Lessons From a Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the February 14, 1929 murder of six mob associates and a mechanic of the North Side Irish gang during the Prohibition Era. It resulted from the struggle between the Irish American gang and the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone to take control of organized crime in Chicago. Law officer Eliot Ness received an assignment to serve with a special unit designed to bring down the notorious mobster. Here are some leadership lessons we can take away from that era:
Live your principles and standards. One of Capone's men paid Ness a visit. He offered to pay Ness $2,000 to stop ruining Capone's businesses and promised an additional $2,000 each week following if he continued to cooperate. Outraged, Ness ordered the man out and immediately called the press into his office. That day in 1930, Ness announced that neither he nor any of his men could be bought by Capone, and their mission was unstoppable. The next day, a Chicago Tribune reporter referred to the special squad as "The Untouchables," from which many film accounts would eventually be made.
Use the press/social media to your benefit. Seeing the press as an ally, Ness made a habit of calling the media for each raid his crew made on Capone's breweries. Although critics argued that such publicity would harm the squad's efforts, Ness proved them wrong and built strong public opinion and support for his cause.
Sometimes the right people are new people. After his first alcohol raid failed miserably, Ness realized he had the wrong people. His answer came from an Irish beat cop who said: “If you don’t want rotten apples, don’t get them from the barrel — get them from the tree.” Ness couldn’t work with the Chicago police force because most of the force, including the chief of police, were being paid off by Capone. Instead, Ness went to the Police Academy to recruit "greenies" who hadn’t been corrupted yet. His crew was small, but Ness had the right people on board.
Don’t allow overconfidence to cause you to overlook things. Al Capone was good at keeping himself out of trouble; he covered his tracks well, but he didn’t cover all of his tracks. Overconfident, he thought he would never fall and he could always bribe his way out of everything. He hadn’t paid an income tax in years. In fact, Capone showed no income at all on his tax documents. It was this discovery that eventually brought him down on income tax evasion charges. Had he only showed a small income, had he but paid a small amount of taxes, the story of Al Capone might have ended much differently. He might have been around much longer and grown his empire much larger. Pay attention to details—you could go down because of the smallest thing. You can never be too thorough.
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