Unity #5: Moral Authority
AMONG THE LARGER MISTAKES IN HISTORY
“In the early 13th century, the Khwarazmian dynasty was governed by Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad. Genghis Khan saw the potential advantage in Khwarazmia as a commercial trading partner using the Silk Road, and he initially sent a 500-man caravan to establish official trade ties with the empire. However, Inalchuq, the governor of the Khwarazmian city of Otrar, attacked the caravan, claiming that the caravan contained spies and therefore was a conspiracy against Khwarazmia. The situation became further complicated because the governor later refused to make repayments for the looting of the caravans and hand over the perpetrators. Genghis Khan then sent a second group of three ambassadors (two Mongols and a Muslim) to meet the Shah himself, instead of the governor Inalchuq. The Shah had all the men shaved and the Muslim beheaded and sent his head back with the two remaining ambassadors. Outraged, Genghis Khan planned one of his largest invasion campaigns by organizing together around 100,000 soldiers, his most capable generals and some of his sons. He left a commander and number of troops in China, designated his successors to be his family members and likely appointed Ogedei to be his immediate successor and then went out to Khwarazmia.
[…]
The Shah’s army was split by diverse internecine feuds and by the Shah’s decision to divide his army into small groups concentrated in various cities. This fragmentation was decisive in Khwarazmia’s defeats, as it allowed the Mongols, although exhausted from the long journey, to immediately set about defeating small fractions of the Khwarazmian forces instead of facing a unified defense. The Mongol army quickly seized the town of Otrar, relying on superior strategy and tactics. Genghis Khan ordered the wholesale massacre of many of the civilians, enslaved the rest of the population and executed Inalchuq by pouring molten silver into his ears and eyes, as retribution for his actions.
[…]
The Mongols’ conquest, even by their own standards, was brutal. After the capital Samarkand fell, the capital was moved to Bukhara by the remaining men, while Genghis Khan ordered two of his generals and their forces to completely destroy the remnants of the Khwarazmian Empire, including not only royal buildings, but entire towns, populations, and even vast swaths of farmland.
[…]
The city of Bukhara was not heavily fortified, with a moat and a single wall, and the citadel typical of Khwarazmian cities. The city leaders opened the gates to the Mongols, though a unit of Turkish defenders held the city’s citadel for another twelve days. Survivors from the citadel were executed, artisans and craftsmen were sent back to Mongolia, young men who had not fought were drafted into the Mongolian army and the rest of the population was sent into slavery. As the Mongol soldiers looted the city, a fire broke out, razing most of the city to the ground. Genghis Khan had the city’s surviving population assemble in the main mosque of the town, where he declared that he was the flail of God, sent to punish them for their sins.”
— Wikipedia: Genghis Khan, Military Campaigns: Khwarazmian Empire
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MISTAKES AND MISTAKES
There’s mistakes, and then there’s mistakes.
Undoubtedly, Muhammad II of Khwarezm’s decision to execute Genghis Khan’s Ambassador can be chalked up as one of the largest of mistakes.
The retaliation was one of the most brutal in history.
And while we’ll look at a variety of the actions of Genghis Khan in this issue, there’s one little detail of the Khwarazmian campaign that merits particular attention.
After the Mongol conquest of Bukhara, the Khwarazmian Empire was in ruins — very few of their soldiers were still holding out.
With the majority of Khwarazmian cities captured and the war effectively over, why would Genghis Khan go to the trouble of making a speech about how he’s the punishment of God?
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TSR’S SERIES ON UNITY, ISSUE #5: MORAL AUTHORITY
It would have been infinitely more easy and straightforward to explore moral authority by starting with a figure like the American President John F. Kennedy —
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. This we pledge — and more.”
Kennedy would have been a much easier point of departure for exploring moral authority than Genghis Khan, to be sure — but, perhaps less insightful.
History is commonly re-assessed and re-analyzed through the lens of the current day. Historical figures are often sorted into “good guys” and “bad guys.” With the “good guys,” we often ignore their flaws; with the bad guys, we often ignore the subtleties of what they did correctly.
The Mongol Empire had some of the greatest Unity that the world has ever seen. In a very short time, a young outcast Mongol named Temujin, starting from nothing, built one of the most invincible armies the world had ever seen.
Little known in the West, Temujin was only crowned Great Khan of the Mongols — Genghis Khan — at age 44. The story of his road of hardship, innovation, competence, political skill, and moral skill that took him there is far less well-known than it ought to be.
