Berthier's Pen as Force Multiplier

“Napoleon was the first commander to employ a chief-of-staff in its modern sense, and he couldn’t have chosen a more efficient one. With a memory second only to his own, Berthier could keep his head clear after twelve hours of taking dictation; on one occasion in 1809 he was summoned no fewer than seventeen times in a single night.15 The Archives Nationales, Bibliothèque Nationale and the Archives of the Grande Armée at Vincennes teem with orders in the neat secretarial script and short concise sentences that Berthier used to communicate with his colleagues, conveying Napoleon’s wishes in polite but firm terms, invariably starting ‘The Emperor requests, general, that on receipt of this order you will . . .’16 Among Berthier’s many qualities was a diplomatic nature so finely attuned that he somehow managed to persuade his wife, the Duchess Maria of Bavaria, to share a chateau with his mistress Madame Visconti (and vice versa). He rarely opposed Napoleon’s ideas directly except on strict logistical grounds, and built up a team that ensured the commander-in-chief’s wishes were quickly put into action. His special ability, amounting to something approaching genius, was to translate the sketchiest of general commands into precise written orders for every demi-brigade. Staff-work was rarely less than superbly efficient. To process Napoleon’s rapid-fire orders required a skilled team of clerks, orderlies, adjutants and aides-de-camp, and a very advanced filing system, and he often worked through the night. On one of the few occasions when Napoleon spotted an error in the troop numbers for a demi-brigade, he wrote to correct Berthier, adding: ‘I read these position statements with as much relish as a novel.’17”

“Individual corps commanders – who tended to be marshals – would be given a place to go to and a date to arrive there by and would be expected to do the rest themselves.”

“This chapter presents a simple but vital finding that is often neglected – for unreasonable success, we need our personal vehicle. All our players had a vehicle which multiplied…”

“You must create something new which vastly increases your impact on the world. The players used their vehicles for three reasons: •  Leverage – using the vehicles’ power, wealth, manpower, reputation, intellectual property and influence. •  Collaboration – enabling the players to do what they couldn’t do themselves or couldn’t do well; supplying missing ingredients; building supporters. •  Credibility and publicity – helping the…”