Commanding Excellence
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Commanding Excellence

Inspiring Purpose, Passion, and Ingenuity through Leadership that Matters

Gary Morton

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eBook - ePub

Commanding Excellence

Inspiring Purpose, Passion, and Ingenuity through Leadership that Matters

Gary Morton

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About This Book

Truly engaging people is not about commanding them to do something; it is about getting them to command themselves to do it. West Point distinguished graduate Gary Morton knows how to deliver exceptional results while doing just that. As a platoon leader and tank commander in Army Task Force 4-68 and, later, as a young vice president at medical device manufacturer Stryker, Morton learned under two legendary leaders who, despite different styles, followed nearly the same steps to achieve results most considered unattainable. In only a year, Task Force 4-68's commander, Lt. Colonel Alfred L. Dibella, turned one of the Army's poorest performing units into the most lethal, combat-ready task force in the US Army. In simulated-combat missions at the grueling National Training Center, Dibella's task force defeated the constantly triumphant OPFOR in every battle. This feat has never been repeated. Generals and commanders at every level sought to understand how this unit did the impossible. When John W. Brown became CEO of Stryker, it was a boutique medical device firm with a few innovative products and $17 million in sales. Under Brown's extraordinary leadership it evolved into a $4 billion market leader feared by competitors and highly regarded by healthcare professionals. Stryker accomplished this remarkable run by securing 20-percent earnings growth every quarter, every year—for twenty-eight years. Again, this is a feat experts believed unachievable. ?By explaining the ingredients of these two leaders' secret sauce, Morton lays the foundation for current and future leaders to ensure their own teams excellence.

