Mashing Viewpoints Together

Everybody knows the story of the Spanish Armada.

It’s one of the most famous David vs. Goliath tales in history.

In 1588 the most powerful man in Christendom, the Catholic King Philip II of Spain, sent an enormous inversion force to overthrow Elizabeth I and destroy the heretic protestants of England.

But a plucky fleet of swashbuckling English seamen including the dashing Sir Francis Drake, used agile ships and superior tactics to defeat the fleet of giant and ponderous galleons.

And in a final blow, after being forced to flee around the British Isles, a succession of terrible Atlantic storms decimated the humbled force of religious crusaders, smashing them on the rocky Irish coast.

It was the founding moment of centuries of English, then British naval domination.

At least that was the story we were told.

The winners write the history books.

But it's not the fully story. Because as pluky as the English were, a great deal of the outcome was really a result of a Spanish self-inflicted loss.

God’s Plan

After deciding to attack England, King Phillip designed a meticulous plan.

A huge fleet of ships would be gathered and supplied.

Under the command of the experienced naval commander the Marquis of Santa Cruz the fleet would sail through the English Channel to the coast of Flanders (near Dunkirk or Calais).

There they’d meet with an battle-hardened army led by the Duke of Parma, the Governor of the Spanish Netherlands.

Then the great fleet would escort the army, on newly constructed barges, across the Channel to invade England.

It was a plan that involved significant unknowns, complicated logistics and coordination of two forces across large distances.

It may have looked simple on a map, but the risks of things going wrong were immense.

But King Philip was convinced that he was God’s instrument for the punishment of the English.

He was certain his plan couldn't fail and he demanded that his leaders follow his instructions to the letter.

A Faulty Start

Philip‘s neat plan struggled from the beginning.

Assembling and supplying the fleet took almost two years.

All the while Philip micromanaged the Marquis of Santa Cruz with orders to speed things up. “Success depends mostly on speed,” the king demanded. “Be quick!”

The assembling fleet was attacked by Drake who managed to destroy 30 ships and thousands of tons of essential supplies.

And then the Marquis of Santa Cruz died (quite likley due to stress).

He was replaced by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, a man with no experience of warfare or even of seafaring.

Medina-Sidonia was desperate to be excused, writing, “since I have had no experience either of the sea or of war, I cannot feel that I ought to command so important an enterprise.”

But the King had made his choice and would hear no debate.

And in the spring of 1588, Medina-Sidonia was ordered to launch the fleet of 130 ships, 8,000 sailors and 20,000 soldiers, before they were fully prepared.

The Missing Link

Entering the Channel, the Spanish fleet were presented with a golden opportunity to strike, finding the English fleet trapped in Plymouth harbour.

The experienced Spanish officers advised launching an immediate attack, but Medina-Sidonia had been strictly ordered by King Phillip to avoid engaging the English fleet unless they were under threat, so the opportunity was missed.

As the armada, now being constantly harassed by the English fleet, approached the coast of Europe, there was the major challenge of linking up with the Duke of Parma’s 20,000 veteran troops and their barges.

But there’d been no way to communicate with them for weeks.

And as the armada anchored off Calais on the 6th August, Parma’s troops were nowhere to be seen.

English and Dutch forces were blockading the shore.

Medina-Sidonia expected the Duke of Parma to fight his way through to the fleet.

The Duke of Parma with his vulnerable barges and limited weaponry had no ability or intention to do that.

And Medina-Sidonia did not want to risk his fleet trying to clear a path.

The plan was unravelling.

A Council of War

Like the Spanish, the English fleet was also led by a noble man with limited experience at sea or in battle.

But Lord Howard of Effingham had been involved in naval administration for years and he was a highly experienced diplomat and leader.

His most experienced commanders were very different men.

The low-born Sir Francis Drake, Martin Frobisher and John Hawkins were brilliant sailors, but they were privateers, government approved pirates, who were highly competitive and loathed each other.

