When explorer Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519, during the expedition that led to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, he needed to prevent his men from abandoning the mission.
So, he burned the ships they arrived on (historians claim they were actually sunk, but let’s not quibble to preserve the image).
His message was clear: Either we succeed, or we die here, but there is no retreat.
The phrase “burn the boats” has since become a popular leadership metaphor, meaning to commit fully to a goal with no fallback option.
On occasion, good leaders burn the boats.
When it comes to critically important initiatives, projects, and campaigns, they do their best to remove any potential justification for surrender or withdrawal.
The idea isn’t to remove all safety or risk controls but to eliminate the psychological excuses that allow for weak commitment.
Steve Jobs did exactly that when he returned to Apple in 1997. The company had dozens of confusing product models and was close to bankruptcy.
So, Jobs eliminated all but four products and forced the company to focus on a few breakthrough products. Like the Mac.
Once he eliminated the people, resources, and budget from the legacy products, there was no turning back.
Reed Hastings “burned the boats” when he deliberately shifted Netflix from a DVD-by-mail company to a streaming company.
He jettisoned the profitable legacy business model within 3 years and focused the company’s complete attention on creating a global entertainment platform.
The team at Netflix didn’t have anywhere to go but forward toward a new vision. History tells the success of that transformation.
The same story could be told about Microsoft abandoning Windows protection and pushing the software team to make it run everywhere, even on competitors’ platforms.
Tesla similarly invested all its capital, to the point of near bankruptcy, on one product with no fallback position. Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker.
In those cases, and others, leaders removed a comfortable retreat. They banished old product lines, legacy business models, prior processes, and the resources that supported what came before.
By burning the boats, leaders forced the organization to fully commit to the future instead of protecting the past.
The good news is that leaders rarely need dramatic “burn the boats” decisions. In everyday leadership, the goal is to remove small excuses and quiet escape routes that allow people to avoid full commitment.
By making goals public, setting clear and non-negotiable deadlines, assigning a single accountable person to projects and decisions, and making decisions visible, good leaders expose the hiding places from which team members can find respite.
As in all endeavors, commitment begins where excuses end.
