Corporate Leadership Training on a Civil War Battlefield!

December 12, 2019

This past year, I took my Sales Leaders through a leadership development experience at Kennesaw Mountain Park, a Civil War battlefield located 30 miles northwest of Atlanta. The goal was to provide an immersive leadership experience that uses the battlefield to distill key leadership lessons that can be applied directly to leadership at any level in business or corporate America.

I chose the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield, because every aspect of leadership I wanted to explore and impart to my team, was present during this battle in June 1864. My three Sales Managers hail from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois – and units from these three states participated in this battle. This served to make the event more personal and relevant as they could see how leaders from their home states lived, fought, and in many cases, died on this hill in Georgia.

In the early stages of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Union General William T. Sherman tried to flank Confederate General Joseph Johnston but was unsuccessful. Sherman believed that a direct assault would break the Rebels. So he changed his tactics and planned a move against the center of the Confederate lines south of Kennesaw Mountain at Cheatham Hill. Sherman feigned attacks on both of Johnston’s flanks then hurled 8,000 men at the Confederate center. It was a disaster. Entrenched Southerners bombarded the Union soldiers, who were attacking uphill. Three thousand Union troops fell, compared with just 500 Confederates.

The first lesson explored was that the location of the leader on the battlefield matters. This was a great opportunity to explore where leaders should be in the heat of battle. The lesson learned: There is no right or wrong place to lead, but a leader should position himself where they can best influence the outcome of the battle.

Leaders must constantly examine the terrain and the conditions to ensure they are in the best location to lead in battle. Sales leaders find themselves in conference rooms, meeting rooms, hospital operating rooms, and in the offices of customers. The location of a leader must be a deliberate decision that best serves the accomplishment of the mission. Military history is replete with examples of leaders who led from the front and died at the front – sometimes for no other reason than to seek personal glory.  At Kennesaw Mountain, the Sales Leaders examined two leaders whose units attacked side-by-side, yet one chose to lead from the front and the other chose to lead from behind – providing a perfect opportunity to discuss where leaders should lead in the battle to best influence the outcome.

The second lesson explored was that of new leaders getting out of their comfort zone. When leaders are promoted to a new leadership position, they take on increased responsibilities. They do their best to prepare for the new duties entrusted to them by their organizations – but many are left to their own devices to figure out what to do. It is often a struggle for them to move beyond the behaviors and actions that helped them achieve their promotion. Often, leaders do not appreciate the changes necessary to be successful in that new role and instead, they return to what is familiar and operate a level below because it is comfortable given their past successes.

A key lesson from the training: Many leaders default to their comfort zone. The lessons of this battlefield: Sales Leaders need to move beyond their comfort zone -- to grow and learn as a leader -- especially when it feels uncomfortable to do so.

There were many other lessons explored during this leadership workshop including these examples:

1.      Confederate engineers made the mistake of laying out their defensive line in the dark and atop a hill rather than using the military crest of the hill. This seemingly small error may have saved the Union Army thousands of lives – in that many were in a covered position while in the attack. This may have been avoided by simple inspection of the defensive line by junior or senior leaders and unfortunately for the Rebels, the mistake was not caught until it was too late. (This begs the question of how and when leaders should ensure their orders are carried out appropriately.)

2.      The coordination and interaction between defending units of the Confederate Army in the defense of Cheatham Hill. (This provided a good example of how sales leaders could work together with their counterparts from different business units to accomplish the greater corporate mission.)

3.      While Sherman made the decision to assault Kennesaw Mountain, he left the choice of the target and the manner of attack up to his subordinates. History has largely blamed Sherman for the frontal assault and extreme loss of life at Kennesaw Mountain, but it has given his subordinate commanders a pass. (This is an excellent example of how senior leaders are sometimes scapegoated by junior leaders who prefer not to ‘own the problem’ or accept personal responsibility for their own decisions or actions.)

4.      General Sherman demonstrated his adeptness at strategic matters mastering the art of the flanking maneuver as evidenced in his march from Chattanooga to Kennesaw Mountain. Sherman lost a tactical battle at Kennesaw, but inevitably, he turned Confederate General Johnson’s flank and took Kennesaw Mountain. Johnston won the tactical victory, but ultimately, he lost the strategic one with the fall of Atlanta a few months later. (This provided a relevant example for our business in that leaders are sometimes too much like Johnston -- focused on tactical victories at the expense of larger more strategic ones.)

