Coaches: Listen to the General

By David Danzig

Coaches could learn a lot from the way that General David Petraeus was able
to implement the "surge" of troops and change the tide of the Iraq war.

In sports terms, Petraeus can be seen to have inherited a culture of losing
when he took command of all coalition forces in Iraq in 2007. As chronicled
in Tom Ricks' book "Fiasco" and Greg Jaffe and David Cloud's "The Fourth
Star," when Petraeus took over, there was an overwhelming sense among troops
on the ground that the war effort was "drifting" and that the mission was
beyond reach.

Petraeus' first job was to set achievable goals, an undertaking often
discussed in sports but rarely seriously undertaken. For two years he
labored with his aides at a Fort in Kansas, devising a counter-insurgency
strategy designed to "win" the war. But winning on Petraeus' terms would
look a lot different than it had previously. It was no longer about killing
foreign fighters; it was about securing the population at home.

Under his leadership, his commanders saw that they were never going to win
the war by chasing around terrorists and capturing or killing them. The
collateral damage was just too great. This method of fighting produced more
enemies than it conquered.

Instead, Petraeus and his top aides launched a new strategy. They sought to
win the war by playing defense -- building small, secure posts in the middle
of cities and villages designed to prevent al Qaeda and insurgents from
terrorizing the local population. They no longer chased the bad guys around
the country and counted success by the number of kills, but rather saw their
job as holding ground and preventing civilian deaths.

Recasting the "game" in this way was revolutionary for the commanders he
supervised. A war that seemed un-winnable now seemed like it might be
worthwhile after all.

Petraeus saw his job as one that focused not only on finding the right
strategy to win the war but -- just as importantly -- communicating that
strategy clearly to the troops so that they would understand where their
leadership was taking them and why.

As Jaffe and Cloud point out, Petraeus realized that the more he focused on
"staying on message," the more likely he was to send clear signals to the
troops. For example, Petraeus asked for an update on one obscure electrical
tower in a particular commander's region during every flag officer staff
meeting. Time and time again, Petraeus would take time out from strategic
discussions to ask about the lone tower. Was it fixed? Where were the parts
coming from?

The point, as Jaffe and Cloud say, was not that Petraeus particularly cared
about this tower, but as the 1-star General struggled to answer Petreaus'
questions about it, every other 1-star General in the room thought to
himself, "I better be sure that my towers are functional because I don't
want to become the focus of his questioning."

Both of these books are filled with other excellent examples of how Petraeus
used his role as a leader to inspire others to fulfill seemingly impossible
tasks. See, for example, a great story about how Petraeus was shot during a
training exercise, required emergency evacuation by helicopter, followed by
life-threatening surgery on his chest, and then managed to convince doctors
to release him from the hospital three days later by doing more than 100
push-ups in a row!

Petraeus has moved on from his role in Iraq and is rumored to be considering
a run for President. Lucky for those of us who are coaching that he is not
considering a job in the sports world!

David Danzig is a long-time friend of SportsChallenge and a former basketball coach at the Edmund Burke School in Washington D.C. He has been trained by the Positive Coaching Alliance. Currently, he coaches in Rome, Italy and works for Human Rights Watch.