For General Charles Q. Brown Jr., US Air Force (Ret.), joining the military was initially his father’s idea. In high school, he applied for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) scholarships and chose the Air Force and Texas Tech University, where he carved his own path from engineer to pilot. Over the course of his nearly 40-year career, he accrued more than 3,100 flying hours as a command pilot and eventually served as the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 2023 to 2025.
As America marks its 250th anniversary, we’re sitting down with public, private, and social sector leaders to explore the ideas and opportunities that will shape the country’s next chapter. In this interview, McKinsey Senior Partner Kirk Rieckhoff talks with Brown about the power of American opportunity and its can-do spirit, the importance of fundamental human skills in a technology-disrupted world, and how collaboration, adaptability, and the ability to scale good ideas can secure the nation’s future. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kirk Rieckhoff: When you look back over America’s 250 years, it has been this incredible journey of reinvention and adaptation. What distinctly American qualities have enabled the country to be so resilient and able to constantly reinvent itself?
General CQ Brown: People talk about America being the land of opportunity and its can-do spirit. When I think about the nation throughout its history, there’s been opportunity after opportunity—and in my own career, the opportunities I’ve had I never would’ve imagined. By having a can-do spirit and pushing yourself, America is able to reinvent itself and adapt to its environment. That’s an important aspect of opportunity, because when you provide opportunities, it opens up doors and windows that people probably didn’t think about. Sometimes they may not take that opportunity, but at least it’s something they can consider.
I read my biography and all the things I’ve been able to do. And I pinch myself because I was just being me. My wife and I have talked about this, that we were ordinary people with extraordinary opportunity.
Kirk Rieckhoff: In your career, you’ve seen a lot of change happen, and you’ve also led change through a number of disruptions and crises—as chief of staff of the Air Force and then as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What lessons have you drawn from those experiences about leading through change and disruption?
General CQ Brown: Personally, I’ve always thought about challenging the status quo and asking ourselves, “Why do we do what we do?” If you can’t explain it, and you don’t understand the facts and assumptions that underlie what you’re trying to achieve, you may be doing something that’s not producing an outcome. There’s a difference between activity and productivity. You could be doing things, but is it productive for achieving your objectives?
The other part of driving change is alignment. You could be the one person at the top talking about change, but you can have a whole organization below you that can slow down that change because they’re very comfortable where they are. You’ve got to look at how to build a vision of where you want to go, then tie that to all levels of the organization and lay out to others what’s in it for them: how it’s going to make their life better and make their job easier. As a senior officer, both in the Air Force and as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I believed my job was to make others’ jobs easier.
Not that I had complete influence or decision-making authority. But I was in a role where I could influence things. And if I could do something to make their jobs easier, it would make us more effective as an organization.
Kirk Rieckhoff: One of the things that you’ve talked about—and was in your first memo as chairman—was the importance of trust, both within the military and between the military and society. As we look toward America’s next chapter, what role does trust play in strengthening institutions and safeguarding the country’s continued progress?
General CQ Brown: When I wrote the memo that published my first day in the office as chairman, I had three expectations, the third of which was that trust is the foundation of our profession. To get things done, it was the trust we have with our service members and how we do right by them and their families. It’s the trust we have with our elected officials. The Pentagon has 535 board members—the members of Congress—with whom we must have trust and build relationships. And it’s trust with the American people because if they don’t trust the organization, they’re not going to encourage their sons and daughters to serve with us. No matter what the organization is, people are less inclined to be part of it if they don’t trust what you are doing.
As the Air Force chief, I published my strategic approach, “Accelerate Change or Lose.” Besides “accelerate,” another keyword embedded in the document is collaboration. The way you get things done is by being able to collaborate with trust. You never want to cold call on a crisis and you need to build those relationships before you need them. As the Air Force chief and the chairman, I was always engaging with my counterparts around the world, with industry, or with members of Congress, so when they picked up the phone in a crisis, it wasn’t the first time we talked.
Kirk Rieckhoff: Can you share stories or examples of how you have worked through past technological change and disruption, more specifically?
General CQ Brown: I think about my experience flying F-16s. When we first started, there was no GPS; you actually had to read a map. You looked out the cockpit and figured out what bridge or what landmark to refer to for navigation. Then we transitioned to using GPS as it became available. In F-16s early in my career, all we had were heat-seeking missiles. Then we got radar missiles, which increased shot ranges and drove changes in our tactics. Any time you have a new technology, it opens doors to be able to change your approach. With the advent of artificial intelligence, we did a survey across the joint staff when I was chairman. It was about one-third, one-third, and one-third: those who were at the leading edge and really wanted to use it; those who were kind of on the fence; and those who weren’t interested. You find the more you’re able to use something, the more you build trust. I think we’ve moved further down that path. For me personally, I’m using artificial intelligence much more than I had in the past.
One thing I am concerned with is, do we lose aspects of the foundational understanding of how to operate and execute? I think we both flew with Link 16. Link 16 is a digital link where airplanes can pass and display information back and forth, minimizing the need to talk to radio. We would sit at the end of the runway with some of our young pilots, who didn’t want to take off until they had the Link 16 work. And I go, “Well, the airplane still flies.”
You’ve got to figure out how to operate even when you have the technology, which may not work perfectly each time. It’s adaptation to bring in the technology and at the same time, adaptation when the technology doesn’t work or it’s being challenged. Do you have the basics of aviate, navigate, and communicate—things we both learned early in our careers? Those things still need to be applied with or without technology.
Kirk Rieckhoff: As you think more broadly about talent and the changing nature of our workforce needs, how do you see changes to talent in America’s next chapter?
