Donald Rumsfeld - Rumsfelds Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life

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Known and Unknown: A Memoir

To those whose insights make up the rules contained in these pagesfrom Confucius to Clausewitz to Churchill to Sun Tzuand who made me wiser than I had any right to be.

A s we journey through life many of us come across something interesting or wise from time to time and think to ourselves, I should write that down. Well, Ive had a tendency to do just that for as long as I can remember. I probably owe that habit to my schoolteacher mother. She encouraged me to jot down unfamiliar words and look up their meanings later. Eventually I found myself keeping track not only of words, but also of various phrases, expressions, and snippets of advice, and putting them in a shoe box.

For example, while my dad was stationed aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II, I wrote a letter telling him I was thinking of quitting the Boy Scouts to spend more time playing sports with my friends. Weeks later, I received his reply on the thin onionskin paper then popularly known as V-mail (V for Victory). Dad wrote that the decision to quit was my call. But he went on to say, Once you quit one thing, then you can quit something else, and pretty soon youll get good at being a quitter. That advice found its way into my shoe box.

Some years later, while I was in naval flight training in Pensacola, Florida, I noted some pithy advice in the manual for the SNJ, a single-engine propeller aircraft I was learning to fly: If you are lost: climb, conserve, and confess. Climb meant that the pilot should gain altitude so that he could see a greater distance, get his bearings, and if necessary, glide without power to a safe landing. Conserve meant reducing airspeed and leaning out the fuel mixture to conserve fuel and have more time to figure out where he is. And confess meant getting on the radio promptly and announcing to all who might be listening, Im lost and I need help!

Climb, conserve, and confess turns out to be sound advice for anyone who is lost or adrift, as happens to all of us from time to time. If you find yourself meandering aimlessly in a difficult spot, step back to get some perspective, slow down, and take a deep breath. And if youre still feeling lost, face up to it, and dont hesitate to ask for help.

Decades later, when I was working in the administration of President Richard Nixon, I spent a good deal of time with Nixons top domestic advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a brilliant talent who had earlier served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. I always came away from a conversation with Pat having learned something new and feeling good about life. Rare was the subject, no matter how great or small, that escaped his interest. In one conversation, seemingly out of nowhere, Moynihan said, Don, only buy black socks. I gave him a quizzical look. You can wear them with anything, he said. I took this to mean that in a busy world, it is best to make things easier by simplifying certain habits and decisions. Then again, he may have just been giving me wardrobe advice.

When he became president in 1974, Gerald Forda friend from our days together in the U.S. Congressurged me to serve as White House Chief of Staff. He was grappling with the sizable challenges of suddenly becoming President after Richard Nixons stunning resignation. During one of his first days in the Oval Office, I happened to mention one of the rules Id collected. When he learned I had a file of other quotes and observations about management in government, he asked to see them.

When President Ford learned I had a file of quotes and observations about management in government, he asked to see them. So I gave a copy to him. He promptly labeled them Rumsfelds Rules.

Courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Library

So I asked my longtime assistant, Leona Goodell, to type them up and, after some polishing, I gave a copy to the President. He promptly labeled them Rumsfelds Rules and asked me to give a copy to each of the senior members on the White House staff. Since then they have been read by presidents, government officials, business leaders, diplomats, members of Congress, and a great many others. Indeed, they seem to have taken on a life of their own.

Its worth noting that Rumsfelds Rules are not all Rumsfelds. Nor are they all rules. Many are life lessons and pieces of wisdom Ive gathered from others. Truth be told, I dont know if Ive had a truly original thought in my life. I enjoy being around people smarter than I am, who know more than I do, and who have done things I havent done. I generally figure out what I think about a tough issue by discussing it with others. It turns out that a great many of those individuals happened to be some of the ablest leaders in business, the military, politics, government, and global affairs. Much of what is distilled in these pages is credited to them. The rest of the rules are mainly observations I have heard, read, or gained through experience over eight decades of an unusually fortunate life.

A word about the format of the rules. I have tried to attribute quotes to the source where known. The rules that originated with me and those where the source is unknownI suppose you might call them known unknownsare left in the text without attribution.

I think the reason these maxims have proved useful is that they are insights into human naturetimeless truths that have survived the changes in our culture and even the many efficiencies enabled by modern technology. Most have broad applicability and can be useful whether you aspire to be a leader in government, church, business, sports, or the military. They convey distilled wisdom that can be called upon in daily life, add insights to conversations and meetings, illustrate a point more persuasively, or serve as guideposts in decision-making.

The original rules were compiled in 1974, but they were never conceived as a static list. Ive updated and changed them whenever I learned something newwhich happens almost every day. Its safe to say that in the intervening four decades a whale of a lot has happened, both in my life and in history. I would go on to serve in other posts in government and as chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

What I learned in the private sector affected me as much as or more than my time in government, and the rules reflect that. They have been enhanced by continued note-taking, and in this book, they are augmented with stories and anecdotes. In some cases, Rumsfelds Rules are the product of errors Ive seen others make; others are lessons learned the hard way from mistakes of my own. As such, they represent a unique and personal distillation of wisdom gathered over the course of a lifetime.