The Letter Eisenhower Never Had to Send

To commemorate D-Day a couple weeks ago, my wife and I went to see the movie Pressure. It's a WWII movie about Eisenhower's decision to launch a potentially cataustraphic D-Day invasion in the face of conflicting weather reports. "Pressure" relates to both nail-biting pressure as well as atmospheric pressure.  

As June 6, 1944 approached, Eisenhower (the Allied Commander) faced one of the biggest "Do we take an umbrella or do we stay home" decisions in history.  Nearly 160,000 Allied troops were preparing to cross the English Channel. The weather was uncertain and the two American and the British meteorologists had exact opposite predictions and personalities. Weather conditions might or might not be deteriorating. Delay the invasion and the operation could have to be postponed for weeks. Launch it under poor conditions and thousands  could die before hitting the beach and then retreating.

You and I will never decide the fate of nations, but all of us know what it feels like to make a decision when the stakes feel high.  What I find instructive  is what Eisenhower wrote after he had made his decision to go (during a brief weather clearing) but before the Normandy invasion had actually began. 

Between the time of this "Let's go" order and the time when the boats actually reached the French coastline, Eisenhower wrote two notes to send to the press -- depending on what happened.  

​One said, "We did it as a team, Yahoo!"  The second said "I screwed up, and it was my fault and mine alone."

Not the fault of the two crazy weather guys. Not the intelligence reports. Not the generals. Not the troops. Mine alone.

Since you are reading this in English, you know the invasion succeeded, and the "I screwed up" note never had to be sent.

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

The idea of someone saying "The success was a team effort vs. the failure was my fault" isn't common.  It's much more common to see people do this in reverse.  "The success is because of my awesomeness.  The failure is because of him and her."

When our kids get a disappointing grade, they say the teacher's bad. When someone gets fired, the problem's with their incompetent boss or their horrible company. When a marriage ends, it's the spouse. 

We are acrobatically creative when we explain why our disappointments belong to someone else. Yet grow when we ask  a different question: What part of this belongs to me?

The student who blames the teacher learns zippo. The student who asks how they can prepare differently is course-correcting. The employee who blames every boss keeps circles around the drain of frustration. The one who asks what they could improve might still get fired but they do better at their next job. If thinking honestly about how you can improve after a setback doesn't cause you to leap ahead, it at least helps you become a better person.

There's a funny song by Tim Wilson that has one line that says: "Been married 8 times?  Hey, it might be you."

Most of us won't face a D-Day sized decision this week. But we'll all face smaller moments that test our character. A mistake at work. A screw-up at home. A goal or field goal we missed by a mile. In those moments, we can write our acrobatically creative explanation, or we can write our own Eisenhower "My Bad" note.

But this isn't a "I'm a loser" note.  It's an ownership note. 

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