(Note to pastors: Many years ago, a church member paid the fees for me to take a one-day Dale Carnegie Management Course. The one great lesson I’ve carried with me these 40 years is that “if you delegate a task, you may assume it will not get done unless you follow up on it.” It’s an invaluable lesson. I ran across the point being made this week in a book on the Battle of New Orleans, and feel it’s worth passing on.
Bear in mind that the no. 1 principle of management (or leadership) is delegating–matching people up with the right jobs–and the no. 2 principle is following up on that assignment.
Toward the end of this, I’ll drop in my own horror story on the matter of following up. Just because I learned it in a class in the late 1960s does not mean I would get smart and actually practice it. How does that line go–too late smart, too soon dead.
Let’s call this: “What Andrew Jackson wished he had done” or “How Jackson Came Close to Losing the Battle of New Orleans.”)
The best lessons we ever learn are the ones we got wrong and suffered from and thus determine not ever to let happen again. Which is to say, experience is the best teacher.
After General Andrew Jackson entered New Orleans late in 1814 and took charge of its defense, he toured the perimeters of the area, found the city to be exposed on all sides, and assigned officers to various tasks.
In his book on the Battle of New Orleans, “Patriotic Fire,” Winston Groom writes: “…there were any number of bayous, streams, and canals that, left unguarded and unobstructed, could have allowed the British through. Jackson ordered all of these blocked by felled trees, with guards from the state militia posted to watch them.” Then, Groom ominously adds, “Lack of diligent enforcement of this order proved to be his greatest mistake.”
Here’s what happened.