Introduction

* At Kinburn (1787), Suvorov and 3000 Russians defended a position against 5000 Turks. Under contemporary standards, Suvorov would have won by denying the position to the Turks, which he could have done by opposing their amphibious landing. Suvorov allowed the Turks to disembark instead, for his objective was not merely to stop them, but to destroy them! The Turkish marines suffered between 70 and 90 percent casualties, while the Russians lost fewer than 10 percent.

Don Juan and Suvorov

 

Glory began to dawn with due sublimity,  While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,   Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.  LII  It is an actual fact, that he, commander  In chief, in proper person deign'd to drill  The awkward squad, and could afford to squander  His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil:  Just as you'd break a sucking salamander  To swallow flame, and never take it ill:  He show'd them how to mount a ladder (which  Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch.

LIII   Also he dress'd up, for the nonce, fascines   Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks,   And made them charge with bayonet these machines,   By way of lesson against actual Turks:   And when well practised in these mimic scenes,   He judged them proper to assail the works;   At which your wise men sneer'd in phrases witty:   He made no answer; but he took the city.

Suvorov wrote in his The Science of Victory (Nauka Pobezhadt) (Longworth, 1965, 220), "Training is light, and lack of training is darkness. The problem fears the expert. If a peasant doesn't know how to plow, he can't grow bread. A trained man is worth three untrained: that's too little- say six- six is too little- say ten to one. We will beat them all, roll them up, take them prisoner! In the last campaign the enemy lost 75,000 counted, but more like 100,000 in fact. He fought with skill and desperation, but we didn't even lose 500. You see, lads! Military training! Gentlemen, what a marvelous thing it is!" Our book, Self-Directed Work Teams: A Trainer's Role in the Transition, devotes an entire section to training in the business environment: "The Importance of Training: Using the Trust-Leadership-Competancy Model."

The Value of Speed

"The enemy doesn't expect us, reckons us 100 versts away, and if a long way off to begin with, 200, 300 or more– suddenly we're on him, like snow on the head; his head spins. Attack with what comes up, with what God sends; the cavalry to begin, smash, strike, cut off, don't let slip, hurra!" (Tsouras, 1992, 31) "Swiftness and impact are the soul of genuine warfare." (Tsouras, 1992, 399)

Errors of omission (doing nothing) are deadlier than errors of commission (doing the wrong thing)

Suvorov adapted the word Unterkunft (lodging, accommodation, logistics, "under the bed") to mean missed opportunities. "The Archduke Charles did nothing and spent nearly three months in Unterkunft," Suvorov complained about his Austrian allies during the Italian campaign of 1799 (Longworth, 1965, 265). He told another Austrian, "Although you were the victor, you stopped and sat down in Unterkunft and indecision. Having shot up the enemy, you should have chased him" (Longworth, 1965, 249).

Executive/ Manager/ Planner as Superstar versus Real-World Competition

In a battle, especially in Suvorov's day, the commander could see little and control less. There were no radios, and messages had to be carried by horse. A football coach can see the entire field, but the players have to adapt quickly to changing conditions. The coach cannot send in instructions once the action starts. In a complex factory or service environment, the CEO cannot be everywhere at once. The salaried support people ("officers") cannot be everywhere at once. This points to a model that is very different from chess. A merely competent tactician with a good organization will probably beat a tactical genius who is leading a mediocre organization. Also, a merely competent tactician who is an organizational development expert will, in the long run, beat the tactical genius who cannot develop a first-class organization. The best business planner in the world cannot succeed unless he or she has an organization that can carry out the plans.

Suvorov realized that "…even the smallest unit must be prepared to act on its own as well as in unison. …Every corporal had, if necessary, to be general of his own line of men. It also demanded much more even of the private soldier in terms of offensive spirit and battle sense" (Longworth, 1966, 215). To make these capabilities reality, Suvorov drilled his soldiers relentlessly. We cannot overemphasize the importance of training, and a chapter in Self-Directed Work Teams covers it in detail. Suvorov did not regard his soldiers as mindless automata, or chess pieces. He realized that the frontline soldier (worker) was the keystone of organizational success.

