John W. Morris
A:
Oh, well, there were two or three in the United States at the time. The most prestigious was
advanced management course. The one at Pittsburgh was a little
Harvard. Harvard had a
shorter. I think it was 10 or 11 weeks. Our course included about 35 students, mostly Americans.
These were people who had had a certain amount of senior managerial experience and were on
the threshold of corporate executive positions. One purpose of the course was to make them
qualified.
It turned out that as a district engineer, I had had more leadership and managerial experience than
most individuals in the course. Nevertheless, it was a help to me because I got an insight into the
business world and met some outstanding people.
The one thing I came out of that course with was the fact that you need to know yourself. If you
don't and you're not honest with yourself, you can't communicate very well. I'll make that
clearer. In one exercise, they gave every student a list of or
adjectives. Each person rated
everyone else in the class against each of these adjectives. Also himself. You kept your own and
gave the others to the professor. The professor then passed all the ratings on each person to that
individual. The question was, "How did you rate yourself in relation to how others rated you?"
That was an interesting exercise. The man who had been elected class president came out number
one on that test. There was no correlation between the two events. The four officers selected for
the class officers were in the top four on that test. I've been impressed with that all my life. If a
person understands himself, he will be more apt to have people understand or to receive the
message he thinks he is sending.
At the least it helps you to be a better communicator. That's the important part. If you
communicate with somebody and they don't understand, it's probably your fault. The sender is
more at fault than the receiver. People often say, "I told you to do something, why didn't you do
it?" Well, you might want to think that over a little bit. Maybe they didn't understand what you
told them to do.
Q ..
So it was pretty select, only a very small number of officers.
A:
Yes. When I was in career development I think we sent maybe four or five a year, something like
that, out of the Corps. There were a couple of other Army officers at Pittsburgh but no other
engineers. Most of the students were nonmilitary.
Legislative Liaison
Q:
In November 1967 you came back to Washington as deputy chief, Legislative Liaison.
A: Yes.
Q .. How did you feel about that assignment?
A:
I liked the assignment. I felt I was fairly well qualified for it because of duty in Savannah and
especially Tulsa. Maybe that's how I got the job. That plus Howard Penney. The job was a
hatted job. We worked directly for the Secretary of the Army, and also for the Chief of Staff of
the Army on legislative matters. I think the chief, Legislative Liaison, is among the more
important jobs around the Pentagon. The Legislative Liaison people were seldom out front, but
they're always there, giving advice and analyzing congressional attitudes. As I mentioned earlier,
I think Howard Penney was the best staff officer I've ever known, and a great teacher.
The key issue during that assignment was Vietnam. As you know, President Johnson was into it
deeply. General William Westmoreland was asking for more troops, if you remember. We in
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