The Stuff of Heroes Newsletter Vol 5, No.1 for executives, managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs on leadership, strategy, business, marketing, management, and entrepreneurship.

People are the primary reason for most failures and successes in all human endeavors. There is little question that the leader of any organization of any size has an amazing impact on that organization and the outcome of whatever activity in which it is engaged. All of us have seen organizations that were previous failures, yet a new leader is put in charge. The new leader may have the same resources as the previous leader, or he or she may have more or less resources. It doesn't seem to matter. What does matter is the leader himself. If it is the right person for the right job, frequently the turnaround is almost instantaneous.

For those who have seen the movie Patton, it provides a good example of this. In its first battle with the enemy at Kasserine Pass in North Africa, the U.S. Second Corps is badly beaten. Patton is sent in to replace the old commander, Major General Frederick Fredendall. The unit and resources are the same, but under Patton they are successful.

Recently I have been studying such turnaround situations, not only in the military, but in all types of organizations. What I found was not only was it the leader at the top which made the difference, but those who the new leader put in charge at subordinate levels. Sometimes key personnel were replaced by the new leader; sometimes not. But what was important was that that the right individual was put in the job which changed the situation.

An example of a well-known military defeat which might not have occurred if the right man was in the right job was The Battle of Little Big Horn. No, I'm not talking about General Custer. In four years of the Civil War Custer never lost a battle and at age 26 he became the youngest major general in the Union Army. He had ten years experience fighting American Indians on the frontier and was considered one of the best. When confronted by a superior number of the enemy, he handled the situation in the most competent way he could. Confirming this, there was a "battlefield walk" of the Little Big Horn Battlefield by U.S. Army Command and Staff College students in the 1970's. All were combat veterans from Vietnam. The class was presented with the same information Custer had at each point as the actions at Little Big Horn Battle unfolded. Each time the group discussed the situation and arrived at a consensus decision. Much to the surprise of the class and their instructors, these battle-experienced students made exactly the same decisions that Custer had made a hundred years earlier.

What then was Custer's mistake? I've talked about it in a previous article. Custer's primary subordinate was Major Marcus Reno. Reno had an excellent record from the Civil War and had received a brevet (honorary) promotion to colonel for bravery. But Reno had no experience in fighting Indians at all. A much more experienced subordinate was Captain Frederick Benteen. Benteen had as much experience in this regard as did Custer himself. However, it was Reno who was given command of the battalion that was critical to Custer's plan of attack. Benteen was given a secondary and relatively unimportant role. Facing the odds that Custer did, this was no time to put an inexperienced leader in a critical role to gain experience, but this is precisely what Custer did. Though Custer had never before been defeated in combat, he led the 7th Cavalry to the most decisive defeat the U.S. Army ever suffered and to the annihilation of the entire battalion under his personal command.

Interestingly, General Fredendall, who was clearly not the right man for the right job in North Africa was sent to back to the states where he was put in charge of a large training organization. Eventually he commanded the Second Army and then Central Defense Command in the U.S., all training assignments. Despite his earlier failure, he did so well in these assignments that he was promoted. Clearly for these positions he was "the right man for the right job."

As leaders at all levels, what this means is that it is critical that we know our people, their capabilities and limitations and how they are likely to react in any situation. The more we can do this, the better we are able to lead. As a professor, I have found this to be true in teaching as well. As an academic leader, I always stressed to my faculty that classroom instructors are leaders.

I learned a lot when I became a student of world famous management thinker, Peter Drucker at Claremont Graduate University in the 1970's. Many of these lessons came in the classroom, but many others came from his personal example. In addition to being a management "guru" and having such a major impact on management throughout the world, Drucker was a first class leader.

For example, I was surprised to what extent Drucker was able to master the names of his students and frequently how much he knew about each. Drucker might ask about a student's son or daughter. But by the very way he inquired, you knew that he really cared and already knew a lot about you. It wasn't just, "How is your daughter doing?" It was "How is your daughter doing in law school?" He strived to learn about his students at every opportunity, and he remembered who he met and what he learned about them.

At the start of the academic year Claremont hosted a party for all executive MBA and PhD students. My wife, Nurit, met Peter at the beginning of my first year at Claremont. He probably met a hundred or more wives of his students at the party that evening. A year later we attended the yearly party again. In the interim, she had not seen Drucker at all. Nurit and I became separated at the event and she ran into Peter without my being present. She greeted him and began to say, "You don't know me but I'm ..." Before she could answer he interrupted. "Of course, I know you. You're Nurit Cohen, Bill Cohen's wife." This was all the more amazing because my wife's is Israeli and she has a Hebrew name. Nurit is not exactly a common name in our country with which Drucker was familiar.

I told the story about Peter Drucker to a group of senior military people once, and someone topped it. He told me that when he attended National War College in Washington D.C. the commandant, the War College's equivalent of a campus president, was a major general in the Marines. Like Claremont, the school year began with a party for the new class and their spouses. There was no second party as the course was only a year long. He said that as each officer and his spouse entered they were greeted by a receiving line consisting only of the commandant and his wife. In the military, that itself is unusual. The modus operendi is for an aide to get the name of both the military member and his spouse first, and to introduce him to the senior officer while he repeated the names. The senior officer would then introduce the couple to his or her own spouse. There was no aide as "greeter" that night.

Although the commandant had met few of the hundred to two hundred officers from all branches of the armed forces in the new class previously, and probably none of their spouses, he amazed each couple by addressing each by their correct first and last names and introducing them to his wife. Moreover, he asked many about their children and off duty activities. His new students were dumbfounded. When asked how he knew some fact, he would only smile and say, "A good commander knows."

Now I have heard of memory experts professional being able to do something like this, but never anyone else, much less a military commander. The general's students thought he was beyond photographic memory --- he had to be some kind of a psychic! However, the next day when the general addressed the entire class for the first time he explained how he was able to do this. Months before their arrival, all students were asked to submit a family picture and facts about their career and interests which would be published later in the graduation yearbook. The commandant had spent several hours studying these photographs and learning all of his students names and facts about them. He told them this was important, first to confirm that it is important for all as leaders to know everything they could about their subordinates, and secondly to demonstrate that it could be done. He said they had a great class, and as he really knew their backgrounds, he wasn't just speaking "out of his hat."

Maybe we don't need to go to the extent of this general to learn about the people we work and interact with. But it is a fact, without those we work and interact with we cannot succeed, no matter who we are, or what heights we have reached in our professions. Knowing and understanding our people is the secret of success.

THIS MONTH'S THOUGHT FOR LEADERS

Wars are fought with weapons, but they are won by men.

- General George S. Patton

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