Good training and equipment more valuable than a large workforce - lessons from Boadicea

The late great Helmut Schmidt (former chancellor of Germany) said "people with visions should go the doctor." It appeals to the cynic in me who wants to do something rude whenever the new facebook ad is shown on telly. Take everything someone says with a pinch of salt, particularly if their words specacularly fail to match their actions, as often seems the case with mission, vision, values type stuff.

Hi Victoria,

I’d go back even further, to the 500’s and St Benedict. He proposed his ‘rules’* which were initially for the successful running of a monastery but have equal meanings in running a business - indeed, they’re very successfully followed by many big names outside of the Catholic church such as Timpsons.

Get past the religious aspects and it makes perfect sense - particularly with regards to HR.


* www.researchgate.net/.../242336203_The_Rule_of_Saint_Benedict_and_Corporate_Management_Employing_the_Whole_Person

The problem with applying things like the RSB to modern business life is you have to ignore a lot of what he said/wrote and just be very selective about those bits that "fit".

But thats true about most attempts to create a modern lesson out of something that happened a long time ago. We use our modern prism and our 21st century world view to reinterpret and translate events that were seen very differently then.

History famously never repeats itself ....

The immense difference between then and now is probably in main part the beliefs and actions of those being ruled in these long-ago Societies. Then, everything in Life was 'under God'. The King and the aristocracy ruled by the grace of God and the Church and all its priests and monasteries etc were the earthly arm of God. Everyone (except for a few outlaws etc who weren't tolerated at pain of death and worse) was absolutely subservient to God's rule and that of God's agents on Earth, so legitimacy and power and 'employee / subject engagement' were very very different to the point of little or nothing being a valid example or comparison now.

Not sure I'd want to take as a role model someone who massacred 70,000+ Brits and Romans in Colchester, St Albans and London.....

Agreefor the middle ages but I don't believe this would have been accurate at the time of St Benedict. "Dark age" kings' hold on power was more precarious and they relied on references to the Roman Empire to project their authority more than they relied on the power of the church which itself had suffered from the break up of the Roman Empire. The Church had "piggybacked" on the administrative structures of the Empire for its growth after Constantine's "conversion." (There is evidence that he tended towards the heresy of arianism towards the end of his life).

I believe the immediately post-Roman world was more fluid in social mobility and varied in its religious beliefs than the Middle Ages. Arianism was the predominant religion amongst the visigoths in Spain for example.

It took the catholic church until the 11th century to fully establish its hold over Western Europe, for example, by way of encouraging the practice of primogeniture and only considering marriages conducted by a priest as valid. At which point many in the Church regarded the rules of St Benedict as far too lax and came up with much stricter codes.

Sorry, completely off topic. You can probably tell I throw things at the telly when some historical documentaries are perpetrated on us.

Indeed! I think the link provided kind of skims over that bit but admittedly I did not read all of it. One could probably also take another lesson from this situation though: anger, fury and hate are emotional states which are not conducive to good decision making. That would not have suited the BBC's narrative though.

St Augustine had a good quote I used to have on my wall: "Pray as if everything depends on God; then work as if everything depends on you."

But as far as historical life lessons go, I always turn to Henry VII, who ended a civil war, tamed a rebellious aristocracy, established a national court system and built up a massive cash reserve and gets called "the boring king" because he declined to do anything more notable than channel his energy into efficiently managing his kingdom.

Would that I could be a leader as boring as Henry.

I suppose it's also worth pointing out that the Wehrmacht's experience on the Eastern Front of the Second World War, and in Stalingrad in particular, gives lie to Boadicea's learning point and reinforces an oft-made position that quantity has a quality all of its own. Isandlwana and Little Big Horn make similar arguments in that direction.

In fact, statistically speaking, the fact is that quantity has historically had the edge over quality on the battlefield. The reason we can cite so many counter-examples is because - like Thermopylae, Rourke's Drift or Mirbat - they make such wonderfully compelling tales of heroism.

Modern Armed Forces doctrine holds that an attack upon a defended enemy position should be undertaken only when one has a 3:1 numerical advantage, irrespective of the assumed quality of your enemy's training and/or technology.

In commercial terms, this speaks to old adage that "cash is king". It doesn't matter how good your technology is or how dedicated or highly-qualified your team is, victory will tend to go to the company with the deepest pockets.

I am a little surprised at the reaction to my suggestion of St Benedict's Rule of Leadership.

Would I have caused the same reaction in this discussion had I chosen Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War'?

The way I read Victoria's comment was which historical figure have you (ie: me personally) learnt something from. For me it was when I was given a book on The Benedictine Rule of Leadership as a joke present when I started my MBA - and it was the single most useful thing I read over the whole course of my studies. Having a strong, personal academic base, the provenance of information is important to me. The main author, Dr Craig S Galbraith, is well respected in his field. He is a professor of technology, entrepreneurship, and corporate strategy, with a PhD in strategic management and mathematical economics and an MBA in manufacturing management.

Before continuing, I am not Catholic nor do I have any leaning towards other religions; I did say 'get past the religious aspects' in my posting. However when I flicked through this book a couple of the headings stood out, leading me to read the whole book. It made sense.

The Rules deal almost exclusively with the internal workings of organisations. It focuses on proper management, motivation, and organisation of daily work as well as the most basic, universal principle of leadership. There's too much to go into here, but St Benedict proposed things that we now take for granted but, more importantly, shows how these can be achieved. I can't imagine anyone beyond the most dictatorial dictator (nice alliteration there...) arguing against things like:

• a sustainable organisation is lean and self-sufficient, flexible and decentralised, focused on a common objective, and without bloated hierarchies
• innovative ideas are most often bottom-up, coming from asking advice from those working on the shop floor, listening to the lower echelons, and questioning the individuals who spend their days doing the work in question
• business ethics is part of a broader management system and cannot be forced upon an organisation but rather the leader(s) must create the environment in which subordinates make the proper ethical choice

Yes, in something that's 1,500 years old there is a bit of 'just be selective about the bits that fit', but isn't that true of life in general? How many people have given or received cash payment or goods in kind for a job? HMRC rules say that this should be declared, but have you for the £5 the old lady next door gave you for cutting the grass? And 'little or nothing being a valid example or comparison now' reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian where it's asked: "What have the Romans ever done for us?". 

It is presumptuous of us to act as if leadership philosophy was born after the start of the 20th century.