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Information

Publisher
Greenleaf Book Group Press
Year
2017
ISBN
9781626344495
Topic
Betriebswirtschaft
Subtopic
Leadership
PART 1
ABSOLUTE CLARITY OF PURPOSE
Perhaps the most important question for the leader of any organization is What are we trying to achieve? John Brown and Fred Dibella’s unequivocal clarity in defining an overriding purpose answered this question in simple, powerful terms that left no room for misunderstanding. In doing so, they greatly streamlined decision processes throughout their organizations. Every leader, manager, and team member knew the top leader’s most important priority. In most cases, decisions did not require higher-level endorsement; the purpose served as a guide.
Excellent ideas abound about crafting a mission statement, communicating it, and its overall importance. The process of developing the mission can galvanize a team. If done well, the statement helps to define and clarify priorities and timeless principles for the organization. With all due respect to such efforts, however, the clarity within Task Force 4-68 Armor and Stryker was something beyond a well-crafted mission statement or even a mission statement on steroids.
The absolute clarity of purpose pervaded every activity. It was in the backdrop of countless decisions large and small that were made every day and at all levels inside those organizations. Through these thousands of individual decisions, an invisible hand moved every activity toward the same goal. You knew you were right if you decided on a course of action that would help us win battles at the NTC, or grow by 20 percent. The collective results were magical.
By themselves, the three-word statements of the purpose at Stryker or TF 4-68 did not sound particularly inspirational. Neither appealed to the human capacity to promote the greater good, advance the state of the art in a field, or improve human lives. Yet such simple focus enabled those types of noble achievements to occur. Each organization made significant positive contributions in their areas of endeavor and in the lives of their members. Clearly defining success ripped away the hubris of overcomplicated declarations of priorities and allowed people to do what they did best every day. The people then achieved those noble goals.
These simple, highly visible measurements also promoted a feeling of solidarity that left little room for excuses or political “spin.” Results were what mattered. Everyone and every team knew where they stood, and each leader constantly emphasized progress toward achieving the three-word purpose. Every group encounter, every meeting, every breakfast, every luncheon, and every awards ceremony was a chance to define progress. Whether it was an After-Action Review, a presentation at a divisional sales meeting, or a perfect-attendance lunch with manufacturing teams, Brown and Dibella drove it home.
They also structured their organizations to bring critical resources to bear at the precise moments when decisive actions would directly affect achieving the purpose. For Dibella this meant lining up behind the soldiers and commanders on the front line.Those closest to the battle knew best what was happening. Commanders on the front were empowered to make the key decisions and call the shots during an operation. It was utterly clear that the battalion staff, the support units, and the service support units were to ensure that those in direct contact with the enemy would have every conceivable resource available to win.
Similarly, John Brown organized Stryker to line up behind the sales teams that were fighting to win each individual sale. As Stryker became involved in different markets with distinct customers in each, this meant a fiercely decentralized structure. Each customer-focused division unleashed the intensely competitive strength of self-directed teams and the collaborative power of a focused organization marching in lockstep to achieve a common purpose. Formal and informal chains of command were all oriented to drive responsibility and accountability to those on the front.
Dibella and Brown further structured their teams and chose roles for the organization’s leaders with an extreme bias toward the strengths of individual leaders and managers. This was an element of the clarity of purpose. Dibella developed Task Force 4-68’s company missions around the perceived strengths of each of the commanders, their company’s respective sergeants, and soldiers. At Stryker, respect for each individual’s unique capabilities was always part of the culture under Brown. As the company’s relationship with the Gallup organization deepened in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stryker became a mecca for strengths-based management and selection. Gallup provided a vocabulary for these strengths and statistically validated methods to help identify, quantify, and exploit them.
Finally, each of these leaders had excellent support from higher-level leadership with regard to the purpose. Fort Carson’s commanding general’s view of the mission of each maneuver battalion was highly congruent with Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Dibella’s efforts to win at NTC. Stryker’s Board of Directors consistently demonstrated an unwavering endorsement of John Brown’s goals and the 20-percent growth objective. The higher levels did not interfere; rather they facilitated, encouraged, and worked to provide essential resources. Three notable elements of this higher-level support were common between 4-68 and Stryker:
  1. The higher-level leadership steadfastly endorsed the purpose and demonstrated this endorsement through their actions.
  2. Dibella and Brown could effectively leverage this higher-level support and could receive backing for all reasonable requests for actions to support achieving the purpose.
  3. Perhaps most important, the higher-level leadership gave Brown and Dibella nearly complete freedom to run their own ships.
1
CLARITY OF PURPOSE IN 4-68 ARMOR
Following an intense field-training exercise a few months after he assumed command, Dibella planned a galvanizing event. He brought every soldier of the task force and closely related support units into the main auditorium at Fort Carson. He began his presentation by detailing the many challenges that units face in confronting the OPFOR at the National Training Center.
The delivery was brutally honest. The OPFOR literally picked most units apart. They had nearly every advantage: numerical superiority, specially selected leaders, intimate knowledge of the terrain, exceptional maintenance organizations, high morale, and extraordinarily experienced troops. They seemed unbeatable.
Then Dibella expounded on what he believed would be their weaknesses: They followed Soviet doctrine to a tee, which made them predictable. Their equipment, while well maintained, was technologically inferior. They had no thermal-imaging sights, only infrared. Their tanks carried less ammunition. Their air and artillery support was slower to react and less deadly than ours. They were used to winning and could be overconfident.
He issued the challenge that was to become our all-pervasive purpose over the next nine months, “Most units are lucky to win a battle or two. A great battalion wins four or five of the battles.”
He let those facts settle with the crowd, then, with a deliberate southern Illinois accent, he exclaimed: “Ain’t nobody ever been nine and oh! That is what we are going to do!”
That became the rally cry and the goal. It was simple, measurable, and meaningful, and every soldier would make a difference in achieving it. It was bold, inspired competitive juices, and was just beyond what seemed possible.
CLARITY AND FOCUS
I was sitting in front of two hardened and skeptical master sergeants from the brigade maintenance support unit. They had heard similar rally cries from other battalion commanders whose units went out to Fort Irwin and were summarily humiliated.
“Here we go again,” they lamented. “Everybody thinks rah-rah will beat the OPFOR, then they go out there and get their asses kicked.”
What made 4-68 Armor different? Why did that task force prove the master sergeants wrong? Well, first of all, this wasn’t just a cheer to energize the team; Dibella meant it. He would do everything and anything to support the ideas, processes, commanders, and soldiers to do whatever was necessary (and ethical) to go 9–0. He ensured that his staff and all of his commanders were totally focused in the same fashion.
