The WAY to WOW Shows
Fired But Still Triumphant
July 16, 2024
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[0:03] hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about military Doctrine military history the qualities of great military personalities individuals and translate them into lessons that we can apply to our business and professional lives so I've talked about this a couple times that um there's so much training that is are given to us who uh got to serve in the military um and and you our our

[0:41] fellow citizens uh were were generous and paying for that training and so this is a way for us to to give something back to you um from from all the support that you've given us um over the years the decades Etc so today I'm going to go overseas as it were and talk about a British officer um probably among the best known British officers who served during World War II

[1:16] probably the best known is is field Marshall Bernard Montgomery um who you know famously was constantly arguing um or disputing I should say with uh among other people uh General Patton um and and in fact none of the American commanders really liked him and it's not at all clear that even Winston Churchill particularly liked Monty as he called him um Monty was a pretty abrasive guy in many ways um but he wasn't he wasn't a very effective commander and uh in fact he was the commander who replaced

[1:53] the person I'm going to be talking about today and and that person is uh Field Marshal Lord archal waval now uh Lord waval uh had a long history in the British military by the time World War II came around he was the son of a a military officer and he served uh in in the boore war um and uh um uh also served in uh World War

[2:30] W um and and then by the time World War II came around he was the commanderin-chief of the mid East in terms of British military activity and we tend to think of the midd East as being the area around Israel Jordan Saudi Arabia Syria Lebanon and indeed that that was included in the mid mid east region um but it also included Ed from a British military standpoint Northern Africa and so Lord waval or

[3:08] field Marshall waval however you want to refer to him was initially in charge of the North African campaign and what's what's interesting is early on he had a good deal of success against the Italians um and then and um the probably the most famous German Commander uh whose name all of a sudden I went up on uh hold on one second here I'm gonna I'm gonna get it for you

[3:43] because uh this is this is this is important uh what am I what am I why am I not remembering his name um The Desert Fox uh yeah yeah yeah what um gosh Irwin irn irn raml oh there you go so um when Irwin raml um became the commanderin-chief of um axis forces in North Africa um he sort of kicked the tar out

[4:20] of the British um and that spelled the end of Lord wal's uh career as commanderin-chief of the midd east region um and as you might imagine um after having had a long uh history in the British military starting out from sandur which is essentially the British equivalent of West Point and and all those years and becoming uh commanderin-chief of of a key um battle area in World War II to be

[4:59] fired and pretty sarily so by the way um I I can imagine and I think we can we all can imagine how devastating um that must have been for Lord waval um now in those days and and to a certain extent this is true today when you fire someone at that level generally speaking you don't just you know kick them out of the military and send them home in Lord wavel case um he was transferred and made commanderin-chief

[5:34] of India now for those of you who are familiar with World War II history you probably know that India was not a hot bed of um of uh combat activity during World War II while Indian troops fought in many uh of the engagements in World War II they were were in other um uh areas of other theaters of action um but there was while there were some sea battles you

[6:10] know kind of around the area uh of India the reality is that the closest real Combat Action really came down to like Burma places like that so India during World War II in terms of Combat Opportunity and real you know having a real impact on the outcome of the war was was kind of a Backwater number one and number two at the same time it was very difficult because the Indian independence movement um was going on

[6:45] and so trying to maintain India um within the British Empire while these disputes were going on was was very very difficult and it was not a job that anybody um in the British military would have envied Lord waval so this was you know pretty clearly a a demotion um on on his part and yet he really handled the Indian the the situation in

[7:21] India probably as well as it could possibly have been handled and and a lot of that has to do with um the the the the qualities that Lord waval brought to bear so those that made him not really a particularly effective Combat Commander in Northern Africa I think really made him a just sort of coincidentally because I don't think there was any um plan to this but they

[7:58] made him the right person to take over as commander-in-chief in India and eventually he was appointed vicroy of India as a matter of fact and and um he was really the one who from the British side um worked through the process of of of Indian independence and so out of this sort of I mean on some level crushing defeat late in his career you know we tend to think of failures as being something that comes early in our lives We're Young we have failures we recover we go

[8:35] on to Glory what I what I find interesting about Lord wal's career is that his probably his biggest failure came really toward the end of his career and yet he was able to bounce back from it and play a very important role in the world because India as we know today is becoming an Ever more pivotal country in the world it now has the largest population of of any

[9:10] country it overtook China earlier this year I believe it was or late yeah last year and strategically is being pursued by pretty much all the powers the United States uh Russia um even China on some level wants to be you know allied with India as long as India do what you know China says kind of thing which is you know there's there's there's definitely a hate haate relationship going on there so so you know Lord waval was like I said from the British side the individual responsible for ushering in

[9:49] what you know what has now become you know the modernday country of of India and so I'm going to talk about several qualities that he had that I think we should be looking at um some of them as Leaders others as as managers now to the extent that we run our own businesses and so we act as both leaders and managers we we want to develop all of these qualities um but I'm going to go go through them I have seven of them that I've distilled and by

[10:25] the way I I I got a lot of this information from a biography that that I uh am reading about lord waval it's it's it's quite interesting his his biographer interesting is is kind of fawning which you know makes me a little bit suspicious about just how how accurate he's reporting but I but I think that there was there was genuinely a lot in Lord wal's career to look at and say wow this really was or this really is um something you know

[11:01] exemplary and and and well worth learning from which is one of the reasons why I I like reading military biographies so um first of all Lord waval was very adaptable especially in his strategic thinking so he had the ability to stand back from the situations in which he found himself and look at that larger picture even as he would be wrapped up in more of the operational details

[11:37] sometimes or or hearing about this the the um the Tactical successes and failures of of units under his command and and that ability to be able to step back and really see what's going on is crucial As Leaders we have to be able to do that we can't let ourselves get so wrapped up in the day-to-day situations that we lose our broader perspective we are the ones that need to

[12:13] create and maintain the Strategic vision and so it's it's incredibly important for us to be able to maintain that and that was certainly the case for Lord waval and that stood him in very good stead when he got transferred to India the strategy of of a battle the the the the Art of War so to speak can be learned okay and and you know I'm a big fan of George Patton he taught himself

[12:48] the strategy of war and indeed many of the Great military leaders they they didn't magically know the strategy of War it's there are Prin principles that you can follow that will hold you in good stead but when it comes to the political Arena the principles are much foggier and much less defined and and so being able to stand back and look at a situation strategically and see what may be going

[13:25] on or what not what may be going on what is going on and what may need to be changed is a very important skill it's something for example that um Henry Kissinger had I think I think Kissinger passed away um it it was one of his greatest talents is to be able to see that big picture which and and grasp really what it what was going on so that then he could analyze it and make decisions about what changes needed to happen and that was something that Lord

[14:00] waval was very good at the next thing he was good at was learning from setbacks so in order to recover from the the beating that he took at rl's hands in as commanderin-chief of the midd East he you know he he really had to pull himself up by his bootstraps and I would argue I I think this is somewhat counterintuitive I think it's harder to bounce back from a big failure when you know our careers

[14:35] are so Advanced when we are you know perhaps at the Pinnacle of our success so they always say uh you know making your second million is easier than making your first million that may be true but recovering from setbacks When We're Young when we're more naturally resilient I think is much easier than recovering from from setbacks um that we experience when we're older and especially farther along in our careers so this is one of the reasons why just parenthetically for

[15:11] example you see that the suicide rate among older men is so high especially older men who are divorced right to have that loss at that point in their lives many men find that that to be crushing just they can't seem to recover from it and I I think this speaks to what could have happened to a less resilient individual than Lord waville so he could

[15:46] have let his being fired as commanderin-chief mid East essentially end his career but he didn't he you know he took the attitude I'm a Soldier I'm going to be I am a good soldier and okay I'm I'm not going to be Commander mid East anymore now I'm going to be Commander India this is clearly a demotion but I still have my job to do I still have my orders to carry out I still have my mission to meet and he was able to to meet that challenge and really ex uh really

[16:22] [Music] um exude exude is the wrong word really demon demonstrate resiliency through the adversity so learning from setbacks leads to really resiliency and adversity and and that's that's what Lord waville had now he certain the height of it was certainly toward the end of his career but it was really a trait that he ex that he exhibited throughout his life where did it come from native resiliency it's it's hard to say you know this is this is one

[16:59] of those characteristics that like you you take someone like a um uh the the the the great golfer um Tiger Woods so Tiger Woods started learning how to play golf when he was I think five years old his father was teaching him where did the discipline and resiliency come from that Tiger Woods has existed exhibited his whole his whole career he's had injuries he's had personal things happen

[17:35] and yet he's time and again he's able to press forward and and and and be the great Champion that he is right where do these qualities come from that's hard to say I I remember reading a book one time called Talent is overrated and and I I I agree with uh I believe I believe the author is Jeff culvin that that indeed I think Talent is is overrated because much of what we call Talent is actually comes from somebody having very good teachers from a very from a very early

