To paraphrase an ancient Greek writer: "Ten good shoulders, wisely led, Will beat a hundred without a head." -Euripides
"The famous Charge of the Light Brigade is a useful study because it broke so many classic rules of basic management. Inflated egos didn’t help things either." -Tal Newhart
Let’s look at the famous “Charge of the Light Brigade.” It happened
on October 25, 1854 during the Crimean War with the British fighting the Russians.
The disaster happened for the same reason a lot of businesses fail: bad communication
brought upon by a lethal collection of inflated egos.
In an act that appears to be of unfathomable stupidity the British
Lieutenant-General the Earl of Cardigan ordered his light brigade (the “light” was
because they were lightly armed, as opposed to the “heavy brigade”) to attack the
Russian artillery positions. Success was impossible. The charge was through a narrow
valley a mile and a quarter long. Russian guns were at the end of the valley and
gunners were on both sides, forming a classic death box. In fact, some of Cardigan’s
men did manage to get through to the guns, but were then surrounded by the Russian
troops. When they turned to retreat they were easy targets. The whole thing took
about 20 minutes and cost about a third of Cardigan’s force. And of course there
is the Tennyson poem to remind everybody about it forever (sort of like our modern
social media…).
But what really went wrong, and why, it is vaguely familiar if
you regularly read the Wall Street Journal.
As is often the case, there was a sequence of careless—and completely
avoidable—mistakes. And they all came down to poor ‘corpcraft’ (see my definition
of corpcraft elsewhere). A successful attack was clearly hopeless. That was obvious—as
is almost always the case in war (and business), success or failure is decided before
the battle. And again, as in business, after the “first stupid mistake” was made,
management suddenly couldn’t get anything right and the situation (and equity
holder value) disintegrated with shocking speed.
In a nutshell this is the famous story of The Charge of the Light
Brigade. It’s amazing that generally intelligent commanders, which these gentlemen
were, could make such foolish mistakes. But, just as in the corporate world, that
happens. The real problem is that a single minor mistake can set off what around
here we call a “negative cascade”. (As opposed to a positive cascade which is what
you and your equity holders want: good events leading to good events, etc.) A negative
cascade is simple: think dominos. Big expensive ones.
But here’s the detail and it is easy to compare this to something
you’ve probably observed or personally experienced:
Lord Raglan, the English commander (a.k.a. the Boss here), looked
across a broad landscape, and from his high vantage point on a hill, could see the
enemy (the competition) in the distance trying to remove some captured English cannons.
Since captured cannons were a metric of victory or defeat in a battle this was a
Bad Thing. Raglan sent down another in a sequence of orders to Lieutenant-General
the Earl of Lucan—who was in a position 600 feet lower in elevation and didn’t have
the same view—to recover the cannons “immediate” [sic]. The order was given to another
officer’s aide-de-camp, Captain Edward Nolan, for delivery—Captain Nolan was chosen
because he was an accomplished horseman and would take a speedy, more direct route
down to Lucan. He did this, probably loving it, because he was a known showoff.
So Nolan delivered the order to Lucan to attack and regain the
cannons. Reading the order Lord Lucan was justifiably baffled and reasonably asked
for clarification because he couldn’t actually see any cannons. Nolan, eager to see some “real cavalry action”, arrogantly
waved his arm in the general direction of the Russian front and snapped “There,
my Lord, is your enemy. There are your guns.” Nolan repeated that the order was
to attack immediately then trotted off to talk to another officer. Lord Lucan, flawed
by pride, and always at odds with the arrogant Nolan (Nolan had authored books on
cavalry tactics and made sure everybody knew it), failed to ask Nolan for further
clarification. Note: Like Lord Raglan, Captain Nolan had seen the location of
the cannons that were obscured from Lucan’s view because of the topography. But
Nolan didn’t accurately point to where the cannons were—he merely swept his arm
across the landscape in the general direction of the Russians. As you can see,
the cascade now accelerates towards preventable disaster.
Lord Lucan rode over to the commander of the light brigade, the
Earl of Cardigan (and his trusty horse Ronald). Lucan and Cardigan hated each other
(Cardigan had been married to Lucan's youngest sister but was now separated from
her) and, again, there was no useful discussion. Lucan simply ordered Cardigan to
attack ‘down the valley’ with his light brigade. Cardigan pointed out the fact there
were numerous enemy positions in the vicinity to which Lord Lucan simply replied
Cardigan should take the ride at moderate speed so as not to exhaust the horses
(good news for Ronald). Lucan would follow up with the heavy brigade. The cascade
continues.
So off they rode into “The Valley of Death”. Twenty minutes later
it was over. Nolan died dramatically in the charge, ostensibly trying to ride forward
to warn Cardigan he was headed in the wrong direction (some historians disagree
with this interpretation—nobody argues he was the first to die). Lucan, seeing what
was happening to the light brigade in front, turned the heavy brigade around uttering
the famous line: “They shall not have the heavy.”
The high level military history view says that the attack was
a perfect misapplication of the sound strategy of applying superior force at a position
of an enemy’s weakness (e.g. your competition, also see the Southwest Airlines comments
elsewhere in this collection).
But that’s the easy way out. What happened was that the functional
CEO (Lord Raglan) made a terrifically dumb mistake (the cannons were clearly lost
to the Russians). That mistake, foolish in itself, compounded itself through a sequence
of unquestioning levels of management (accelerating the negative cascade). In the
final analysis it was Cardigan who took the most heat because he led the actual
charge straight into the cannon battery. Cardigan, of course, blamed Lucan. And
Lucan, of course, blamed the dead Nolan for the vague delivery of the orders. Nothing’s
changed. This happens with poor management all the time. Look around. Hopefully
you don’t see it, but you probably do.
It all sounds uncomfortably familiar doesn’t it? How many boards
and executive committees behave the same way?
Let’s take a look at this via a few very broad strokes:
1. Underestimation
of a major obstacle. Raglan, like a lot of successful CEOs, probably thought “I’ve
figured this out. Nothing’s changed. Go get the cannons.” Raglan had convinced himself
he was the “master of the universe” and that he knew everything. Toss in a little
of the “I can do anything” syndrome and
it spells disaster. It’s the same in the market place. In his mind Raglan saw only
the cannons being recaptured. He failed to think of the process. Does the name Vivendi
ring a bell (sorry Jean-Marie)?
2. Faced
with a rapidly deteriorating situation Cardigan continued his charge. A Great CEO
sometimes has to admit that he or she is wrong. Sun Tzu said excess pride in a general
is a bad thing (poor corpcraft) because they worry too much about what others think
of them. Even smart CEOs sometimes continue to throw massive resources at projects
(often pet projects) that can’t work. Consider Ross Johnson of R.J. Reynolds and
his so-called smokeless Premiere cigarettes. Like Cardigan, Ross continued the charge
to prove “he could do it”. It cost Ross a couple billion RJR dollars and Cardigan
a couple hundred men. Great generals and great CEOs can admit that sometimes “you
really can’t get there from here”. They can say it even though there’s always somebody
like Captain Nolan who will say “You see! I knew he couldn’t do it!” Great leaders
admit they made a mistake and move on, limiting the destruction. Good managers don’t
compound their errors. (See the chapter about mistakes.)
3. Another
mistake Raglan made was his assumption of domination in a fluid state. Raglan thought
he dominated the landscape (e.g., marketplace). But there were what amounted to
“marketplace eddies” where he could be overpowered. Great generals and CEOs know
that battlefield or market domination is a highly dynamic thing. They know that
constant adjustment and tuning isn’t optional, it’s required.
4. Lord
Lucan failed to get clarification from Captain Nolan and Nolan failed to pass on
relevant information. A Great leader knows he or she has to listen to—pursue, understand and act upon—any credible
source of information potentially relevant to the survival of the company. In many
cases information “doesn’t know where to go” in an enterprise. That’s a serious
flaw in a company since sometimes tiny pieces of information can lead to the destruction
of even a huge company. The challenge is that extremely vital information frequently
first presents itself in remote places along the outer edges of the organization.
The datum or event may seem innocuous to the casual observer but can, if not acted
upon decisively, cripple or even collapse a major enterprise. But that wasn’t the
case with the light brigade. Captain Nolan had the critical piece of information—he
had seen the location of the cannons! But, in the heat of the moment he didn’t pass
it along. And Lucan didn’t ask him to explain further because he felt Nolan was
his inferior and Lucan himself would look bad or somehow weak by asking. Great leaders
give, and get, the information needed. Lucan knew he had incomplete information
but chose to act anyway. No greatness there. Just poor corpcraft.
So off they rode into “a mile long jaw of death.”
The real tragedy here is how senseless it all was. The biggest
box in the failure matrix was simply poor communication. The same thing frequently
happens on Boards of Directors. Board level things often don’t happen like they
should because the board doesn’t function as a proper, fluid team (and this has
nothing to do with Sarbanes-Oxley, that’s a downstream consideration).
Remember, in business the cannons are always there, somewhere.
But there’s no reason to ride into them.
Think about it…
____________________
My thanks to the British Government for their help in this account.
–TN
