“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”
Horace (65-68 B.C.)
When I first arrived in Hanoi in late November 1967, the approaching Christmas holidays were the furthest thing from my mind. So, when Fat in the Fire showed up at our peephole one morning with a smirk on his face and said, “Are you preparing for ‘Creetmus,’?” I was speechless. We knew that the communists hated Christianity. Was this just a cruel joke, or were they planning some bizarre torture, perhaps even a crucifixion?
Seeing our dumbfounded expressions, Fat in the Fire repeated the question: “You know, are you ready to celebrate ‘Creetmus,’ you know sing Creetmus songs like ‘500 Miles’?” Sure enough, a couple of days before Christmas the camp radio speakers in our cell began playing “500 Miles” and songs by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. There weren’t many real Christmas songs, but the V did serve a special meal that included a salad, a slice of tough meat that was probably water buffalo, and a piece of hard candy.
The communists used almost every holiday—theirs and ours—for indoctrination and propaganda stunts. That first Christmas they broadcast a sermon telling us to repent and follow the communist way. In later years a few men were taken to Mass, but it turned out to be a propaganda photo op for the enemy. Our POWs made the best of it by communicating covertly with men from other compounds and other camps.
On occasional holidays the V would set out a banquet table of food for a selected group of POWs. When the guys dished the food onto their plates, the cameras started clicking—another staged photo-op. The photos were sent out to show the world how well we were eating. However, these false propaganda episodes did have one upside: for a day or two the pressure lifted and torture paused. As the members of the Strategic Air Command used to joke, our reward was no punishment.
We found that celebrating even little victories lifted our spirits, boosted our confidence, and strengthened our determination. It was always cause for celebration when a cellmate returned from solitary or from a torture session. When Ken came back after being kept awake in handcuffs and leg irons sitting on the stool for twenty-one days, we celebrated with him, even though hearing about his incredible ordeal pained our hearts and inflamed our anger.
When Jim Warner came back from six months of isolation in the “tank,” we celebrated by listening to his new thousand-line epic poem and laughing with him about how an act of “divine intervention” had put one of the more onerous guards in his place. We called this guard “Oddjob” because he looked like a smaller version of the oriental bodyguard by that name in the James Bond movie Goldfinger.
As Oddjob was harassing Jim one day through the peephole of his cell, Jim suddenly pointed at him and let fly a string of curses and insults. It just so happened that a small thunderstorm had drifted over the camp, and just as Jim yelled and pointed his finger at Oddjob, a bolt of lightning flashed nearby with an accompanying ear-shattering clap of thunder. Oddjob’s blood-curdling scream could be heard throughout the camp as he raced away. Thereafter, he would sneak by Jim’s door like a whipped puppy, never again looking in.
Isolation in a communist prison is one of the loneliest experiences imaginable, so it was always cause for celebration when POWs were reunited with their cellmates after such punishment. The reunion conversations lasted for hours, often accompanied by hugs and tears. Air America pilot Ernie Brace, who spent five years in a cage in Laos and in the hinterlands of Vietnam, was so overwhelmed with emotion when he heard the voice of John McCain through the wall that he was unable to respond for several minutes. Every time he tried to say something, he broke down in tears. Walking together through these kinds of trials forged enduring bonds.
At Son Tay during the winter of 1970, Hanoi Hannah made an offhand comment to the effect that if Neil Armstrong were to go to the DMZ1, the craters would look very familiar to him. That statement about bomb craters was a subtle clue with an out-of-this-world message that could mean only one thing: the United States had landed a man on the moon. The V never gave us good news, so this unintended disclosure of a history-making event electrified us.
We immediately sent a message through the wall to get Alan Brudno (1st Lt, USAF) “to the phone.” Brudno had earned a degree in astronautics from MIT with the goal of becoming an astronaut, so we knew he was familiar with the details of the Apollo program. Using his blanket as a muffler, Alan yelled back through the wall to confirm what we had heard. Yes, our country had been to the moon, even ahead of schedule. This accomplishment was a huge boost to our morale at a time when we really needed a lift.
The next morning, when we stepped out in the compound and headed for the washhouse, a crescent moon shown in the sky. Ken Fisher pointed to it and said, “Gentlemen, our flag is on that moon.” The five of us came to attention, looked up to face the moon, and saluted. The guards had no idea what we were doing, but we did. We were celebrating.
Not long after we were moved to Camp Unity in late November of 1970, the V daily began giving us an orange and enough raw sugar for each person to have a couple of tablespoons. According to some of the optimists, this was a sign that the V were trying to fatten us and that meant we were going home soon. This habit of interpreting improvements in food quality or quantity as a sign that we were going home soon came to be known as “gastro-politics,” a practice that never seemed to hold up. Unconvinced that we were nearing the end of the war, several of us wanted to do something special to commemorate our first holiday season together in a large group.
