Leading the Future Informed by Lessons From History With Juan Carlos Pinzón

Jon Clifton:
[0:00] You made a really bold decision in 2018 to run for president. And there are a lot of people, I think, today that are wondering, will there be a time when you declare your candidacy again? When you do that, what thought process do you go through to make a decision to say, I'm going to run for president?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[0:18] Well, I'm spending a lot of my time these days thinking on that.

Jon Clifton:
[0:22] Few leaders have faced as many life-or-death decisions as Juan Carlos Pinzon, Colombia's former minister of defense and twice its ambassador to the United States. He has commanded operations where minutes decided the fate of hostages, and he has wrestled with the paradox every leader must face: chasing headlines today or securing a nation's future tomorrow. He shows why the emotions of a nation matter as much as its wealth, and how his Context, a rare strength, guides every decision he makes. This is my conversation with Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon.

Mr. Minister, welcome back to Gallup.

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[1:03] Well, thank you, Jon. It's a pleasure to be here.

Jon Clifton:
[1:06] Right now, we have more conflict in the world than at any point since World War II. You have Focus. You're a former minister of defense. Where do we start?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[1:19] I get your point. You know, if you think what has happened in the past five years in the world, nobody saw it coming. And simply we have ... We have a war in the middle of Europe. We have multiple wars in Asia. We have the Middle East, you know, just on a permanent tension and with the hardest, I would say the strongest, biggest war we have seen in the Middle East ever. In Africa, we have seen like seven coups d'etat in a very short period of time. So the world is changing, and there's a global order that we're starting to miss because somehow we're in a global disorder.

Jon Clifton:
[1:56] So you've studied so much of military history, and of course you have Learner in your top five. What would you say is kind of the greatest thing that you've ever learned about everything that you've ever studied in military history?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[2:10] Well, one thing is that principles of war never change at the end. They're very much the same. You know, technology change, people change, culture change, even geography change. The principles, they don't.

Jon Clifton:
[2:24] What are they?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[2:25] Well, the things that you need to study, like, you know, how to use the force, how to prepare the force, how to have intelligence, how to set up the qualities and capabilities in order to confront. And one that is very important just to look ahead on, you know, and this is a little bit of being futuristic in a sense, where things are going and where we chart the different layers of conflict. Sometimes we kind of think that conflict is just the friction, the war, you know, this change of fire. And sometimes it's very much more than that. It's like, what are the political aims? You know, what are the logistical capabilities of, you know, yours and your opponent? How technology appears to be like accelerator of, you know, multiple objectives. And always what is this balance between economics, the treasure, you know, and technology, you know, the tools that you use. But at the end, political aims. Why do countries do whatever? What is that someone is moving to something else? You know, as you see, I get enthusiastic and I kind of want to tell you the whole story already. But that's a little bit how I see things.

Jon Clifton:
[3:46] There's a famous quote that I think people kind of debate whether or not it's true, but it says, history repeats itself. Do you think that's true?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[3:54] I think somehow, as I said, there are dots that will repeat. And it's good when you're making, especially during crisis ... getting some sense of how crises were handled by different leaders in different times in history. And I would say from, you know, government, diplomacy, to, you know, war affairs, military affairs, on to corporate affairs, it's kind of, you're not the only one that is confronting a crisis. You're not the only one that is trying to, you know, succeed and do things. So how others did it? And it's hard to say that things repeat exactly, but the elements always will be very similar. So, I mean, you can get inspired by getting that sense from others.

Jon Clifton:
[4:40] You're a student of history. You lived history. You made history. What's a lesson that you learned painfully that you wish you would have known earlier on?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[4:51] Oof. Kind of, there are too many good positive stories, but always you kind of get the feeling about the ones that were the hardest. And, you know, I will go to the whole strategic discussion. At the time I was minister of defense, my role, my job, was to defeat, weaken the opponents to the level that they had only one chance, negotiate. So we knew this is about fighting a war that is different because you cannot use the whole conventional power, but at the same time deploying a very deep development capacity. Making sure that as much as we progress, we need to consolidate through, let's say, social progress at the same time. It's kind of, yeah, you feed an enemy, but then what do you bring to the people that was in that area?

