![]() There hadn’t been a major war since the defeat of Napoleon forty years before and there was a lack of experience in the senior army ranks – most in senior positions had been young men at Waterloo, in junior positions. Who would lead the British Forces? Choice was limited. The first problem they had to face was one of leadership. There were also enormous external public pressures, stoked up by the media. Britain and France had treaty obligations to protect Turkey, which they decided to fulfill because they did not want to see a Russia with access to a warm water port and potentially more political and commercial influence. The story starts in 1853 when Russia invaded the Balkans. Are you charging down wrong valleys after the wrong targets? Ask yourself the question about your own direction and purpose. The result of the Charge was that 673 men charged down the wrong valley after the wrong target. The story of the Charge of The Light Brigade is a vehicle for exploring the nature of effective decision-making and communications within business organisations. The results are depressingly familiar – accusations of blame at the top and resultant business failure. The causes have an echo from the Crimea – entrenched attitudes, blinkered vision, leadership egotism, weak planning systems, lack of intellectual clarity and emotional paranoia. Yet in the C21st, businesses continue to show a remarkable habit for plunging headlong to disaster by ignoring the simplest rules of good decision-making and effective communication. Surely all the leadership lessons have been learned from this? The Charge of The Light Brigade goes down in history as one of the most gallant, idiotic and futile examples of British military incompetence, encapsulating many of the idiocies and inefficiencies that characterised British military organisation and command at that time. The result was a disaster: of the 673 men and officers who engaged in the charge fewer than one hundred rode back unscathed. On October 25th, 1854, at the Battle of Balaclava, the elite of the British army, The Light Brigade, charged suicidal into a phalanx of Russian heavy guns. It was a nadir, one of the least edifying episodes in British military history. Historical perspective also provides a way to learn from the mistakes of others. It provides a perfect example of how a shortfall in planning, deficient working relationships and ineffective communication can have a negative impact on organisational decisions and outcomes. ![]() The current unrest in Ukraine brings back to mind that great folly of the Crimean War, the Charge of the Light Brigade.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |