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As the mini-boom (mini-bubble?) expands in Silicon Valley – fueled in large part by Google, Apple, and the ephemeral “Web 2.0” – talk here has once again turned to leadership. Specifically, are there enough seasoned leaders to guide the many companies that are being formed?

And how do these leaders, many of whom are technical founders, learn the art and science of the craft? For management expertise, we often look to books, business schools, and the web. But for leadership, we often look to corporate icons, professional athletics, and the military service.

In that last category, our military academies – West Point, Annapolis, and others – are specifically tasked with instilling future Generals and Admirals with the fundamentals of

Service and of the art and science of leadership.

But are these skills appropriate to 21^st-century Silicon Valley? Well, they have illuminated my career for the last 25 years, and have helped me to manage a large division of a $1B public software company (Informix) and guide several startups to segment leadership and eventual exit (most recently Teros).

For a brief look at how these lessons might help your leadership game, read on….

To begin, let’s examine five key leadership lessons that I took away from my plebe (freshman) year at Annapolis. (Please forgive my use of the masculine gender, Annapolis was still a “men’s club” back then.)

Let’s get on to the lessons and their application to our high tech world:

1. To learn to lead you must learn to follow
   

When I first heard this, I thought that it was simply an awkward attempt by power-mad upperclassmen to motivate us to “jump higher” without question – and do it joyfully in the knowledge that it would help us become admirals.

Years later, I had the privilege of flying F-18 fighters off of aircraft carriers. In that demanding operational environment, I learned first-hand that reflexive obedience to orders was essential to mission accomplishment. Pilots who ignored guidance from their Landing Signal Officer couldn’t land, and those that thought that they were smarter than flight deck personnel wrecked airplanes.

Years after that, in senior management positions here in the Valley, it’s become painfully obvious when staff members have never learned good followership. There seem to be two very common symptoms. First, they often don’t provide their boss with the information needed to make a decision on a given issue. Second, they usually don’t keep their boss informed on what they need to be successful in their jobs. The first leads to bad and/or late decisions, and the second leads to mutual frustration and often termination.

As an executive, it’s really easy to know if your team is doing good staff work – you sleep at night when they do. It’s that simple and that obvious.

2. “I’ll find out, sir!”

In the language of Academy plebes, there are only five allowable responses (and one exception below):

· “Yes, sir.”

· “No, sir”

· “Aye-aye, sir” (meaning “I’ll comply with your order”)

· “No excuse, sir”; and

· “I’ll find out, sir”

Notice that “I don’t know, sir” is not in the vocabulary. In the highly structured world of the plebe, that statement would be superfluous. You are simply expected to find out, so why not just say that right off?

Ask yourself how many times is telling someone that you “don’t know” a waste of time for both of you? Wouldn’t it really be easier for all parties if you just said that you’ll find out (and maybe give an expected timetable for that discovery)? “I don’t know” can also send an implied message of “I don’t care” or “not my problem” – hardly the stuff of good leaders or followers.

Another perspective on this subject is available on the Entrepreneurship Blog.

3. “…any midshipman guilty of offenses of a dishonest nature…is an individual intolerable to the Brigade….”

So wrote a young midshipman by the name of H. Ross Perot, who in 1953 was given the task of drafting what later became the Midshipmen Honor Concept.

Why is this emphasis on integrity so important? Simply put: in combat, dishonesty kills people. In peacetime, lies reduce effectiveness, erode confidence and morale, and undermine any concept of discipline.

On the whole and despite the occasional scandal, high tech startups do pretty well with obvious decisions regarding integrity. We fire people that lie or steal corporate assets. We don’t embezzle funds or use our expense accounts for personnel betterment. And we don’t out-and-out misrepresent facts in our statements.

But how many times have you heard (or used yourself) the phrases “spin this for the Board” or “err on the side of confidence” or “everybody fudges their download statistics”? Under what circumstances are these phrases appropriate?

It’s easy to make the right decisions in situations where conventions or norms exist to guide behavior. However, it is in the grey areas where one’s integrity is truly tested.

4. Don’t ‘bilge’ your classmates [teammates]

The Academy uses this bizarre communications construct to teach a vital lesson – in the breach, you’ll live or die by your team.

Here’s how it goes in typical usage:

· Upperclassman (UC): “Where is your roommate?”

· Plebe (PL): No response

· UC: “I said WHERE IS HE?”

· PL: “Request permission not to bilge [blame] my classmate, sir?”

· UC: “Granted”

· PL: “He’s in the Activity Room creating a storefront in Second Life.”

The idea here is to train in the reflex of thinking before you say anything that hurts a teammate, and therefore weakens team coherence.

Today, I learn a lot about this concept by watching professional sports on TV. In particular, I watch the post-game interviews. What will LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant, who measures his support like a fine brandy, say about his teammates’ contributions after a game in which he scores 52 points? What did former Steelers Coach Bill Cowher, the epitome of team ethos, say when talented young quarterback Ben Roethlisberger makes a fool of himself on an overpowered motorcycle?

At our startups, it’s vital that we coach team members to speak honestly about situations without assigning blame. Here are some suggestions:

· Praise in public, reprimand in private.

· If something negative needs to be voiced about a team member, invite them into the conversation.

· The Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor School (AKA “Topgun”) teaches pilots to always debrief in the third person – e.g., “…the Red Fighter turned hard across the Blue Fighter’s tail…” – even when those pilots are in the room. This has been found to keep emotion out of the discussion, thereby promoting free exchange.

Open, direct and constructive communication is always appropriate.

5. The top motivator for heroic acts

This brings us to our final, and most important lesson.

I had the great privilege of learning directing from one of this country’s great heroes – VADM Jim Stockdale. What an inspiration, and what a role model for an aspiring aviator. (Note: Stockdale’s Naval Test Pilot School classmate, John Glenn, was also a wonderful role model.)

This is the guy that won the Medal of Honor and four Silver Stars, devised the “tap code” for fellow inmates while interred as a POW for 7 years during the Vietnam War at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” and he deliberatively disfigured himself with a razor so that his captures could not use him in a planned television propaganda appearance. Read the links….

Admiral Stockdale was a guest instructor (!) at one of my leadership classes in 1980. We asked him how he could possibly have risen to do the unbelievably selfless acts of heroism while in captivity. His answer was simple, and instantly etched itself in the permanent memory of all who heard it:

I just couldn’t let the other boys down. It was unthinkable. They needed me. We needed each other. The other Medal winners that I’ve asked said similar things…we did it for our team.

Not our Country. Not family. Not the Navy. Team.

This last passage says it all about what I learned about leadership at Annapolis. Winning is all about the team. Period. Protecting the integrity of the team and providing it with what it needs to win is what leaders do…in fact, it’s the only thing that we do.

You can see more of Bob’s writing here, and see his bio here.

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