5.      Finally, a visit was made to the "Unknown U.S. Soldier" gravesite on the battlefield – and the only remaining gravesite at Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield. Recently, through a painstaking process of elimination and cross-checking, a local historian formally identified the soldier in this grave.  (The parallel to corporate America was to ensure that leaders have identified all the unsung heroes – whether they are surgeons, healthcare workers, employees, or patients – leaders do their best to identify them, recognize them, and honor them in their sacrifices and circumstances.)

While the battlefield provided a great metaphor for how we lead our teams, I wanted my team to walk away from this experience thinking about the three battles they face every day. I challenged them to think about how they fight these three battles: The first battle, is the battle of self – how do I see and lead myself? The second battle, is the battle of team – how do we have each other’s back? The last battle is the battle of mission – how do we lead ourselves and our teams to accomplish the mission? This experience provided an excellent opportunity to reinforce these lessons and help us grow as leaders!

Questions to Explore during the Battlefield Leadership Lab

Vignettes and Questions

Leadership, Courage & Rashness

In the attack on June 27 at Cheatham Hill, Colonel Dan McCook was given a rare opportunity to shine on the battlefield as a lead brigade against the apex of the angle. He seemed eager for the trial – possibly to prove worthy of his place in family lore. Two brothers and thirteen of their sons -- known as the Fighting McCooks -- joined the military and produced six brigadier generals. Before the battle at Cheatham Hill, McCook was counseled by senior leadership: “Don’t be rash, colonel, don’t be rash.” He responded by reciting a stanza from Macaulay's poem Horatius -- “…to every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds ...” In the battle up Cheatham Hill, McCook led from the front and exposed himself to urge his troops on. He reached the top of the hill and stood upon the parapet of the enemy position, and using his sword, he parried the efforts of the Confederates to bayonet him. McCook paid dearly for his bravado. He was shot by a Confederate soldier and was mortally wounded. He died six weeks later at his home in Steubenville, Ohio. 

Questions:

• Have you experienced a similar moment in your career, where you felt it necessary to “put everything on the line and at risk?” Why? 
• Do you believe Colonel McCook in leading from the front was rash? 
• Where do you position yourself in battles with corporate and with your agents? 
• It seems that Colonel McCook had either a determination for glory (even a glorious death), a determination to earn his spot in family lore, or to lead from the front so as to inspire his troops in a perilous situation – how do you see it? 
• Has your leadership gone unnoticed or unrewarded? How do you feel about that?
• How do you notice and reward the leadership of your subordinates? 
• When have you felt compelled to live up to family expectations? How did that turn out for you? 

Effective Leadership

After McCook was wounded, he was evacuated off the hill by a group of three men. The group came upon McCook’s colleague, Colonel John Mitchell, whose second brigade had gone into the right of McCook’s. Mitchell and his staff were standing near a tree about seventy-five yards in front of the main Union line, on the other side of the branch valley. According to one of the men in the group, McCook angrily berated Mitchell. “If I live, I will have you court-martialed,” he said. McCook was furious that Mitchell had stayed behind instead of leading his brigade to its fate. After the battle was over, officers involved in the effort went to great lengths to explain why their men had been unable to puncture the Rebel line. Mitchell argued that “the distance to be passed was too great,” the heat too intense, and he had no support on his right flank. Others argued that a direct assault against a well-prepared defensive position such as that held by Cleburne’s division on June 27th could not be accomplished.  

Questions: 

• Mitchell lived through the Battle of Cheatham Hill where his brigade took a tremendous beating with many killed and wounded. Do you think Mitchell lacked courage or was in the appropriate place to lead an assault on Cheatham Hill?
• Can you be an effective leader if you’re not leading from the front?   
• Where have you put yourself in harm’s way as a leader and where have you not? 
• When given what seems to be an impossible mission, how do you react? What justifications do you make or excuses if any, do you typically offer? 
• Is there a right time to express ‘moral courage’ – to say something ‘can’t be done’ and ‘it’s foolish to try’? 
• When have you had to ask subordinates to do something you didn’t want to do yourself? What did you do – how did it work out? 
• When your career is over – how do you want to be remembered?

