Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates Keynotes Nutanix Now Partner Conference

Robert Gates

Robert Gates, the former CIA director and the only person to serve as Secretary of Defense under two presidents of different parties, gave the keynote presentation at the Nutanix Now partner conference. Gates reflected on the importance of leadership and how the lessons he learned in his decades of national service can help IT solution providers.

Gates, whose consulting firm Rice Hadley Gates LLP is helping Nutanix to win federal business, said he's happy to be working with Nutanix. "The Pentagon probably has several times the number of PR people as Nutanix has people," he said. "It certainly has thousands of times more lawyers."

[Related: Nutanix's First Partner Conference: New VDI ROI Tool, Channel-Focused Services]

Gates used his experience in government to highlight the importance of making good decisions when faced with a lack of information.

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During a 1973 intelligence briefing in Geneva that included Gates and U.S. Ambassador Paul Nitze, Gates said, analysts had concluded there would be no war between Egypt and Israel.

"Nitze asked me, 'Do you read French?'" he said. "I said, 'No.' He asked, 'Do you listen to the radio?' I said, 'No.' He said, 'If you read French or listened to the radio, you'd know that Egypt attacked Israel two hours ago.'" That morning, the Yom Kippur War had begun. And Gates said he did not know about it.

Gates then went on to cite four examples of bold decisions made in the face of a lack of complete information.

In the first example, he told about former President Ronald Reagan's decision to drive the Soviet Union into the "ash heap of history." The opportunity came in 1985 when an analyst told Reagan the Soviet Union couldn't survive, making it the first time in U.S. history a major adversary was doomed, quite possibly during Reagan's presidency.

There was a lot of disagreement about how Reagan should conduct his first meeting with the Chairman of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, with the Pentagon worried that Reagan would bargain away the U.S. military advantage, Gates said.

However, Reagan seized the moment, and recognized that, after several years of U.S. military buildup, "there was an opportunity to sheathe the sword," he said.

NEXT: Cost Vs. Lives, The Surge, And The Osama Bin Laden Raid

The second came in April 2007, during a real low point for the U.S. fighting in Iraq, when then-Secretary of Defense Gates read in USA Today about a vehicle that might be able to protect U.S. troops from IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. "It seemed the new vehicle, the MRAP, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, could save thousands of soldiers," he said.

However, many in the Pentagon were against the MRAP for several reasons, including the fact that they were not made for fighting, they were too wide, they had no use after the war, and they were too expensive at $1 million each, Gates said. More important, though, was the fact that they could save lives, he said.

"I believe I had to seize the moment to go all-in to save lives. ... There was no doubt the decision to commit to the MRAP was the right one."

The third was the decision in 2009 to send a surge of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan instead of scaling back the U.S. presence in that country or leaving it altogether, which would open the door to a fundamentalist takeover, Gates said.

President Obama agreed to the surge, Gates said. "The decision was right. ... The timing was right," he said. "Any delay would be a disaster."

The fourth example was President Obama's decision to raid the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding. Gates said the decision was based on fairly weak intelligence, and that he and others worried that such a raid might not capture bin Laden, would not succeed, or would anger the Pakistanis.

Analysts had estimated the chance of success of the raid to be 40 percent to 80 percent, Gates said. "As a former CIA analyst, I know those numbers were phony," he said. "They were putting numbers on gut instinct."

While President Obama made the right call in giving the green light for the bin Laden raid, the disaster of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed 1980 plan of President Carter to rescue U.S. hostages held by Iran, caused skepticism inside the government, Gates said. "Three decades later, the memory was seared in our hearts," he said.

Gates concluded that all leaders can benefit from the examples he provided, as well as countless other examples.

"Recognize that the newer the terrain, in war and in business, makes making the decision difficult," he said.

NEXT: Applying Gates' Lessons To IT And The Channel

Gates also said his decision to remain as Secretary of Defense after Barack Obama was elected president was a difficult one, and came only after lengthy discussions and his "prequalification" with Obama in the form of written questions he had for the president-elect.

During the Q&A period following Gates' presentation, Keith Norbie, director of server, virtualization and storage for the Eastern U.S. for Technology Integration Group (TIG), a San Diego-based solution provider, asked Gates how the decision process used by government can provide insights into IT decision-making.

Gates responded that most IT decisions in government are made by people like him who do not really understand IT.

"We usually have two sets of advisers," he said. "On the one hand are the technical advisers, and on the other hand are the users."

The decision-making process can make it difficult to work in Washington, D.C., Gates said. "My first reaction when asked if I would handle the federal relations for Nutanix was, I expressed sympathy," he said.

Norbie later told CRN that he thought Gates' presentation was "stunning."

"Where have you ever seen the Secretary of Defense pre-question the president-elect," he said. "The fact that he pre-questioned President Obama to prequalify was never done before."

That prequalification process was a good analogy for the channel, Norbie said.

"In the channel, partners look at manufacturers as Gates looked at the president-elect, and decide how they qualify for the manufacturers," he said. "That's different from what I'm doing. I look at how the manufacturers qualify for me."

Gates' admission that he didn't receive respect when it came to IT is one that everyone experiences at some time or another, said Terry Buchanan, vice president of technology and general manager at Zycom Technology, a Kingston, Ontario-based cloud services provider and Nutanix partner.

That is a lesson Buchanan said he applies in his customer dealings. "If I have five minutes, there's no way I'll talk techno-babble," he said. "I'll say, I know your problem. I'll come back to you with a solution."

Tim Neary, president of Blue Collar Storage Solutions, an Allen, Texas-based solution provider and Nutanix partner, described as "awesome" Gates' insights into the decision-making process.

"A philosophy I've had all my life, and it was good to hear Gates talk about it, is that tenacity is important," Neary said. "How you handle it determines your success and failure."

PUBLISHED APRIL 3, 2014