Chris Blackhurst: How US general Stanley McChrystal can help Britain's boardrooms

Stanley McChrystal and suits don’t go together.

He’s the ex-US Army general who commanded coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McChrystal was called home after a Rolling Stone magazine article appeared in which he made unflattering remarks about his masters in Washington.

He left the service and has since reinvented himself as a hugely in-demand management guru, advising major corporations via his McChrystal Group on how to make themselves more adaptable to the changing business world.

His book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (Penguin), was a best-seller in the US, and is launched here on Thursday.

It’s five-and-a-half years since he quit soldiering but he’s instantly recognisable as the figure who regularly appeared on our TV screens during those conflicts.

He’s lean and wiry, with a military haircut and, yes, a business suit and tie that look completely out of place.

He made his name in Iraq by acknowledging the brilliance and persistence of the enemy, al Qaeda.

Instead of drawing on the vast machine of the US military, he borrowed al Qaeda’s tactics and fought them at their own game.

Out went a large, hierarchical command structure and in came small teams responsible for their own actions.

It worked, and now he’s bringing his thinking and lessons learned from those experiences to business.

“The US Army taught me that people are capable of extraordinary things if their leader can create the atmosphere which allows that to happen.

“Why? Because the US Army takes average talent and gets an above-average outcome from them.”

Soldiers, he says, “don’t fight for policies, they don’t fight for money. They fight for the bond with their fellow soldiers.

“That was the same with al Qaeda — they were dedicated to a cause which joined them together and drove them on”.

By building small teams, that bond can be encouraged to develop. While working in commerce is hardly the same as being in the field of fire, he warns against complacency.

“Every corporate leader is minutes away from a life-changing experience. You can be chairman or chief executive, and all is great, then suddenly, it’s not.

“Look at Volkswagen. How you operate at that moment is extremely important. Most people think they’re prepared for it but they’re not.”

Companies, he argues, spend too much time recruiting those they think are the very best — with the top degrees from world-beating universities.

“What they should be doing is working on hiring decent people, then working on them to make them better.

“How often do you hear a chairman or CEO say their own company would not take them on today because it’s looking for more-qualified recruits?

“That’s crazy. Unless they’re a bad chairman or CEO, the company should be looking to recruit the same, and then mould them so they turn out the same as the current good chairman or CEO.”

I’m nodding in agreement as I remember how a bank at Canary Wharf used to cover its lifts and reception areas with posters proclaiming how it had hired so many folk with the very best marks in their subjects from the very best universities. Its name was Lehman.