Now consider some famous books that have become popular in the business community, like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Carl von Clausewitz' On War, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Miyamoto Musashi's A Book of Five Rings. Their intended audiences are the "management caste." Sun Tzu used his Art of War to gain an audience, and employment as a general, with Ho Lu , the King of Wu. Machiavelli gave his book to a prince of a Renaissance Italian city-state. Suvorov's The Science of Victory, was "…the first known written record on the art of war intended not only for officers but for every serving man" (Longworth, 1966, 220). This was like writing a business management book to be understandable by factory workers.

Why Frederick the Great wouldn't have stood a chance against Suvorov

Jay Luvaas' Frederick the Great on the Art of War reveals the deficiencies of Frederick's approach in the king's own words. In the chapter, "The Anatomy of a Battle," Frederick decrees, "If any soldier should attempt to run away during battle and should set as much as one foot outside his rank, the noncommissioned officer standing to his rear shall run him through with the short sword and kill him on the spot." "If the cavalry moved out for the attack are repulsed without having done their duty, as at Mollwitz, the grenadiers are to fire on them even if they have to shoot them down to the last man." "The King hereby forbids all cavalry officers, under penalty of being cashiered [sacked], ever to allow themselves to be attacked by the enemy in any action. Prussians must always attack the enemy." In the chapter, "Frederick and the Art of War," Luvaas quotes Frederick, "Good will can never induce the common soldier to stand up to such dangers; he will do so only through fear [of his own officers]." Joseph Stalin invoked the memory of Suvorov during the Second World War, but resorted to Frederick's motivational techniques; he ordered "blocking units" to shoot soldiers who yielded ground to the Germans.

Unfortunately for Russia, Catherine the Great's successor Paul I adopted the worst elements of Frederick's management methods. These included flogging soldiers for the slightest offenses and even marching an entire regiment off to Siberia for displeasing the Tsar in some manner. "Blind obedience became the supreme law." Paul finally dismissed Suvorov in 1800, largely because Suvorov was reluctant to implement these policies in his army.

Frederick also had a problem with employee retention, for he wrote, "When the battalion marches, it must leave all of its lodgings simultanously. This is a good precaution against desertion." He also discusses precautions like the use of cavalry patrols to prevent soldiers from deserting. "In battle there was a constant need to keep the men under strict supervision, which discouraged the employment of skirmishers in loose formations. The precautions that Frederick had to take to avoid desertion augmented the difficulties of pursuing a beaten enemy after dark, greatly reduced the number of night marches, were an important factor in determining the order of march and the security of camps, and increased the dangers involved in foraging."
In Frederick's defense, patriotism was not a motivation for 18th century soldiers. A good part of the Prussian Army consisted of foreigners who enlisted for pay, or who were recruited while under the influence of drink. Other European armies had similar problems. Machiavelli's Prince emphasizes the fact that money is not enough to make a soldier willing to die for you. Suvorov's soldiers were Russian peasants who, although they were oppressed, felt some affection for their native soil.

While Suvorov also insisted on military discipline, his preferred method for promoting it was far different from Frederick's. Per The Science of Victory (from Ossipov, 1945, Suvorov): "In war morale is of immense importance. The principal weapon is the man. All the men must strive for victory and understand how to achieve it. 'Every soldier must understand his maneuver.'" Today, "every worker must understand his or her job." Suvorov "detested stupidity and blind routine and did all in his power to make the men think for themselves." Ossipov writes, "In striking contrast to the rule of Frederick II of converting soldiers into automata, Suvorov's system was based on the development of the soldiers' intelligence and their understanding of the tasks they were called upon to perform."

