Leadership and Eating the Elephant

Abrams as servant leader.

When I am not at the office, I relieve stress by pursuing several hobbies.  I am a big movie buff and love debating cinema of all types.  I also collect and play with toy soldiers.  I have been in the hobby for nearly forty years, and I am a member in good standing with the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society.  You pick up military history by process of osmosis when you collect soldiers.  Interestingly, some of the trivia I have picked up along the way have informed my agile practice.

I have written about military history in the past.  I recognized Eisenhower performing the greatest act of project management in history with his preparations for the D-Day invasion.  I also pointed out Richard Armitage’s efforts to save South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians during the fall of Saigon.  Military history has plenty of stories of heroism and cowardice.  People are elevated to their highest ideals or reduced to animalistic squalor. You are changed forever when you experience it.

It is the ultimate nature of warfare which makes it such a bad metaphor for business.  War is wasteful and is never sustainable.  Many of the lessons of war are not relevant in today’s office because the worst thing that could happen is losing your job.  In combat, a person can be maimed or killed.  It is why when I talk about military history in my agile practice I avoid strategy, tactics, or logistics.  I spent most of my time talking about leadership.  It is the leadership of ordinary people in extraordinary situations which inspires me and which I use to encourage others.

One of the most inspiring leaders I know is Creighton Abrams.  He was a tank commander in World War Two and was part of Patton’s Third Army in Europe.  Abrams nicknamed his tank “Thunderball,” and he had the name emblazed on his tank in bold white letters.  Abrams survived the war in spite of the German’s destroying “Thunderball,” seven times.  He was lucky, brave, and he led his troops from the front.  He never asked a soldier to do something he would not do himself and inspired tremendous loyalty.

After the war, he continued to move through the ranks commanding tank units in Korea and Europe during the early 1960s.  Where his leadership ultimately expressed itself was his command of the U.S. Forces in Vietnam.  Abram’s took over for fellow West Point classmate William Westmorland after his promotion to Army Chief of Staff in 1968.  Abrams assumed command at a dangerous time.  American forces had defeated the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive.  It was an ugly and brutal victory which turned a majority of public opinion against the war in Southeast Asia.  The Communist Vietnamese were going to keep fighting no matter how many people died in the process.  Morale was low, and the mission of U.S. forces in Vietnam was in question.

Newspaper reports asked Abrams how he was going to preserve the South Vietnamese government, beat the communists, and keep U.S. casualties down.  He responded, “when eating an elephant you do it one bite at a time.”  The quotation would guide him the next four years as he led the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Unlike his predecessor, Abrams shunned the perks of leadership.  He replaced the ornate wood desk first used by the French provincial governors, with the standard steel desk used in the U.S. embassy.  The mission of U.S. combat forces was simplified, and Abrams implemented the Nixon plan of Vietnamization.  By the time he left Vietnam to become the Army Chief of Staff, U.S. forces had reduced from 576,000 to 24,200 troops.  The big test of Vietnamization and Abrams came in 1972 during the Easter Offensive.  With a fraction of the troops he had four years earlier, he stopped a significant assault on the country.

Abrams was the kind of leader who accepted responsibility for both victory and failure.  The My Lai massacre became public during his tenure.  The Khaki Mafia swindled the army out of millions of dollars.  Finally, the battle of Hamburger Hill further inflamed anti-war sentiment.  Despite these challenges and unreliable allies in the South Vietnamese government, Abrams stood as an example and ate the elephant one bite at a time.  The main battle tank in the U.S. Army was named after him; the M1A1 Abrams.

All of this history relates to agile because we should embrace the servant leadership of Abrams.  Instead of hunkering down in our offices or via conference calls, we should lead with our teams.  Instead of grand gestures of reform, we should pile up a stack of little victories which will lead the organization forward.  We should act as servants to our teams and shun the privileges of rank.  The flaws of our organization should be transparent.  Finally, when confronted with a threatening challenge we will be able to adapt and overcome.

Leading change in an organization is difficult.  The adoption of the agile mindset in business is going to be the most significant change in civilization since the protestant reformation.  I draw inspiration from figures like Abrams.  He inspires me to take plenty of small bites from the elephant which is my career.

Until next time.