Creative Execution: What Great Leaders Do to Unleash Bold Thinking and Innovation

Moving Forward

At Trafalgar, Nelson showed the world how to use Creative Execution to defeat a superior force at sea. He was the first admiral to “value in attack even of the weak against the strong: the principle of a smaller but more efficient force hurling itself against superior numbers and creating sufficient havoc with the opponent to affect an entire campaign and its strategic objectives.”³² Curiously, the British would ignore Nelson’s bold ideas in World War I and World War II, when it fought mostly inconclusive battles with the German fleet. As Vincent O’Hara sums up, “despite the Royal Navy’s superiority in intelligence, doctrine, technology and resources, London, when it adopted its Mediterranean strategy in the summer of 1940, chose ...