Quality Fable: Lessons from Kargil

Do you schedule your priorities? Or do you prioritize your schedule?

When the Indian line of control was crossed in end May 1999 by the Pakistanis, the Commander-In-Chief of the defense forces took charge to deal with the crisis. The Pakistani forces had occupied Kargil, up to Tiger Hill.

Indians were busy keeping up with the Cricket World Cup in England. The young Prince from Kolkata, Saurav Ganguly, was in top form. We were all celebrating until the sudden attack.

What was the vision of the Commander-In-Chief? To restore the Indian line of control. What stood between him and the line of control? An unfriendly Tiger Hill. Capturing Tiger Hill at speed was articulated as the national critical success factor.

What were the resources available to the Commander-In-Chief? The army, navy, and air force. The army could not access the cliff – Tiger Hill. The navy was not useful in this land locked region. The air force lacked the aircraft that had speed and agility to strike the enemy and return safely in 30 seconds.

The Commander-In-Chief was aware that if he did not capture Tiger Hill in the next six weeks, the forces will not be able to restore the line of control by August when the first snow fall threatens the region. A failure of his vision would make it impossible to progress over the following eight months. That would lead to partially legitimizing the Pakistani occupation of Kargil.

So he scheduled his priorities. He set a key strategic goal to capture Tiger Hill in the next two weeks.

But what about the aircraft? He leased agile aircraft from France, that cost millions of dollars per sortie. This was a tactical plan. It worked. The cost to meet a strategic goal, in this case, was irrelevant.

Once Tiger Hill was in the control of our Indian forces, the Commander-In-Chief prioritized his schedule. He set milestones to be achieved every day by the soldiers in the army, who could now march forward through Tiger Hill. This was his operational plan.

India regained its territory and restored the line of control well before the weather turned hostile.

Jai Hind.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. There are four levels of planning: strategic; tactical; operational; budgeting
2. A vision is a snapshot of what you wish to become
3. Strategic planning is a vision deployment exercise
4. For strategic planning, we must schedule our priorities
5. For operational planning, we must prioritize our schedule
6. Leaders must take full accountability for planning
7. Execution can be deployed.