In this issue, then, we’ll look at the mechanics of unity of Temujiin as he built towards becoming Genghis Khan, and then look to some analogous lessons from other empires and modern enterprises for lessons on unity.
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FIVE BIG IDEAS
Before I begin any series at TSR, I take a few days to thoroughly map everything related to the topic. A typical series is around 10 issues, and Unity had a very specific challenge — there were easily 15–20 core topics that had to be covered.
In this issue, Moral Authority, we’re going to touch on five big ideas —
1. Banner and cause
2. Incentives
3. Internal moral authority
4. External moral authority
5. Impetus and endurance
To build any functional organization, you’ll need to get at least a few of these correct.
Really exceptional organizations tend to get all of them correct.
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TEMUJIN’S RISE TO GENGHIS KHAN
Around the year 1162, Temujin was born on the Mongol steppe. A beautiful though harsh countryside taxed the abilities of the nomadic Mongols to accumulate enough food and supplies to survive, and there was constant infighting among the various Mongol tribes.
Temujin’s father was a local leader of the Mongols in a low-unity era with much strife and conflict.
As Temujin approached early adolescence, somewhere from age 9 to age 12, his father was murdered and the family became effectively outcasts. It was very hard living.
Around age 15, Temujin was captured by former allies of his father, and he was slated to be enslaved. He broke out of his capture and hid to escape — he’d have probably been killed, or at least beaten severely, had he been caught.
This was one of his first public actions and the beginning of his reputation.
From a young age, Temujin had been betrothed to Borte, the daughter of one of his father’s allies. But after the murder of Temujin’s father, the girl had been taken away to another tribe. At age 24, along with two friends, they raided the tribe and Temujin took Borte home; she would later become Empress Consort of the Mongols.
It was Temujin’s first raid.
These relatively small-scale exploits attracted the attention of the Mongols, and Temujin was elected Khan — chieftain, but not of all the Mongol tribes — by some of his supporters the next year.
It took another 20 years of warfare and alliance-building for Temujin to become the sole ruler, the Great Khan, of the Mongol Empire. He was 44 years old when elected Great Khan in 1206; by the time of his death in 1227, his armies had conquered two-thirds of what would be the height of the Mongol Empire — with campaigns as far away as Central Europe, the Middle East, and the majority of China.
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KHAN’S SOLDIERS
The Mongols are known for having some of the greatest celerity among armies of all time. Practicing horsemanship from a young age, Mongol soldiers were primarily horseback archers — faster and more nimble than all other forces, there were no adequate counters to horse archers before gunpowder.
They could choose the time and place of the battle, maximally pursue retreating forces they defeated, and easily withdraw successfully if outnumbered or in unfavorable conditions. Mongol soldiers almost always rode with extra fresh horses to be able to travel longer distances faster than most nations thought possible.
This is well-known, but less well-known is the high degree of unit cohesion among the Mongols. The default unit size for Mongol horse archers was 10 men. A notable policy — if any single of the 10 men retreated without orders to do so, all 10 would be executed after the battle.
This harsh policy meant disorganized retreats did not happen very often, but it was balanced by two forward-thinking policies that were uncommon in this era — promotion by merit and equal sharing of spoils.
It’s important to remember just how rare promotion by merit was in the ancient world. Some 600 years later, Napoleon Bonaparte regularly took the field against armies led by aristocrats who were given battlefield commands due to lineage and titles rather than due to demonstrated skill. While promotion by merit has rapidly become the norm in the modern world, this really only became the case after World War I.
It was a rare and forward-thinking policy, and let Khan build a far more effective military command structure than rivals of the age.
Likewise, Genghis Khan was able to attract followers by sharing spoils of warfare relatively equally among his soldiers — also a rarity in an age when aristocrats normally took the lion’s share of the spoils, and soldiers were often treated as disposable and irrelevant.
The combination of these policies meant that cowardice and treachery were maximally punished, but loyalty and competence were maximally rewarded.
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THE YASSA LEGAL, CULTURAL, AND CIVIC CODES
As Khan’s empire grew, he developed a set of legal, cultural, and civic codes that were genuinely beneficial and effective to live under.
The Mongols did not write down their laws as frequently as other peoples, so records are poor, but broad sketches of the Yassa codes are available for review and well-worthy of study.
