Posted on August 28, 2009 // 1 Comments

I recently re-watched the brilliant TV mini-series ‘Band of Brothers’. If you haven’t seen this DVD series, it’s the story of Easy Company, the 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army – and their journey from their D-Day landing on Utah beach through to the eventual surrender of Nazi Germany at the end of WWII.

Although it is clearly not a programme about ‘employee engagement’, it is definitely a programme about ‘people engagement’, and there are many observational lessons you can take away from it.

At the heart of the story is an inspirational leader, Dick Winters, who joined the army as a private, and in 4 years finished the war as a highly regarded and respected major, who led his troops through the most difficult and unimaginably horrifying times of war.

Lesson 1: Having a great leader at the top is critical to achieving extraordinary results

The first ‘engagement’ lesson to take away from Band of Brothers is the importance of having a strong leader at the top of the organization, who people respect, look up to and admire.

Major Winters was that person in Easy Company.

Winters was the classic ‘follow-me’ inspirational leader: fair, caring, brave, and always leading by example. He always gave to his soldiers, and never took. This ‘give not take’ belief was one of his principal philosophies of his leadership.

His success was not only due to his calm head and thinking under immense pressure, but also his brilliant people management skills, and his ability to connect with the hearts and minds of his team. This included his fellow officers (both junior and senior to him), and more importantly, his NCOs and soldiers who laid down their lives for their country.

Lesson 2: Middle and line-managers (NCOs) drive results – as well as engagement

It is impossible to watch Band of Brothers without understanding the importance of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) such as sergeants and corporals.

In a traditional business, NCOs are the equivalent of middle-managers or line-managers, who are the people with the closest contact to the front-line employees – and the glue which keeps the teams together.

In one particular episode, Major Dick Winters says that the only thing holding Easy Company together are the NCOs. In a subsequent book written by Winters (which I have just received from amazon), he states, “The heart of the company, as always, was the corps of seasoned noncoms.” In the military, NCOs are critical in giving advice, feedback and guidance to officers. Senior leaders such as Winters invest time in developing and mentoring the man-management ability of these NonComs, who in turn understand the importance of providing care and support for the men the lead.

Lesson 3: Every member of the team must believe and understand the company’s purpose

Next you have the soldiers themselves who believed in the purpose and cause they were fighting for, which was democracy, freedom and the elimination of Hitler’s fascism. Even though they were thrown together in the most stressful situations, they were able to achieve extraordinary results because of the bond, focus on a common purpose and team spirit they had.

Their success was against all odds and in the most challenging situations.

There have been endless books analyzing the military and business. I’m not for one minute suggesting the rhetoric that business is war, but I am simply suggesting that there are many lessons for employee engagement in Band of Brothers.

Under the leadership of Major Dick Winters, his trusted NCOs (the middle and line-managers) and troop soldiers were engaged, understood the goals and purpose of the mission, understood their role in it, passionately believed in what they were doing, and ultimately succeeded.

Lesson 4: Poor leaders destroy morale and confidence

Where Band of Brothers shows instances of exemplary leadership and man-management, there is one episode that shows what a disengaging impact a poor leader or manager can have.

As the troops reached Bastonge, for one of the most hostile battles they faced after D-Day, Easy Company came under the command of Lieutenant Norman Dike, who did not have the respect and belief of Easy Company.

Dike may have had the rank, but he didn’t connect with his men or demonstrate that he cared. Consequently, under his leadership, the troops of E-Company were at their lowest ebb at a difficult time when they needed a strong leader.

Although this time the team looked to their NCOs (in particular Sergent Carwood Lipton who later went on to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant for his outstanding leadership), the disabling impact that Dike’s poor leadership had on the morale, confidence and the direction of the troops was staggering. In this case, the poor leadership of Dike led to the loss of lives.

Very quickly, once Major Winters saw the problem that Dike’s poor leadership was having in one of the operations in Bastonge, he decisively removed Dike in the battlefield, and installed a new Lieutenant, Ronald Speirs, who took command of the operation.

In business the parallel runs true too.

Poor managers and leaders have a destabilizing impact on the morale, confidence and belief of employees.

Good managers, indeed great managers understand the impact they have on the success of a company or operation.

Great managers are great man-managers – and understand how to get the best from people at a level that few others do. They take responsibility and ownership for the motivation, morale and engagement of their team.
 

Lesson 5: Training and development is key – as is getting the right people in place, and liberating those who are wrong for the position

The fifth lesson to take away from Band of Brothers, goes back to Episode 1, and the back-story behind Easy Company.

Easy Company was designed to be the best of the best, and a rigorous selection process was undertaken to make sure that only the right men, with the right attitude and aptitude were selected for this crack unit. In many ways, the chances of Easy succeeding where other units may have failed, stems from the fact that they got the right people on the bus in the right seats in the first place, and as we saw in the case of Lieutenant Dike, quickly got the wrong people off the bus. The leadership of Easy understood the importance of playing to people’s strengths.

Much has also been spoken about of Lieutenant Sobel, the original commander of Easy.

Sobel originally trained the men of Easy Company, and was a strict task master, and there can be no doubt that through his training, he created a crack team of elite soldiers.

That said, his leadership approach (ruling by fear), which was the antithesis of Dick Winter’s (leading by example) alienated him from the troops, who did not respect him. So much so that the entire company’s NCOs resigned their commission when Sobel tried to court marshal Winters suggesting that he failed to follow a command, an infraction Sobel falsely manufactured. This is the same as your entire middle-management resigning, because they have lost confidence in your company’s CEO.

In Band of Brothers you see the contrast of leadership styles in Winters, Sobel, Dike and Speirs (who stepped in for Dike on the battlefield). It seems obvious to me that each leader had their time and a place where they could excel.

Sobel was great a training men and instilling a sense of excellence in them. He was not however good at leading troops on the battlefield.

Speirs was awesome on the battlefield, but would arguably not have been as good as Sobel at training men and preparing them for war.

Dike: it’s harder to understand his strengths – perhaps he wasn’t a leader (or hadn’t yet developed as a leader), and should never have been put in that role. This may be very unfair to him, but it is certainly how it is represented in the TV-series and is supported by Winters in his book – ‘Beyond Band of Brothers’.

Winters was an exceptional man-manager of exemplary character who eventually rose to become battalion commander – but who knows, may have been at his best when commanding a company of 150 men, which he did with Easy Company. In many ways, Winters reminds me of Ernest Shackleton, the legendary leader who, after a failed expedition to the North Pole, successfully brought all his crew safely home, against all odds.

Final Thoughts:

It becomes more obvious to me each day as I speak with HR directors and operational executives that leadership and man-management is central in creating a company of motivated, engaged employees.

When the question is asked, “How can I motivate or engage my employees?” or “How can I reduce employee turnover?” – the answer which leaps out to me is to develop better leaders and man-managers in your company.

Motivated, driven teams – and strong leaders and man-managers go hand-in-hand.

In Easy Company, Dick Winters may have been the inspirational leader, but he knew only too well that the success of Easy was down to his NCOs and their ability to get the best from the soldiers.

In business, this responsibility falls to front-line-manages, who actually have more impact in creating an engaged workforce than they probably first realise.

Category : Blog