I was honored to have been asked to be the guest speaker at the 10 December 2010 Joint Army-Air Force Commissioning ceremony at Mississippi State. There were four cadets commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the US Air Force and one commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army. It was a pleasure to have been asked to speak and a joy to share some of the lessons I have learned with these new lieutenants who are beginning their careers.

After the ceremony I received some very nice complements on the talk and I was appreciative of them. I told several that what I told these new airmen and soldier were what I wished someone had told me when I was an Ensign. The text of my remarks is below.

Commissionees, congratulations! You have done something most people never do. You are among the elite and are about to be accepted into a very special brotherhood. The organization you are joining today is steeped in tradition, is dedicated to principles that far exceed self, and requires a commitment unlike any other organization.

You are all truly among the elite. Of the military service age citizens in this country, those between the ages of 17 and 24, a mere 25% are considered fit for military service. The other 75% are either overweight, have physical deficiencies, have a history of drug use, have too many dependents, or lack the required mental ability to be in the armed forces. If we look at a typical officer to enlisted ratio of say 1 to 7, recognizing that that ratio varies some among the services, then only 3.5% of the citizens are deemed fit of being officers in the military. Now, factor in the desire and dedication to become an officer and you can see that you truly are an elite group.

But let's check our egos before we go too far. Being in this elite group does not earn you any special entitlements. In fact, you are being given the privilege to serve your country; to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Your service may be emotionally, physically, and mentally trying. It will require great sacrifice from you and from those who love you. You need to remember that and make sure you take care of your loved ones. You, and you alone, have reached the decision to accept this commission but everyone who is a part of your life will be affected by that decision and most, if not all of them, had very little input to your choice yet they are here to support you.

Your nation is placing great trust in you today. You will be the defenders of freedom. The safety and security of our nation will rest in your hands. You be placed in charge of others and their personal safety and well-being will also be your responsibility. You must be aware of their mental and emotional needs. The operational tempo of our forces today have placed tremendous stress on our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and the suicide and divorce rates in the armed forces are rising. This is a leadership issue; this is your issue and it is one we must handle. You must know how far you can push your people and when you have to let them rest. Your fellow students who will be with you tonight at graduation will not have to deal with these issues for perhaps another 10 to 15 years and some may never have to deal with them. You are months, if not weeks, away from such challenges.

The families of those who serve under you will also be your responsibility. The term total force, in my opinion, does not just mean active, reserve, and national guard; it also means families. If your soldiers or airmen are having difficulties at home it will impact how they serve. We must be aware of these issues to ensure that they are at peak performance. We must also be aware of these issues because it is simply the right thing to do.

The fact you are a military officer means that, in spite of your education, regardless of your major, and independent of your specialty in the military, you are a leader. That is a tremendous responsibility and it is a responsibility you will have 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your time in the ROTC program has prepared you to begin the journey but it was only the initial preparation. Now it is time for you to continue that educational process.

Your responsibilities as a leader, as an officer, are many. First, you must prepare others to assume leadership roles. It is our tradition, good or bad, in the military to move people from one job to another every two or three years. If you have not helped prepare someone to replace you when you are moved, what long-term good will you have accomplished? Where would you be today without the Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, and Colonels, as well as the enlisted personnel who have invested so much of themselves in you?

Mentoring will be one of your most important tasks as an officer. You first need to find yourself a mentor, someone outside of your chain of command that you can talk to and that can offer you career advice. You will also need to mentor others. Some will need to be encouraged to attend graduate school, others will need to seek special assignments, and some, regrettably, will need to be mentored on civilian opportunities.

Leadership is not micromanagement. Do not tell your people how to do their jobs. They likely know how to do it better than you and they take pride in their work. Let them know what you expect in terms of outcomes but let them choose the process to the greatest extent possible. That is not always easy to do because no matter who actually does the work, you will remain responsible and accountable for any failure. You must accept the responsibility for the failures but give away the credit for the successes.