Richard “Dog” Brenneman (1st Lt, USAF) suggested that we make some orange wine to celebrate New Year’s Eve. In this cell, we had three five-gallon water containers, so Dog figured that our now unused one-liter ceramic water jugs would make perfect crocks for fermenting a mix of sugar and oranges into wine. About a third of us thought Dog’s idea was worth trying and began saving the ingredients in our crocks. Soon we had enough to get the mash “cooking.”
When the V conducted a search a few days before Christmas, we feared that the wine would be poured out or confiscated, especially when they ran across some real contraband—Dog’s stash of materials that he was using to build a radio. Then the V flipped out and started the search anew. We were sure the wine would be gone.
Incredibly, they left the wine untouched. Unfortunately, Dog and his technical expert on the radio, the unflappable Mo Baker (Major, USAF), would miss the party. They got a roughing up and then spent the holidays in solitary in Heartbreak Hotel. On New Year’s Eve, we brave souls who trusted Dog with our sugar and oranges shared our brew with the others and everyone ended up with about four ounces each.2 We raised our tin cups and toasted the New Year, our country, our families, the MIAs, and our missing friends Dog and Mo. It was quite a celebration. And as it turned out, we would be there two more Christmas/New Year’s holiday seasons.
Almost everyone celebrated his anniversary of shoot-down and capture in some small way, because it was the most significant event of our lives that we all shared in common. As Smitty Harris approached his seventh anniversary as a POW, a covert team in room 3 went to work planning a real extravaganza. Some of us knew his life story in intimate detail, so we had more than enough material to put on a first class “This is Your Life” roast. Tall and lanky Charley Green (Captain, USAF) had the perfect profile to play Miss Birdlegs Bradley, one of the more interesting characters in Smitty’s past. The team did a great job of dressing Charley like a woman, complete with stuffed-sweater augmentation that would have rivaled the work of Hollywood’s finest plastic surgeons.
The evening’s celebration was a smashing success, but like most of our celebrations, it was bittersweet. Smitty’s youngest son, Lyle, who had been born three months after his capture, was now almost seven. We could only imagine the heartaches that Smitty, his wife Louise, and their three children had endured. That evening, though, Smitty was smiling from ear to ear.
After dark on Mother’s Day 1972, 208 of us were herded onto the back of tarp-covered trucks and driven north to a remote mountain camp only two miles from the Chinese border. There was no electricity in the camp. It was so primitive that we named it Dogpatch. The bombing had resumed in and around Hanoi, and if the capitol crumbled, we would be the V’s bargaining chips in any negotiations. Toward December, when the Linebacker II operation began pounding Hanoi, we could see fear in the eyes of the V. Could the increased bombing be hastening the end of the war?
The answer came quickly. In early January 1973, our captors told us that progress had been made in Paris and that the war might soon be over. At dusk on January 19, we climbed into trucks and headed south, jostling along for nineteen hours. But the trip was very different from that first truck ride to Hanoi more than five years earlier. This time our spirits lifted with each bounce with the anticipation that we were moving closer to freedom. Even the guards seemed more relaxed. Late the next day, as we pulled into Hanoi, some of the trucks peeled off for the Hanoi Hilton. Our truck kept moving across town to the Plantation, a camp I had never seen, but knew about from many cellmates.
I was put in the Corn Crib with four Air Force comrades, under the leadership of Major Bob Barnett (USAF), who had been my SRO for a while up at Dogpatch. The rules were different now; we were allowed outside for most of each day to visit with all the men in the Plantation. When we realized that we had all been captured in the same time frame (late 1967 through early 1968), we were greatly encouraged. This turned out to be an accurate sign that they were preparing to release us in order of capture, as our camp policy had prescribed.
A few days later we were directed to assemble in the yard. Through an interpreter, the camp commander told us that an agreement had been signed in Paris ending the war, and that we would go home in several groups over a two-month period in concert with the final withdrawal of the U.S. from South Vietnam. There were no cheers or any display of emotion whatsoever. We were not going to celebrate, only to have our hopes dashed. Besides that, we were concerned they might use our celebration as a photo-op for a propaganda piece.
We were each given a copy of the protocol to the agreement regarding the release of POWs. Some of the men stood around in groups reading it; others took it back to their rooms. It was an official document clarifying the agreement and our impending release. This was the best sign yet that the day we had been hoping and praying for was near.
That evening we gathered out in the yard. It was a mellow time. Some groups were walking and talking with cellmates from the old days. Others were just hanging out. After awhile, we heard music and saw that a group had gathered around Bill Butler, who had somehow convinced the V to lend him a guitar. Before long we had a songfest going. The atmosphere was relaxed, as if we were sitting around a campfire while on vacation at the beach. Gradually the heavy burden of worry that our minds had carried for so long began to slip away.
