Newsletter – Want to Run a Tight, High Functioning Ship? Consider the Mueller Method

Let’s put aside for a moment the political controversy over special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. By all accounts of former employees, bosses and co-workers, Mueller has always run a tight ship. In a New York Times article: The Mueller Method: Tenacious, Tight-Lipped and By-the-Book, former colleagues from his stint as a U.S. Attorney, as well as when he ran the F.B.I. – four decades of public service — describe him as a steady and strong leader.

Mueller has told colleagues that he had learned a management mantra as a Marine platoon leader: You cannot make people do things they are incapable of doing.

Instead prodding employees to do better, he preferred to move quickly to assemble the best possible teams, even if that required terminating long-term employees and creating disruptions.