But there are two things in history that are important to remember. One is something that is considered like the peace dividend, which is politicians and society somehow, how once they don't have the fear of conflict, they stop investing in security. So it degrades and weakens security very much. And the second one is more on the political aims. You expect that, you know, when someone is trying to achieve a political aim, the values are more important than the short-term benefits. But in politics, everything is tomorrow morning. Everything is now. You know, people does this for their own legacy. They don't do it for the big solution. And that happens very often in history, meaning those that are great leaders are trying to do things that are not even benefiting them today, but are going to make big changes for countries, corporations, institutions. While the regular leader is just, you know, I want to look good in tomorrow morning headline, and that's what I care, you know, because I'm thinking on the next election or so.

Why am I saying all this? Because that was a big, big lesson on one side. Colombian state let the military victory alone. It used it for the purpose of making an agreement, peace agreement that may look very well those that were trying to sign there but was not solving the long-term problem. Because what was going to be the long-term problem? Bringing development and bringing justice and bringing all the presence of the state that was necessary. That was missed. So at the end, it's a big pain because it's kind of on my side of the job, we did everything that was expected to be done by the book and we succeeded. But on the long game, I didn't thought that those things that in the past have failed were going to repeat. And it's kind of, we got it, you know?

Jon Clifton:
[8:03] I remember about two years ago when the human development report that the United Nations puts out, one of the biggest things that they covered, it was in the opening pages, this global rise of anger, stress, sadness, pain, and worry. And although I read it, you were actually the first one to send it to me and say, hey, did you guys see this? What inspires you to kind of consume that information? And, you know, for a lot of leaders, I think it's kind of cutting edge for them to say, let's bring in behavioral-based data. Let's bring in data that explains the emotional economy. Why do you do it?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[8:37] First, because I really believe in understanding people. You know, if you're a company, you need to understand your consumers. If you are a political leader, you need to understand the people of the country. And the people of the country not necessarily are aligned with the data that traditionally allows you to understand economic or democratic stability. They can be angry simply because they don't feel they are getting enough. Even the country numbers could be great. I think the reports that you have been working here at Gallup are giving some tools and some sense of those elements. It might not be perfect. Nothing is perfect. But nobody else has that part. And I think that's something we should be developing more.

Jon Clifton:
[9:24] You mentioned fear. In so many high-risk situations that you've been in personally, when you feel fear, what strengths do you turn to?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[9:35] Analytical skills. That, to me, is critical. You know, crisis is about being a good analytical person. Why that is important? Because having analytical skills means that you have thought before on data, cases, issues, options, because you have to make decisions right away. But then you have to be ready to do two things very fast. Get the sense of the problem so you understand the capabilities, the resources, whatever you need to apply. You knew that from before. The second is be ready to listen to experts on the field of the problem you're in. And putting the two things together allows you to move into the right decision. Now, for that, you have sometimes minutes, a few hours, and you have to make decisions. That's your part. It's your decision. It's your call. But as I said before, it's not about a hunch. It's not about, I think that, I believe that. No. I know this. I listen to people that knows about the issue, and then I make decisions. And everything, fast. That's how you do it.

Jon Clifton:
[10:50] But how do you make sure, I mean, with Context, with Learner, with Analytical, I mean, there could be a time where you struggle and say, I need more information. I need more information. How do you know when you say time's up?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[11:04] Depends on the crisis, but, you know, the life and death crisis really led you to that point. I remember the day we targeted the head of the FARC, and the first attack, we missed the objective. So I could do two things, wait for a better day or pursue to the moment to achieve the objective. But doing that was too risky. So I knew exactly, analytically, how many troops we had, how many choppers we had, what capabilities were assigned to the process, and what alternative plan we have. Because the good news is, that's why you need planning. Because when we fail on plan A, we had a plan B, and then a plan C. So we moved from plan A to plan B, and then we got ready to plan C. And at the end, everything happened at plan C. How did I make the decision? It took me probably five minutes. Since the failure of the plan A, I had in front the top generals, experts on this, the intelligence officers, and I asked them, what do you think? One by one by one, five people. They provided me information. I knew the context. And then I knew something in history. You know, a winning day means you have to give it all. So I said, let's go. And we did it. And we got it. That's a real crisis. That was seconds.

