Rule of Momentum

Organizations with a history of failure will tend to fail
while organizations with a history of success will tend to continue to succeed.
People will take on the coloration of their organization.

The culture of an organization is usually the problem. Take a “failure” from a bad organization and put them in a successful organization and they will magically become more successful. The inverse is also true.

This is a dangerous rule as it seems to indicate that one must get rid of people in the bad organization to improve it when actually the problem lies with the leadership.

After the Korean War, while investigating how the North Koreans did brainwashing, the military was offended to learn that according to the Koreans only 5% of our soldiers were considered leaders. After all, we’re Americans and ALL OF US ARE LEADERS! The irony was the Korean reactions that came out in the investigation: 5% of them are leaders! As soon as you think you’ve gotten rid of all the leaders and can start brainwashing the rest, another leader appears.

Rank had only a marginal relationship with leadership. Leadership is the ability to see through the noise to find the root causes and then act upon them. A leader never stops questioning. A leader will question in such a way as to inspire others to question. A leader will listen and look for the answer even if it is uncomfortable.

People who run an organization by procedures and management are rarely leaders. They will implement no original changes. These are the people who need to be replaced to change the culture of an organization. The rest of the population will take on the protective coloration of the culture around them.

While in the Army I observed this over and over again. A new commander or senior NCO comes in and replaces a few key staff positions and over time the whole character of the unit changes. This is true whether the unit improves or un-improves. A few changes in the leadership and the whole unit changes.