A GOOD UNIT SLIPS IN PERFORMANCE
Over a period of months, one unit, my wing, had begun to slip. We failed to complete some of our training requirements successfully. We were forced to make some late take-offs due to maintenance problems. Our sense of mission disappeared. We even failed an ORI. At one time, we had been ranked as one of the top three combat wings in Strategic Air Command. This was based on a system of points measuring everything from success at navigating only by the stars, to the distance from the target our bombs would hit measured electronically. On the same management control system, where we were once top-ranked, we were now ranked last.
On alert with my crew one evening, I received a hurried call from base operations. “There’s a new commander on base. His name is Colonel William Kyes. Stay out of his way.”
We couldn’t stay out of his way, because Colonel Kyes visited us that night even while we were on alert on the runway with real nuclear weapons. He cancelled all leaves of absence. All free time of any sort that had been granted was rescinded until further notice. This included weekends and even crew rest after flight. Colonel Kyes moved commanders and staff he judged poor to positions of little or no responsibility on the spot. He encouraged others to retire. No individual’s career was sacred. Our mission was clearly deemed more important.
Colonel Kyes met with each of the 1,500 officers and airmen reporting to him in the wing. He told each where we were going – back to the top position in Strategic Air Command – and he told us exactly how we were going to get there. He said we would brief every mission that was to be flown to him or his staff personally before we would fly it. Moreover, pilots had to know as much about the target as their bombardiers and navigators. And bombardiers and navigators had to be able to back up their pilots as well.
If you wanted a transfer out of the unit, Colonel Kyes would get you one. If you stayed in the wing, you were going to work pretty hard. And this was supposed to be peacetime and only a readiness for combat – we weren’t actually fighting anybody.
At first, we hated Kyes. Our wives and girlfriends hated Kyes. Those whose careers he hurt especially hated him, and some did leave the Air Force. It was hard work without Colonel Kyes, but with him there it was much harder. Slowly our hard work began to show results. We improved. Our bombs were scored right on target. Maintenance problems began to disappear, and we took off exactly on time. The ground crews and maintenance personnel maintained our aircraft so that they flew better than they had ever flown before. Whether we were flying over oceans or the North Pole, our navigation based on use of a sextant and the suns or stars kept our aircraft always on course. Flight crews, ground crews, and support personnel of all types worked together as a team, and they worked together well.
A couple of months after Colonel Kyes arrived, we had another surprise ORI. We not only passed but scored higher than we had ever done so in the past. We were now ranked number one and a strange thing began to happen. We felt pride in ourselves and pride in Colonel Kyes as our commander. Our hate turned to respect. Some months later when Colonel Kyes left the 11th Bomb Wing on his promotion to brigadier general, there was a genuine sense of loss. Our respect had by then turned to something approaching love.
Due to an untimely death caused by illness, Colonel Kyes was never promoted beyond brigadier general. But for this tragic event, I believe he would have been promoted on up and eventually attained the fourth star of a full general.
General Kyes’ approach taught me some important lessons about leadership and the difference one individual can make in helping an organization to reach its goals, especially when this individual dared the impossible. Undoubtedly, it must have seemed impossible to take an organization which had fallen over several months of neglect, and to turn it around to reach the top. Yet I have seen this lesson accomplished repeatedly and Drucker saw it, too. I have seen it in large organizations and small, both in military organizations and civilian, and in formal organizations and informal ones. Drucker knew that one individual and his or her leadership makes all the difference between success and failure. In other words, you can win by leading others to dare the impossible. However, it wasn’t just that one leader, that one man or woman doing this, but rather it was almost always a case of a group ‘reaching for the stars’ – daring the impossible. And it applies to all types of organizations, including sport.
DARE THE IMPOSSIBLE AND CREATE A MIRACLE ON ICE
In the Winter Olympics of 1980, the Soviet team was the heavy favourite in hockey. It had won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament since 1954 and had won the gold medal in the previous four Olympics. The Soviet team was led by players who were legendary in the sport. The American team wasn’t even a close comparison. Their players weren’t even on the same page. It even had only one returning player from the previous Olympic team, while the Soviet team included several players who were on full-time duty preparing for their Olympic roles while in the Red Army. They had the time and resources to get and stay in top form. The American team was made up of a mixture of amateur and collegiate players that had only recently been selected for their positions. They barely knew one another. There was even some hostility among the American players because of a bitter collegiate rivalry between two college teams that each had contributed several players. To pull this team together and win anything seemed an impossible assignment. Nevertheless, much to everyone’s surprise, the American coach, Herb Brooks, brought the team together, dared the impossible, and achieved the extraordinary as his team defeated all international competitors and went on to both defeat the mighty Soviet team and to win the Olympic gold medal.
VINCE LOMBARDI AND THE GREEN BAY PACKERS
No doubt you’ve heard of the great American football coach, Vince Lombardi. He was supposed to have said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” I’m told that what he really said was, “Winning isn’t everything, but not expecting to win is.” Lombardi took over as head coach of the professional Green Bay Packers team when even its very existence was uncertain. The team’s record the year before Lombardi took the job was just one win, one tie, and ten losses. It was the worst year in the team’s history. In Lombardi’s first year as head coach the Packers had seven wins. Many said that this was impossible before it happened. Many observers called it a “unique, one time, miracle”. Despite these comments Lombardi was named Coach of the Year. Surprise, surprise, with almost all the same players, the year following his arrival, Green Bay won the NFL regional championship and just missed winning the overall NFL title by a few yards on the final play. The third year Lombardi’s Packers won the NFL championship title, too. These were the same players that were losers before Lombardi came. Lombardi went on to lead the team to three straight league championships without a loss and five total league championships altogether in seven years, including winning the first two Super Bowls ever played following the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons. Want to be like hockey coach Herb Brooks or an NFL football coach Vince Lombardi? Dare the impossible!
THE MAN WHO DID THE IMPOSSIBLE IN ACADEMIA
You probably haven’t heard the name Professor Richard Roberto. I didn’t hear much about him, and I was on his home turf of California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) at the time. Professor Roberto was an engineering professor. He was also the chief faculty advisor to students who competed in a special competition, which concerned designing, building, and racing a solar car.
In 1990, with no prior experience in solar vehicle technology, his students, mostly undergraduates, designed and built the CSULA’s first solar-powered electric car and entered the 1,600 mile Sunrayce from Orlando, Florida to Warren, Michigan. CSULA has a relatively small engineering school. It has some smart students, but it doesn’t necessarily collect the engineering geniuses found in some of the top engineering schools. Rather, it has one of the highest percentages of students who are first in their family to go to college, most with very modest family incomes. Since CSULA was competing
with students from top national graduate schools, everyone knew it had virtually no chance of winning.
THE SURPRISING RESULTS
Amazingly, the CSULA students came in fourth place nationally. But CSULA did more. It accomplished the extraordinary. It was number one in California, besting such well-known schools as the University of California and Stanford University. As Drucker frequently said, “What everybody knows is usually wrong.”
A fluke? Maybe. Except that in 1993, they held the second national solar race with new designs, new cars, and mostly new students. CSULA did the same thing all over again with a new car, Solar Eagle II. This time, the CSULA team came in third nationally racing from Dallas, Texas to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Again, CSULA beat much better funded, much better researched universities to finish number one among other top-tier California universities in the race. Experts at the top schools in California were floored. They had the top students, they also had the resources in money, facilities, and alumni volunteers from top engineering firms. They had everything. How could this possibly happen?
Four years later, Roberto’s students built Solar Eagle III to enter Sunrayce 97. This time CSULA raced from Indianapolis, Indiana to Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was 1,250 miles, and it took nine days, the competition was stiffer than ever before. There were 36 top-flight entries such as MIT, Yale, and even my own alma mater, West Point, the first engineering school in the USA. In California things were even tougher. Combined teams from Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley vowed to overwhelm this state-school upstart.
Would CSULA prevail again in California? The Stanford/UC Berkeley teams came in third and second among California teams. But, CSULA was number one again in California. There were also some interesting national results. MIT came in second nationally. But CSULA was first in the USA. Roberto had dared the impossible three times, and not only succeeded every time, but crowned it all by winning the national award number one.
The Los Angeles Times quoted CSULA spokeswoman, Carol Selkin, “In the past, the winners were big-name schools with four-year research institutions and big money. We’re a state university with no research arm. These other schools had people clamoring to support their team, doctors and lawyers. We just didn’t have that.”
What CSULA had was a leader who was willing to go after and achieve the impossible. In interviewing Roberto, I discovered something that hadn’t come out in the press coverage. Ninety per cent of Roberto’s students on the solar team were undergraduates. Their competitors, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley have a huge number of students in engineering many of whom are graduate students. The students at CSULA hadn’t even received academic credit for their work. Many had to work part time jobs just to go to school. “About 50% of the students had family incomes of less than $20,000,” Roberto told me. And only about 5% of CSULA students wanted careers in engineering compared to a national average of better than 7%.
“How did you do it?” I wanted to know. Roberto told me that the secret was reliability. “Our car just didn’t break down, not once,” he said.
But I knew there was more to it. At first, he was evasive. Finally, he told me his secret. “I’m like an unknown basketball coach,” he said. “And that suits me fine. It is how it should be for the good of the team. The press wants to talk to our winning players, our drivers, those who had their hands on building the car. I stay in the background. Outsiders don’t need to know me or know my name. The less I am in the forefront, the better for the team. This way, our team members get the publicity, and they get the job offers. They work hard for it, and they deserve it. I always refer questions to the students or to public relations. I’m proud to be their coach.” Professor Roberto was a leader who rejoiced in the successes of those he led. Unfortunately for CSULA, Professor Roberto retired before the next race. CSULA never won another race. In fact, CSULA never entered another race. Perhaps they just couldn’t find another leader like Professor Roberto who would dare the impossible and achieve the extraordinary.