There are crises in which you get the old feeling. I remember the last group of military and policemen that were hostages of the FARC. We made this decision to free them in a special operations action. So we send a unit like for I would say four to five weeks and they were, you know, trying to find them in the middle of a jungle in a very difficult place. Suddenly some of, two of the team out of I would say 31 people, you know, there were two groups of five and I would say 26 or so behind. Two of the guys got something, a tropical disease, I would say malaria or any of those. So the decision was end this phase of the operation, take out the whole team, and let them recover and keep the intelligence in order to repeat the effort. When they were going out, after 30 days or more trying to find the hostages, they found them. So the decision was, do we do it now, or do we take the people and wait and see? And, you know, I listened to the different positions. The commanding captain of the unit said, we can do it. Trust me. Some of the generals were saying, no, no, we got to take these people out. They're in trouble. They're not at their best physically. So let's try it later. I made the choice. I said, let's go. Let's go for it.

And a very sad day. Out of five, we only rescued three. The other two were executed by the FARC when they found that the troops were around. Actually, three that saved their lives were very smart. So when they got the feeling that something was going on, they protect themselves by running away. And well, the end of the operation was, uh, a sweet and sour. I would say sour and sweet because every life that I lost onto that is still, you know, hurts me in a way. I know exactly how it happened and what happened, but of course it was sweet in the sense that three families finally saw their people after 12 years of being hostages. You have to make decisions. Did I make the right decision that day? It's a big question mark still. But I made a decision out of analytical tools and having access to others' expertise. That's what we did. And that's what I decided. There is a history now.

Jon Clifton:
[15:37] Your number one strength Context, it's one of the rarest in our entire database. What's it like when, as a minister of defense, how do you use Context in a leadership role like that?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[15:50] Let me start by saying that when I got Context as my first strength, I was a bit surprised.

Jon Clifton:
[15:56] Why?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[15:56] Well, I was expecting more like a Command or more like something related to decision. And then I found it was Context. And then, honestly, I embraced it very much because kind of I understood what it means. And somehow how useful has been for me to, I guess, have it, you know, and try to use it. Let me explain. At the end, what matters is to have a clear vision on the problem you're confronting and the challenges you're going to try to solve ahead in the future. But you need somehow to think about it, you know, and being a strategic thinker, because that's the role of a leader at the top. It's, you know, have a vision, where you're going, why you're going to a certain place. It's very important to have that in a way in which you can understand the past, the history. Because most of the things that you're confronting somehow have happened in similar ways in different times in history. And that's a little bit what I found. Yes, I'm a history reader. I've been very much engaged into military history, and I always try to find some dots in history. You know, it's very difficult just to say, you know, this happened and it's exactly what is happening to you. But there are things that previous leaders, that previous nations have confronted. You know, even in corporate world, companies have done things that are similar to the ones that you're doing now. That's where I have found so important and somehow so useful to have Context as this skill.

Jon Clifton:
[17:35] Is there somebody today that you think is communicating in a way that you think is absolutely remarkable, a leader today public, private sector, anything?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[17:45] I'm always compelled with Winston Churchill capability of communicating. At the time of war, how he was able to tell the world his view, his vision. But at the same time, not only he committed his country, he committed harder countries like the U.S. But then he was able to translate that into not only a vision, but a war plan that succeeded. And I think he did it all by being the strongest communicator of his time and eventually one of the greatest in the world. And using the new technologies of the time, the radio access, you know, to everybody else. And I think that's a remarkable story as well and a case to learn about.

