'Saving Private Ryan's' Lessons in Chaos Navigation

There’s a scene in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” where it appears the seams are coming undone.

Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) has ordered the release of a German machine gunner who just killed a member of their platoon. Private Richard Reiben (Ed Burns) is screaming at Captain Miller and threatening to desert. And now Sgt. Mike Horvath is pointing a gun at Private Reiben.

But Miller doesn’t start screaming, doesn’t tell anyone to calm down, nor does he lie and say he fully believes in the seemingly fruitless mission of finding Private Ryan.

Instead, he begins telling his story — how he’s a Pennsylvania high school teacher and a baseball coach — in the most soothing voice he can.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve changed so much my wife is even gonna recognize me when I get back to her and how I’ll ever be able to tell her about days like today,” Miller tells his platoon.

“Ryan, I don’t know anything about Ryan,” he adds. “I don’t care. Man means nothing to me. He’s just a name. But if going to Rumelle and finding him so he can go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife, well, then, that’s my mission.”

“You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right, all right, I won’t stop you. I’ll even put in the paperwork. I just know for every man I kill, the farther away from home I feel.”

We as leaders all have moments where it appears we’re losing our teams — where egos are showing, where buy in is decreasing, where it seems we’re on the verge of total collapse.

The next time this happens, let’s maybe think about this scene. Let’s consider that perhaps the solution isn’t to start shouting about how things need to change or specifically calling out individuals in front of everyone else.

Maybe it’s just bringing everyone together and speaking calmly while reminding our team of our collective “why.” Let’s not be shy about pointing out what’s in it for them individually.

When we start shouting, it often means we’ve lost control of the situation — and our teams can sense that. Odds are, they likely won’t respond well.

We need to be better about seeing the bigger picture and constantly reinforcing it.

Some dysfunction within an organization is not necessarily an indictment of the leader.

How we respond to it, though, most certainly is.

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