| Personal Note: Warrior Mentality |
| Friday, 01 February 2008 | |
What can today’s businesses learn from Genghis Khan, a brutal warlord? Quite a lot, says management expert Brad Dawson.
 What can today’s businesses learn from Genghis Khan, a brutal warlord? Quite a lot, says management expert Brad Dawson. Genghis Khan’s approach to world domination was based on a series of warrior management traits—operating tenets that formed the foundation for his success. Not surprisingly, these traits can be used to achieve business success. Once you get past the savagery that marked Genghis Khan’s reign, you can see that his structured approach to gaining world domination was simple, direct, and replicable. This article shows you how to use warrior management traits to build your business empire. Adapt to the environment A national home-building firm contemplated its strategic initiatives for the coming year, one marked with the lowest expected new home starts in a generation. The managers, filled with bravado, sought to better their peers by setting yearly objectives that were outlandish given the current market conditions. After boasts of 10%, 25%, and 100% growth were offered as targets for the year, a quiet voice of reason came from the back of the room: “I hope we don’t go out of business.” The room became hushed, and the reality of the market environment was realized. Survival, not growth, was the objective for the year. Khan realized that certain aspects of his empire were outside his control. For example, the weather had a direct impact on his battle plans. Instead of fighting what he could not control, he used his knowledge of the weather to complement his strategies (i.e., only attack China in the fall when the low humidity is ideal for bowstring tension, making arrow flight more accurate). He chose to embrace, not fight, the variables he could not change. One objective at a time Businesses wrestle constantly with issues of adding new employees, increasing the diversity of offerings, changing pricing structures, seeking new distribution channels, and numerous other changes to business dynamics. Strategic plans are dutifully brushed off each year and revised to include the “newest” industry objectives. Once completed, the strategic plan is set back on the bookshelf to be ignored for another year. The reason: strategic plans are long on content but short on “implementabilty”—there are too many facets to change simultaneously, which leads to no implementation at all. Khan followed the premise of achieving one objective at a time. With limited warrior resources, it didn’t make sense to send fragments of legions into multiple battles simultaneously. Using only partial resources to fight, the outcome would be a huge loss of personnel with little, if any, progress to show for their efforts. It was better to use his resources to conquer one enemy at a time, ensuring success and protecting his warrior resources for the next conquering initiative. No personnel transfers A regional architecture firm has the enviable statistic of only losing one employee over the last five years, a remarkable retention rate. It turns out the firm only hires entry-level employees right out of college and never hires individuals to fill slots in the mid- and higher tier management positions. The rationale is simple: individuals right out of college don’t have any bad habits that need to be broken. They are a clean slate that can be taught the business consistent with the firm’s policies and practices. Khan followed a philosophy that forbade any personnel transfers between his officers’ battalions. Individuals were assigned to officers at a young age and remained with the same battalion for life. He believed the inability to transfer created battalion loyalty and ensured that individuals did not flee to more protective quarters in the face of danger. Sharing the spoils A national technology firm struggled to implement a performance-based compensation system. The problem wasn’t with the system but the insecurities of the leadership. Many believed that every employee should be limited as to the amount of compensation they could earn, regardless of their contribution. They failed to realize that providing unlimited upside incentives to a high performer ensured a greater value return to them. Khan believed in sharing the spoils with his troops. When a region was overrun, the troops shared in the bounty. There were no caps on compensation. If there had been, the troops would probably have sat around contemplating the value of battle—especially for those that had already received their total compensation for the year. Speed of execution Small businesses share a trait that larger businesses have difficulty emulating: speed of execution. Many small firms pride themselves on being flexible enough to quickly leverage market opportunities. Larger corporations, because of their bureaucracy, often fall prey to analysis paralysis and are beaten to market by smaller competitors. Once in the market, the smaller firms are able to gather marketshare quickly, putting the larger firms at a disadvantage. Khan recognized that opportunity was fleeting. Infinite patience was necessary to ensure that all the attributes for success were in place prior to leading an offensive charge, but once in place, the window of opportunity was small, necessitating quick action on his part. Much of his success was based on his speed of execution—to immediately act when all the pieces fell into place. History tells us that Genghis Khan was a brutal individual. But beyond the savagery of his methods, he employed an effective framework that continues to be emulated today by successful businesses. As a business leader, you are in a position to effectively implement many warrior management traits. Will you continue to follow the “lessons learned” through traditional business methods, or are you ready to be a conqueror? Brad Dawson is the managing director of LTV Dynamics and has more than 27 years of management consulting experience. He is a frequent lecturer to international entrepreneurial businesses and has clients in the US, Russia, China, Mongolia, and Latvia. He serves as a contributing writer to a number of business and leadership publications. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
