Freedom and Initiative is Good - But what about the discipline

Freedom is a powerful motivating idea. But motivation alone is not enough. The Greeks at Salamis fought better than the Persians because they were motivated by their desire to defend their land and their ideology.

In the same way, in a different war: the revolutionary war, the American colonists were ready at Lexington and at Bunker Hill to defend themselves against the British. However, throughout the war, there was a tension between amateur militia soliders (like those at Lexington) and the regular army led by Washington. Washington believed that only a regular well-trained, well-led army of regular soldiers could systematically defeat the imperial British army. He regarded the local state militias as auxiliiary troops to his regular ones. And in small skirmishes, in fight-and-flee tactics, the militias did well. But in pitched fights, sieges and attacks, discipline powered by ideology was more critical than ideology alone.

After his defeat in New York in 1776, Washington realized that he could not win a major pitched battle against British regulars (as much as he longed to -- to justify his strategy and his view of himself as a regular soldier) so he adopted the fight-and-flee strategy. The success of this strategy led to his victory at Trenton -- which started out as a successful pitched engagement, became a retreat when threatened by a superior reinforcing army and then became a battle again at Princeton, followed by a retreat across the river back into Pennsylvania.

In business, you can have great strategy and great passion, but, if you don't have the discipline of the organization to adjust strategy and to execute, you will not succeed.