Aubrey's Insight

Here I am, doing "research" as I try to finish an article that's due today and I came across this editorial I wrote for my old magazine. Boy, did I love reading the Master and Commander series...

July 19, 2005

A Sea of Holes

Lost in corporate churn? Look to The Art of War: "A clever fighter ... wins with ease. Hence, his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage."

By Alexandra Weber Morales

More than 2,000 years ago, legendary Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote, "Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life."

Though research has cast doubt on the provenance of The Art of War, the book's concise observations about strategy, leadership and combat still resonate. Why, then, are they not easier to follow? Why is it so hard to keep close counsel, to rejoice when things go well but say nothing when they don't, and to remember that "Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose"?

Working in a large company is often a hard-fought game of Survivor, in which internal battles for resources can consume as much energy as external efforts to serve a customer or engineer a brilliant product. There are those times when tergiversation soars and productivity sinks, and one drowns in a roiling sea of subterfuge.

Learning from Lucky Jack Aubrey

In a scene in the animated film Madagascar, a lion in a crate, lost at sea, looks out through a knothole at an overwhelming view of mountainous waves. Indeed, maritime matters have been on my mind recently, ever since my father gave me Patrick O'Brian's brilliant Master and Commander series. I've found these novels about Captain Jack Aubrey and medical officer/spy Stephen Maturin's adventures in the British navy during the Napoleonic wars delightfully addictive, even if I still don't understand most of the seafaring terms (though I lived on a sailboat as a child). While the historical context and the nautical strategy are surprisingly absorbing, what's most compelling about O'Brian's oeuvre is the psychological angle. (Warning: I'm about to give away a bit of the storyline.)

O'Brian describes Lucky Jack Aubrey as an ideal leader, a sailor through and through, highly observant and very aware of the gestures, disciplines and traditions that turn a ship manned with an uncomfortable mix of indentured servants and skilled seamen into a successful fighting machine. In The Mauritius Command, fourth in the series, the psychodrama becomes even more prominent as we see Doctor Maturin at work, spreading subversive literature to avert combat, or craftily confusing an admiral attempting to steal Aubrey's hard-won glory.

In a campaign to capture the island of Mauritius from the French, now-Commodore Aubrey must command a squadron and deal with the egos, strengths and weaknesses not of the rank and file, but of their leaders. One authoritarian captain tragically pays for his brutality in the end, losing his life to a mutinous crew and his ship to a motivated enemy. Another captain's professional jealousy culminates in an ugly suicide. Only rarely in his new authority does Aubrey meet true peers who are as uncomplicatedly devoted to their calling as he is.

So it is in corporate America. Skilled software developers dream of being on that lucky team blessed with a brilliant leader who shares their love of programming and technology, protects them from those who don't get it, and facilitates strong chemistry and productivity through example and insight. But no company is perfect. Aside from his psychological insight, Aubrey's greatest asset is his ability to lovingly transform even the ugliest ship into the best vessel she can be, making myriad adjustments to masts, sails, stowage, carpentry and rigging. Despite Royal Navy bureaucracy, bloodshed, financial misfortune and ever increasing responsibility, he is an optimist.

No matter the era, the question of how to thrive within unwieldy organizations has engaged captains and capitalists alike. Have you skillfully navigated corporate seas or ascended to the quarterdeck from the forecastle? Write me at ***********.