garage

“What we did in our headquarters all through Afghanistan and Iraq was we built everything out of plywood and we did it because you could build everything very very quickly and you could do it very inexpensively and you could rip it apart and redo it so that your function of your organization was shaped by the form and you could change it as often as you needed to. It also has a certain focused spartan mindset to it. if you are working on plywood you remember you’re here for a function and you’re not here to enjoy the particular types of furniture that you have.

Over time I got a little bit more zen like with plywood because i started to understand that if you look at plywood it’s really pieces of very mid-grade lumber shaved very thin and then they are glued together: when they’re alone you can take them and break them with your hand. when you glue them together they have extraordinary strength and i think that’s like organizations. i think we take ordinary people, and i think we pull them together into teams and then if leaders are the glue then i think we’ve created the equivalent of plywood and we’ve created something much stronger than individuals and so I become a great believer.”

General McChrystal’s general take on things

that last line in particular, “…and so I become a great believer.” has always weirded me out a little.

40 years later this is a story that has been covered by everyone, including the NYT… 

Ferry Terminals

Lower Manhattan