Loss of a Leader

After Dan McCook was wounded, Colonel Oscar Harmon of the 125th Illinois took charge of the brigade but he was shot and killed little more than five minutes after McCook. Not long after both leaders fell, the brigade began to move away from the Confederate works. One of the soldiers in McCook’s brigade remarked: “Somehow we lost our grit.” When the Corps Commander, General Palmer, encountered a mortally wounded Cook and a dead Harmon in the rear, he knew with certainty the attack had been a failure. 

Questions:

• Do we have a succession plan? Have we trained our junior leaders to take our place if we get taken out?
• Do our junior leaders know the ‘bigger plan’ and have they been given opportunities to lead and more importantly to ‘fail’ in leadership positions so as to optimize their learning? 
• When our senior leaders are removed, what fears present themselves? How do handle the loss of a leader? How do we exercise leadership in the face of a lost senior leader? 
• Have we trained our teams well enough that they can carry on without us? 
• What would you do if you were General Palmer – what orders would you give? 

Defensive Positions - Defilade

 On Cheatham Hill, Confederate engineers made the mistake of laying out their defensive line in the dark. They staked out a few yards farther up the slope of Cheatham’s Hill than was required. As a result, the Confederate infantrymen could not fully see the ground in their front, partly shielded by the true military crest a few yards in front of their trench. Men in the left regiments of Vaughan’s brigade and the right regiments of Maney’s brigade could not see more than twenty-five to forty yards ahead of their line. Standing on the ground in 1897, many years after the battle, a former Federal officer was struck by how the crest of the slope provided cover for the Federals after their attack failed on June 27 – just 60-70 feet from the enemy. 

Questions:

• How often in our jobs do we fail to properly assess a situation – we don’t know all the facts and we accept our assumptions too easily? When have we believed we understood a situation only to find out that our assumptions were completely wrong? 
• When has a competitor failed to properly assess and understand the competitive situation – allowing us to exploit an otherwise vulnerable situation? 
• When have we used defilade to hide either from corporate or competitors? 
• The Confederate engineers who laid out the trench line on the topographical crest or actual crest rather than the military crest – inadvertently saved many Federal lives – and prevented a complete slaughter of the Army of the Cumberland at Cheatham Hill. What hills are we attacking in our career – what obstacles are we facing – where are we finding cover and respite – and where does it feel overwhelming and desperate? 
• Where were the junior leaders? Did they not know that trenches should be on the military crest and not the actual crest? Who supervised the digging of the trench line and why didn’t someone pipe up?

Supporting Fires

Ironically, because the Confederates at Dead Angle were on salient or spur on top of the actual crest of the hill, it is one of the first instances in warfare where defensive units fired obliquely across the front of the men to their left or right and their adjacent units doing the same -- all because they couldn’t see the soldiers directly to their front. Colonel George W. Gordon of the 11th Tennessee began to coordinate a plan for infantry fire with neighboring units. Interestingly Gordon’s 11th Tennessee was the last unit in Vaughan’s Brigade (Show on the Map) – so it was wise of him to work out these plans well before the Yankees came. As warfare advanced this became a standard defensive tactical practice -- providing interlocking fires with adjacent units to cover gaps and provide concentrated fire. 

Questions:

• How do we work with our units on our left and right – to strengthen and enhance our selling position? 
• What gaps do we have in ‘our lines’ what are we doing to tie off with units to our left and right? 
• When we notice something isn’t just right or could be improved – are we taking ownership?

Preparation of the Battlefield – Missed Opportunities

The Federal guns continued firing on the morning of June 24, pounding the angle and partially enfilading Vaughan’s left flank. (Note: Show on the Map) Cheatham worried that his position would soon become untenable, that he might have to conduct a difficult withdrawal. Fortunately for the Confederates, it seemed as if the Union gunners were unaware that their fire was having an effect, for they stopped after an hour. Similarly, Confederate Colonel John C. Carter’s Tennessee Brigade continued the line around Cheatham Hill where Maney’s defense had left off. He too, could lay down some oblique rifle fire on the area in front of Maney. But a more effective supporting fire could be laid down by a concentration of eight artillery pieces located on Carter’s line that could enfilade the right flank of the Union Column hitting the Dead Angle. 

Questions:

• How do you identify obstacles and opportunities in your business? How much time do you take to prepare for sales calls or training?
• Where have you missed opportunities to change the course of your career or sales objectives?
• How do you assess lessons learned or best practices from your efforts? How do you memorialize those lessons and then pass them on?

