Management, Pagonis W G

Summary:A second generation American details he military career leading up to and including the logistical support of Desert Storm.

The Take Away: I picked up this title at the recommendation of a prior supervisor.
Pagonis does nice work of providing a cursory view of the job but leaves the reader hanging for details. In part, I'm sure the information is classified. In part, because Pagonis is a reluctant author. The writing is good, but lacks some of the granular detail that a manager seeking improvement wants. The wrap-up at the end is the best. It contains some good advice and nice "speech" moments.
Definitely worth the time and perspective of how the Army manages its own forces. ( )

This is the tale of one of the largest troop movements yet. Half a million US troops with their equipment were transported from their bases in Europe and the US to the Middle East within half a year. Although this book comes straight from the horse's mouth, this will not stand the test of time.
There are two parts to logistics, brainy planning and brawny and sweaty moving goods. The author clearly is not an analytical type (and this is the major shortcoming of the book) but an excellent hands-on manager, skills he acquired early working his way up in his parent's hotel. Even for an American, he is very ignorant about international customs. Otherwise, he would not be amazed that the muslim holy day is not on Sunday and other gaffes. The author also reinvents Moltke's freewheeling staff officers whom he calls his "ghostbusters" and 3x5 index cards serving as Fayol bridges to facilitate fast communication.

The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter gives a good synopsis of the Gulf War and the logistics operations. The next two chapters are a homage to himself, his career and his brilliant superiors and colleagues. Chapter four tells the interesting story of the hectic planning and team setup of the war. Chapter five and six are the meat part of the book and deal with the Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Desert Farewell. Chapter seven "Building blocks of leadership", the weakest part of the book and better to be disregarded, mixes the author's leadership experience with quotes from a limited sampling of business books to distill leadership principles in the manner of a sophomore paper. Chapter eight is intended to convey the lessons for logistics management, which although better than the preceding chapter, is marred by the insufficent knowledge about business logistics practice. Even at the beginning of the 90ies, integrated logistics was not a new concept. Comparing current army practice to 60ies business concepts is not very helpful.

So read the book for the middle part. Key success factors of the operations were: Blueprints, six prepackaged supply ships in the Indian Ocean (prepos), excellent logistics infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, a cheap hired Third World truck driver force and local transportation capacity. Noteworthy is the speed of deployment, the goods and people moved and the supply of so many under desert conditions. ( )