where things happen n organically. as organizations scale, you run into a limit. beyond 100 people, you cannot know everybody or have the same culture. we found that as you scale, what you have to do i create a

series of teams and you have to connect them in ways that most organizations find difficu. it is akin to the relationships between individuals on a great small team. you have to maintain that chemistry between the small teams that together form at -- a big team. rebecca: you talk a lot aut different teams that have been successful. but the bottom line for you you say is scale, efficiency and silos can be the fastest way to getomething done that you make the argument again and again for adaptability as the best way t to get something done. let's take your own experience again. you came into iraq, they were doing 80 raids a day. t it to 300. take us through that process. generaral mcchrystal: think of the

military. it is designed to be as effective as it can be. you have great big armies of young men with guns. you u have to have some kind of order and predictability, a chain of command, processeses to get information. leaders have got to be able to give a command and expect a certain outcome. that gives you good orderliness, but it also lets you slowly respond. in today's generation, where things move so quick and are so interconnected -- we found our enemy, al qaeda in iraq, wasas a constantly moving network of agility. because of that, our traditional organization, as efficient as it was an designed to be, was way too slow. it wasn't nimble enough. couldn't learn fast enough or ecutfast enough. when i came in, what we try to do was use modern tech knowlge

he to speed up our legacy processes, and what we foundnd -- technology to speed up our legacy processes, and fou that didn't work if information has to start at the lowest level and find its way up, be thought about, and then direction goes down again why the -- by the time the direction goes down, even with it being brilliant a at the hiest level, it is already wrong by the time it gets to its destination. we always joke because we say the one thing we are sure we are not going to execute is that plan. we know the situation is going to change the moment you startrt the operation. the enemy gets to vote. no plan diverts contact with the enemy. if you just create this very efficient plan that is somewhat inflexible, you are going to be disappointed. what we have really done is built small teams like navy seals.

this organic adaptabity. they go into the problem knowing that it is going to be a constantly shifting situation. what they have to do becomes different, but as organizations get big and want to wire down processes, control things so that they are most efficient that can stifle adapaptability. organizations find they have an ever increasing requirement to be adaptable, but the organization can handcuff them. rebecca: we talk about the pentagon being assembled for all that is wrong. it was built to be a model of efficiency, but you say now, it doesn't matter how quickly you can walk across the building, the doors are locked. the information is contained. people are working individually or in small teams. there is none of the sharing that you say is essential, but

that is anathe that -- anathema to the people you work with. how do you teach any corporation to get over the idea that information is on a need to know basi general mcchrystal: the fallacy and that is who knows who needs to know? in reality people could have requirements or informion that you don't know about thomas so if you have no idea that it -- rebecca: i love that you preach this. i am the type of worker that if you tell me what the overall goal is, the company secrets, i will feel more like a part of the team and want to contribute. but that is hard. it is a power thing and it is an organizational structure were you cannot have everyone worrying about everyone else's job. how do y break down the mindset of people who say it's not going to w work. give me an example of a military leader you had to re-teacach how

to a approach the battlefield. general mcchrystal: when we werere first operating in iraq and ghanistan, we had special operations targeting individual leaders. we would identify someone in a town or neighborhood and we would go in, and the court natition with local forces intelligence and whatnot, would be pretty limited. we would go and we might capture and kill the individual. we might have a firefight in the area and come out, and we had done our job. we had checked the block. we were success. but we might have -- we were successful.. but we mht have left to the situation far worse. we might now have left the neighborhood with the citizens against the u.s. we didn't take the larger view, and as a consequence, we couould be working at cross purposes. the opposite can occur.

if you don't have a contextual understanding of the larger whole, what you do can appear to make sense. but you can give everybo a sense -- we started bringing ids into the headquarters which previously never would have let outsiders in. we shared e everything so that we could have a coordinated effort. rebecca: when we come back, more with general stanley mcchrystal. he tells us how to fail without being a failure. stay with us.

rebecca: welcome back. in part two of our interview with general stanley mcchrystal, he tells us how to fail up in the business world.

let's talk about some of the things you teach about leadership. it struck me that one of your lessons on leadership is, you say leaders n let you fail and not let you believe youre a failure. you say you learned thaearly on when you are a young soldier. you wewere in training, and there were some e things youere not good at, that you failed at, and you had a cmander thatt build you back up again. that struck me because the civilian side sees the military at least in the movies, athe coander's beating you down and making sure you do feel like a failure to build you back up again. talk about that experience and how you try to use that now. general mcchrystal: i was a company commander, had about 20 soldieiers and armored vehicles. we were doing a big exercise in california. we had done a dawn attack where you ride all night and take your

vehicles across the line of departure. probably within 10 minutes of crossing, , as soon as we got near the enemy i company was essentially wiped out. and it was my fault. i'm a new word them poorly. i felt terrible. we went into the review after and they showed that the controller showed what happepened. i walked out of that humiliate feeling like i had left -- let my boss down. i went in to say mea culpa. he could be a hard guy. he goes i thought you did great. he knew i did't do great. i know knew i didn't do great. but the whole point was, you are going to fail. all of us are going to fail. we fail more than we are willing to admit to ourselves, certainly more than we are willing to admit to other people. we know it. people know it. thebility to low people to fail and lrn from it and to allow people to fail and be resilient, because if all of us

go home and sobbed quietly to ourselves every time we fail, we won't get anywhere. rebecca: your experiences being passed on all over the world. you haveone to england. harvard business school is having you teachch. let's do a lightningound. we are going to get our nba in a few minutes becaustime is short. -- mba in a few minutes because time is short. prioritizing time. what do people need to do differently? general mcchrystal: list your priorities and then tra your actual calendar use. you u will find d that pop-ups occur. you ha to delegate is then time on what is truly important. rebecca: picking people who believe in the mission versus focused on themselves and what they can give thehe mission. general mcchrystal: people have to be committed to the success

of the team. if you're worried about your battinaverage and not the score of the game, you have a problem. rebecca: leaders who have deal with people who are younger than them but no more than them. general mcchrystal: they have to allow themselves to be reverse meant toward. rebecca: it is hard for a ceo. general mcchrystal: but it is powerful for younger people. they become more engaged when given the opportunity. rerebecca: being right versus being good. general mcchrystal: no leader is smart enough to deal with the complexity we have in the world. we have to have the coective mindnd of the entire organization. you have to trust the organization. rebecca: learning what y are not good at and being willing to admimit it. you know that you are not good after 8:00 p.m. your staff learned t that and stopped asking you questions after 8:00 p.m.

