Two Numbers on a Dry-Erase Board

My battalion commander didn't say a word.

While I was still policing up the remnants of a failed platoon five-mile formation run, he walked into my platoon command post, picked up a marker, and left me a message on my dry erase board.

When I returned a few minutes later, I realized a goal had just become very real.

My morning had started like every other morning in the early 1990s. We stood in formation on a dew-covered field, listened to the morning announcements, saluted the flag during reveille, and executed a right face to step off on a five-mile formation run.

As we started down Tennessee Avenue, a tall, wraith-like figure quietly joined the back of the platoon.

It was our battalion commander.

He didn't say a word. He simply fell in and started running with us.

For a brand-new second lieutenant—a butter bar—a battalion commander was a god-like figure. He wasn't actually God, of course, but from my perspective he occupied a neighboring office. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, I knew exactly who it was, and I also knew this probably wasn't going to end well.

It didn't.

Soldiers began falling out of formation. By the time we returned to the company area, only a fraction of the platoon remained in formation.

I stayed with the remnants of the platoon and watched my battalion commander walk away. He still hadn't said a word.

When I walked into my platoon command post—a glorified closet with a field desk, a rotary phone, and a dry erase board—I immediately recognized his handwriting. In the upper-right corner of my dry erase board were two numbers.

51 — Our run time. 40 — The division's goal.

The 40 was underlined three times. There was nothing else.

Later that morning, he told my company commander that he would run with my platoon again in forty-five days.

The goal hadn't changed.

My understanding of it had.

Until that morning, the goal belonged to the division. Now it belonged to my platoon. Forty minutes had been a number printed somewhere in a training calendar; now it stared at me every time I walked into my CP.

We became a running platoon and forty-five days later, we crossed the finish line with our battalion commander in just under forty minutes.

I've thought about those two numbers many times over the years. They represented more than a failed five mile run.

Most organizations don't struggle because they lack goals, mission statements, strategic plans, annual objectives, or performance metrics.

Almost every organization has them. They're discussed, briefed, published, and displayed, but they don't change behavior.

Great leaders change that.

They make goals personal.

I've kept a dry erase board in every office I've occupied since that morning—not because of those two numbers, but because every time I look at that board, I'm reminded of something a young lieutenant needed to learn.

Impactful leadership isn't measured by the goals we announce. It's measured by whether the people we lead believe those goals are real.