Jon Clifton:
[18:31] You brought up a really interesting point about focus. Of course, Focus is one of your top five. And you said how important it is for leaders to focus. You know, Gallup did, we've done this kind of longitudinal study where we ask Americans around the time of elections. And we say to them, what's the single biggest issue facing the country? And then the second question we ask is, and what party do you think would be best to handle it? That two-part series has only been wrong once in the history of our tracking. And so my question is, when you're trying to figure out what it is that you're supposed to focus on as a private or public sector leader, is it just that easy to ask people what they want? And the reason I'm asking is because, you know, George Gallup was then asked that previously, our founder, and some said, well, are you basically just operating as a survey researcher and advocating for direct democracy that politicians should just do what people say? And he said, no, I never said that. He said back to them, you always need to do what's right. But when you do that, you need to know what people are thinking. So where is it when you're implementing your Focus in a leadership capacity? How do you know where to focus?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[19:43] That's a very big theme, the one that you present. And I don't think there's an easy answer, but I'm going to give you my take. My take is that you need to be prepared to be unpopular. That's tough, but it's why you are being chosen to make decisions and to bring a perspective. So I think you have to go for bigger aims than what is popular, what is being said by people. But then once you start that process, because you think that, for instance, in my country, it was clear that security was critical because without security, we were not going to have investment. And without investment, we're going to have jobs. And without jobs, we're going to have more tax collection. And without tax collection, we cannot have the social programs, education, healthcare, you know, the roads, infrastructure, et cetera. So I'm not saying in this case that security was the mother of everything, but I was very certain that without security, all the other things that are key for society to happen were not going to happen. I think that's what I have found.

You know, expertise means that you have to identify what are the main drivers of, you know, the objectives, the success that you're seeking, and through that, you know, make a plan. Now, as I many times said in my country, and I said to my fellow people, security is not the end. It's, you know, it's just a road. It's just a path. It's a mean, you know, for success. I think we need to learn to live in a fragmented world, being more adaptive, and keep our focus. Because, by the way, you know, sometimes, when you have this adversarial world, part of the intention of your adversary is to make you lose your focus. You know, that's a little bit of a part of the game, you know, and I'll be of war stories again, you know. A thing that you want with your opponent is to not let him think. It's to put you offside your track. So that's when being focused is even more important, you know, and having a clear vision out of the context you have, but being clear to where to move.

Jon Clifton:
[22:08] Speaking of all of this conflict in the world, the fact that so many people have lost faith in so many institutions in the world, you can start to feel total despair about the world. Where do you see hope right now?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[22:23] No, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. Look, we have technologies today that can solve things that never, ever before we could even try. We have the access of technology and opportunity larger than ever before. We have more people out of poverty than ever before. And the only thing that can happen is that we can continue to move forward. Now, there are challenges, challenges that are not new, as I explained before. And that, of course, leaders will have to find always alternatives to, you know, confront those challenges. But I'm positive that's right. By the way, whatever is happening on artificial intelligence and quantum computing, you know, it's like hope is there. You know, eventually we're going to have societies that are more advanced, faster than we thought. And eventually that's going to bring a lot of comfort and joy to people. Of course, can you use all those technologies to weaponize and to use it for the purpose of power? Of course. You know, that has been the history of the world all the time. But the events of positiveness that we're going to see a long time are very, very powerful. Now, part of the challenge every leader has, maybe every person, is to be part of the positive, is to, you know, feel itself included into that and use what other tools we have to benefit. Or you can be just an expectator and an angry person just seeing everything going on instead of being, you know, inside the train. So, you know, everybody's welcome in the train. That would be my advice to everybody.

Jon Clifton:
[24:07] And, of course, one of the needs that people say that they have for leaders is hope. If a young person found that they had Context like you in their top five, and they wanted to help demonstrate a hopeful way for the future, what advice would you have for them if they too had Context?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[24:26] Well, first of all, feel joyful about it. Because, you know, many people doesn't want to look to history. They don't care. Simply, they don't care. But if you're lucky to care, embrace it. Keep learning, keep reading, keep in the process of using that as an analytical tool. And by the way, there is no way to be a good strategic planner if you don't understand 360 what is going on. And that's the very big power of Context.

Jon Clifton:
[25:00] When you look at all of your strengths, which of your strengths brings you the most joy?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[25:06] Futuristic, I would say, you know, because I'm always thinking on that future and somehow trying to understand any technologies, you know, trying to see a vision. Now, Context brings me back somehow and balances me, but Futuristic, I enjoy very much.

