The limits to the lessons of army leadership

ONE OF THE all-time-great corporate emails was sent several years ago, by a manager at Shell to pep up a team of oil engineers on a project in the far east of Russia. “Personally, I, like most others, love winning,” he raved. “I despise cowards and play to win all of the time.”The language was bizarre in other ways, too. “When everyone of you were kids, I am sure that you all admired the champion marble player” struck a chord with precisely no one in 2007. The anachronism was because the writer borrowed liberally from a stirring speech by General George Patton to American troops in 1944. Patton’s “all real Americans love the sting and clash of battle” became “all real engineers love the sting and clash of challenge.” And so on.