Shoot The Donkey
You know what it is like – you are in the trenches – slugging it out – fighting day to day. Someone in the organization stops the bus. No, you can’t move forward – someone has dug in. What do you do? I would like to relate this story of a local Kentucky hero – General George S. Patton. The story is taken from the book, “Tuned In” by Craig Stull, Phil Myers, & David Meerman Scott is a passage about a scene in the movie Patton based on a real event.It seems that the entire U.S. Seventh Army gets critically held up in the heat of battle by a cart pulling donkey. The donkey is blocking a bridge while an MP is pleading with the Donkey and the donkey’s owner to move so the Seventh can cross the bridge and get out of harm’s way.
The entire Seventh Army is at a standstill due to this “mule headed” donkey.
Up pulls Patton, he jumps from his jeep and in one swift motion pulls his ivory handled revolver – shoots the donkey in the head and has it flung from the bridge thus removing the obstacle.
This is a great story that illustrates the point that swift decisive action is sometimes called for and that of a great success principle of personally taking decisive action to remove obstacles to fulfill one’s mission. I ran into this very issue this week in my current business. In two cases members of my team took on the role of the MP and not that of Patton. Be the general take decisive action and “shoot the donkey”!
Tags: action, leadership, management