Jon Clifton:
[25:23] But what does that mean? So if Futuristic brings you most joy and Context brings you back, then what does that say of your Context?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[25:29] Well, it means that it's realism, you know, Context gives you realism. While Futuristic give you optimism and future and hope. And then real life is balance. That's how I see it.

Jon Clifton:
[25:42] It's one of the more interesting data points that when we ask people about joy and laughter, the Latin Americans always rank the highest in the world.

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[25:51] Oh, yeah. I can understand that.

Jon Clifton:
[25:54] Why? What explains it?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[25:55] I think it's two things. One is the fortune of our culture. You know, we care for music. We care for family. We care for partying. Everything is a party. Everything is a carnival in Latin America. So that's beautiful and nice. I think it's a great strength we have. Our culture, our way of being, it's very powerful. And at the end, sometimes I have thought about this, so much suffering. I'm going to speak more for my country, Colombia. Is so much violence that we have seen, so much, you know, difficulties. And somehow it's related to, you know, having that joy at the same time. So you live on the very difficult things, but at the same time you have this joy that allows you to, you know, keep moving ahead.

Jon Clifton:
[26:43] You know, it's amazing though that the countries in the world that rate their lives the highest aren't always the ones that have the most fun. And yet some of the countries in the world that do have the most fun, they don't rate their lives the highest. In fact, sometimes they're even the poorest. Take, for example, the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is in the bottom quartile when it comes to income. They're in the bottom quartile for life evaluation. But when you look at the positive emotions, they're in the top quartile. Can you have them both?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[27:15] Well, I think so. That's very Latin American. And the word came to me, resilience. That's the word of my country, resilience. It's kind of, we suffer, but because we have this joy and this culture, we balance and we can resist and move on. That's very much Colombia, you know. But I see it in other countries in Latin America of course the Dominican Republic as you said. But what I learned from being in Finland and Denmark is that there's a difference between joyful emotion and happiness. Happiness is about having a good set of life you know fully rounded that gives you protection and allows you to move on. And for the Finnish, that's something that, you know, I asked many times to some of the leaders and experts and even some of the people in the streets, why are you supposed to be the happiest country in the world? And they said, well, we don't know. We thought, we don't think ourselves of being the happiest. But the thing that we have is that we were expecting to be a lot lower in life quality than where we are. So we're happy for what we have.

Jon Clifton:
[28:23] You know, you said that it's a case that you're trying to make for your country. You made a really bold decision in 2018 to run for president. And there are a lot of people, I think, today that are wondering, will there be a time when you declare your candidacy again? When you do that, what thought process do you go through to make a decision to say, I'm going to run for president?

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[28:47] Well, I'm spending a lot of my time these days thinking on that. I haven't made a decision to run, but I'm considering that seriously. I have to confess, and as politically correct as it sounds, it's more complex for me because I want to make sure that I can contribute to my country. And the way I can contribute to my country is, one, make sure if my time for leadership is now and that I'm trying to understand, you know, if historically is the right time, if the skills that I have are the ones that are needed. And, in particular, if the country believes that my skills are aligned with what the country needs. Because, you know, if it's not, you know, I can't just be a good help. There's a lot of story, a lot of perspective that I can give. But if it's the time, then I will have to be ready to run and to take the cost because running doesn't mean you're winning.

Sometimes people is telling me, you got to run because you're going to win. No, no. The most probable outcome, as one former president of the United States, President Bush told me once, is to lose, not to win in democracy. Too many candidates, so what is the probability? Losing, right? Rather than winning. But making the choice of participating and considering that it's the right time would be a major drive. Because if you feel you are the person, you're going to give it all. And you're going to give it all to the point that you feel you can serve your country.

Jon Clifton:
[30:18] Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Minister, thank you for being here with us to talk about your strengths and thank you for everything you're doing.

Juan Carlos Pinzon:
[30:25] Jon, thank you so much. I had a great time. I hope our audience are going to enjoy it.

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