What Can Leaders Learn From the Life of Robert McNamara?
As a 48-year old, I am too young to have a first hand recollection of the role that former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara played in shaping the Vietnam War. As a student of leadership and history, I've been fascinated to read the many different obituaries, articles and editorials that have been written about the man since he died earlier this week. They range from sympathetic (as an example, see this interview with George McGovern on Politico ) to reflective (for instance, David Ignatius' column in the Washington Post) to angry (Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times is one example).
Of all the articles I've read on McNamara, the most comprehensive is the front page piece by Thomas Lippman in the Washington Post. With respect and acknowledgment to those who experienced Vietnam as young adults, here are a few lessons that I've picked up from the life of Robert McNamara that I think leaders should keep in mind.
Subjective Information Matters at Least as Much as Objective Data: McNamara established himself through his application of statistical process control techniques to the bombing of Japan in World War II and, later, to the manufacturing process at Ford Motor Co. After his first visit to Vietnam as Defense Secretary in 1962, he famously said, "every quantitative measurement we have shows we're winning this war." What the measurements didn't account for was what McNamara himself later described as "large indigenous support" bound by "bonds of loyalty" among the Viet Cong. I think the lesson for leaders is to not be so wedded to a particular management system or methodology that you become blinded to the actual dynamics on the ground.
The Second Most Important Thing for a Leader to Say May Be, "I Made a Mistake." In 1995, 20 years after the Vietnam War ended, McNamara wrote a book in which he said that he was "wrong, terribly wrong" in his prosecution of the war. There are different points of view as to whether or not he went far enough in acknowledging the depth of his errors. What does not seem debatable is that he waited far too long to acknowledge that his policies were flawed. The record shows that McNamara had private doubts about his strategies as early as 1964 and certainly by 1966. It's beyond my realm of expertise to diagnose what kept McNamara from acting on this realization when it could have made a difference. Perhaps it's best to leave it to the words of the late journalist David Halberstam who wrote that McNamara was "a prisoner of his own background... unable, as indeed was the country who sponsored him, to adapt his values and his terms to Vietnamese realities." Perhaps a lesson for leaders here is to regularly question your assumptions and motivations when making decisions when the stakes are high.
The First Most Important Thing for a Leader to Say Might Be, "I'm Sorry." As I read the first few articles to come out after McNamara died, my initial thought was that he did a lot to redeem himself through his leadership of The World Bank in the late 1960s and 1970's. The more I read, however, the more I understood how many people are still enraged by what McNamara did on Vietnam (The Bob Herbert piece is the best example I've seen of this). I think I understand at least part of the source of the anger. As far as I can see from my reading, while McNamara eventually said he made a mistake, he never said, "I'm sorry for what I did." Clearly, there's a difference. As human beings, we can't expect perfection from others but I think we do expect an apology when we've been hurt or wronged. I wonder how those who still feel aggrieved and enraged by the decisions McNamara made would feel if he had offered a clear apology for the mistakes he said he made. Sometimes leaders need to say, "I'm sorry."
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Executive coach Scott Eblin’s goal is to help you succeed at the next level of leadership. Throughout the week, he’ll offer his take on the leadership lessons in the news and his advice on your most pressing leadership questions. A former government executive, Scott is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is the author of The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success.
Apparently, the best and brightest don't alway get it right. And perhaps it's the most difficult for the best and brightest to accept that they got it wrong.
u no me Posted Wednesday, July 8, 2009 3:32 PMThe lesson to be learned is that our leaders don't learn. So it took McNamara 30 years to admit he made a mistake, but he's not sorry for it. I served in Vietnam and still believe it was for no good reason. I now lament our young men and women serving for no good reason in Iraq. If I'm still living 30 years from now I'll be interested in seeing if Cheney and Rumsfeld ever admit their mistake and are sorry for it.
Leonard Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:26 AMMcNamara needs to be excorciated not for his conduct of the Vietnam War (he was not alone in this) but for the curse he has left onthe Department of Defense. His "rational" management has continued in DoD long after he left. Efficiency trumps effectiveness every time. Leadership has been abandoned for management. DoD's "business" is war or as one former Army colonel told me, "Blowing things up and killing people." To do that at the least cost to ourselves requires leadership and effectiveness, something you won't find among the proverbial bean counters. For those who think the McNamara Curse does not live on just think back on the last time you experienced Death By Powerpoint and sat there wondering, "Do these people really believe this stuff?"
Jeffrey K. Bower Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:33 AMThe Vietnam years have been analyzed a lot. But not often from a military perspectives, at least that were done well.
One overarching theme that appears to be the case is that in spite of all the analytic brain power the civilains never looked a van Clauswitz's work "On War". Unfortunatley, most of the military senior leaders forgot what was written also.
