The Power of One

By Ray Blunt
GovLeaders.org

Perhaps you remember when the Army marketing slogan changed a few years ago from “Be All That You Can Be” to “An Army of One.” Every senior Army officer I talked to absolutely hated that new slogan. Their argument was simple, passionate, and at times profane: no army worth its salt operates as a bunch of individuals. The whole point is that it is a team, a band of brothers (and now sisters), a cohesive fighting unit with great leaders. But the marketers were playing to today’s culture of individualism and in that sense they read it rightly.¹ Of course, the Army doesn’t operate that way or train that way. The marketers’ message was simply focusing on getting people in the door using a slogan that appeals to a new generation and today’s culture.

I often hear that same kind of logic today when the conversation turns to leadership or when I read some of the graduation speeches that abound this time of year to send the next generation out into the world. Again, the message is simple and appealing: never underestimate what one person can do. You can transform your organization. You can change the world. The power of one.

In fact that is the premise of an engaging, feel good movie that came out a few years ago, Pay It Forward, in which a 7th grader is challenged by his teacher to do just that—design a year-long project to change the world. So, he devises this clever plan to do three good deeds for three people and their only quid pro quo is not to pay him back but to pay it forward—i.e. do three good deeds for three other people who will themselves pay it forward, etc. Pretty soon the world is a better place AND his divorced mom winds up marrying his teacher. The power of one. Or is it?

One of the best true stories of leadership that might be told as the power of one came out of North Platte, Nebraska, during World War II. In December 1941, troop trains were moving out of the training camps, sending soldiers east and west depending on the theater of action they were to embark for—Europe or the Far East. The townspeople heard that Company D, their boys from the Nebraska National Guard would be coming through town and stop for ten minutes to take on water. They decided to give them a rousing sendoff with cookies, cakes, cigarettes, sodas, and well wishes. The only problem was that there was a mistake. When the train pulled in it wasn’t their boys but Company D of the Kansas National Guard. After a few awkward moments they decided, what the heck, these soldiers would be fighting soon and would appreciate some goodies and cheer, too. And they did. The response was heartfelt gratitude. So much so that a 27-year old store clerk in North Platte by the name of Rae Wilson wrote a letter to the editor of the North Platte Daily Bulletin on December 18, 1941, citing the example of their mothers in World War I who ran a canteen at the train depot for soldiers. She said the soldiers of this war needed their service and that they and the surrounding communities should open and fund a canteen to meet the troop trains that passed through North Platte. The clincher was that she said “I would be more than willing to give my time without charge and run this canteen.”

A few days later, on Christmas Eve 1941, the canteen opened and for every day of the war, every troop train from the first at 5:00 am until the last after midnight was met by the people of North Platte and the surrounding towns. Some people came from as far away as two hundred miles to serve. In that ten minute stop they managed to distribute cookies, cakes, cupcakes, pies, coffee, sandwiches, soft drinks, doughnuts, candy, cigarettes and lots of love and good cheer. Later, men who had been there remembered the delicious homemade food, but most of all they said they remembered the smiles.

Just to get perspective on the size of the task, each train had three hundred to five hundred soldiers on it and each day saw eight to twelve trains come through, and sometimes up to twenty. All this food was home made and all at the expense of the people whose lives were severely impacted by war-time rationing. Of course, being farming communities, they could contribute what they raised. At the end there were over 125 communities that regularly took part.

Think of the logistics, the meticulous planning, the organizing, the motivating, and the persistence under fatigue and stress that was required to keep giving a cheerful greeting. This was an amazing, even singular, job of vision and leadership if ever there was one, because this happened in no other town all along the three thousand mile east-west train route. The memories of the soldiers still alive tell of the gratitude that lasted all through the war—of the people in that small Nebraska town and of being appreciated as nowhere else.² The power of one. Or was it?

One of the great seducers of leaders and indeed of all of us is the message we probably hear from our early days in school, that “there is no limit to what you can do,” and variations on that theme. The problem is that the unguarded human ego laps that up and when it is combined with things like power, status, rank, a corner office, etc., we may begin to think that we do basically do it alone. We have the best ideas, we have the vision, we know not only what to do but how to do it (often because we have done something like this before), how to write it, how to sell it, and we just need some hard working folks to do our bidding. And the big bonus is ours to claim because we got the job done. That is the seductive message that a culture of individualism can engender. And that is the water we all swim in; the air we breathe. It is also a formula that doesn’t work. At least not for long.

The best organizations, the best teams, the best leaders are pushing hard on the truth that the early days of our democracy taught us—that we need to be part of a community and learn the lessons of what doing it together can mean. Whether it is forming a Little League team in the inner city, finding a better way to give the American people access to clear instructions on their government benefits, or fighting a war, we need to live out the countercultural message that we are in this together, that we need leaders at all levels, and that the best leaders at the top are those who serve.

Rae Wilson may have had the vision to start the miracle canteen, and she is certainly an unsung leader we could all learn from. If you asked her, however, she would be the first to say that it was definitely not the power of one. She would likely say that “miracle” was the product of the North Platte townspeople and those good folks from dozens of farm communities, all of whom were united by a shared purpose and a desire to serve. Then, at least in my imagination, she’d hand you a plate of oatmeal cookies served with one huge smile. That’s a leader.

1. Perhaps the best book written about American society since de Tocqueville probed the reasons for the successful experiment of democracy, is Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life by Robert Bellah, et al, University of California Press, 1985. Through hundreds of interviews he and his colleagues catalogued the drift toward individualism and away from the community structures that de Tocqueville felt were at the root of the lone success of democracy by the 19th century. It was a warning from these authors that our democratic underpinnings were eroding. The more recent book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam, Simon and Schuster, 2000, provides a fascinating and sobering statistical documentation confirming Bellah’s findings, i.e., the significant trend toward individualism and the loss of social capital that occurred literally within one generation. Neither book is entirely a jeremiad, but each also offers solutions to the rebuilding of community and recommitment to those larger things that endure.

2. If you want to get the full details of this amazing leadership (and human) story, pick up a copy of Bob Greene’s Once upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, Harper Collins, 1992.

Ray Blunt is currently the Associate Director and Fellow at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture. For the past 12 years he has served as a leadership consultant and teacher for the Council for Excellence in Government and the Federal Executive Institute as well as for several government and non-profit organizations. He spent 35 years in public service in the US Air Force and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. He is B.J.'s husband of 43 years and the father of two grown children, and grandfather of five aspiring servant leaders.