In Deep Survival, author Laurence Gonzales describes how the brain assembles a “mental map” of the world based on spatial orientation, experience, emotion, cognition, and every other facet of who we are. This mental map is our unique perspective of the world. It’s our comfort zone; it’s what we rest on; it’s where we feel safe.

But there’s a problem in that our mental map doesn’t always align with “the real map”… i.e. the real world.

Gonzales relates numerous accounts in which people found themselves in survival situations and continued to cling to their old reality…the one where they were still sitting safely in a plane at 30,000 feet…or the one where a bear hadn’t just wrecked their campsite leaving them stranded. The people that died are the ones who failed to update their mental maps to their new situation.

The essential point is that sometimes there is a fate lying just around the corner that we have never, EVER considered, but will have to react to.

Sadr City

In March of 2008, such a “new fate” arrived in Sadr City, Iraq. The urban enclave of 2 million people in northeastern Baghdad had quieted down to the point that just two companies of Stryker Infantry were needed to contain it. We had regular meetings with local leaders and enemy attacks were very low. Some might say that we had reached “steady-state operations,” and a routine of stability. We were in a comfort zone.

But as the saying goes, the enemy gets a vote…and Muqtada al-Sadr’s vote came at the end of March, when he unleashed an hourly barrage of rocket, mortar, IED, RPG, and gunfire attacks on the Green Zone and units in the area. In a matter of hours, the tactical situation in Sadr City shifted from low to high-intensity, with engagements akin to the Black Hawk Down depiction of Mogadishu in 1993. The digital map erupted red icons all over the city as our units tried to get a handle on the emerging situation. The enemy had achieved surprise and units were sustaining casualties.

This post is not a narrative of the combat in Sadr City that year, but it does serve as a perfect example of a situation that requires leaders to reframe their mental maps to the new reality. Holding onto the prior trend of stability was pointless and risky. We needed a new plan, and fast.

The command deployed additional assets from surrounding areas and blocked the routes in/out of the city, then platoons fought their way north to reclaim a key road. Where two companies once occupied, 14 companies now stood. The resulting month-long fight ultimately reduced the Sadr militia’s combat power and a new 2.4 km wall across the city prevented them from affecting key coalition bases. From the Soldiers on the street to the Commanding General, the dramatic change in the tactical landscape demanded mental agility, measured emotional response, and poised leadership.

Bottom Line

The lesson is that leaders must be open-minded enough to sense a changing environment, willing to discard what is comfortable and accept the new reality, and then be decisive in the new environment, not the old. Leaders also need to accept that unseen “realities” exist and have momentum along tracks that will ultimately intersect with and affect the organization. Muqtada al-Sadr had likely been planning the April 2008 offensive for months. Intelligence efforts, of course, seek to discover these initiatives, but leaders must live in a state of open-ended readiness to adjust and lead their organizations through change.