JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

www.mixnerstrategy.com

There is Wills on Washington (Cincinnaticus). There is Wills on Lincoln (Lincoln at Gettysburg). Then there is Wills on everyone else, a treatise on leadership discussing thirty-two good, and not so good, leaders. In this case, Napoleon is the good. We're going to forget about the bad and focus on the good of Napoleon.

Six key points that resonate with leaders today (Wills, 89-92):

1. Forget about victory for its own sake. Winning the battle, winning a town, without winning the war is useless waste of energy. Pick your battles.
2. "Attack in head-long lunges (Wills, 90)." Small groups, left to fight alone, lose energy and become fearful. Concentrate your legions. Give them drums and noise makers. Scare the enemy so they run before they engage.
3. "Fight toward supplies (Wills, 91)." Napoleon didn't travel with a lot of supplies. Ammunition, probably. Food, maybe not. If the troops wanted to eat, they had to fight their way to the food, which was always on the other side of the enemy.
4. "Fight only with preponderant force on one's own side (Wills, 91)." Mass your troops. Wait until your forces out-numbered the enemy. Split the enemy forces and fight them one at a time, never all at once. That meant he couldn't allow them to concentrate.
5. Here's one I like: simplify. Fight head on. Don't go around, forget about ambushes, and all the convoluted battle plans everyone else had. Attach. Head on. Now.
6. Finally, keep moving. If the enemy was fixed in a town, ready to sit it out, entrenched, find another army to fight. Keep moving. Don't lay siege, especially for a long time. Abandon, wait for the enemy to emerge, engage. Don't wait around if you can help it. Remember, if you are waiting around, you aren't fighting toward food. You're starving. Starving isn't good, especially if you didn't have supply trains coming.

Wills talks about Napoleon's first real campaign in Italy. He defeated two armies and was on his way to Vienna, having beat two other French armies to the punch. That wasn't supposed to happen, especially from an up-start like him. At the last minute, Napoleon stopped. He didn't attack Vienna. He just didn't have enough strength. Everyone at the time said he failed. Well, maybe so. Actually, if you look at it, he showed good decision making ability. At Vienna, he would have lost. Why fight a battle you're going to lose? Napoleon knew the answer to that one.

Wills, Garry. Certain Trumpets. The Call of Leaders. Simon & Schuster. 1994.