[18:11] age and so they're able to develop skills over over a lot longer period of time than most of us that was the case with Tiger Woods it was the case with Mozart other people like that so-called child prodigies often times it's not that they were born that way it's that they practice so much more and for so much longer than most other people it just seems like they're prodigies right but where does the the discipline and the resilience come from that's a separate

[18:46] question and it's very it's very hard to say and uh culvin in the end doesn't have an answer for that so to the extent that we're born with equality maybe self discipline and res resilience is it um but certainly Lord Lord waval had that quality and I think we can teach ourselves to be more self-disciplined to be more resilient okay to have a more resilient mindset to adopt habits that

[19:21] will help us be more self-disciplined and if we keep building on those over time we will uh will we ever get to the level of a Tiger Woods or or a lord wavl I I I don't know but but I you know these are qualities that we we can improve um if not if not you know become you know absolute Paragons in okay so the next uh and and this this this relates back a little bit to his adaptability in strategic thinking is um

[19:56] Lord waval had the abis the ability to have a vision and and do long-term planning and work those plans through so once he stepped back and saw the situation as it really was he had the ability to see where did I need to go now obviously not always as a Combat Commander that that you know that faculty or that skill evaded him um um but as the commanderin-chief of India

[20:32] and later Vice Roy he was able to see that you know the in the end the reason that um mandes Gandhi was successful in his uh movement to gain Indian independence was that um Lord waval just he was not going to pursue scorched Earth tactics in in in

[21:07] in order to maintain India a as as a Crown Colony and and in in that sense mandes Gandhi was sort of fortunate in who his his his enemy was so to speak um because looking at it in the long term it I think it became inevitable to Lord waval that he saw that that that uh Gandhi and his followers were too committed to Independence and nonviolence and that in the face of that

[21:43] there really wasn't anything that the British could do now that's not to say there weren't violent clashes there there were during the movement for Indian independence and and at times the British did things that um I PR sure in retrospect they wish they you know that they they regret having done because they do not come out well um in those incidents having said that if if if Gandhi had been up against let's say an Adolf Hitler the circumstances likely would have been very very different or the

[22:20] results I should say would likely have been very very different I don't think that Adolf Hitler would have hesitated to kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of Indians if he thought that that's what it took to keep India subjugated um and and likewise today whether we're talking about a Vladimir Putin or a XI jingping um you know these are these are people who you know think nothing of of invading neighboring countries or

[22:55] killing portions of their population that they feel are not you know sufficiently um embedded in in in in Chinese culture like the Wagers um so Lord waval I think was was had had a vision of of how things were going to work out and and he realized that that in the end um India had to be put on a path uh to to Independence next Lord waville was an effective

[23:34] Communicator so I was having this conversation with somebody last night and we I the the the tendency is to say that good relation communication is good relationships that's not correct communication is an important tool in building good relationships and that's what Lord waval was able to do he was able to communicate clearly he was able to to communicate calmly and Es especially in a crisis when other people might have lost their heads uh Lord

[24:10] waval was able to remain calm and people I think really respect that and are drawn to it so I'm I'm reading right now um Barbara touchman great book about um August 194 14 The Guns of August it's it's the beginning of World War I and the the British commander um Sir John French I believe it is is she as she describes him he's you know as the

[24:46] Germans are invading uh Belgium and then into France um um sir sir French uh he can't take the pressure he's he's screaming at people he's he's unable to think coherently at times right this is this is not the the traits of a great leader not something that we want to emulate um in fact again I was having a conversation with a friend last night he happens to be in the tech world and he was once again he was telling me about

[25:22] the amount of screaming that goes on you know in in in some of the staff meetings in between you know him and his supervisor and such and and I I finally said you know this is just not this is not appropriate behavior screaming in the workplace is not appropriate it is not good leadership so we as Leaders need to emulate Lord wal's practice which was to stay calm to stay focused work on the problem deal with the personalities

[25:57] where that has to be dealt with but otherwise continue with good solid communication that gets us where we want to go next and I think this is particularly important for Lord W's situation and for business situations is he had an ability to balance military and political roles now comparing him to say George Patton okay George Patton

[26:34] didn't care a wit about politics at least that's what he would say now he knew how to sort of Schmo and and talk to military commanders and that kind of thing um but but when it came to dealing with politics like International politics he had no patience for that in fact famously his attitude uh at the end of World War II was while we have all these big armies in Germany we need to go into Russia and

[27:10] and get rid of the Communists there right so you know look you could certainly make the case that he had a point although Russia has been the graveyard of so many large armies who knows if if if the United States would have been successful but the odds were that they weren't which is why in the end um you know Eisenhower thought Patton was crazy for voicing that that opinion but that certainly was not the opinion of someone who knew how to balance military and political roles and and patton never claimed to be