Howard needed their help if England was to have any chance of surviving, so he called a council of war on his flagship Ark Royal.

There Howard used their experience to debate the next steps.

A strategy was agreed on, and Howard gave Drake and Hawkins the freedom to make tactical decisions.

Gravelines

On the 8th August the English attacked, leading with fireships which scattered the Spanish fleet.

While Medina-Sidonia focused on gathering his fleet back together in their regimented crescent formation, the English struck.

The battle raged for hours, until the English ran short of ammunition.

But the attack itself was not decisive and only five Spanish ships were lost.

But the plan had fallen apart.

Now with the armada in disarray, downwind of any suitable place to join with Palma’s troops, and no possible way to communicate with them, the crusade was over.

The armada was forced to flee towards the North Sea and eventual catastrophe on the rocky shores of Ireland.

Half the fleet and over 15,000 men were lost in the retreat.

The Spanish lost because they had a complicated plan, rigidly implemented, without debate, and when flaws in the plan appeared, they couldn't adapt and ultimately failed.

The English on the other hand survived through open debate and collaboration, using their strengths and tactical flexibility effectively.

Mashing Viewpoints Together

Effective debate is essential to success.

Organisations (and armadas) fail when they operate with a top-down culture of tell, or a culture of silence.

Without a culture of debate, it's too easy to make poor strategic decisions, like King Philip’s plan, or not adapt effectively when tactical shifts are essential, like Medina-Sidonia’s leadership.

The English Council of War showcased how effective debates can work:

They were absolutely focused on the goal, which in this case was finding the best strategy to disrupt the Spanish.

Despite some of the group loathing each other the debate concentrated on task focused conflict and not relationship conflict.

Lord Howard, was the consummate diplomat.

Despite being the most powerful person in the room, he did not dominate or make overriding statements, instead he asked questions and sought counsel.

He was more interested in uncovering the truth than in being right.

And he was intellectually humble, recognising that his initial views may not be right and that others may have better solutions.

“When two people believe opposing things, chances are that one of them is wrong. It pays to find out if that someone is you.” - Ray Dalio

People with different views, insights and experiences were encouraged to share their ideas to uncover all the possible options.

The author Shane Snow describes this benefit in his book Dream Teams, “A group of people can only become smarter than its smartest member by mashing different viewpoints together.”

And finally they stress-tested those ideas to find and agree on the best strategy.

So the next time you face a problem or opportunity, and you need to find the best solution, make sure you have a lively debate like that group of Elizabethan diplomats and pirates.

“I remember listening to a high-ranking member of the San Antonio Spurs front office argue with a coach over shot selection, basically, whether it was smarter to shoot open two-pointers, or to always try for a three-pointer. The two went at it, hammer and tongs, for half an hour - a loud, energetic volley of argument and ideas and numbers, each side pressing its case, offering evidence, appealing to reason and emotion. Then, when it was finished, they made plans to get dinner together. It was awesome.” - Daniel Coyle

WARNING: Recognising When ‘Debates’ Are Not Debates

So that was how it should be done, here’s how it shouldn’t.

Any ‘debate’ that isn’t genuinely focused on finding the best possible solution is poison.

Debates are not about winning.

They are not about people dominating or outsmarting others.

They are not about being louder, caring more, or looking better.

Gaslighting, sophistry, mendacity, sealioning, strawmanning, and Gish galloping are not debating tactics.

Unfortunately, a lot of the ‘debate’ we now experience on TV, in politics and on social media fall into this type, where people just battle over increasingly polarised ideas that lead nowhere and produce nothing.

Do the opposite.

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Niderost, E., “Defeat of the Spanish Armada”, Military Heritage (2007)

Hughes, T., “Why Did the Spanish Armada Fail?”, History Hit (2018)

Dalio, R., "Principles: Life and Work", Simon & Schuster (2017)

Snow, S., “Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart”, Piatkus (2018)

Coyle, D., “The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups”, Random House (2019)