General CQ Brown: There are a couple of areas. The first is, how do we inspire the next generation to take the roles that we’ve either had or paved the path toward? I really believe that young people only aspire to be what they see or know about. How do we collectively share our experiences of what we’ve done and where we’ve been?
I came to the Air Force to be an engineer. I got to fly F-16s for most of my career and also flew 20 other types of aircraft that I never imagined I would. Being able to travel around the world to every continent, 85 different countries, including the South Pole; all of those experiences and being in the Oval Office a number of times. Those are not things I was thinking about when I was in college.
The second thing I think about is, what are the career fields that we have today that will evolve alongside technology? About 60 percent of today’s careers are new since 1940. The same changes are going to happen going forward. How do we make sure that we’ve “backcast” versus forecast for this and account for it in our education and training programs, to make sure that young people are best prepared for the future that we think we’re going to have?
We can’t predict the future, but we can shape it. We’ve got to take a hard look at things, at these really tough issues, and identify opportunities. When I was a lieutenant colonel, one senior officer said, “Anything we don’t want to do, we just continue to study.” At some point, you have to take some action and do something versus continue to study the problem and come up with recommendations that no one implements.
Kirk Rieckhoff: The changes we’ve talked about are all going to come to life from the military force and also from the defense industrial base, and military readiness depends on both. If you look ahead, how might America maintain a healthy, vibrant, and technologically advanced industrial base?
General CQ Brown: If you look at the research and development funding or spending that’s happening, much more of it is in the private sector than in the public sector. The key part of this, once you look at that innovation, is how it fits into the overall approach that we’re looking at from a national security perspective. What operational concept is this piece of technology going to solve?
I’ll use drones as an example. A lot of drone companies have popped up. But what makes each of those unique enough that you can say, “This is the one that we use,” rather than one of the hundreds of others?
Then there’s the question of how these technologies scale? It’s one thing to have the good idea. But have you thought about how you are going to produce not just tens or twenties, but thousands of these so they can be used by the Pentagon or some place else in the private sector? Do you have a workforce that can help you do this? Do you have a supply chain that is robust enough to depend on—so not everything’s on back order when you need it? The innovation piece isn’t the only part to think about. You’ve got to forecast it out, because that’s what will make some of these viable and able to deliver a capability, versus just a good idea that shrivels away because it can’t deliver. I think the COVID-19 pandemic taught us some things about supply chains and the industrial base. The more we look into and understand that, it will help our long-term national security because it also affects our economic security.
Finally, there’s the level of adaptability. The threat’s going to change, the technology’s going to change, the environment’s going to change, and the use case might change. So, how well can you adapt?
Kirk Rieckhoff: As the United States invests more into defense—as some allies are also doing—how could we do this in a way that also supports economic prosperity?
General CQ Brown: I look at some of the capabilities and technologies that are not solely defense-related; they have applications in the commercial and private sector. That’s where I have a personal interest: what are the areas that not only help the Pentagon and international security but also help the nation and our general population? Artificial intelligence is a good example; so is the internet and the way we use our smart devices. Whatever we move forward in the commercial sector can help defense, and vice-versa. That makes the nation stronger.
The thing I really enjoy about working and thinking about what happens in the private sector is that they’re solving problems where, historically, the Pentagon was asking to get capability based on requirements. And sometimes you write requirements for areas where you don’t fully appreciate what problems can be solved. Just think about your smartphone today. When I was growing up, you had a phone that was tied to the wall, then went to a flip phone and then to a smartphone where you can surf the internet, take pictures, navigate. I mean, who asked for that? You just wanted a phone to communicate and now you have all of these other capabilities. That’s where the beauty of technology can open doors that we really didn’t think about before.
Kirk Rieckhoff: How might the US military or the Pentagon, or the ministries of defense in other countries, realize these types of opportunities in their own context?
General CQ Brown: This is the world of ideas that come together to ask: How can we make this better? It’s the beauty of having relationships around the world. One of the things I really tried to do as a senior leader is listen more than I talk. I’m going to learn something through the questions I ask, by the responses I get as I engage; all of those are important to be able to move things forward. You find that different countries do things a little bit differently. “You know, actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Why aren’t we doing that?” You’re still going to look at whatever your personal interest, your sector interest, or your national interest is. Those still play a key role. But what areas can you work on together that are going to move the ball forward for both of us, or for a group of countries or entities?
I say the more you engage, the more you know. The more you figure out what you do not know and you learn things from the people you engage with. When I was the Air Force chief, one of my counterparts said, “Good ideas have no rank.” So good ideas can come from any level of the organization.
I think the role of a leader is to search out those ideas and give them the room to grow. Some of those ideas are going to fail and we have to be okay with that. We’re going to learn from failure. It doesn’t need to be a complete failure, just something that didn’t work out so well. But what can we do to make it better in the next iteration? If you’re trying to derisk something to get it perfect, you’re never going to get it perfect—which means you’re never going to deliver it and allow users to experiment with it. The experimentation gives you important feedback on what it needs to be, whether it’s a piece of technology or a policy.
You can also get feedback if there’s something that someone is uncomfortable with. I had written this down in various memos for my staff: I always wanted to have the meeting after the meeting in the meeting itself. We’ve all been in meetings when some people don’t say anything but then they get to the hallway, after you’ve turned off the video teleconference, and then all of the opinions start to flow.
That does me no good after the fact. I’d rather have some of that conversation in the meeting so we can determine where we want to go, synthesize, and figure out where the challenges are—versus at the end of a discussion when someone goes, “Well, I don’t think this is going to work.” Or when it doesn’t work, they go, “I knew it wasn’t going to work.”
Related Articles
At 250, sustaining America’s competitive edge