[27:47] someone who could do that Lord waval was different he realized that there had to be a balance in these roles that milit the military in the end was a tool of statecraft so the mil military action was there to serve the ends of political leaders and especially as vicroy of India where he he was responsible for much of the political goings on in India he had to balance those two roles of

[28:24] commanderin-chief and vicroy you know when to use this the the so-called carrot when to use the stick and that was something that he was very good at in our businesses too I think we need you know we need to figure out what is the right mix of incentive versus I don't want to use the word punishment because I don't think we should be punishing our people but but sometimes we need to have candid talks with employees who either are are not

[28:59] performing as well as they should or who have made decisions that they ought not to have made and and and so you know we can't just sort of say oh well you know you made a bad decision you know we're gonna move on no before we make before we move on we need to go through it how did that decision get made why did you decide that way what might you do next time differently to come up with a better result so I I did a whole show on this um a couple weeks ago uh for about

[29:34] my my father being on a destroyer um and and ramming in a boat and how his commanding officer handled it and he didn't just Pat my dad on the head and say good boy you know thanks for you know ruining a boat no on the other hand he didn't yell at him either what he did was he he sat down with him and and worked through it so there are times we need to do that we can't always be saying good job good job good job we need to be balancing our roles both as leaders and in particular

[30:10] as managers uh always keeping in mind going back to the previous point we need to communicate effectively and then finally and this may have been uh Lord wal's most outstanding point which is why I say saved it for last he believed in Behaving ethically morally with Integrity that that was embedded in him from from an early age

[30:45] and and going back to what I was saying about interactions with with Gandhi when you have an opponent who has a very deep moral core so even when he does things that you know were were morally wrong he's likely to be as repelled by them as as the people who the actions were taken against and that's an

[31:21] important that's an important quality for us as Leaders to have sometimes we do have to fire someone sometimes we do have to rebuke someone and we should be doing so out of our moral cores not out of pleasure at calling someone onto the carpet or yelling at someone No it should be coming from our desire to be a good human being as well as help others

[31:58] improve and in so doing we we take what is ostensibly punitive and we we create an opportunity for growth in order to do that effectively we have to be clear about our moral code our ethics why we're doing these things and we've got to mean them we can't paint them over with a code of well this is for your own good no no not that's way too flippant we have to be clear morally

[32:35] clear inside especially when we're doing something that could cause one of our team members to com question their commitment to the team question their quality as a team member question something about their conduct their their work their progress Etc okay people can feel these coming from us you can call it empathy whatever you want to call it okay they can feel our motives and so we've got to be clear

[33:12] about our moral core like Lord waval was and if we are then much of what we do will be effective because even if our team members disagree with us they'll sense that we're coming from the right place and so they'll be willing to follow or to approach us with input if they really think we're off base knowing that we're going to be open to hearing

[33:48] it and even if we reject it give them a good hearing and and and an opportunity to ask their questions those are all not just good Leadership Lessons they're good people lessons they're good life lessons right and they come from wanting to be and and actually being ethical leaders people acting with integrity and that's who Lord waval was so he had the he had adaptability and the and and the ability to look at the big strategic picture he learned from his setbacks and

[34:25] in so doing was able to to exhibit a lot of resilience in adversity he had a the ability to to have a vision and and do long-term planning and then communicate effectively with the other members of his staff he was able to balance his roles in his case military and political roles and finally he led from a very strong ethical moral core doing his best to always act with Integrity even in those times when he

[35:03] there he did not he he eventually came back to that core so if we can exhibit these same qualities work on them develop them so then in in running our businesses or in working with within our practices or even working for someone else we'll be much more effective leaders and managers so that's that's the lesson that came from Lord waval having this failure late in his career and yet still being still going on to really triumphing I think

[35:38] not only in his own eyes but but but in in in British history as well so I thank you very much for joining me today hope you enjoyed the show always interested in hearing your comments good and bad so you can you can drop a comment in social media or if it's something uh you want to say privately you can send me an email all those links will be in the show notes tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show people making money and and I postponed this from last week because the data wasn't available

[36:13] uh we will be doing our econ our monthly economic Echoes and talking about how changes in the economy affect each one of us as individuals so I invite you to join me for that and then next Monday at 10:00 am is my H show trusts and Estates weekly all these times are pacific times and then a week from today we'll be back for the next edition of business lessons from the military so thanks again for watching wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off Marie you