4 years ago tonight, I was sleeping out under 19th century canvas with the rest of the Sprintpcs.com leadership team, in the cold, damp, gloom of the western Arkansas hills. Why on earth? We were on a Staff Ride! [No! Put your dirty thoughts away. It's not what you think, despite what you may have heard about comings and goings in the .com building]
A Staff Ride is leadership training normally given to US military officers. The "ride" refers to touring a battlefield on horseback. The "staff" are a leadership group. Nowadays internal combustion is used to power the "ride". There were no horses involved. The battlefields we toured and the battles we relived were both from the American Civil War - the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the Battle of Pea Ridge. Each member of the ride gets to role play an officer from one of the two sides in the battle. These were chosen at random the evening before. Some of us were generals. I got to play lower ranking leaders including a battery commander.
The Civil War was in its own way an information age war. The battle records written up by each officer after combat serve as a record to this day of who did what and when. It's possible to stand on the exact site and pretend to aim the cannon at the enemy marching over the hillside opposite. Remarkable after 140 years. The battlefields are preserved by the Federal Government - lest we all forget. An appropriate sentiment as we approach 11/11 - Armistice Day as we Brits call it.
The staff ride training was the brainchild of Chris Tabor (a regular reader so I hope he contributes some comments). Chris had served in the military in both the Gulf War and later in Somalia. If you've seen Black Hawk Down then you know what he went through. In more pleasant times he served in London. He worked for my boss in a sort of adjutant role. Chris ran our monthly operations review about which I wrote chapter 14 of my book. The ride was organized by MPRI and was conducted by 3 colonels who had also served in the Gulf War.
If ever I had any doubt that military officers "get" management and leadership then it ended with this outing in the hills. This was by far the best training event I've ever participated in. I learned such a lot. For example, you've heard the term "death march" perhaps you've even read Ed Yourdon's book about it. But have you ever seen one - truly. Can you imagine the general who marched his troops around the back of the mountain in middle of the night in the dead of winter and then expected them to attack the fresh and rested enemy from the flank first thing after dawn? When you stand on the site where the soldiers fell, you learn the meaning of death march. It's not pleasant.
I also learned how military command and control works. How to separate out strategic intent from operational missions and tactical battlefield events. I learned how the delegation rules work and how the rules of engagement are written based on whether something is tactical, "Lieutenant, we need to eliminate the gun emplacement at the top of this hill so that we can move our support forces through the valley below, take your platoon and eliminate it for us. Signal me when you have control of the location." What the lieutenant does after that is tactical and under his control. Operational level rules might involve commands such as, "General, march your division through Missouri and take control of the Kansas river, engage the enemy on discovery and eliminate them." A strategic level decision might involve rules like, "We want to deny supplies of food and other material to the enemy. Supplies are transported on the Mississippi-Missouri river. Therefore, we must take control of the river and prevent the enemy from using it." This three level separation of strategy, from operations from tactics gives you the three basic layers of control and delegation for any corporation. The top sets the strategy, the middle executes on the operational plan, and the lowest levels act tactical in response to local conditions.
Do not confuse military leadership with Henri Fayol style command and control within the industrial setting. They are not the same. Just because the military expects soldiers to follow orders, doesn't mean that they aren't expected to think for themselves and to act locally based on immediate feedback. As managers seeking to lead agile teams, we can learn a lot from military officers.
There is a lot more I could write about these 3 days, 2 nights in Arkansas in 2001 but my memory fades. The picture shows the commemorative ship's compass that was given to each of us as a memento of the occasion. It sits on my desk to this day. The inscription reads, "Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible," Colin Powell.