You must also set the example. Because of your rank and your position, you will be watched closely for every little mistake or flaw. None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes. How you handle them is what sets you apart from the others. When you err, admit it and correct it. When you don't know what to do, ask. If you are at all like I was as a junior officer you will look at the O-5s and O-6s with awe. They will seem to be all-knowing and all-seeing. I even thought a few of them were as close to perfect as possible. The reality is that at one time they were nuggets just like you will be in a few minutes. They made mistakes and learned from them. I know I made my share of mistakes but I found that as long I admitted my mistakes, did my best to correct them, and made them in an attempt to be better and go farther, the senior officers were generally very forgiving and understanding. I can also attest that you will be one of those senior officers far sooner than you expect so prepare now.

Preparation is the key to your success. You have been given a good foundation through your education at Mississippi State and in your ROTC program but it was just the foundation. You will learn something every day for the rest of your life. I challenge you to read, to think, and to write and to especially study ethics. Marine Corps General Mattis, one of my current heroes, always travels with books. He especially likes to read history and has said the reason he studies history so diligently is because others have died learning lessons he can learn from books. He owes it to the men and women under his command to not allow them to die learning the lessons that have already been recorded. Perhaps he and you should invest in a Kindle so that you can carry your books with you more easily.

Reading also encourages thinking. To borrow a phrase from Apple Computer, you need to learn to "think different". Think outside the box. Think ahead. Think of alternate courses of action no one else thinks of. It is a skill that will come with practice but it is a necessary skill. General George Patton once said that "if everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking." If you find everyone on your staff is thinking alike, you have a problem. As a leader you have to encourage this behavior though. Your success someday will depend on that outlier coming to you to tell you that the emperor has on no clothes. Few things are more difficult than delivering bad news so you need to make it as easy as possible.

I met a fellow officer at the Naval War College once who was on staff in the Pentagon working for an Admiral whose name I can't remember. This officer had business cards printed with all of his contact information and he listed his job title as "Chief Devil's Advocate". The story, as he told it, was that the Admiral had grown tired of everyone telling him what they thought he wanted to hear--there were too many people thinking alike. He appointed the Chief Devil's Advocate with the task of disagreeing with everything. The Chief Devil's Advocate was to find as many faults and problems as he could with every proposal, idea, or recommendation. Even if the Chief devil's Advocate thought the proposal was the proper course of action, he was to argue against it. This position ensured that all sides of an argument were heard, everyone was not thinking alike, and by being assigned the position of Chief Devil's Advocate my fellow officer was assured that he would not earn the reputation of being negative or naysayer--they knew it was his job.

You must also learn to write and write well. Reading, second only to writing, is perhaps the best way to improve your writing. You will need to write many types of correspondence, messages, and orders that will require good writing skills. You should strive to publish your thinking on your reading and studies in the many military journals available. This will allow others to benefit from your learning. But perhaps the most important reason to write, is that it is an exceptional tool to clarify your thinking. If you have the perfect idea in your head, reducing it to words on a page is the best way to see all of its flaws and to catch all of the things you missed while mulling it over in your brain.

There may well come a time in your career when you have to make life and death decisions. You will work with other cultures and societies who live by different mores. You may also be put in charge of large sums of money, equipment, or supplies. You must act ethically in these situations. However, the ethical decisions you will need to make will not be between good and evil, right and wrong, rather they will lie in the gray area between black and white. You will have to choose the lesser of two evils or the better of two goods. You will not be able to consult books when these times come, you will have to make a decision then and there so you must be ready. Put the time in now so that you are prepared.

Again, looking to General Mattis, who was then a two-star in command in Iraq when the so-called wedding party was bombed we can learn a lesson. You may recall that incident from news reports. According to the news there was a wedding party being held in the middle of the dessert under a tent. Intelligence indicated that it was not a wedding party but was, in fact, a meeting of some very bad people. The intelligence reached General Mattis and he decided to bomb the tent. During the ensuing investigation General Mattis stated he was "fully and singularly responsible" for that decision. It was a decision he made in 30 seconds. When the investigators asked him how long he spent considering that decision, his response was "about 30 years". He spent thirty years reading, thinking, writing, and studying so that he could make a decision in 30 seconds. Imagine what would have happened if he had received the intel and then took a few days to mull it over.

I also want to encourage you all to further your education. Whether it is graduate school, War College, or whatever, get advanced degrees. The technology we use and the complex systems by which we fight our wars today require that we all be well-educated. Take a quick look at our top military leaders today, people such a General Petraeus, and you will see that they have Ph.D.s. Even in today's Navy, most every Naval Officer has a Master's Degree. The problems we have to deal with will only become more complex and require better educated officers to solve them. I recommend you get started early.

