17

Accompany the Boss on Business Travel

As I was standing on a pier on a Friday night at around 10:30 p.m. in Philadelphia, the view was breathtaking. The stars were out and seemed to dangle over the beautiful downtown skyline. I turned to the boss, Army Secretary John O. Marsh, Jr., and remarked, “Sir, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

There had been many late workday nights on which I accompanied him as he did the business of the institution and the people. A former congressman, Jack Marsh was accustomed to working long days and nights. He had a penchant for doing the “extra” duties of his office at night and on weekends, never wanting to be far from the Pentagon during normal duty hours.

On this particular night, we had just come from a speech he had given at the historic Union Club in the City of Brotherly Love. At the moment, we were waiting for a helicopter to take us to the Philadelphia International Airport for a flight home.

There were so many other after-hours times with him, such as a scorching Saturday afternoon watching soldiers train at Fort Benning, Georgia. A Tuesday night in western Pennsylvania at a schoolhouse for a talk he was asked to give by Congressman Tom Ridge, a Vietnam veteran. A Wednesday afternoon and evening at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama when he was asked to speak to military and civilian representatives of the Huntsville area. A Friday evening in Charleston, West Virginia, at the invitation of Senator Jay Rockefeller to speak to citizens there about the state of the army. And countless more.

Taking care of the boss during times like these was a natural thing to do. The unnatural thing happened on the return trip from Charleston, West Virginia, to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, onboard an Army C-12 commuter plane. We were making our final descent to the military airport at Fort Belvoir when wind shear caught the plane and veered it hard right on a nearly 45-degree angle. Secretary Marsh was sitting one row forward to my left. I glanced over at him and sensed his concern. It mirrored mine. The two warrant officer pilots remained actively seized of the matter. They fought the controls and conditions and miraculously righted the aircraft just before touching down. I will never forget the secretary turning to me, relief in his eyes, and saying, “How about that!” The “that” was a Kodak moment, and it came with the territory of accompanying the boss on travel.

Beyond taking the responsibility for supporting the secretary or any of my bosses over the years for things I had asked them to do, they valued and expected someone to be by their side. To do what? To ensure that the details I had outlined in a pre-trip memo played out as expected.

Logistics are at the heart of any trip. This goes beyond just getting there and home. For me they included getting the boss comfortably settled in the commonly held reception scheduled beforehand while I went down the checklist of things I had requested in advance to confirm they were in order for the main event. That included everything: the room setting, the head table layout, who was seated at the right and left of the boss, whether the podium was lighted and had a slant with a lip, and whether the microphone was working properly. In a world in which PowerPoint presentations are common, the technology needs to be perfect. These things sound routine, but one should never leave anything to chance.

Most of my bosses had a protective habit when it came to their speeches. They resisted letting their speech box be out of their sight. Secretary Marsh was the most protective of all. He told me once that during his time as a congressman, he had put his speech on the podium in advance of being introduced. When he went to the podium to deliver his remarks, he found that the person who had introduced him had unwittingly taken his speech along with his introductory remarks back to his seat. No wonder the Secretary wanted to have his remarks in hand!

For me, as the boss’s support structure, no two times were the same. There was often last-minute research that the boss wanted done. There were unexpected emergency calls that had to be taken and conveyed to the boss. There were unanticipated shifts in the pattern of activities we had expected.

In today’s environment, it’s a matter of monitoring for the boss what’s going on in the world, in the industry, and in the community being visited. Things can happen, catastrophic things, unexpected things, from the time you leave home until the time you return from the trip. The job of the staff is to monitor news reports, which is easily done with a portable electronic device. I would even request that local newspapers be in the sedan that picked us up at the airport so that we could be current on local happenings.

Yes, the boss was always at a head table, sometimes elevated, sometimes just in the front of the room. It became habit for me to position myself in the room so that the boss could always see me. I would always let the boss know in advance where I would be so that he could make eye contact if he needed anything.

There was a memorable occasion in the summer of 1990 in Moscow. On the last night of a nine-day visit to the former Soviet Union, we Americans in the delegation and our Russian counterparts were guests of U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock at his residence for the farewell dinner. Great food and seemingly endless vodka toasts.

Near the end of the evening General Powell, seated with his Soviet counterpart, General Mikhail Moiseyev, looked over, caught my eye, and head motioned for me to come over. I went over and bent down, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs whispered that his Soviet counterpart was attempting to “drink him under the table.” I asked him if he was up to the challenge, and the general responded, “I will never let it happen.” It was a moment of trust and confidence when he needed to share something memorable with someone on the staff.

Yes, bosses are independent, and yes, many of them believe they need no help when traveling. Not so. Not only does the staff have the responsibility for support in advance of the trip, it has the responsibility for maintaining a presence during the trip to assist the boss in any way, expected or not.

Conversely, there are bosses who expect and need the support of staff members while traveling. It could be anything from personal care to professional advice. The staff, in keeping with the expression “Don’t leave home without it,” needs to be there in a support mode. Not an entourage, not more than is needed, but those required to keep the boss comfortable and assured that the day or night will go as expected.