In contrast to statements like, "I'm a sergeant [foreman], they don't pay me to think," Suvorov detested Nichtwissers ("know-nothings" or "I-don't-know-Sirs"), i.e. people who were unwilling to take responsibility for thinking for themselves. Some of his practices seemed very eccentric to anyone who didn't understand their underlying purpose. Suvorov once asked a private on the parade ground a seemingly crazy question: "How many stars are there in the sky?" The private answered, "I don't know, but I'll count them at once!" The man actually began to count stars until the cold induced Suvorov to move on; the private's answer delighted him. The question would have daunted that era's most prominent astronomers, to say nothing of a possibly illiterate soldier, but Suvorov didn't care whether the answer was scientific. The soldier's immediate willingness to try to find an answer is what pleased Suvorov.

Questions like, "How many stars are there in the sky?" have a quality like a Zen koan or riddle, or like the questions asked of King Yudhisthira by the god Dharma in the Asian Indian epic The Mahabharata. For example, "Who are more numerous, the living or the dead?" seems to require knowledge that is simply not available, but Yudhisthira answered, "The living, for the dead are no more." "Which came first, night or day?" can be answered, "Night, but day was only a day behind." The purpose of a koan is to prompt an intuitive, non-analytical answer.

Suvorov and Gemba Kaizen

Gemba means being where the action is. It is in stark contrast to the MBA financial analyst, let alone the executive, who would be horrified at the mere idea of walking into a factory and talking with blue-collar workers. Imai suggests that, while some of these executives and managers are ashamed to be seen in gemba (recall Byron's derision of Suvorov for performing "a corporal's duty" by drilling soldiers himself), others are afraid to go to gemba because it might reveal their ignorance of what happens there! Byron's poem continues,

    Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt
        Before a company of Calmucks, drilling,
    Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert,
        And lecturing on the noble art of killing, …

Self-Direction and Initiative

Suvorov also instituted principle-centered leadership and as much self-direction as was consistent with military discipline. "Suvorov was no believer in unwitting compliance with orders. A soldier had to understand what he did, know what his commander wanted" (Longworth, 1966, 216). This is organizational alignment. "When individuals clearly understand the 'big picture' purpose and future of your organization, identify the core values that it professes and supports in practice, and then embrace those commitments as their own, the foundation is laid upon which your high-performance culture is built" (Covey, 1996). Suvorov deliberately created such an organization. Remember that his Science of Victory was for everyone, not just the bosses.

During Suvorov's campaign in the Swiss Alps, the French broke the Devil's Bridge— the only bridge across a river in the confined mountain paths. The Russian soldiers dismantled a nearby barn, lashed the planks together with officers' sashes, and used them to repair the break under enemy fire. There was obviously no way to ask Suvorov, or even a high-ranking officer, for directions under these conditions. These soldiers, however, had been conditioned to use judgment and initiative: to think. Had their training not empowered them, they would have had to wait for the Russian engineering troops. This is like the production crew that has to wait for the equipment repairer.

Even Suvorov's funeral was a testament to the organization he had developed. The pallbearers and his coffin would not fit through the chapel's narrow archway. The bearers stopped and tried to figure out how to overcome the problem. While they were struggling, some grenadiers who had served under the marshal pushed their way through the priests. They shouted, "Suvorov must pass everywhere," lifted the coffin onto their heads (thus reducing the procession's width), and carried it through the arch. Suvorov was therefore carried to his final resting place by a self-directed work team in the year 1800- more than a century and a half before management science rediscovered the concept.

Don Juan and the Storm of Ismail

Bibliography

Menning, Bruce W. 1986. "Train Hard, Fight Easy: The Legacy of A. V. Suvorov and his 'Art of Victory.'" Air University Review, November-December 1986, 79-88. (Furnished by the U.S. Army War College Library, Carlisle, PA)

Tsouras, Peter G. 1992. Warriors' Words– A Dictionary of Military Quotations. London: Cassell Arms and Armor Press