The V locked us in at 10:00 p.m. each evening, but the anticipation made it difficult to sleep. We were like little children waiting for the opening of presents on Christmas Day. Sensing that we needed something to pass the time, the V opened the storehouse of books that our families had sent over the years, and handed out one book to each room. We read them aloud so we could all enjoy them together. In the days leading up to our release we finished several good ones, including Hawaii by James Michener, Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins, and, best of all, Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.
It was an amazing experience sitting in a POW camp reading Frankl’s monumental book about surviving the Holocaust. Although his trials were much more severe than ours were, we all felt a special kinship with him. I could never have imagined that within sixty days I would be listening to Frankl speak at the University of Georgia.3
During the years that Ken Fisher, Denver Key, Ted Stier, Jim Warner, and I lived together, one of us would regularly say to another, “Ken, is this the day?” or, “Jim, is this the day?” The answer would always be, “No, I’m sorry but today is not the day.” On the morning of March 14, 1973, we walked across the camp to a storeroom and picked up our departure clothing. As we did, Jim looked across at me and said, “Leon, this is the day.”
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller
Character is perfected in hardship; talents are refined in the crucible of trials. As Victor Frankl put it, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” The painful struggles we would never choose often offer the greatest opportunity for personal growth, and personal growth is the only path to genuine leadership development. In fact, leadership coaching guru Marshall Goldsmith titled his best-selling book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. In the camps as we began to exercise to build our strength, we put it even more bluntly: “Pain purifies.”
Like it or not, we tend to learn the most about ourselves in our struggles. Such self-awareness is the prerequisite for all personal development. I’m not suggesting that we need to enjoy trials, but as individuals and leaders we do need to value them. In his foreword to Bill George’s best selling book True North, Warren Bennis says, “One of the revelations of True North is how critical these leaders’ personal stories are in shaping their leadership. Time after time, those interviewed describe a turning point in their lives—a crucible, I call it—that transformed them into the leaders they are today.”4
Leadership guru Dr. Bob Thomas, executive director of the Institute of High Performance at Accenture, also an associate of Warren Bennis, has pointed out the benefits of trials for developing leaders. I met Bob at an Air Force symposium in San Antonio a few months after beginning this book, and I was naturally attracted to his presentation based on his book Crucibles of Leadership. It was thrilling to hear him say that “great leaders become great by finding meaning in adversity—in traumatic and unplanned crucible experiences—and then transforming those experiences into improved performance.” His research strongly supports my contention that crucibles such as POW camps develop leadership qualities. Likewise, the trials in your life can burn away the dross and make you a better person and a better leader.
Clearly, the best leadership development comes from our own experiences. However, as I said in the Introduction, I believe we can also learn indirectly from the stories of others, especially when we have an emotional connection with them. When you are facing a situation that requires courage and sacrifice, I hope you will be inspired by someone you read about in this book. Take courage from those who leaned into the pain and made conscious decisions to live and lead with honor.
Because wisdom and maturity are forged in trials, I would think twice before hiring someone for an executive leadership role who has not been humbled through significant struggles. Leaders devoid of crucible experiences are likely to be overly confident about their ideas, less sensitive to those of others, and surprisingly more susceptible to fears. Leaders motivated by fears and selfishness tend to make choices and cultivate attitudes that undermine the growth of the organization and its people.
I realize that this discussion about treasuring trials may seem like a “chicken and egg” scenario. After all, which comes first: the character or the trial? We’ve talked about how trials develop character and talents, but isn’t character necessary in order to successfully survive trials? The answer, of course, is that decent leaders have a basic foundation of character to begin with and as character is refined by trials, it becomes even stronger. When we adopt a long-term perspective, we will increasingly learn to treasure our trials for the character they develop in us.
Celebrations have been important since the beginning of time. Every culture has feasts and holidays to commemorate important events and achievements. Each member of the team that wins the Super Bowl receives a big ring, a big paycheck, a trip to the White House, and accolades that go on for years. Modern Olympic victors receive their medals standing on a podium before a worldwide TV audience.
However, isn’t it true that most of us celebrate too little? Although our celebrations in the POW camps had to be simple and subdued, they were powerful boosts to our morale, our teamwork, and our ongoing ability to achieve the mission. Too often people celebrate only the big successes and victories, and they forget that celebrating modest victories in the day-to-day battles of work and life is important too, especially in times of trial. Over the years as POWs, we did not have “the big day” to celebrate, so we focused more on the small events. Likewise, I’ve noticed that some of the most successful companies, which are also often the best places to work, have regular celebrations instead of waiting for some “big event.”