For perspective, the Yassa codes include many similarities to the Ten Commandments, the Roman Republic’s military codes, and Mao Zedong’s later “Three Rules and Eight Remarks” for guerilla warfare against Imperial Japan.
The laws ranged from broad prohibitions against murder, theft, and adultery with specified harsh punishments, to guidance on how soldiers must keep equipped and in fighting form, to regulations on keeping camp life sanitary and well-ordered.
A few notable laws —
“[The Khan] orders that all religions were to be respected and no preference was to be shown to any to any of them. All this he commanded in order that it might be agreeable to Heaven.”
“Forbidden, under death penalty, to pillage the enemy before the general commanding gives permission; but after this permission is given the soldier must have the same opportunity as the officer, and must be allowed to keep what he has carried off, provided he has paid his share to the receiver for the emperor.”
“Urinating in water or ashes is punishable by death.”
The legal codes, you can see thus, include things like general religious tolerance which helped conquered people be assimilated into the empire, guidelines on ensuring military discipline during victory yet guaranteeing even division of spoils, and harshly enforced measures designed to keep campfires and water sources in good working measures.
Implicit in the codes are many aspects of civil infrastructure — a postal system, a reporting system, the way that commanders and leaders are chosen and elected, the way provinces are to be governed, and taxes collected.
Overall, after a people submitted to the Mongols, they would be expected to spend a period of time doing either military or civil service, and they were expected to pay taxes and not commit crimes. So long as these measures were followed, they were left alone to worship and live as they wanted.
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UNIVERSAL GUIDANCE
What to make of all this?
If you study history, you’ll see certain patterns recur again and again in successful organizations, in successful nations, in successful projects and campaigns.
Banner and Cause: Ironically, the greatest unity seems to often emerge from periods of high disunity and chaos. Perhaps the most major reason Genghis Khan was able to take power was not his personal bravery and effectiveness, nor the superiority of his soldiers alone. Rather, before Temujin became Genghis Khan, life was simply much worse for the Mongols and many outlying people than afterwards.
The transition was bloody and brutal, to be sure. But the main raison d’etre of Genghis Khan was to end the nonstop quarrels, treachery, and strife of his people.
Relatedly, we can see that Empires often reach the height of their power when a paramount leader is long-lived. Rare for the time, by living to 65 years old Genghis Khan was able to become a “living banner” of the Mongol cause.
It shouldn’t be surprising to note that this has often happened in history — Augustus Caesar lived to 76 years old; Queen Victoria, 82 years; George Washington, 67 years.
Similar to the Mongols, the Roman Empire, British Empire, and newly-born American Republic all had wide-scale causes that motivated their internal people, inspired allies to join their cause, and offered a path to integration for defeated enemies.
Only surprisingly recently has it become common for organizations to attribute their cause or banner to the organization itself, rather than to an individual leader solely. And thus, companies like Disney and Apple keep much of the magic of their cause and banner after the respective deaths of Walt Disney and Steve Jobs.
One of the perhaps under-appreciated causes of American greatness is how George Washington and the initial Founders of America were able to transfer Washington’s personal prestige to the office of Presidency — in a way that Khan, Augustus, and Victoria were not quite able to do.
High-unity organizations and nations typically have both logical causes that make sense internally and externally, and banners and symbols of that cause — whether a “living banner” in the form of a leader, or in the form of symbols and offices that people happily serve under.
Incentives: Incentives are critically important to get right. Attracting talented people via incentives without an underlying cause is fragile, but likewise, noble causes with poor incentives for joining rarely succeed.
Genghis Khan was able to walk a difficult path of harshly punishing negligent or treacherous behavior while generously rewarding behavior that built the group success.
In particular, recognition and reward of merit seems to be among the highest necessities for building elite organizations; likewise, sharing in the gains.
When Otto von Bismarck was building the German Empire, they had a mix of cause and banner that was attractive to Germans, but nevertheless Germany was poorer than countries like England and America. There was an immense amount of expatriation from Germany for America, in particular, taking away the best German engineers and workers.
Bismarck was able to work with the notoriously conservative German government to pass the world’s first workman’s compensation and social insurance laws — following those growth of “indirect wages,” expatriation away from Germany slowed tremendously and the newly-born German Empire was able to keep its best people.