Knowing your self is also critical to your success. As military officers we share a common trait. We are all over-achievers. We tend to be hard-working, hard-charging, dedicated, sleep-deprived, perfection seeking Type-A personalities with little tolerance for anyone who isn't like us. I know it is hard to believe, but we are the outliers here. I have come to learn to that the majority of the population is not like us. But we have to work with these people so we need to understand them and understand ourselves.

Through some education the Navy paid for, I spent several days learning about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and discussing it with a Navy PhD Psychologist. I learned that my type, INTJ, is shared by less than two percent of the population and that INTJs tend to see things from a global perspective, are able to make decisions with fewer facts by relying on our intuition, and that we can make quick decisions. I also learned that most engineers and Naval Officers like me were of the ISTJ type. ISTJs like lots and lots of data before making a decision. I did have a bit of an identity crisis though when I found that my two chosen careers, engineering and naval officer, were mainly of a different personality type. But she told me not to worry too much because the most common personality type among flag and general officers was, you guessed it, INTJ.

All joking aside, what I did learn was that although INTJs tend to make quick decisions, and I can attest that I do tend that way, there was no guarantee that we made good decisions. As a result, I now make sure that I surround myself with people of different personality types who will slow me down when needed. I find it very frustrating but I recognize that it is important. Value diversity--diversity of culture, diversity of race, diversity of gender, and diversity of ideas.

This year MSU adopted the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson for our freshman common reading program the Maroon Edition. What you may not know is that this book is popular in the military and General Petraeus has it as required reading for his staff. When he read the book, he summed it up in three succinct bullet points; build relationships, have humility and respect, and listen more. The book is really a lesson in how to work with different cultures but I find its lessons apply equally to dealing with others within your own culture and even in your own organization.

Relationships, personal relationships, are what gets things accomplished. We invite foreign military offices to our war colleges so that we can understand other cultures and build these relationships that will help us later. You should build relationships so that you can accomplish your goals. Get to know people up and down your chain of command as well as outside of your chain.

You have much to be proud of but do not become egotistical. Have humility and respect for others. They may be different from you, they may think differently, but they have intrinsic value and are deserving of your respect.

Finally, learn to listen more. My mother always told me God gave me one mouth and two ears for a reason. But for us in the officer corps, it goes further. We must also listen to what is not said. Sure, someone can tell us something with words but their body language may tell us a different story. We need to pick up on those subtle cues.

I can think of no where where these bullets points apply than within the military and specifically in the dealings of officers and enlisted personnel. You absolutely must have the utmost respect for those in the enlisted ranks and have even more respect for the senior enlisted. These people have paid their dues and are full of valuable information. I assure you, they can make or break your career. Never, ever ignore them and always seek their input. Ultimately the decision to be made may be yours and yours alone, but you have to have their input. You may think you are running the show but nine times out of ten it is only the senior enlisted who are letting you think you are running the show.

There was a time when the primary difference between officers and enlisted was a college degree. Today that is not even always the case. I once had a Second Class Petty Officer, an E-5, in my command who had a Ph.D. Our enlisted personnel are educated, intelligent, dedicated, and hard working. Work with them, not against them. Honestly, there are things they can get done that we can't. I cannot begin to recite the times my Master Chief (E-9) saved me from doom or took care of problems before they ever got to me. One of the greatest honors bestowed on me was when he asked me to be the keynote speaker at his retirement ceremony. Despite the officer-enlisted divide, he and I developed a relationship within the bounds of the fraternization policy that continues to this day.

In conclusion, I welcome you to this elite brotherhood. You have worked hard and are deserving of the special trust and confidence that has been placed in you. You have much to be proud of and should be excited about the journey you are beginning. You will have untold influence on people's lives through your actions, your decisions, your training, and your advice. Much of the time you will not be aware that you have had an impact but your actions will have changed someone's life. Make sure the changes you cause are positive.

Recognizing that tomorrow we will see that last college football game of the 2010 regular season, I would like to congratulate the Air Force on winning the Commander-in-Chief's trophy. Well done. Take care of it and keep it shinny because we will get it back next year.

And finally, with all recognition and appreciation of our jointness, I have to say, GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!