The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
Ray Kroc, Entrepreneur behind McDonalds brand
In ancient times, the Greek leader Xenophon and his mercenaries were being pursued by a huge army of Persians. He decided the time had come to turn and fight. He chose the spot, but one of his officers reputedly said: ‘I don’t think this is a good spot to make our stand. There is a cliff behind us: there is no way for us to retreat if things are going badly.’
Xenophon’s reply was something like: ‘Exactly! In fact, we are going to march our army until our backs are up to the cliff, and that way the Persians will also know there is no way we can retreat. We are going to fight to the death.’
A slightly less brutal example comes out of Ireland. I remember travelling through the Emerald Isle, and being struck not only by how green everything was, but also by the way that fences were built from stones rather than posts and wire like we have in Australia. Local legend has it that it would not be uncommon to come across a wall high enough to seem insurmountable. The practice in this situation was to throw your hat over the wall. That way, even if you couldn’t see over and couldn’t see a way to scale it, if your hat was on the other side, you had no choice but to work it out.
Nobel Prize–winning economist Thomas Shelling writes about this approach to commitment in terms of what he calls ‘arranging things so that you can’t compromise’. ...
