The General vs. The President

The General vs. The President by H.W. Brands

H.W. Brands The General vs. The President tells a story of an episode in history where the entire country was united behind one of the players in a political duel, yet history now looks back at the event quite differently. Several years after the fact, most could admit that they were mostly incorrect in their choice of who was right and who was wrong.

In one corner was General of the Army Douglas MacArthur – hero of World War II and magnanimous conqueror of Japan. Arrogant, cocky, and walked with a swagger with his ubiquitous sunglasses and corn-cob pipe.  In the other corner – the 34^th President of the United States, Harry S. Truman.  Considered an “accident” by many. This meek, mild-mannered former hat shop manager was nominated as Roosevelt’s Vice President 5 weeks before death finally claimed FDR’s life.  Truman and MacArthur were quite the odd couple.

Unfortunately, even after the worst war in human history had finally concluded months after Truman was sworn in, the world was far from a peaceful place.  It was bad enough with Stalin and Communist Russia making unpleasant waves throughout the East.  By 1948, Mao-Tse Tung and the Red Chinese also took over the fledgling Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek.  What does the leader of the free world do? Well, MacArthur has a lot of ideas. Many good, most loved, but calmer heads such as Truman’s must prevail in many instances – despite what the country in a patriotic fervor might think.  When Red China’s communist neighbor North Korea invades its counterpart in the south, some sort of action is required.

So we see and hear the bickering go back and forth between the Truman and MacArthur. Most of it is done behind each other’s back, but the desire of each seems to be that the adversary eventually gets the message.  It doesn’t help when the General repeatedly makes his views quite obvious with the press with no concern of his boss’s toes being stepped on during the process.  After Red China enters the Korean “Police Action” (after MacArthur assured his Commander and Chief that such a thing would never happen), Truman is left with no other option other than to fire MacArthur.  The headlines then roared.

So MacArthur returns home to a widely appreciative country. Crowds gather, ticker tape parades are thrown, and women swoon and faint at the sight of the 70-year-old hero.  The masses would much rather have the General as their President than their bi-spectacled docile leader, and MacArthur drops many hints at such a goal for 1952.

The mood starts to slowly change during the Senate hearings of the general. There are a few in the halls of congress that refused to get sucked up by the burst of jingoism, and after many days in the “hot seat”, the masses finally have time to digest. Unbeknownst to many in the public, the godlike MacArthur had in fact committed many gaffes during the Korean theater, and the fervor that has enraptured the nation slowly fades away.  Just like old soldiers that never die.

This book was a very concise read.  I’ve read about the events in pretty through detail in William Manchester’s “American Caesar” (about MacArthur) and David McCullough’s “Truman”, yet Brands does an excellent job educating the novice.  I’m not sure of his actual purpose for focusing on such an event in history that has already been well documented.  It could be that he felt a book was necessary that shows us how blind we can be when caught up with patriotic zeal.  Such lessons are important. There are many that say that politics has gotten worse in last few decades. I’m not entirely sure I would agree with that sentiment. The difference, I believe, is instant access to newswires via the internet and social media that seem to spread such information at an accelerated pace. Brands shows us (as he has in many of his books about famous people) that partisan politics and bickering has always existed – you just never found out about what someone said until the next day’s papers.

This book is a great tale of how one can look back on history with much clearer vision and understanding than one might be able to do when we are in the thick of the events.  MacArthur is still looked at fondly by most, yet most historians now agree that Truman wasn’t really such a bad guy, nor a bad president, after all.

The Care and Feeding of Your Young Employee

The Care and Feeding of Your Young Employee – by Jamie Belinne

I have been a professional trainer and public speaker for more than 25 years. I love to use illustrations in my speeches and trainings.  I’ve used one for several years, using the movie “Titanic” as one such illustration. It was only a couple of months ago when it dawned on me – I really shouldn’t use this example anymore. “Titanic” is now older than 20 years, and many younger people in my audience have never seen it, nor even heard of it. I find myself having to make adjustments such as this on a fairly consistent basis. What’s “new” and “exciting” today seems to quickly turn into Yesterday’s news. 

These types of problems are tenfold when we talk about getting along and working well with others in the workplace. When we take the time to look around in our work environment, careful observation shows us that there are a wide variety of ages in most cases. In this book, author Jamie Belinne does a great job discussing the different generations, the different idiosyncrasies of each, and more importantly – how a manager must successfully juggle such a challenge. Her focus is on the older managers and the younger employees (note the title), but I almost wonder if the title of this book is a bit narrow. It seems to me that a younger manager who manages older employees can learn a lot from this book as well.

