No Excuse Leadership

Book Review

By Michael Kennedy, CMC

Kennedy Management Service
Tel: 416-385-3942
mkennedy@idirect.com

Book Title: No Excuse Leadership - Lessons from the U.S. Army's Elite Rangers
Author: Brace Barber
Publication Information: Published in 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-71-48803-8

Author Profile
A 1987 graduate of West Point, Brace Barber served in the United States Army for eleven years after earning his officer's commission. One year after completing his studies at West Point, he was selected to attend Ranger School, a nine-week commando course that is widely recognized as being the most rigorous and demanding training program in the Army. After earning the coveted "Ranger Tab" that is awarded to all who manage to graduate from this grueling course, Barber went on to serve in various military assignments in locations such as South Korea, Thailand, Honduras, Alaska, and Hawaii.

In 1998, seeking new challenges in his career, Barber left the Army to pursue opportunities in the private sector. Today, he is co-founder and President of two consulting firms, the Tax Recovery Group and The Tax Firm Inc.

Synopsis
No Excuse Leadership provides an inside look at the challenges that the Ranger School program throws at its students, and at the strategies the Ranger training employs to help individual students develop and perfect their own skills as leaders. In describing the program and its objectives, Barber draws upon both his own personal experiences in Ranger School as well as those of nine other men who went through the program during their military careers. All of the Rangers profiled by Barber talk candidly about the stressful emotions they had to confront during particularly demanding moments in their training, and they also discuss how what they learned from the experience helped them to become more effective and insightful leaders.

The book makes it clear that Ranger School is not for the faint of heart, and that the earning of the black and gold Ranger Tab represents one of the most significant accomplishments that any soldier can aspire to. But at the same time, Barber also shows that that Rangers are not necessarily superhumans who happen to be blessed with physical and mental capabilities that far exceed those possessed by mere mortals like the rest of us. In fact, at many times his book reveals that Rangers are just as human as anyone else; what sets them apart is the commitment they have made to strive towards the attainment of an extraordinarily difficult goal.

In describing the experiences of each of the Rangers he profiles, Barber shows that all of them at one time or another had to struggle with certain aspects of the training. Every single one of them had to confront the fear of failure, and resist yielding to the almost overwhelming temptation to quit. But through a combination of careful preparation, perseverance, teamwork, and resourcefulness, all of these men proved in their own way that earning the Ranger Tab can be a goal that is within the reach of anyone who possesses the right kind of motivation.

A big theme of this book is the importance of the core values that the Ranger Tab stands for. In Barber's view, earning the Tab represents much more than just a milestone of significant accomplishment. It represents a commitment to maintain and adhere to higher standards of leadership and excellence in everything that those who "bear the Tab" take on in their lives. Barber uses the experiences of each of the Rangers he writes about to illustrate ten key qualities of character that collectively define what it means to be a Ranger:

Rangers are Persistent.
Rangers are Humble.
Rangers are Focused.
Rangers are Driven.
Rangers are Instinctual.
Rangers are Honest.
Rangers are Selfless.
Rangers are Confident.
Rangers are Dutiful.
Rangers are Determined.

Throughout the book, Barber continually emphasizes the notion that leadership is a complex art, but at the same time, it is also a skill which all of us have the ability to master. The key to developing your abilities as a leader are encapsulated in two simple but very powerful principles: Seek responsibility and take it for your actions and Know yourself and seek self-improvement.

Why This Book is Useful for Management Consultants:
At first glance, many observer might be tempted to set this book aside on the grounds that it has little to offer that would be of any value to the practice of management consulting. But on second thought, the environment that Ranger School creates for its students is in many ways not at all dissimilar to that in which business executives must conduct their affairs. Both are complex, demanding, and often ambiguous worlds in which the unexpected can and frequently does happen. Both are worlds in which leaders will invariably find themselves faced with all kinds of situations that call for judgment, decisiveness, courage, and perseverance.

Because of this, I would argue that No Excuse Leadership is an exceptionally valuable and insightful book that would offer very worthwhile reading for anyone in a position of leadership. In fact, I believe there are several reasons why this book should be read by anyone involved in management consulting.

First, I feel that within his book Barber has provided readers with a very realistic depiction of not only what leadership is, but also how people learn to become leaders. The ten key principles he discusses at length represent important components of leadership in a military environment, but they are also equally relevant and applicable for people who are called upon to lead in any other type of context as well.

Just as important, Barber's book shows that leadership is not about perfection, it is about learning. More specifically, he shows that leaders are people who have a genuine desire to make a difference, and sincere willingness to learn the skills they need in order to accomplish their goals. The leaders Barber writes did not glide effortlessly through Ranger School; in many cases, they had to face significant and often daunting challenges. They had to deal with the fear of their own personal inadequacies and limitations, they had to persevere in the face of extraordinary pressures, and on many occasions, they had to be willing to learn from their failures and try again. What kept them going through this experience was the feeling that they were working towards a goal that they really believed in. It was this kind of attitude that helped them overcome whatever setbacks they encountered.

Another key message contained in this book relates to the importance of maintaining a clear focus on your ultimate goal, and the value of taking a long-term perspective when dealing with a particularly significant challenge. Barber's description of Ranger School often makes the program look like nine weeks of unadulterated hell, and many of the Rangers he writes about survived the program in large part by taking things one day at a time. It was their singleminded desire to attain their ultimate goal - earning the Ranger Tab - and their ability to always keep this goal in sight, that enabled many of them to get through the course's more difficult moments.

In the modern day business world there is a tremendous temptation to focus on short term goals, and to gravitate towards whatever course of action seems to offer the most immediate and painless solution to a particular problem. Barber shows that in reality, this kind of thinking can often be self-defeating, and is completely ineffective in terms of developing the qualities of character that true leaders must be able to exhibit.

The bottom line is that this is a book that doesn't pull any punches, and one that compels the reader to do some tough-minded thinking and soul searching about some very important fundamental issues. As management consultants, a big part of the challenge we face involves helping our clients to be more effective leaders within their own organizations. The experiences Barber recounts in No Excuse Leadership show that when people are willing to commit to dedicating Herculean efforts towards the attainment of a goal, the results they are capable of achieving can be extraordinary. The question we need to ask ourselves as consultants is, how can we help our clients to see that they too are capable of committing the same level of effort to helping achieve their own organizations' goals?

Likewise, another question that we as consultants must continually ask ourselves is, what can we do to improve our own effectiveness as professionals and strive towards meeting ever-higher standards of excellence in our own work ? Again, Barber's book provides some important food for thought on this issue. Perhaps it shows more than anything else that, at the end of the day, leadership is something that comes from within. No one forced the soldiers Barber writes about to subject themselves to the rigors of Ranger School. They all took on this challenge voluntarily and did what they had to in order to see it through to the end because of a burning internal desire to reach for something that constituted a higher standard of excellence. As consultants, we must ask ourselves, how can we do the same in our own professional endeavors?

One doesn't need to aspire to be a gung-ho warrior to get something useful out of reading No Excuse Leadership. Though the context of this book is the demanding environment of Ranger School, in many ways the School itself is only a backdrop. The real messages of this book are all about leadership and professionalism, and the lessons that it offers are useful in any environment. For that reason, I would recommend this book highly to any management consultant or operating executive.