One thing we SHOULD have learned, is that preparing our Armed Forces or "preparing for war", is a lot differnt that fighting a war. We should have learned that from our Civil War and General McClelean, but apparentley didn't. The analytic techniques did fix the worst of the mess that existed in DOD procurment. But by using systems analysis, the joke was that they expected to shot the last enemy with the last shot fired which wa the last bullet shipped to Viet Nam. Compared the von Clauswitz, - if you think a division will be adequate, send two. Von Clauswitz doesn't give a lot of "analytic data" in the sense of systems anlysis, but includes an analytic frame work where things like "bonds of loyalty" can be included.
Von Clauswitz also stated the war is a continuation of politics by other means. If you read that correctly then the "Kinetic" aspect of war does not displace the "non-kinetic" aspects, i.e. military action is only a part of the equation. (Which we seemed to have forgotten once again).
Being able to say I made a mistake, is important. But then what? do you have a plan to fix the mistake, or do you give up and let someone else try to fix it, or does it all go down the drain? It's obvious that McNamara and comapny did not know how to fix it in 1966 although they tried. And by 1973 the military almost did it. But after the US with drew it's troops, and the Vietnamese were fighting by them selves, it could have gone either way. But the US guanateed their loss when the US Congress voted not to provide continuing financial aid to them. In spite of the terrible losses of US and Vietnamese, the vietnamese were in a possition to "take over" (sounds like Iraq doesn't it), and we pulled the rug out from under them. And poured all the losses down the drain for nothing.
The lesson (besides not abandoning our "freinds" which the US has a terible history of) is that it is easier to start a war, or get into a war than it is the stop a war or get out of a war. Von Clauswitz more or less says that too.
henry erbes Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:49 AMI have to take issue with Leonard: though I respect his service and was too young to have a political view in the '60's; Iraq was not Rumsfeld's Vietnam. Saddam went plenty far enough to justify invasion, and DOD shouldn't be the agent for putting things back together, State should. Finally, the Bush administration didn't advertise the (known) extended executive and economic commitment required to see the job through because they feared loss of public support. If we don't confront our adversaries when it's time, the world will walk over us, and they will adjust our values to fit theirs. Iraq was a responsibility we took on in defence of our values, not a quagmire we need to hightail away from.
Ray Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 10:36 AMMcNamara was directly responsible for the escalation of a civil war between two nationalist factions into the biggest military disaster since the US Civil War. His legacy is carved into the Wall. He deserves no sympathy, but I will pray for his soul.
Tom Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:28 AMI'd add two more lessons. First, awful results can stem from good intentions. Mr. MacNamara was trying to help -- to make us more militarily effective, and to reduce the number of U.S. casualties. It all went horribly wrong, and he proved unable to change course, but he started with what most of us would agree were laudable goals.
Second, leaders have real impact. Their decisions have real consequences. Because of that, leaders MUST have ways to determine the "on the ground" consequences of their decisions. As smart as Mr. MacNamara was, I don't think he ever truly understood this.
Bob Schilling Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:35 AMThe best lesson for a leader is to avoid making mistakes or taking actions that they will have to apoloigize for in the first place.
Scot Faulkner Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 12:24 PMIt appears McNamara's book hasn't been read closely by many people. He actually consistently says *2* things-- 'I'm sorry,' and 'it wasn't really my fault.' It appears that in some cases, it's possible to say 'I'm sorry' in the sense of 'I regret that the event occurred,' in an attempt to *get credit* for saying 'I did wrong.' The McNamara book isn't an easy read, but it pays to read it attentively. Many people regard the book as a 'mea culpa' but have forgotten that 'mea culpa' means *my fault.* McNamara stops well short of apology in that sense, as I read the book.
Louise Kosta Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 1:01 PMScott: Great observations about lessons learned from this specific case. We can indeed learn so much from the lives (and mistakes) of others.
K. Scott Derrick Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:21 PMJeff got it right. His damage was far beyond the war, but in the business of the Pentagon. Rumsfeld created the same damage in the same ways, both on the battle field and in management. Both so convinced of their own brilliance they can't see the vast mistakes they make/made.
bmj Posted Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:07 PMLeave us not forget Mr. McNamara's time at Ford where he laid the groundwork for what I like to call "body count math." This is; if the cost of fixing a problem exceeds the expected liabilities, don't fix the problem. With Ford, this played out with his acolyte Iococca and resulted in the Ford Pinto. I think we all know how it played out in Vietnam.
Lane Narrows Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 7:54 AMLeonard - Saddam's Iraq was not Vietnam. It's not DOD's job to put things back together. It's State's. I hope the Obama administration remembers that as DOD hightails it out. True, many of our brave Soldiers sacrificed too much in Iraq, but most of them will tell you they had their reasons.
Ray Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 9:54 AMWhen my Dad used to tell me that our military was not allowed to win the war, I didn't understand it. Now I know exactly what he meant. Fighting to turn back communism was the right thing to do. And look at the million plus that died in Cambodia after we left.
The so-called non-conformist generation saw no other way to act than to conform with each other against the war. Communism was and remains a very clear cut enemy to freedom.
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Bolton Posted Saturday, October 10, 2009 11:41 AMGood morning. No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
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Raffaello Posted Saturday, October 17, 2009 7:41 PM