‘Listen to what’s not being said to you’

Don’t trust anybody who never finds fault in you, General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a standing-room-only crowd of GSB students at Hyde Park Center May 5. “You need somebody who will look you in the eye and tell you, ‘I see it a little bit differently,’” Pace said. “When you’re younger or more junior, listening to what’s being said to you is important. As you get more senior, listening to what’s not being said to you—and understanding when it’s not being said—is important.”

If Pace were hiring GSB students, he would look for those who do their homework, have been taught courage, and demonstrate compassion for associates, he said. “I’m not talking about physical courage in a battlefield, but mental courage, intellectual courage to lay their ideas on a table in a way that you can understand, defend their ideas properly, and change their ideas when faced with overwhelming intellect that shows they’re wrong,” Pace said. He called himself “very much a human resources guy” who believes the key ingredients in his staff are the quality of the people, their training, their education, and their compensation.

Pace foresees a wide variety of changes over the next 20 years for the U.S. military. He predicts smaller-sized forces stationed largely at home, faster mobility, more precision in delivery, much more integration among branches and allies, much more cultural and linguistic diversity, continued anti-terrorism efforts, and further embedding in an expanded NATO, yet similar experiences in warfare. “I believe the experience for the soldier, sailor, and Marine will be very, very similar to today—both in the reward for what you’re doing and the horror of the battlefield and what happens on the battlefield,” Pace said.

—Phil Rockrohr