In the modern world, compensation and recognition is key to get right — organizations which are able to build better incentive structures gain a major advantage over organizations that do not. Simple things like the design and work-life on the Google and Facebook campuses offer examples — excellent food at the cafeteria, 20% time at Google for employees to work on whatever interests them one day per week, Facebook’s encouragement of developers taking time to open-source their technology, and little details like taking care of dry-cleaning and laundry and paperwork for employees can go a surprisingly long way.
Lucrative incentives without a banner and cause typically burn out rapidly, but when combined, an organization will attract the best people and have an environment that brings out the best in them.
Internal Moral Authority: Why are the people who are in charge, in charge? Why are we doing what we’re doing? How do we feel about doing it?
At the beginning of the piece, I asked you to reflect on why Genghis Khan bothered giving this speech —
“As the Mongol soldiers looted the city, a fire broke out, razing most of the city to the ground. Genghis Khan had the city’s surviving population assemble in the main mosque of the town, where he declared that he was the flail of God, sent to punish them for their sins.”
The obvious answer is that he knew it would be chronicled and spread among outlying people. “This is the price of treachery.”
I’m not sure that’s the right answer.
We tend to think of Genghis Khan’s Mongols as implacable killing machines, but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. I think Khan’s speech to the defeated Khwarazmians was as much for the benefit of his own soldiers as for a message to foreign powers.
It underlined the core message of Genghis Khan — fidelity and competence will be rewarded, negligence and treachery will not be tolerated.
External Moral Authority: It’s worth noting that the Mongol Empire was never significantly defeated by foreign powers — they occasionally suffered a rare defeat in places as far from their homeland as Syria (!), but by and large, the Mongols were never defeated near their homeland until eventually internal strife brought them down.
This was because, as harsh as their initial conquests could be, they governed well and brought a level of security and prosperity to people integrated into the Mongol Empire. There’s no faster way to alienate people than to suppress their religion and culture, and there’s no faster way to win goodwill than by effectively building better governance and prosperity in a region.
We can see what happens when external moral authority becomes compromised with the rapid disintegration of the British Empire after World War II, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s.
In modern times, Microsoft and Uber both provide examples. The early days of Microsoft were certainly elite, expansive, and inspiring to many developers and they attracted the best talent in the world. But when their internal policy of “embrace, extend, extinguish” came to light in the anti-trust lawsuits, Microsoft lost most of their moral authority and it ceased to be a “cool” place to work.
Uber, too, was and is an incredibly expansive company that’s done many remarkable things… but their recent growth has been hampered by a series of small and large scandals, eventually resulting in the forced resignation of their visionary CEO, Travis Kalanick.
It’s not always necessary for an elite organization to be loved externally, but it’s critically important that it’s not hated at least. The Mongols, for all the brutality of their initial conquests, did a surprisingly good job at this with their legal and cultural codes.
Impetus and Endurance: Finally, it’s worth remarking that almost anything worth doing is hard and requires sacrifices, and the most effective nations and organizations motivate people to both start and finish what’s necessary.
Obviously, the Mongols were able to achieve both of these factors to a high degree — with promotion by merit, generous rewards, and praise and encouragement of bravery, Mongol commanders and soldiers showed one of the highest degrees of impetus towards getting hard work started, and endurance towards getting hard work finished.
The ideal organization-building results in the concepts of impetus and endurance being fundamentally built into who we are. When these concepts become fundamentally ingrained into the psychology of individual team members and the culture of the organization as a whole, it often persists for decades afterwards.
Eventually, the initial reasons for impetus and endurance might fade, and yet, the momentum of a disciplined, fast-moving, incredibly-persistent culture endures and that spirit gets spread to future team members as they join and go to work.
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CONCLUSION
In Issue #2, we explored the Unit Cohesion of the U.S. Marines serving in North Korea.
Last issue, we explored the Selection Procedures of the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force unit.
As with most elite organizations, you’ll see the patterns of banner and cause, incentives, internal moral authority, external moral authority, and impetus and endurance in them.
You can probably build a functional organization with just two or three of these five factors, but all of them combined means a far-ranging spirit of competence and thriving — it results in belief and morale among team members, friendliness and admiration from allies, and grudging respect and from rivals.
These are abstract concepts and often challenging to put into practice — as with all of this series, the highest degrees of Unity are something that the vast majority of people never experience — but it allows for doing the seemingly impossible.
Or, as Genghis Khan put it —
“Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.”
Yours,
Sebastian Marshall
Editor, TheStrategicReview.net
