Now it's tough out there... and getting tougher
...Do you want an empowered management team that understands your vision, shares your values and knows exactly how to deliver, effectively, right to the bottom line?
Lessons from the battlefield will inspire. Corporate Battlefields will enable you to lead your people to one of the toughest places on earth, learn from the hardest lessons in history, and come back as a team with a 'can do, will do' strategy.
In business terms, Mission Command is a uniquely powerful leadership concept that has famously enabled the British Army to 'punch above its weight' for many years.
Strategic Leadership & Management
From the days of the ancient world, strategy has been the core business of the general: planning and winning wars. In the modern world of business, successful strategic leadership is all about providing the necessary vision, direction and guidance for an enterprise to succeed in a highly competitive market place. In turn, strategic management is about making business plans and teams work together in harmony, bringing materiel and human resources to bear to the maximum desired effect in achieving a firm’s objectives.
The foundation of success is having a sure strategy in the first place. Experience shows this is one that orchestrates the desired ends (business objectives) with the right ways (methods, including campaigns) and the appropriate means (resources, financial and personnel). Strategies that focus only on one or, at best, two of these three elements are bound to fail. All three need to be closely integrated on a dynamic basis.
It is the job of the strategic leader not only to give the vision and aiming points for a concern: he or she must also ensure that the chosen path and the means to travel along it are appropriate. Once the journey is undertaken, strategic management is required to keep all in balance and on track until the destination is reached. There may have to be changes in course en route as circumstances and conditions change – This is perfectly reasonable as long as the principal, long-term, strategic goal is kept firmly in mind by all involved.
Clearly, the strategic leader cannot do everything for himself or herself: this is why clear communications throughout the organisation, trusting delegation to subordinates, and honest feedback from them, are equally necessary in any effective management model. Both leadership and management strategy are optimised through Mission Command, a decentralised system that devolves authority to subordinates, empowering them to make timely decisions appropriate to their level of responsibility. It rests on mutual understanding and trust, fundamental keys to an effective leadership and management strategy.
In sum, a winning style of leadership and management strategy depends on the formulation of a sound strategy and in its resolute execution facilitated through the adoption of Mission Command. Education and training, and not least experiential learning, are important in developing strategic leadership and management and in enhancing associated skills in strategic decision-making and communication. Examples from the battlefield can inform the boardroom.
The above encapsulates Mission Command. The description is by Corporate Battlefields Senior Executive Leadership Mentor Major General Mungo Melvin CB OBE
In 2012 we delivered leadership Events to the following Management Teams and Organisations:
- Albatross - at Wattisham, the home of the Apache Attack Helicopter
- Buckeye Technology INC - Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches
- ebay - Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches
- Boeing International - Waterloo
- Boeing UK - Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches
- Institute of Directors - Napoleon's Waterloo
- Kemira - Normandy D-Day Beaches