Risking Failure, Second Chances

We Shall Not Fail: The Inspiring Leadership of Winston Churchill
by Celia Sandys, Jonathan Littman

(Page 5 of 5)

Risking Failure

In 1909, while still President of the Board of Trade, Churchill was appointed to the Committee of Imperial Defence and immediately became interested in aviation. He was concerned that the government was not taking the matter seriously. On February 25 he told the committee that the government's aviation proposals might be too amateurish. He advised the committee to "place ourselves in communication with Mr. Orville Wright, and avail ourselves of his knowledge."

Courageous men and women get more done. Churchill's fearless approach to life took him where others failed to tread and his curiosity led to important innovations, as we shall see in Chapter 9, Experiment. He became convinced, for instance, of the military potential of aircraft long before many contemporaries, partly because he was daring enough to venture into the air himself. How could he be knowledgeable about aircraft if he stayed earthbound? Once up in the clouds, he was hooked. No matter that flying in 1912 was arguably more dangerous than riding a space shuttle in 2000, or that Churchill, at thirty-eight, was six years older than the cut-off age for a novice at that time. Churchill set his sights on earning a pilot's license.

He was not particularly gifted, but, as usual, what terrified the average man he found thrilling. He escaped death by the narrowest of margins. "We were scarcely ninety foot above the ground, just the normal height for the usual side-slip fatal accident, the commonest of all," Churchill wrote of a terrifying crash, from which he amazingly emerged with little more than bruises. There were emergency landings. Others were not so lucky. Two of Churchill's instructors died in the very planes in which the future Prime Minister had recently flown. Finally, after pleas from his distraught wife and worried friends, Churchill announced he was quitting.

He looked on the experience as a tonic, good for his nerve, spirits, and virtue. It had made him something of an expert at what he knew would be a critical weapon of war. "I have been up nearly 140 times, with many pilots, & all kinds of machines, so I know the difficulties the dangers & the joys of the air-well enough to appreciate them, & to understand all the questions of policy which will arise in the near future." By seeing things with his own eyes, the First Lord of the Admiralty gained a tremendous understanding of the powers and limitations of flight. Largely because he had used them, Churchill came to believe in the value of instruments in an age when most pilots flew by the seat of their pants. He had a biplane fitted with dual controls that "would be useful for long-distance flying and enable one pilot to relieve the other."

Take time to think creatively about your organization. Where might dual controls help when the going gets rough?

Second Chances

Courage and boldness give one more than depth. They generate second chances. Think of all the entrepreneurs and company founders who succeeded only after several failures. It is precisely when things go most wrong that you learn the most about yourself. Churchill's years of isolation in the 1930s required tremendous fortitude and resilience to endure. But he had weathered a greater storm nearly twenty years before when domestic politics had made him the scapegoat for the huge military debacle at Gallipoli in World War I. Stripped of his office and offered only a cabinet post with no influence, he resigned from the government. Seldom in Britain's history had such a gifted politician fallen as far and as fast. Many wrote Churchill off as utterly finished.

Let's put this into a modern, civilian perspective. What would a similarly humiliated politician or business executive do today? Most would probably seek some lesser post or retire to academic life. Churchill crossed the Channel to fight in the trenches. He was forty, his dashing days in South Africa more than fifteen years behind him, but he headed to the front with all the enthusiasm of a young patriot. He was most certainly risking his life. Yet this was more than a public penance for those who had died in Gallipoli. He was also starting fresh, seeking nothing less than an emotional and spiritual reju- venation.

He asked for a command and was at first offered a brigade. A change in commanders in chief reminded him that he was no longer the power he had been. The best he could be offered was a lowly battalion. He grasped it with both hands. His wife and friends worried. The trenches were an ugly, dangerous place. He wrote to Clementine of defences built so haphazardly that the limbs of half-buried corpses could be seen, a hellish muddy stew of dirt and garbage accompanied by the sounds of "rifles & machine guns & the venomous whining & whirring of the bullets which pass overhead."

He reveled at being a small part of a noble cause. He accepted that as a reserve officer he would first have to relearn the ropes before he commanded his own battalion. "I do not know when I have passed a more joyous three weeks .... I share the fortunes of a company of Grenadiers. It is a jolly life with nice people; and one does not mind the cold and wet and general discomfort." He was frustrated at being cut off from politics, powerless to influence events of which he believed he had greater understanding than those in command. Near the midpoint of his life and career, Churchill took the greatest of all risks. He swallowed his pride and started over, from the bottom. He somehow sensed that to succeed he must first embrace his failure.

To any leader or executive struggling against long odds, it is a powerful story.

Copyright © 2004 Celia Sandys. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

About the Author

Celia Sandys is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill. She is the author of The Young Churchill, Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive, and Chasing Churchill. She is founder and chairman of Churchill Leadership.

Jonathan Littman is the author of several books, including The Fugitive Game.