Incredible as it may seem, the prestigious Wharton School of Business has actually inaugurated a top-level management training program in which executives tour various Civil War battlefields for inspiration and object lessons that might improve their business leadership skills.
Though there’s something pleasing in the notion of having members of the stock-option set trudge through mucky old bunkers and over wind-whipped historic ramparts, when they could be interfacing over poolside cocktails at the Greenbriar or Bermuda’s Princess Hotel, I was not at first disposed to think this a marvelous idea.
What next, I wondered, business executives going to dog racing tracks to improve their competitive instincts? Or visits to Las Vegas showgirl joints to improve gender sensitivity in the workplace?
Actually, they probably do the latter all the time.
But the more I thought upon it, the more I reflected on what happened at most Civil War battle sites, the more I began to think this a wholly appropriate idea.
Consider the inspiration and object lessons to be found here at Gettysburg, which a group of Wharton School management students recently toured.
What Civil War event could be more illustrative of sound, modern-day, profit-minded business practice than the climactic effort here known as “Pickett’s Charge?”
On the final day of battle, more than 17,000 Confederates were marched over open ground under devastating artillery and musket fire. Though they failed to dislodge the Yankees, 5,000 of them were lost.
What better demonstration of the efficacy of today’s corporate downsizing? Think of how the Confederate Army profit picture improved without all those mouths to feed and payrolls to meet. Indeed, when Gen. Pickett replied afterward to Robert E. Lee’s question as to the disposition of his division, saying, “Gen. Lee, I no longer have a division,” he should have been immediately promoted.
Or consider Col. Joshua Chamberlain’s heroic stand at Little Round Top, culminating in a valiant bayonet charge with which he repulsed a rebel flanking attack that might have cost the Union the battle and the war.
If Chamberlain had had useless frills like extra ammunition instead of bayonets, he might never have made that valiant bayonet charge. When your employees complain of a lack of useless frills like office supplies or restroom toilet paper, tell ’em to fix bayonets!
When Union Gen. Dan Sickles decided to use his own initiative and boldly move his men up against the Confederates at the Peach Orchard, any modern-day CEO could have predicted what would happen.
The rest of the Yankee army failed to support him, his position was overrun and Sickles had his leg shot off. He was soundly decried for the rest of the war.
If he’d been more concerned about his reputation, he would have followed sound business practices by holding back from showing any initiative–or even rendering an opinion. Instead, he would have demonstrated his management skills by simply attending all of Gen. Meade’s meetings and saying nothing except to agree with the boss.
That’s what nearly all of Lee’s subordinates did at the meeting he called before sending 12,000 men out with Pickett across a mile of open field.
The subordinates all came out of the war as Southern heroes, especially Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was so skilled at business leadership techniques he and his cavalry were miles away for most of the fighting.
Many of Lee’s Confederates had no shoes and had to attack barefoot–an example for today’s corporate managers to keep in mind when they deal with problems of overhead (not to speak of underfoot).
But then, they were all in uniform, illustrating the importance of today’s corporate office dress codes.
But then again, they lost, illustrating the importance of picking the right side in a dispute, and always making sure it’s the one with the shoes.
Gettysburg is considered the most important battle of the Civil War, but–because of Southern rashness and Northern reticence–it ended rather inconclusively, and the war went on two more bloody years.
Losses on both sides in the battle were horrendous, with the North suffering 23,000 casualties in the three days of fighting and the South an estimated 28,000. Yet along came President Lincoln with his Gettysburg Address, making everyone feel good in just 272 words.
You see, just like a corporate annual report.