One of my clients, Shaun Callahan, President and CEO of Georgia Fluid System Technologies (a Swagelok® distributor), is one of the most creative leaders I’ve seen when it comes to orchestrating meaningful celebrations.5 Typically, he ties them to specific quarterly and yearly milestones, which are aligned with corporate goals and clearly delineated in his Gazelle’s system of tracking.6
Each year he relates the unit’s goals and rewards to a theme that is highly visible to everyone. For example, one year the theme was “Sailing Away,” and team members filled in the portholes on a ship poster as goals were achieved. At the end of a very successful year, the entire office celebrated by taking a four-day cruise, complete with luau shirts and a banquet.
The following year the theme was “Climbing Higher,” which encouraged employees to reach the pinnacle of another mountain each quarter. At the end of the year, the team headed west for a three-day celebration at Lake Tahoe. The energy stayed high throughout the year, because Shaun and his team consistently celebrated “above and beyond” performances in weekly meetings.
Celebrations validate our deep human need for confirmation of purpose and affirmation of accomplishments. People who feel valued tend to be more energetic, enthusiastic, proud, and confident. These emotions produce the kind of positive energy that drives results and facilitates fulfillment. That’s why companies that emphasize celebrations are typically good places to work.
Wal-Mart founder, Sam Walton, expressed his thoughts on the subject saying, “Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.”7
Unfortunately, many leaders shy away from celebrating victories and successes. Some fear that celebrating sets the bar too high. What if a particular achievement is never duplicated? If successes are celebrated, won’t failures be harder to ignore? Obviously, this view springs from a negative attitude founded in fear. And as we have discussed so often in this book, fear can be a powerful hindrance to good leadership behaviors and habits. Secure leaders know perfection is not realistic, and that downturns happen to the best. They believe they can lead through the storms as well as the calm waters.
But there’s an even more common objection to celebrations. Some leaders feel that if team members are allowed to have fun, they will relax and begin to rest on their laurels. Indeed, that can happen in some cases. Secure leaders understand that most people want to do a good job; they are interested in achieving, not goofing off.
We all need varying quantities of fun in our lives. Regardless of where your natural fun meter pegs, you will likely need to ramp it up for managing the cohort of Generation Y. According to Tim Elmore, president of Growing Leaders and author of the new book Generation iY, “They believe work and fun can be combined; they don’t want to separate the two. In fact, they may stop working midday to have fun and work again at midnight. It’s a continuum.”8 If you are a boomer managing this new generation, don’t let this be a cause for fear. Look for the treasure in your trials with Generation Y. Remember, most people want to achieve and are much more productive when they have positive emotions—the kind that come from frequent celebrations of small victories.
Foot Stomper: Effective leadership is forged in the crucible of struggles and fueled by the celebration of accomplishment. To promote teamwork and achieve success, treasure your trials and celebrate your victories.
Coaching: TREASURE YOUR TRIALS AND CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESSES
The treasures that are often hidden in our suffering and trials can provide greater clarity about what is really true about ourselves and about life in general.
1. What treasures have you discovered in your trials? Truths about yourself? Truths about life? Wisdom about leadership? Insights about your leadership?
2. How have these treasures helped you as a leader? How do you lead differently as a result of what you learned in your crucibles? Looking forward, will your insights about trials be different? If so, how?
3. What is your perspective on celebrating? Is your view more positive or negative? What fears do you have about celebrating? Are you too quick to celebrate?
4. What changes would you like to make in your attitude and behaviors related to celebrations? Would it help for you to be more intentional and use more planning in your approach to celebrating?
Note: To download an expanded version of these coaching questions for writing your responses, visit LeadingWithHonor.com.
1 DMZ is the acronym used for Demilitarized Zones, as there still exists between North and South Korea.
2 Our brew tasted more like a mild brandy than wine.
3 My high school and college friend, Dr. John B. Hardman, arranged with host Dr. Edith Weisskoph-Joelson, University of Georgia, Department of Psychology, for me to meet with Victor Frankl following his presentation.
4 Bill George and Peter Sims, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007) xiv.
5 Georgia Fluid Systems Technologies, based in Alpharetta, GA, represents Swagelok® in Georgia and northern Florida with high tech products for steam producers, such as the paper and nuclear power industries.
6 Based on Verne Harnish, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. (New York, NY: SelectBooks, Inc., 2002). See Classic One Page Worksheet, http://www.gazelles.com/one-page_strategic_plan_template.html.
7 Sam Walton Quotes and Sayings, www.searchquote.com (accessed June 9, 2011).
8 Tim Elmore, comment on “8 Terms to Understand Generation Y,” Tim Elmore on Leading the Next Generation, Growing Leaders, Comment posted December 1, 2010. http://blog.growingleaders.com/generation-iy/8-terms-to-understand-generation-y/ (accessed April 10, 2011).