For example, some battalions spent weeks preparing for a parade in front of the new assistant division commander. At 4-68, we did not have time for lengthy parade preparation; we spent only a day. Being great at close-order parade drill was not going to help us win at the NTC. We spent our time refining our battle plans and drilling the requirements and expectations into every soldier.
I cannot emphasize this point too much. Most leaders define aggressive goals for their organizations. Most leaders work diligently and drive their organizations to achieve the goals. Only a few deliver truly extraordinary results. The crucial difference lies in the distinction between simple high expectations and an all-embracing goal whose achievement becomes pervasive in the organization. The absolute clarity of purpose Dibella delivered served as an umbrella over the priorities of the battalion. It forced us to face with brutal and complete honesty any problems or issues that would impede its achievement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Steve Jobs before him, follows a similar ethos at Apple. When discussing the keys to success, Jobs remarked multiple times, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
Such focus cuts like a finely sharpened sword through the hubris of corporate bureaucracy. For 4-68 Armor, it was a guiding light.
Truly deciding what not to do has a profound impact on the organization. Many leaders struggle with the truly part of that sentence. They will say that the priorities are A, B, and C, but when outside scrutiny concentrates on priority D, they waver. Most, with all the best intentions, attempt to achieve every potential goal. They want to go 9–0 and win the parade. Deciding what not to do clarifies the purpose.
SIMPLICITY
Dibella also had a driving passion to keep things simple. The most cogent element of this was the adoption of the singular purpose. We were not just going to win a battle or two; we were going to defeat OPFOR every time. It was audacious, measurable, inspiring, and straightforward. During his presentation, Dibella laid out an uncomplicated plan that had meaning for everyone. In describing the kinks in the seemingly impenetrable armor of the OPFOR, he also described an innovative methodology we were developing to provide an outline for every line soldier’s responsibility in every type of operation. He described some critical observations from NTC veterans regarding the intelligence-gathering methods of the OPFOR and how we would use their methods against them. He described the shortcomings in Soviet maneuver doctrine, how the OPFOR would religiously follow the doctrine, and how we could use our knowledge of it to defeat them.
THE SILVER LIONS PLAYBOOK
Dibella described how the battalion’s leadership was wrapping up all of these thoughts into a tangible definition of how we were going to fight our battles, which he aptly named the Silver Lions Playbook.
He described the genesis and reasons for the playbook, starting with a story about Jim Young, who had taken over the Army (West Point) football-coaching job in 1983. Young moved into a program with a storied past that had been struggling in the 1970s and early 1980s. The experienced coach observed several key characteristics of the Army team: They were undermanned in the sense that their players were smaller and slower than those of their opponents. The players were stressed for time, with an uncompromising full academic load along with cadet duties. Having an entire team with mandatory enrollment in demanding courses such as electrical engineering could distract considerably from the football program. However, he also observed that, man for man, these players showed uncommon discipline, and they exhibited great cohesion as a team. The challenges they endured in academy life could become a source of team strength. They were quick learners and could execute simple plays together with precision. Young believed he could fuse them into a high-performance organization.
Dibella also recounted Young’s challenge in deciding what kind of offensive program he could create to overcome these weaknesses and capitalize on these strengths. The experienced coach determined that a wishbone offense might work. For those unfamiliar with football, the wishbone is an offensive methodology based on a formation having three backs in the backfield, making the formation shaped like a wishbone when viewed from above. Its landmark play is the triple option, where the quarterback has the options of handing off to the full back, who will run off the guard; keeping the ball and running off tackle himself; or pitching the ball to an outside back if the defense crashes the line. It is considered the consummate team offense. It is a simple, run-heavy methodology. There are essentially only six offensive plays to master: three to the right and three to the left.
The wishbone methodology would compensate for the weaknesses of the Army team: Size was less critical than strength. Speed was less critical than quickness. The flashiness of other NCAA Division I-A players could be overcome with toughness and the martial art–like capability of being able to use your opponent’s momentum and your own to your advantage. It compensated for the players’ lack of time because it was simple to implement. Young wanted to ensure the practice time was spent developing excellence in executing each individual’s task in a limited number of plays. The team would drill their six plays until they could execute with great precision. The handoff smoothly placed, the pitch perfectly timed, the blocking assignments down cold.
The wishbone also relied on great discipline and unit cohesion. It counted on eleven men on the field all understanding what was happening with the offense, every player reading their block, every player executing their assignment. No one person was out for themselves or attending to their individual statistics. The quarterback would likely get hit on every play, but that would not matter; it was about the number of yards gained. The Army team began to act and react like a single unit. This simplicity lent itself to the discipline and unit cohesion they already had. Positive results in the games quickly followed.
By his second year, Young had dramatically turned the program around. The team’s record went to 8–3–1. They won the highly competitive games against their service academy rivals at Air Force and Navy and capped off the season by beating the Michigan State Spartans at the Peach Bowl. It was the best season Army had seen in nearly two decades.
Dibella (a former quarterback himself) was inspired by the turnaround in Army football. He described how the situation Jim Young faced when he first walked onto the field at West Point was fundamentally similar to that of our combined arms task force at Fort Carson.
We were undermanned in the sense that the OPFOR outnumbered our forces and had their pick of soldiers. OPFOR was nearly always at full strength, whereas the units at Fort Carson needed to beg and borrow personnel just to fill out their authorized positions. Even with every position filled, Task Force 4-68 Armor would go to the NTC as a 2–2 task force, composed of two mechanized infantry companies (about 110 soldiers each) and two tank companies (14 tanks each), with a total of 40 tank-killing systems. The OPFOR regiment had 140 tank-killing systems and an all-in strength of over 2,000 soldiers.
We had constrained time to practice along with significant additional responsibilities. It would be important to maximize the use of available field training by keeping the concept of our operations simple and the responsibilities of every person on the team absolutely clear. That way, the soldiers could drill the actions that they were most likely to execute in the battles. The playbook became our implementation of a simplified offense for maneuver operations, like the wishbone. It brought focus to our field training. Similar to most Army units at the time, we were a unit filled with soldiers who had volunteered. They came with a great capacity for discipline and potential for unit cohesion, but the constant personnel shuffle and myriad responsibilities outside of combat readiness handicapped our preparedness. The playbook helped to concentrate our available training time on the missions and sub-missions each individual unit would perform in a play. It was a way to capitalize on the strengths of our soldiers, NCOs, and officers.
The idea of simplifying our operations into a set of clearly defined plays was an act of genius.Instead of devising a completely new maneuver plan for each mission, it systemized our concept of the operation with straightforward methodologies for moving, attacking, and defending. In doing so, the playbook served as a quintessential instrume...

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