Lewis: A bridge too far

There is an old World War II movie called “A Bridge Too Far” that, still today, serves as a great lesson for both individuals and organizations. The simple lesson is that setting your sights too high can sometimes result in total failure.

The movie is about an offensive in the latter stages of WWII where the Allies attempt to capture several bridges to thwart the German retreat. Needless to say, the plan is overzealous and the Allies wind up losing 80% of their soldiers while not capturing the final bridge.

I find this story to be very relevant to our current times. While many management books talk about setting “lofty goals,” there is often a distinct downside to this approach. In the case of the Allied plan to take these bridges, the outsized objective is what caused the defeat.

Some might argue that having a lofty objective is admirable, even if it is not achieved. In some cases that may be true. If you set a goal to run a mile in a certain amount of time, failure might not do any more harm other than hurting your ego a bit. If, however, you are out of shape and set a goal to get fit too quickly, you risk an injury that could actually make things worse.

Another example. If I were running a company and set near-term profitability targets too high, the team might take extreme cost-cutting measures which, in turn, alienate customers and actually cause profits to decline. They also might elect to cut research and development, which might actually allow the goals to be met — for a while. In the future, however, the company becomes uncompetitive and fails.

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Just as in the movie, accepting your boss’s overzealous goal can also result in your personal defeat. One time my boss asked me to take over a product division that was struggling. His perception was that it was easily fixable and just needed a few tweaks. I jumped in without doing enough diligence thinking this would be a great opportunity.

After taking charge, I quickly realized that this division was in much worse shape than I had been led to believe. They had underfunded R&D for years, so the products were no longer competitive. They had “juiced” sales by selling large package deals, but customers were not really using the software much if at all — a problem in the industry called “shelfware.”

It was a disaster, but my boss remained convinced that the problems were minor. This set up a situation for me where it was impossible to be viewed as a hero and my inability to solve the issues quickly led to me ultimately losing the position. My successor was also unable to recover the business, and it was ultimately sold.

It was a painful outcome. Probably the most painful of my career but it taught me a critical lesson.  Properly setting (and then beating) expectations is the key to success. In the years since I turned down several roles simply because it was clear that my boss or the board had unrealistic expectations.

Aggressive goals are a good thing as long as they are realistically achievable. If we try to set goals too high, there is a risk that we might lose more than we gain. In these ever-changing times, where extremism has become the norm, setting our sights lower often allows us to achieve more.

Mark Lewis, a Colorado native, had a long career in technology, including serving as the CEO of several tech companies. He’s now retired and writes thriller novels. Mark and his wife, Lisa, and their two Australian Shepherds — Kismet and Cowboy, reside in Edwards.