Page 43 - The Voice of Authority

Everybody seems to know the toy’s broken—except the
parent at the top.

The Power of Being the Only One “in the Know”
Saddam Hussein serves as an extraordinary example here.
He hobbled his own military in their ability to fight exter-
nal threats because he kept them in the dark about key in-
formation. According to the U.S. military reports and in-
terviews, Saddam’s military leaders were stunned and
demoralized to learn only three months before the war that
he had no weapons of mass destruction. They had counted
on these hidden stockpiles for their nation’s defense. He
blocked communication among military leaders, and in-
sisted that all commanders move troops only with his per-
mission from Baghdad. The Fedayeen’s operations were
not shared with the leaders of the conventional forces. Nei-
ther did he allow the Republican Guard divisions to com-
municate with their sister units. Commanders couldn’t
even get precise maps of the terrain near the Baghdad air-
port for fear they’d be able to identify Iraqi leaders’
palaces.
Sound like anyone who runs a project in your orga-
nization?
On one of my client visits, I heard about the White
Knight. A coworker of his explained this way: “We’ll be
working on a client project—10 steps for installation of a
client’s software. He’ll tell our consultants involved only
eight of the steps. Then when they can’t get the project to
fly, the White Knight comes in at the last minute with the
missing information and saves the day. He does this re-
peatedly. He has created huge animosity among the
team. . . . Many very good people are looking for another
job.”

Is It Complete? 31