Strategy & Tactics

General Sherman demonstrated his adeptness at strategic matters mastering the art of the flanking maneuver as evidenced in his march from Chattanooga to Kennesaw Mountain. However, his sense of how to conduct a tactical offensive vis-à-vis Cheatham Hill left something to be desired. Sherman lost a tactical battle at Kennesaw, but inevitably, he turned Confederate General Johnson’s flank and took Kennesaw Mountain. It proved to be a tactical victory for Johnson as he slowed Sherman’s march and killed over 3,000 Federal soldiers – but it was a strategic defeat in his ultimate loss of Atlanta.  

Questions: 

• Where has our business won tactically, but lost strategically or vice versa? 
• Where are we trying to take our business strategically?
• Do you understand our corporate strategy? Do you feel your tactical execution supports that strategy? 

Blame, Responsibility & Moral Courage

While Sherman made the decision to assault Kennesaw Mountain, he left the choice of the target and the manner of attack up to his subordinates. History has largely blamed Sherman for the frontal assault and extreme loss of life at Cheatham Hill, but it has given his subordinate commanders a pass. It was General George Thomas (my hero and widely regarded as the best Union strategist in the Army) who chose to attack a salient in the Confederate line called the Dead Angle. This attack by Thomas’ men was one of the few occasions during the entire Civil War on which European mass or heavy infantry tactics were used (rather than linear Light Infantry tactics) – attacking 10-12 ranks deep with the highest number of casualties of any engagement in the Atlanta Campaign.  Palmer (who reported to Thomas) did a good deal of scouting to find a suitable place for this 14th Corps to attack and he chose Cheatham Hill. But later admitted he had little faith in the enterprise.  After scouting the position all morning on June 23rd, and dodging enemy fire, Palmer “reported to General Sherman that this whole Army could not carry the position.” According to Palmer, Sherman responded that “Joe Johnston must not consider any part of his line safe, and ordered the assault.”

Questions:

• Where have we allowed our boss to be ‘scapegoated’ rather than to take responsibility for our decisions or actions? 
• When was the last time we hid behind our boss’ decision or blithely said this is a ‘corporate requirement’ when passing on orders or tasks to subordinates? 
• When could we have challenged our boss and his decision and are we willing to do that today? When is the appropriate time to challenge your boss and his/her decision-making? 
• Where have we reverted to old tactics and done what was expedient? 
• Every day we implant our products into patients – when do we directly or indirectly put them at risk by our actions? Are we willing to speak up when we see something that’s not right?

The Unknown Soldier

Michael, I would like to spend a little bit of time at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier. I would like Jim Rasmussen (who is from Chicago) to read the following vignette: 

Pvt. Mark Carr was 19 when he enlisted in the Army in 1861. It is likely that his family in Illinois never knew what happened to the young Union soldier who was deployed to the South to fight in the Civil War and later declared missing in action. As it turns out, he died June 27, 1864, charging the enemy during the Cheatham Hill attack in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. He is buried in a grave that for more than 70 years was marked "Unknown U.S. Soldier." Brad Quinlin, a volunteer historian at the park, spent five years poring over documents from Georgia to Illinois to Washington to learn the identity of the soldier buried in the only remaining grave at the former battleground operated by the National Park Service. Born in Indianapolis, Carr moved with his family to rural Dixon, Ill., about 45 miles southwest of Rockford. He was a farmer and day laborer before responding to Lincoln's call for troops. Carr enlisted in the 34th Illinois Infantry -- known as the Red River Rifles. According to his military service records, Carr was a loyal and committed soldier. He was always present for paid duty roll calls, never taking a day off sick or for personal reasons. When he was called to war, he served his country, as did 260,000 other Illinoisans who volunteered for the Union. Today this grave serves as a reminder of what happened here and that people died here – and some are still lost to time and memorial. Today, he is no longer unknown and he is remembered! 

Questions:

• Where in our business are the unsung, unmentioned heroes? How can we take the time to discover them and recognize them?
• Who are the casualties of our business dealings, our acquisitions, and our competitive selling efforts? What happened to them – how did they fare?
• What happens to the patient after we’ve done our job? What kind of outcome did they have? Did we do our best to ensure the patient had a good surgical procedure? If not, why not? What are we doing to prevent it from happening again?    

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