The nomenclature that people use for these different age groups varies. In her book, she focuses on how older managers (She calls them “Boomers” and “Generation X”) can successfully manage the younger crowd (“Generation Y” and “Generation Z”).  To hopefully clarify – Generation Y is also known as “Millennials” and Generation Z are the youngest of the young in the professional workplace – born around the turn of the century.  It’s interesting that Belinne notes that there has been a lot of emphasis on Generation Y being the “kids”, yet they really aren’t kids anymore.  So even if you think you may have a handle on what is important to Generation Y, you now need to get ready to create a brand-new slate since the younger crowd (Gen Z) will be crowding the employment train quickly in the foreseeable future – with different needs and expectations.

So the author describes many strategies, using actual case studies, on how people are different, and why people are different based on their respective age groups.  She does accurately point out that you can never pinpoint a person’s habits and personalities simply based on their age, but it’s fairly common that there are definitely trends within each of these groups. 

She also keeps her focus on the fact that companies and bosses can never prevent change, and the biggest change that companies always face is “generation gaps”. Rather than fight this change, a good company (and its managers) will embrace this change and come up with alternative strategies that work for different people. The author reminds us of just how important this is – if you can’t accommodate your younger workers’ different behaviors, they’ll simply pack up and go somewhere else. Never a good thing when trying to retain top talent.

I would almost recommend that companies use this book as a workbook. There are so many good ‘tips’ here, that it can be easy to forget many of the helpful suggestions that the author gives once you are done reading. I’m not a fan of companies making their employees (or managers) “read books” to aid them in doing their job, but I think it would be very beneficial for leaders at a company to spend maybe a week on each chapter and formulate questions, scenarios, and tips as to how to work well within the different age groups. I would also suggest that the examples and illustrations that the author gives are not unique to the workplace. Personalities within families and friends can rapidly deteriorate as well when one refuses to acknowledge key age differences among the people involved.

To be successful in today’s work environment, it’s crucial that you accept people as who they are (within limitations of course) and not try to “mold” or “assimilate” people into only one way of doing things. The author does an excellent job reminding us of this with many real-life examples.  The world of work is tough enough with competition, regulations, and negative Yelp reviews.  Why not make things slightly easier and figure out how to work well within the walls of our company?   

Yes, it can be hard and challenging, but it’s crucial that everyone adapts to this way of thinking if we want our company to survive and prosper in today’s workplace.

The Story of Christianity - Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation

The Story of Christianity – Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation by Justo Gonzales

1500 years is a lot of history to try to pack into one 500-page volume. Justo Gonzales does a very admirable job in this task. Although I’m a lover of history, the further back in time one goes, the more the enjoyment tends to slightly whither. In many cases, there simply isn’t as much reference material, and many important figures and events are left to some speculation.

This book probably could have been ten times as large as it is, but the author knows when enough is enough. He traces the history of Christianity as far back as the Resurrection. He then focuses on the key figures – good and bad – that helped Christianity grow and flourish.  It shouldn’t surprise us that, just like today, there was never complete agreement on how to interpret scripture, nor how one should live their life to obtain a status as “godly”. We read about scholarly debates in meticulous detail.  How could Jesus be totally man and totally God? If he was, what did this exactly mean, and how were we to treat such a figure?  Where did the term “monk” come from? Why were so many so joyous to choose to live their lives in isolation and poverty?

This book isn’t strictly linear. It simply can’t be. The author does a good job keeping his reader interested in the fascinating people and times. I confess, though, that not as many of the key people stuck with me after I completed this book. There were simply too many bishops, popes, and other key figures to keep track. A careful use of a notebook could have easily remedied this issue, though, and even though the people in the book were numerous, the author does a wonderful job of communicating the major events and feelings at the time.

We learn of schisms between East (Greek) and West (Roman) over scripture interpretation. We also see how many used the church for nothing more than a selfish power grab. Without going into detail, I was left feeling strongly that separation of church and state is a wonderful concept, and one that we should never abandon. We see the church becoming more and more corrupt, and although the book stops before the official Protestant Reformation (which was mainly due to the ongoing corruption), we can see the beginnings of such a movement. Since the book isn’t linear, we do read about events that happened several centuries after the Reformation – specifically the missionaries to Central and South America as late as the 1800s. My guess is that these events helped extend the original narrative and weren’t affected nor relevant to the Reformation – so it probably makes more sense to include them in this volume.

I’m eagerly awaiting reading the second, and final volume. Based on the author’s style and attitude (he has no problem pointing out mistakes of his faith throughout the years, and he’s no apologist), I’m fairly confident I’ll enjoy volume 2.  I’m hoping that one will sink in more since, being from a later time period, they’ll be more familiar faces, figures, and facts that will allow my brain to latch onto and retain better.

A very good starting point to learn the history of Christianity.