what else have you learned that you have had to admit to your team and adapt? general mcchrystal: i would make snap decisions sometimes or make an assumptio th is a danger. i cannot assess people well in short. some people can do a five second read of someone i in know if they are good, bad, committed. i cannot do that. eye with whole judgment until more engagement. -- i withhold judgment until i have more engagement. rebecca: who are some ceos or leaders you admire right now? general mcchrystal: brad smith at intel. he is so open-minded. he runs a company that is already good, but en he sees an idea that t can take him from 95.5 to 96, he will take it. that shows leadership because sometimes you don't want to show any vulnerability. any good leader of a company that is doing well that says

what got us here isn't going to keep us on this path is ritzy self-aware. and i really admire that because they -- is pretty self-aware. and i really admire that because they say we have to get better to do better. rebecca: general mcchrystal, thank you for ining us. when we come back h have yoyou got what it takes to earn extra money by public speaking? we have a three question quiz that will give you the answers to what you nrebecca: welcome back.

no matter how successful you a in your field, some people still shy ay from public speaking

while others embrace it. even if you have what it takes to share your expertise from a stage or a crowdwd, there are no other challenges to conqueringng the field of professnal speang -- still other challenges tconqueringhe eld ofrofessional speaking. bill cates has been a professional's 25 years. he was inducted into the profsional speakers hall of fame in 2010. thanks for joining us. you never quit your day job. speaking has always been what you have done in addition to the other hat you foreign. bill:: i sold a business. first business was book publishing. my next venture wasas pubc speaking and all that goes with that. rebecca: you say it boils down to three questions. first, do you have compelling expertise, stories, or a body of work to speak from?

bill: a lot of people like the idea of speaking in front of an auaudience and want to inspire people but they don't have a mpelling reason to be there. they think they do. it could be experience you have as a leader. it could be in sales. maybe you have had something happen to you. a lot of weaker's have a story, a compelli story. --peakakers have a a story, a compelling story. then you see political speakers, militarypeakers. it has to be c compelling d worth listening to. rebecca: there are plenty of speakers in washington. it is finding that unique this. one of the speakers i knonow talks about the business economy of africa. she is somewhat unique here. bill: exactly. usually, thearrower the focus the days, the better.

it could be expertise. it could be an industry. sometimes, people do both. the more narrow, the more people can hang their hat on what d you and how are you going to lp me, the more successful theyan be? rebecca: the sond question is are you llingo treat this like a biness because it is work. what d do you finind is the best thing for people to do if they want to do this? bill: : most people don't have t reputation or expertise to sigign up with a speakers bureau and have success. fofor myself and a lot of people at the national eakers association, it'a premier place to learn the business of speaking. it's an easy business to get into, , but not an eaeasy business to get successful at over time. anyone can bececome a coaoach, but

to sustain that, tre is almost no place to learn that other than the nationals uighu association where you're hanging around with people who are successful speakakers. -- national speakers association where you are hangg around with pple who are successful speakers. the national speakers asassociation has put out to books about e business of getting paid to speak how do you get paid to speak and paid to speak consistently over time, other thanan being a celebrity? rebecca: or someone who survived to season three of survivor. bill: and there you go. those people come onto the scene for a while, are hot for a while, a then they go away, unless they have been able to build d something over time that gives them staying power. rebea: i think ted talks are a great example. some people yonever heard of give ted talks because they have

a compelling story. you say are yowilling to become a better speaker. it's not enough to just be cocomfortable in front of the microphone. bill: exactl it's cononstantly working on the craft and getting better. some people have a certain amount of natural ability and that gets them pretty far. i was pretty fny in n front of a group, but had to learn to be funnier. how to create interactioion with the audience, all of thahat aspepect of bei a better speaker. i wa't iucted into the halall of fame, or couldn't have been inducted into the hall of fame my first 5, 3, 7 years. rebecca: for example presidential candidates, bill bradley, amang resume, amazing intellect, and as a friend of mine said nothing kills t seal

in a room like bill bradley speaking at a political r rally. bill: the key is connecting with the audience. you can connect th information, by shaking hands wi humor with a story, but you have to connect somehow. rebecca: there are my keys that you have. how do people contact your association? bill: an essayspeaeaker.org. and we have e a conference heree in july. rebecca: we'll be right back.

rebecca: thanks for joing us. let us kw what you thought of this weeks show. yocan always reach out to us by liking g us on facebook following us on twitter, or watching past interviewsws at wjlw.comom or on our youtube channel. we will seyou next week. thanks for joining us. i'm rebecca cooper.

>> this week on "government maers" -- >> we've got to adapt our technology much more rapidly than we have in the past. >> is the best defense a good offense? meeting the dema for uncle sam's cyber revolution. >> they are asking for eater flexibility in m moving in and out of that process. morris: today a federal security clearance is harder to get. we track the impact on the contracting economy. >> thehe government is oftften a late adopterer. morris: the house of representatives just approved open source. too little too late or better than never? "government matters" starts right now. morris: