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Expect the Unexpected

Age and experience serve as sources for better anticipating what lies ahead. As twice-over British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said in the nineteenth century, “The expected always happens.” For the most part that’s true; it’s the unexpected that poses a problem.

That doesn’t mean you have to check under every rock or peer around every corner all the time to see what’s there. But you do need to take a regular sensing of what is occurring in your work world that you didn’t anticipate. Why? Because it’s smart. Moreover, it allows your reflexes to catch what’s coming your way.

If you have responsibilities in the office that go beyond just you, this extra vision comes in handy for others. Who might that be? Your subordinates, your peers, and most of all your boss. He or she has a hefty magnitude of responsibility already. In most cases, the boss has more to do than anyone else. The boss could use your help, oh, by the way. You can tell the boss you’ll be on the lookout for asteroids or earthquakes. Or you can just do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Large or small, threatening or not, the unexpected is going to be part of your professional life. You hold the cards and can determine the stakes.

Sometimes this comes naturally to people with responsibility; sometimes they have to work at it. Either way it’s part of your job description, written or assumed.

Over the course of my career, I had ample opportunity to provide those kinds of responses for the people I served. I didn’t always see things coming, but I improved at doing so as I learned to anticipate better the world around me and recognized the value of doing so. This came in handy in 1995 as Colin Powell and I finished the five-week “mother of all book tours” to promote his memoirs, My American Journey, and returned to our offices in Alexandria, Virginia, seeking a return to normalcy.

Not so fast! No rest for the weary. There had been ample outreach and encouragement by the thousands who paraded before him on the book tour. They wanted a signed book, but they were also asking that he run for president. Unexpected and unasked for admiration for a man they apparently felt they could trust.

He had an unexpected decision to make. Should he yield to this onslaught of political speculation and encouragement to declare his candidacy and run for president?

It sounds like an admirable thing to do. It plays to your ego. It conjures up all sorts of imperial fantasies of what life in the White House would be like. It also scares the hell out of you.

Over time, I have been asked several thousand times, “Why didn’t he make a run for it?” I have thought the answer through as many times or more. To start with, this was totally unanticipated. He didn’t ask to be president, he didn’t position himself to be a candidate; it just happened. The American people fell in love with Colin Powell going back to his days as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and that was very flattering. However, as the general always did when making an important decision, he considered all the factors. Not the least of these were the uncertainties and the unknowns. There were many.

Money. Since it would take tens of millions of dollars to run a primary campaign and hundreds of millions to run an entire presidential campaign, where would that kind of money come from? He hadn’t even declared a party affiliation. It’s a tougher financial climb for an independent. Between the two of us, we surely did not have the financial means to conduct a political campaign.

Timing. It was November 1995. For a general election that would take place in November 1996, he would have to declare his intent to run by December 1995, choose a party, and register for the primaries that would begin taking place in February 1996. That would have been a lot of work to accomplish in the short time available.

Staffing. When you have a staff of two, myself and one other, it seems a little light on people power. You need dozens and dozens of experts. We didn’t have that, and we had little time to raise a qualified staff. Not just people who wanted to help, not just well-meaning volunteers, but people who knew what they were doing when it came to political campaigns.

Policies. We had not one policy, foreign or domestic. We knew a lot about a lot of things, but for the most part that didn’t include well-developed positions on matters of importance to the people. I knew we couldn’t just make it up as we went along.

Space. With a small suite of offices, four in number, we were ill prepared to house the people who would be necessary to run a successful campaign. A campaign headquarters needs to be large and bustling, a place where hundreds of people can set up shop if necessary.

Family. When you run for president, it’s about more than just you. It’s about your spouse, children, even grandchildren. It’s about friend and foe alike. If you are elected president, it’s about those people in your life now but also about those who will be affected for the rest of their lives: where they live, where they go, what they do, who goes with them to protect them. You are a president until you die. Those important people in your life are affected that long or longer and deserve a vote too.

Aspiration. Soldiers don’t want to grow up to be cowboys or even presidents. It’s simply not in their DNA. We were just two old soldiers trying to sell a book. When you don’t have a desire to be someone or something in life, you can’t fake it. Call it a fire in the belly, call it a need, call it what you will. If your heart’s not in it, it’s a tough sell to oneself.

I had not expected the unexpected, the unwanted. But overwhelming political attention on Powell during the book tour left no doubt in my mind that the public insistence on his running would not go away. We would have to answer the call and very soon.

When the tour was over, I called a handful of people who had called me earlier that year saying they could find money if he made a run for it. They told me they stood ready to help. I circled back to dozens of friends who said they would volunteer to help if I ever needed them. All reassured me that they were ready. I found an entire empty floor in our office building. It was available and could be built out to house a staff.

Not perfect, but so far, so good. Timing was out of my hands, but the clock was still ticking. I could not change the dates of the primaries. Policy positions were endless: everything from the needs of wheat farmers in the Midwest to how to handle despots around the world. Data not easily assembled in the time available. As far as family and friends, no support parades had formed there.

The most important thing of all was his degree of desire to become president. I couldn’t be sure of this from one day to the next. Some days, I’d sense that yes, he was going for it; other days, no way, no how. Still the planning went on, down to and including a place where he could make his announcement one way or the other. The general manager of a hotel three blocks from our office was sworn to secrecy, but he agreed to be ready for a press conference on one day’s notice.

Anxious days. Sleepless nights. An unannounced weight loss program. Both of us sensed the gravity of the moment and the fact that the decision could be life-changing. Not once did he ask my opinion. Sometimes that’s how friends are.

Time was slipping by, and at the end of day on Friday, November 3, I went into his office and closed the door. Darkness had fallen. The room seemed eerily quiet. I said, “General, you have not asked for my opinion, but I owe you these thoughts. If you choose to go, I’m with you all the way.” But I gave him several considerations I thought he needed to ponder strongly before making his decision.

They included family, friends, finances, policies and positions on issues, and the obvious distraction from efforts to promote his book. I added, “I’m not convinced you should be headed in the direction of running.” He nodded and said he’d take it aboard.

The following Monday night he called me at home with his decision. He had decided against making a run. He felt comfortable with his choice not to seek the presidency. I urged him to make that conclusion public soon but to give me two days to make the final arrangements. On Tuesday, I issued a widespread telephonic press advisory indicating that the general intended to hold a press conference the following day at midafternoon in the ballroom of the hotel I had chosen earlier for the venue.

On November 8, 1995, he stood before a bank of reporters. With his wife, Alma, at his side on a stage that had been erected, he told the group that after serious consideration he had decided against running. He spoke about the impact that entry into political life would have on him and his family. He cited the sacrifices and difficulties required. He said, “The welfare of my family had to be the uppermost in my mind. Ultimately, however, I had to look deep into my soul, standing aside from the expectations and enthusiasms of others.” He concluded by saying, “I do not yet have a passion for political life, because such a life requires a calling that I do not yet hear.” At the end, however, he declared himself a Republican. It answered a lingering question many had asked.

He and I both slept better that night. We even started eating properly again. Yes, he had disappointed many millions of Americans. He regretted having done that. It had taken courage to not run, but it came with the conviction that first and foremost this needed to be about what was right for him.

For me the lessons were many. In life there is no clear road map for what lies ahead, no GPS system to guide us to a precise destination. Anticipation is very helpful. Had I not anticipated and had he decided to seek public office, the road ahead for both of us could have been highly uncertain and rocky.

As with an oncoming storm, you consider all the kinds of impacts this natural disaster can have on you. High winds, torrential rains, potential flooding, damage to property, loss of power and services, safety for self and others as well is most critical. Apply the same logic to all those things coming your way at high speed in the work world that could be destabilizing.

Preparing for that uncertainty is the key. Intuition is reliable. Considering all that could happen whether programmed or not. Allowing yourself to be all-inclusive with considerations of the things that can happen near term and long term in life. The kinds of things you can do for yourself and for your boss.

It doesn’t mean you have to be a fretter or a worrywart. It doesn’t mean you should overwhelm your boss with high-anxiety concerns. It does mean that you should be a thinker with the capacity to deal with things headed your way. Yes, we had expected that he’d sign a lot of books on the tour—60,000 to be exact. However, we had not expected the political frenzy that had encompassed us. It was important to translate those things into good advice for the boss, who hadn’t had time to expect the unexpected.