YOU CAN LEAD BEFORE YOU ARE MADE A PAID SUPERVISOR
There are numerous situations in which leaders are required, and in every one you can dare the impossible, whether it is organizing a company picnic, coaching a volleyball team, or being in charge of an annual savings bond drive. Frances Hesselbein, started as a volunteer and went on to became CEO of the Girl Scouts. She was so good that she was promoted to paid positions and finally to the CEO position. During this time, the Girl Scouts had been on a continual decline for many years. She turned this around and did such a great job against the most impossible odds, that she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton. A friend of Peter Drucker, she founded what became the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute that promotes non-profit leadership following his concepts. She accepted the first Chair of Leadership at West Point, and I’m proud to say that she sits on the advisory board of my non-profit graduate university.
THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION YOU NEED TO MAKE
Why don’t more leaders dare the impossible to achieve the extraordinary? There is a very important decision that these leaders we’ve talked about made before they dared the impossible. Peter Drucker told us that the first and most important decision is to become the kind of leader that would do this. Like much of Drucker’s advice, this pronouncement sounds self-evident, overly simplified, and maybe even a trifle absurd. The truth is that it is profoundly true and important. For someone who has never dared the impossible, acceptance of these responsibilities may be challenging. Those who have not had the responsibility and authority of leadership at this level of importance fear both of these, the responsibility and the authority. They fear something going wrong, they fear being blamed for actions which may not be fully under their control, they fear that followers will not follow and they fear making the wrong decision. Many would-be leaders are afraid of the embarrassment and penalties of failure. Some individuals who have the capability to become great leaders never accept the challenge because they are afraid of failure. They go through life with a fear that limits the success they could achieve and the contributions they might make by helping others, if they could only overcome this fear. If you can act on this knowledge and make this decision, Drucker’s wisdom can help you and will have a major impact on your life.
DARING THE IMPOSSIBLE REQUIRES PREPARATION
Mary Kay Ash built the billion-dollar Mary Kay Cosmetics corporation, beginning with only $5,000. She hired her first group of sales-women and planned on living on her husband’s salary until she started making money. Two weeks before she was going to open her doors her husband died of a heart attack. Experts told her that her situation was impossible and advised her to quit before she even started. She didn’t. She had learned how to dare the impossible as a child.
When she was only three years old her father was invalided with tuberculosis and couldn’t take care of himself. Her mother went to work to support the family. Mary Kay accepted the responsibilities for cleaning, cooking and caring for her father. I think she was nine years old at the time. She totally ran the household during the day. She made the decision to be the kind of leader who dared the impossible before she even knew what leadership was. The lessons she learned helped to develop her self-confidence, she learned to disregard well-intentioned, but bad advice and to persevere to success in an age when women were supposed to stay at home and let the men have professional lives.
If you haven’t yet made the decision to dare the impossible, you can develop the trait of doing so by:
• Learning to take risks – just decide what’s the worst that can happen and press on!
• Building your self-confidence by always raising your hand to offer your leadership – even if you fail, and sometimes you will, you’ll learn important lessons.
• There is a first time for everything. Someone has to be first. Why not you? Many told Obama he was wasting his time running for president. They told Trump the same thing. Someone pro
bably told Meghan Markle that there was no way she could marry Prince Harry. Oh yeah?
To achieve the extraordinary, you need to follow Drucker’s way and go for the impossible.
CHAPTER 4
DRUCKER’S INSIGHTS INTO THE ESSENCE OF LEADERSHIP AND SUCCESS
Above all, today’s manager and career professional has a responsibility to develop himself. It is a responsibility he has towards his institution as well as toward himself.
– Peter F. Drucker
About 30 years ago I initiated a special study called the Combat Leadership Study. This grew out of my search to find the most challenging leadership situation and leaders who were successful in such situations as well as in management functions in business. There are many challenging conditions for leadership, of course. I felt that most likely this might be in life-and-death situations: the hospital room, unexpected situations on the street, emergencies at sea, a shark attack or a near drowning, an emergency in the air, an automobile accident, or a heart attack. But for an environment of leadership that might encompass any or all of those mentioned, it’s hard to beat the almost daily leadership challenges of combat on the battlefield. Here there are daily settings that are not only routinely dangerous and life-threatening, but usually neither leaders nor those led would prefer to be involved if they had the freedom of choice. The payoff for the leader and those led is also usually higher than any other situation even if life and death were considered secondary to the main issue of defeat of an enemy.
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