Blair in His Own Words

Bill’s Take-Aways  from

Tony  Blaire  A Journey: My Political Life 
 Vintage; Reprint edition, Random House, September 2, 2010; read Feb 2014

I picked up this book during a period last year when I was worn out. I needed a diversion from strategizing.  I have enjoyed this book as Tony Blaire writes for the common reader, not to political experts. He writes about things that have had my interest for years, especially the peace in Northern Ireland which in and of itself is brilliant.  I remember seemingly daily news of the violence between Catholics and Protestants that completely bewildered me at the time.  Ironic as it is, I found his writing inspiring me to think about leading and strategy ….     The locations are from the Kindle version of the book.  This is from the first half of the book.

Some of these simply are good advice while others prompted me to think much deeper about what it is I am spending my time on

3742-4 ch 6 Peace in Northern Ireland

The incident raised an interesting reflection on the nature of the PM’s job: you have to absorb a large amount of abuse.  Not crude shouting down or protests, but your motives constantly questioned or traduced, your words misunderstood or misrepresented, your attempts to do good seen as attempts either to further your own interests or even to do bad.

4162 ch 6 Peace in Northern Ireland

In conflict resolution, small things can be big things. This is not just about gripping, it is also about putting aside your view of what is important in favour of theirs.  And not being prissy about finding such things below your pay grade.  Your pay grade covers anything important to the parties you are serving: as defined by them. … if it matters to them, it matters to me.

4184

So the small things matter because in the minds of the key parties, they often loom large with a perspective we can’t always grasp.

<< Application - leading a team & serving & leading  >>

4199

In the creativity, you cannot always think of everything, but you should be wary of doing anything that forfeits trust.

4246 context of having a 3^rd party mediate in conflict resolution

The point is the outside party does not just help negotiate and mediate: they act as a buffer, a messenger and, crucially, as a persuader of good faith in a climate usually dominated by distrust.

They also help define issues and indeed turning points.

4281…4286

Realise that for both sides resolving the conflict is a journey,  a process, not an event.  Each side takes time to leave the past behind. … the “ways” have to be “unset” so that change can make progress.

** 4596-4607  ch 7 We govern in Prose, context Chamberlain and the Munich Agreement with Hitler

Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognizing the fundamental question.  And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. 

…you might think the question was: can Hitler be contained? That’s what Chamberlain thought. And, on that balance, he thought he could. And rationally, Chamberlain should have been right. Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was supreme in Germany. Why not be satisfied?  …  But that wasn’t the fundamental question. The fundamental question was: does fascism represent a force that is so strong and rooted that it has to be uprooted and destroyed? Put like that, the confrontation was indeed inevitable. The only question was when and how.

In other words, Chamberlain took a narrow and segmented view – Hitler was a leader, Germany a country, 1933 a moment in time: could he be contained? 

Actually, Hitler was the product as well as the author of an ideology that gripped several countries, of which Germany was one. By 1938, fascism was culminating in a force…. [Chamberlain] misunderstood the question and so answered wrongly. 

<  Chamberlains legacy as PM was overshadowed by his failure to prevent Europe from going to war with Hitler, thus making Blaire’s point all the more apropos. -  This begged the question for me  - in my plan of attack to see my end vision reached, have I discerned the right question and thus the most effective course of action?

a.      Compare Continuum of Activities with what I have been doing last several years.

b.      Adjust my activities based on where the work is at in the different areas, thus telling me what needs to happen, where and with whom. 

c.      Translate that into team action  >

4941 ch 8 Kosovo

There was a desire to pacify, but not to resolve.

4948

…to recognize the necessity of the moment and act.

5472 ch 9 Forces of Conservatism

That’s the funning things about decisions as prime minister: some are about doing things, but equally important are those about not doing things. They all come thick and fast, and sometimes you don’t recognize them as decisions. They tend to be the things you say “no” to. 

5652  context: institutional & systems reforms

Structures beget standards. How a service is configured affects outcomes.

6222 ch 10 Managing Crises

…don’t pretend to be other than you are.

6368 context: Opposition

…they didn’t really want us to lose the fight, but a bit of kicking might serve us right.

6735 (social democracy? )

…bring the private sector into the running of public services.

7282-7289  ch 12 9/11 “Shoulder to Shoulder”

Context  -  Islam and her reactions to 9/11

…. [those Muslims] who condemn the terrorists and their world view.  But…even this group have not yet confidently found their way to articulating a thoroughly reformed and modernizing view of Islam.  In other words, it is true they find the terrorism repugnant and they wish to be in alliance with the Western nations against it, but this does not yet translate into an alternative narrative for Islam that makes sense of its history and provides a coherent vision for its future. What this means is that very often countries in the Arab and Muslim world will offer their people a disconcerting and ultimately self-defeating choice between a ruling elite with the right idea, but which they are reluctant or fearful to advertise, and a popular movement with the wrong one, which they are all too keen to proclaim.

...it’s a fundamental struggle for the mind, heart and soul of Islam.