The plight of the thousands of personnel in the long convoy heading to Kyiv is a classic case of poor management. This talk was given to students of corporate strategy.

1. Management Lessons from
the 40 mile long Russian
Convoy
Dr Sarma VANGALA
CEO
Metastrategy, Inc
Toronto, CANADA

2. Even the best team, without a sound plan, can’t
score.
Woody Hayes {US FootballCoach}
The question to ask is:
What are the chances with a lousy team and no plan?

4. Convoy: Background
• Various battalions converged on Mazyr, Belarus {Feb 7th}
• Small convoys departed to the Ukrainian border starting February 10th
• Putin declares war on February 24rd
• First evidence of 60km long convoy on February 25th 140km from Kyiv
• 950 * trucks carrying artillery pieces, fuel and 7 000 * troops in personnel
transports
• Convoy ‘stalled’ on March 3rd
• Convoy ‘dispersed’ 20 km outside Kyiv into woodlots on March 7th
* estimates

5. Personnel
• Conscripts (less than 1 year in uniform)
• Bare minimum training
• Poor pay
• Led to believe that they were on a training mission
with 24 Hrs notice to mobilise
• Were told they’ll be heroes upon their return
• Phones confiscated prior to mission

6. Personnel
• Told that they were liberating Ukraine;
• Also were informed that they’d be welcomed
by the Ukrainian public.

7. Equipment
• Sub-optimal travel conditions because of
thawing ground;
• Owing to poor maintenance constant
breakdowns;
• Endemic corruption leads to sub-standard spare
parts that necessitated abandonment of
equipment

9. Poor Planning

10. Living Conditions
• ‘Butt to nose’ crammed sleeping in trucks
• Poor and inadequate rations
• Sub-zero ambient temperatures
• 20 days on the road
• Poor or absent senior commanders

11. Sabotage
• Skin of fuel tankers punctured to leak fuel
• Grumbling to colleagues of lack of will to fight
• Desertion

13. Corporate Parallels
• “Our people are our best asset”
• Our most important person is seated 50 feet
ahead {sign on the back of the trailer of an 18 wheeler}

14. Corporate Parallels
• Poor or inadequate training given to new
recruits;
• No true ‘mentoring’ other than the weekly call
• Dead-end tasks e.g., weekly e-mails to billable
consultants to submit time sheets on time

15. Corporate Parallels
• Senior leadership appears only to ‘whip’ the
troops in the trenches;
• The glamour of the job sold but not the pain;
• No ‘Team-building’ except for the perfunctory
events

16. Useless tokenism
Emotional-support cages

17. Corporate Parallels
• Those who complain are labelled ‘rebels’;
• Top Down has always worked for us

18. Corporate Parallels
• “You can achieve anything you want”
{i.e., only what is sanctioned by the Partner or leadership}
• “Every one is impressed by what you are
capable of”
• “There were 60 applicants for your job”

19. Lacking Strategy
• What is the need that we going to address?
• Are leadership and rank and file aligned?
• Are we “Hoping for the best but planning for
the worst?”
• Is there a Plan B?

20. Questions for Managers
• Do we truly believe that our people are important?
• Are we ‘up front’ with them?
• Do we provide the right tools for them to be
successful?
• Do we listen to our people? Top down?
• Our way or the highway?

21. Question for Managers
What are we hoping to achieve with any
particular project especially if it’s a strategic
imperative?

22. SarmaVANGALA, Ph D
Chief Executive Officer
Metastrategy, Inc.
• SarmaVangala is a corporate consultant
specialising in Strategy, M&A and Business
Transformation
• Based inToronto, CANADA
• BTech (IIT(M)); PhD (Exon.); Professional Engineer
• sarma.vangala@metastrategyinc.com

23. Dynamics