How I won the workplace; Can military experience help you become a

FOR staff read troops. For resources read a wide range of armaments. For command structure read officers. No matter how pressurised your workplace, it's unlikely to match the Kuwaiti desert facing Major General Patrick Cordingley during the 1990 Gulf War.

Yet although you don't have to become a self-styled General Patton to be a good manager, there are similarities, particularly if you feel your team is pitched into situations without sufficient training, resources or senior-management backing. Cordingley's experiences of the battlefield can be usefully applied to today's workplace.

Just think of Cordingley's 7th Armoured Brigade - the Second World War's Desert Rats - after four decades worth of training to fight a defensive war in eastern Europe, suddenly dispatched to the Arabian Desert for an offensive war. Equipment had been at sea for three weeks and had to be checked to make sure it still worked.

Cordingley asks: "How do you train for a war that's new to you?" Especially in front of 2500 world media representatives, including 150 British journalists, some longing for problem stories to tell the folks back home. Add in battlefield norms: sleep deprivation through noise, no privacy ("A soldier asked 'How's it going Brigadier' while I was on the latrine"), and back pain from hanging upside down inside a crashed Range Rover, and it's clear Cordingley knows a thing or two about performing under extreme pressure.

"No hopeless situations, only hopeless men and women," is Cordingley's no-nonsense approach to prophets of doom. If decision- making is hampered by a shortage of time, lack of information, flood of impressions and a chaotic environment, join the club.

Managers need to develop analytical, problem-solving and decision- making reflexes while the heat is off, so they can make intuitive decisions quickly in the thick of it.

"Move decisions as close to now as you possibly can," says Cordingley, and be prepared to take responsibility for command decisions alone. Subordinates can take care of control measures, but command is all yours. "I used a tank as command vehicle as it's the safest vehicle on a battlefield," says Cordingley. "Commanders need peace and quiet; on your own you could make up your own mind."

With decisions made, it's time to communicate plans to the troops. "Know what you're talking about and believe it." Bearing in mind complicated messages could be misunderstood, staff at the lowest level need messages in clearest terms.

There is also the dilemma of telling the whole team the whole story, when heightening awareness of danger could inhibit performance.

And communicating with yourself is vital: talk about feelings, admit to fears, even cry when it's all over. Cordingley admits: "I burst into tears at the end. Senior commanders all admitted it."

Cordingley also admits to one misjudgment after Desert Storm: "The Desert Rats returned to Germany quickly and then went on holiday. It was a mistake. They needed to unwind with their mates.

"Bonding between people is important. They could relieve a lot of pressure by talking about it."

War correspondent Kate Adie who reported in the Gulf also agrees that talking with colleagues and managers can be useful in ensuring tension doesn't get bottled up and adversely affect performance.

But, she adds, work pressure itself is not necessarily a bad thing: "Pressure extends abilities. Say you will get through scenes with equanimity," she says.

As pressure is a fact of working life, we're better able to withstand it when work is enjoyable. "We spend a lot of time there, so it's better to put a lot in and get a lot out," Adie concludes According to Tom Burnet, an ex-platoon commander with the Black Watch who now works as the director of the Edinburgh-based software developer Cedalion, his army experience has often proved useful in office life.

Although he argues that military life didn't help him with business processes, he says the experience did provide him with the ability to empathise, enthuse and sympathise with Cedalion's talented staff.

"Although these abilities may not seem relevant to some people, they are important skills for any officer. For example, when you ask people to do something they don't want to do, you have learn the power of communication. I had learned how to motivate people and get the best out of them."

He says the army spends a lot time teaching officers how to communicate what is important and why it's important to the soldiers serving under them. This ability, he adds, can often come into play in the day-to-day decision-making processes of the business world. A manager, just like an army officer, should have the confidence not only to make decisions quickly, but to make decisions that others can easily understand.

"As an officer, I could have someone put in jail or dismissed from the army if they didn't do what I wanted. So when you are dealing with highly-trained software developers, it's more about being able to justify your decisions. But ultimately there's no need for the same sort of instilled discipline when you are not asking someone to kill people."

Copyright 2001
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