Management under fire: the paradigm of Desert Storm

There are several management lessons to be learned from the Persian Gulf war. The first management tool used in the war was networking. President George Bush's strong personal relationships with foreign leaders were crucial to establishing the coalition of countries. Zane Tankel of Tankel Partners views Bush's prime stated objective - Kuwait's liberation - as a mission statement. Much credit for Desert Storm's success goes to strategic and contingency planning. Tankel calls contingency planning an absolute must in a new enterprise. The final lesson of the war was a negative. The coalition response displayed a lack of a long-term policy within which to structure tactics. Management consultant T. Quinn Spitzer says that the geopolitical elements that define strategy were missing.