Management Excellence by Art Petty

Note from Art: Eric Lieberman is back as a guest author with his second installment of Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle.  The “Rules” were created by Eric and his colleague, Paul Byrne, while they were leading a software company turn-around. They were successful!

Students of history and management practitioners alike will find value in these creative, powerful and practical rules for managing and leading.  Enjoy!

KNOWING THE MISSION

For this second installment of the business rules that my friend Paul Byrne and I derived from watching the movie the Memphis Belle (see my first installment: Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle-Rule #1), I am departing from the order in which we originally wrote the rules.

Instead, because it is a concept so fundamental to our success in anything we do, I am jumping to Rules 11, 16 and 19, all of which underscore the importance of being totally “mission aware”. Without a sense of our mission, the rest of the rules are meaningless.

The Story:

First, the story from the Memphis Belle: Leaving their airstrip on the English coast the crew of the B-17 Bomber Memphis Belle knew but one mission: drop their payload of bombs onto the target in Germany which had been assigned to them and the rest of their large flight-group.

As they flew towards the target, this singular sense of mission got them through the in-the-air machine-gun battles with enemy fighter aircraft and sustained them as the enemy anti-aircraft gun fire (“flak”) exploded around them as they neared their target. They knew their mission and they knew they were flying for a cause they believed in. They carried in their mind and hearts the people at home for whom they fought. (Rule 16: Know your mission and for whom you are flying).

When they neared the target, the pilot turned control of the plane over to the bombardier, who would use the sophisticated B-17 bomb-sight to guide the plane into the right position to drop the bombs and destroy the target. The Belle’s bombardier had a particularly heavy responsibility on this flight: because of the loss of another bomber, the Belle had become the lead bomber. The other bombers in the group would be cued to drop their payloads by the action of the Belle.

The cloud cover was so heavy over the target, however, that the bombardier could not see the target through his bomb-sight. The pilot, laser focused on the singular mission of the flight, made the decision not to drop the bombs on anything less than the primary target. He made the courageous decision to circle the aircraft and make a second run at accomplishing the mission. On the second pass, the bombardier was able to spot the target and the bombs were dropped successfully. Missions accomplished! (Rule 11: Stick with the mission – sometimes it requires two passes over the target before the bombs are dropped.)

Having successively completed the first mission, the Belle now had to realize a second mission: get its crew home alive! Suddenly, the crew was not flying for their country, but for their own lives. The 30-caliber machine guns, needed to defend their way into enemy airspace before the bombing run, became unnecessary dead-weight in the attempt to limp home. To lighten their load, the Belle crew threw some guns over board.

Their mission had gone from reaching a bombing target inside enemy territory to reaching home. They had gone from fighting for the cause, their country, to making it home alive. This change in mission required them to let go of assets that had helped them accomplish the prior mission. (Rule 19: The heavy guns needed for the mission may become dead weight for the next mission.)

Applying The Rules in Business: 

As my crew and I salvaged our software company and eventually sold it - we repeatedly had to stop, breathe and ask ourselves: what is our mission? For whom are we flying? Has the mission changed?

I was reminded of our first sense of mission last week when I attended a meeting of business mentors and ran into a partner at a large accounting firm. It was this same accounting firm that I had hired in 1998 to do an assessment of our company and help me with a strategy to reverse its downward direction. After several weeks of on-site investigation the firm handed me a $30,000 invoice with the advice: the only way to save this business is to fire 60% of its employees.

It was advice that I immediately knew I would not follow. It was short-sighted and had nothing to do with the mission I had been handed. My mission went beyond merely being able to pay debts when they were due. No, my mission was two-fold: (1) restore the value of the company for the benefit of its owners, and (2) protect the people – its employees – who were responsible for building the company. (That was one of the goals of its founders.) A dramatic 60% “rightsizing” would send the company into a tailspin from which it could not recover and our mission would fail.

As our conditions improved, our mission went from saving the company to growing the company. Pivotal in acheiving that growth was building a culture that recognized that we were “flying” a mission for our customers. We became zealots about customer satisfaction. We circulated a poster with a photograph of a mythic customer over the acronym: “WIIFM?” – meaning “What’s In It For Me?” That question – that reminder of our mission to satisfy the customer – kept our mission front and center.

Occasionally, while flying our corporate mission, I had to make the painful decision to fire someone, or demote them. This was never easy to do, especially when it involved a person that had been a key contributor and a friend. However, I’d bounce the situation off of Rule 19 – the resources we need for one mission can be wrong for the next mission – and I’d realize that the person hadn’t changed: it was the mission that had changed. This thought would force me to consider whether the person could be used on a different mission, more suited to the abilities and talents that had served them well in the prior mission. This application of the rule gave me confidence to do the things I had to do.

The Lessons:

And so, knowing the mission and sticking with the mission until it is completed are critical parts of being successful. However, equally important is knowing when there has been a change in mission and adapting accordingly. I was reminded of this in a print advertisement currently being run by MIT Sloan Executive Education. The ad (I saw it in the Financial Times)  shows a lizardly looking creature that looks like it has survived through many versions of our planet. Appearing in large type over the head of the lizard are these words: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change – Charles Darwin.” 

Know the mission. Achieve the mission. Be alert to changes in the mission. Adapt to new missions! 

–About Eric Lieberman: Eric Lieberman writes from his home in Evanston, Illinois and is available for comments and consultations and can be reached via e-mail. by writing ejlieberman@gmail.com.  Click here for Eric’s personal website and resume.