My grandfather was a supervisor of a power station in Idaho during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, he also assumed the duties of an Air Force observer. "If a plane came over," he wrote, "I would call Pocatello, giving directions of flight and any other information possible."
My grandmother was one of four women from the remote town who were, as the local newspaper reported, "armed with guns and the ability to use them." She helped guard the power plant against sabotage.
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They were a small part of the war effort, but a part of it nonetheless. As it did for many people, the war blurred the line between their duty to their company and their duty to their country. The home front miracle of World War II was how many small acts of hard work, sacrifice, neighborly compassion, and good management combined to out-produce the Axis powers.
Some managerial triumphs of the war are legendary. Andrew Jackson Higgins invented and his employees built 20,094 landing craft of all types, including the "Higgins boats," the craft that made it possible to land the D-Day troops on the beaches of Normandy. Henry J. Kaiser and his managers employed women welders and automotive assembly line techniques to speed 1,490 Liberty and Victory ships into action.
But the United States also enlisted its first-level supervisors. The War Production Board distributed an "official plan book" outlining how managers could solicit ideas and rally support from their work teams. "The urgency of tomorrow must be felt in every shop and factory producing war goods, in every home and every farm," wrote President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the introduction to the manual.
Together, these efforts worked. "The astonishing acceleration in the American productive effort," wrote Paul Johnson in A History of the American People, "was made possible by the essential dynamism and flexibility of the American enterprise system, wedded to a national purpose which served the same galvanizing role as the optimism of the Twenties."
The parallel to today is unmistakable. Fresh from the optimism of the '80s and '90s, a horrible galvanizing event confronts the United States. As U.S. armed forces fight, police investigate, and security is tightened, how can American managers contribute to the battle against terrorism?
Managing an economic recovery
During World War II, U.S. citizens made great sacrifices to divert production to the war effort. In this very different war, the short-term threat appears to be that fear could slow the economic machine that affords us everything from unemployment benefits to stealth bombers.
For more than 50 years, Gallup has studied the effects of good and bad management, as perceived by the employees, on the ability of a company to succeed. The most important discovery: Top executives are less important, and front-line managers are more important, than usually supposed.
Top brass are important for articulating a corporate vision and determining business strategy, but only the men and women who share the day-to-day struggles with employees -- their direct supervisors -- can translate the company's mission into performance. Only managers make it personal.
Great managers engender higher productivity, higher safety, fewer resignations, fewer lost days, and higher customer loyalty. Before the attacks, Gallup estimated that "actively disengaged" employees cost the U.S. economy between $292 billion and $355 billion per year. By motivating their employees and managing them toward excellence, great managers have the potential to make a tremendous difference in the United States' ability to rebound economically from this threat.
Defending free enterprise -- and freedom itself
A corny ad for Royal Typewriters during World War II oversimplified the war, by suggesting that Americans were fighting for the right to "buy anything you want." It's not as eloquent as Adam Smith, but the sentiment is the same.
Nine days after the attacks, the London-based Economist magazine editorialized: "Those who criticize America's leadership of the world's capitalist system -- a far from perfect affair -- should remember that it has brought more wealth and better living standards to more people than any other in history." With the free-market system under attack, managers should not be shy about defending it.
In choosing the World Trade Center as one of their targets, the terrorists showed their contempt for that success and reinforced Osama bin Laden's charge to "kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it." Terrorists killing a company's employees are now among a manager's worst nightmares. We saw that as we watched New York managers and executives grieving over the loss of their people.
A new definition of duty
What are a manager's responsibilities in these very different times? And will managers galvanize themselves and fulfill their pivotal role -- a role that research suggests is uniquely theirs?
The terrorists have left thousands of Americans unemployed. Will managers launch the new projects, build, design, invent, and create demand for improved products and services that require more workers at their firms?
The terrorists seek to intimidate American workers, and they may attack again with deadly efficiency. Will managers reassure their associates, inspire them to greater personal achievements, set higher goals, and forge ahead in spite of their fears?
The terrorists want to destroy the wealth of our free nations. Will managers redouble their efforts -- work harder and smarter -- to preserve it?
We do not know what this new national crisis will require of our business managers. Greater vigilance, maybe. Higher productivity, perhaps, like their World War II predecessors. Calm in the face of another attack, if more attacks come. A commitment to inclusiveness when racial and religious tensions are high. And when it's needed, wisdom and compassion in the difficult discussions that determine who is laid off and who is retained. As business improves, discretion in the crucial decisions of whom to hire. A steadying influence that looks forward to the next quarter, the next year, to employees' career goals, to what customers want -- all the previously routine aspects of management that built, and will rebuild, the free world's economic strength.
It can be intuitively difficult to imagine the cumulative force of many modest workplace improvements, such as making sure teams have the right tools, recognizing and developing employees, coaching or team-building. It's easier to see it in reverse as we get reports of the economic damage done when the United States stopped in its tracks for the better part of a week. But the effect does in fact work both ways. One of the best ways to make up for one week lost is 51 weeks of extra effort. Recently it's been in vogue to say a company works 24/7. Now we need a series of "9/11" days -- days of especially focused managerial and employee effort -- to answer the events of Sept. 11.
A stewardship to fulfill
The events of Sept. 11 forced America to reexamine what it seeks to defend: religious freedom, free markets, representative government, "domestic tranquility," and life itself. Managers are not bystanders to the drama, responsible only to their boss and the bottom line. They have powerful stewardships over the democratic way of life. The inherent principles of management stem from the direct connections between political liberties and economic freedom.
If you are a manager, your job suddenly is more important. The stakes are higher now. You serve your country well by managing well.