This isn’t my typical book review because Dereliction of Duty isn’t a business book. But the truth is there is much in this book that does apply to business and to life.
Dereliction of Duty is H.R. McMaster’s history of what led the United States into the Vietnam War. I had never heard of McMaster until he was appointed as National Security Advisor to President Trump. The comments at the time of his appointment were that he was a no-nonsense sort of guy and that it would be rough to fit him into the Trump Whitehouse. And, in fact, as I write this review, Steve Bannon’s cabal is working to get McMaster removed as a Trump advisor.
But back to the book. Dereliction of Duty has been heralded as the definitive history of how the country got into the Vietnam War. It is required reading at most of the nation’s military colleges and has had a tremendous influence on our military leaders. The book’s subtitle says much: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.
Dereliction of Duty was written 20 years ago and covers events now over 50 years old; the period from 1960 to 1965. What’s surprising is that we don’t usually think of 1965 as the end of the Vietnam War. In fact, it is hardly the beginning as the War would ramp up in the late 1960s and carried into the early 1970s.
But during the administration of Lyndon Johnson, the die was cast for a situation that would prove disastrous. Before reading this book, I had no idea about how the President and Robert McNamara lied to Congress and the nation in the furtherance of their agenda. Mostly, Johnson wanted his social agenda, collectively known as the Great Society, to be his legacy. The cost of the War threatened this agenda, so the actual circumstances of the War were downplayed so that congress did not get alarmed during the budgetary process.
The title of the book comes from the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military leaders who were cut out of the discussion by Johnson and McNamara. But the Joint Chiefs also had internal problems, mostly inter-service rivalries, which led to the dereliction of their duty to provide sound military advice.
The book is extraordinarily well documented; 82 pages of notes and citations, an extensive bibliography and a thorough index. And while it covers the events in extreme detail, the storytelling is compelling. But I couldn’t stop thinking of the 58,000 Americans and over a million Vietnamese who died and the countless numbers of wounded and maimed.
Business Lessons
The business lessons are many. I’ll mention just four. First, of course, is leaders who lie and mislead their constituents are toxic for any organization. Reading about the politics and subterfuge driving the decisions leading up to the Vietnam War is almost enough to make one ill.
Second, McNamara and his ‘Whiz Kids’ were famous for their data-driven approach. They thought they knew how to wage war better than the generals. They didn’t and it turned out not everything can be managed by tracking metrics. When I was in the UW’s Business School, all the rage was Quantitative Analysis and some of my professors had worked for McNamara. This book shows the limits of data-driven decisions and organizations.
A third point is the power of groupthink. Nowadays we’ve put a nicer phrase on it; we call it ‘getting the right people on the bus.’ At its best, this means have competent people in each position. At its worst, this means everyone has to drink the Kool-Aid and those who raise contrary issues are shown the door. Vigorous discussions are a good way to avoid mistakes.
One final point: Individuals, organization and countries can all learn from mistakes, if we’re willing to learn. My fear is that if our information intake is as superficial as the typical tweet, Facebook post or cable new blast, we aren’t going to learn from the past and we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.
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