Management lessons through story telling-The Stockdale paradox

Lessons from a Vietnam War survivor

The story of Admiral Jim Stockdale offers some great lessons in leadership. Stockdale was the highest ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. He was tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of survivors, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda. At one point, he beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself, so that he could not be put on videotape as an example of a “well-treated prisoner.” He exchanged secret intelligence information with his wife through their letters, knowing that discovery would mean more torture and perhaps death. He instituted rules that would help people to deal with torture. He instituted an elaborate internal communications systems to reduce the sense of isolation that their captors tried to create, which used a five-by-five matrix of tap codes for alpha characters. Once the prisoners mopped and swept the central yard using the code, signalling “We love you” to Stockdale.

The famous author Jim Collins eagerly looked forward to the prospect of spending an afternoon with Stockdale. As they got talking, Stockdale remarked, “I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

After a period of silence, Collins asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said, “The optimists.” Collins was completely confused.

Stockdale explained, “The optimists, Oh, they were the ones who said, “We’re going to be out by Christmas.” And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Adapted from “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.