80th anniversary of a historical masterclass in Change Leadership:

80th anniversary of a historical masterclass in Change Leadership: John Gilbert Winant Address before the Durham Miners’ Association, June 6th, 1942

If June 6th is familiar, it’s possibly that you are thinking of D-Day… considered the point at which the tide turned against Nazi Germany as Allied Forces bravely invaded the beaches of Normandy. That was June 6th, 1944. A full 2 years prior to this day on 6th June 1942, John G. Winant, America’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom addressed the Durham Miners Association, delivering a speech that inspires me today and can teach us all much about the power of compelling and empathetic communication some 80 years on. The entire speech is included below as I can’t find it published anywhere except in my out-of-print book. I offer this up as a wonderful example of how to inspire change - full of so much of the best elements of what are sometimes offered as new leadership principles in many posts on LinkedIn and in other places.

A little background:

My grandfather was a Miner in the Durham coalfields..?and when asked ‘what did you grandfather do in the war?’ I didn’t expect to answer ‘he most likely went on strike in 1942'. But a little curiosity on my part opened my eyes to a whole swathe of industrial relations challenges during WW2, which came as a surprise to me. This wasn’t limited to the UK... the United Mineworkers of America were to strike a year later with a loss of 7,510,397 days of work and 39 million tons of coal, at a time when industry was at full stretch equipping the war effort. In each case, the causes of dispute were founded in recurring themes of fair pay and treatment, and in each case the striking miners would have had brothers or cousins fighting or preparing to fight, and could well have fought themselves in WWI - which was the case for my Grandfather who had seen active service in the Royal Navy. This is all very different from the familiar narrative of the populations of allied nations pulling together unquestioningly in support of a single cause.

John 'Gil' Winant had arrived in UK in 1941 at Britain’s lowest point in the war. Former Ambassador Joseph Kennedy was universally disliked because he was convinced that Britain faced a German defeat and advised FDR not to come to the nation’s aid. So it was quite a thing for the relatively new US Ambassador to be asked to address the Durham Miners at a time when 1500 of their number were on strike. Winant was said to be ‘a terrible speaker, a terrible administrator, completely disorganised’ - hardly the qualities of an inspiring negotiator...?yet the power of his words (below) convey a high degree of empathy; his ability to connect the War to an even higher purpose is remarkable; he speaks as an Ambassador for the American working class in an appeal for unity; and I sense something of the great love of people that was said to show throughout his life. The NY Times said of him "people who listen to him speak start out feeling sorry for him and end up giving a standing ovation" - and I think you can gain a sense of this in his words. Winant is credited for laying the foundations of 'the special relationship' between the United States and Britain, and I love the idea that my own Grandfather was at this meeting on June 6th, 1942 to hear this first-hand.

Some things to look out for:

• Reality - the situation is laid out very clearly - this is an existential threat to our way of living
• Togetherness - the togetherness of 'hard working and practical people' in Durham and in the United States
• Winning on the Military front, the Economic Front and on the Social Front - acknowledging that the root cause of Fascism is poverty and unemployment and the determination to address these - empathy in acknowledging that the miners had suffered so deeply in the past
• Acknowledging the value and courage of the working classes
• Connecting the war effort to an even bigger picture of social and economic change (it's not enough to win the war)
• Acknowledging the failures of the past and setting a clear vision that the immediate objectives of today will become the long-term objectives of a better tomorrow
• And a wonderful finish to the speech... the final 78 words that first inspired me to go in search of this man and, his impact and his legacy - and unexpectedly found that my Grandfather was likely there to hear them!

ADDRESS BEFORE THE DURHAM MINERS' ASSOCIATION, DURHAM, JUNE 6, 1942

We are meeting together in a most critical stage of a struggle in which we all have our part to play. Our first duty is to give our best effort to destroy a Fascist system that is trying without success to make of Europe and Asia and our own homelands a world of silent peoples.

You are hard-working and practical people. You know that we must concentrate on building up the great offensive of the United Nations. My countrymen are of the same mind. We are working to this end with you.

You who live in Durham know better than most of us that the present war must be won on the economic front if it is to be won on the military front. American workers are at one with British and Russian workers in putting their great energies into producing the goods of war. We must fight and work. We must man and arm the armies of democracy.

We are learning to know each other better as the battle moves forward and as we work together in the economic world we come to find common ground in the social world. The unity of purpose of our peoples in the common war effort will be carried over to help us in the common social effort that must follow this war. You, who suffered so deeply in the long depression years, know that me must move on a great social offensive if we are to win the war completely. Anti-Fascism is not a short-term military job. It was bred in poverty and unemployment. To crush Fascism at its roots, we must crush depression democracy. We must solemnly resolve that in our future order we will not tolerate the economic evils which breed poverty and war. This is not something that we shelve "for the duration": it is part of the war.

As I have watched the war develop and the spectacular advance of the military and industrial power of the United Nations, I have felt a vast surge of social courage, vigor and imagination flooding up from the factories, the farms, the mines and the armies of the free peoples, wherever they may be. All of us have been moved by the steadfast heroism of people in the countries of Europe overrun by Fascism. All of us have respected the gallantry of our fighting men. Perhaps too few of us have caught the enduring courage of our common men and women - not in the blitzes but in their day-to-day work. It calls back the truth of hat William James once wrote as he caught a vision of the workers' part in the modern world. "I had never noticed," he said, "the great fields of heroism lying round about me, I had failed to see it present and alive.... And yet it was before me in the daily lives of the laboring classes. Not in changing fights and desperate marches only is heroism to be looked for, but on every railway bridge and fireproof building that is going up today. On freight trains, on the decks of vessels, in cattleyards and mines, on lumber rafts, among firemen and policemen, the demand for courage is incessant; and the supply never fails."

The world of today and tomorrow demands courage. What I have seen of your people and what I know of mine and of people elsewhere has convinced me that our supply of courage will never fail. We have the courage to defeat poverty as we are defeating Fascism; and we must translate it into action with the same urgency and unity of purpose that we have won from our comradeship in this war.

The pulse of social change is quickening. You can feel it and I can feel it. The President of the United States felt it when he told the International Labour Conference, last Fall, that economics must be used to serve this need. It is no mere coincidence that through-out the world statesmen are voicing the will of democracy which is becoming socially articulate. It is an integral part of our war effort. We know there was something fundamentally wrong in the prewar days when, on one side, workers were standing idle, and on the other side, people were under-fed, badly housed, short of clothes, and children were stinted on education and deprived of their heritage of good health and happiness.

What we want is not complicated.?We have enough technical knowledge and organising ability to respond to this awakening of social conscience. We have enough courage. We must put it to use. When the war is done, the drive for tanks must become a drive for houses. The drive for food to prevent the enemy from starving us must become a drive for food to satisfy the needs of all people in all countries. The drive for physical fitness in the forces must become a drive for bringing death and sickness rates in the whole population down to the lowest possible level. The drive for manpower in war must become a drive for employment to make freedom from want a living reality. The drive for an all out war effort by the United Nations must become a drive for an all out of peace effort, based on the same cooperation and willingness to sacrifice.?

These are only some of the basic things we want. It is not beyond our technical or spiritual capacity to have them. Just as the peoples of democracy are united in a common objective today, so we are committed to a common objective tomorrow. We are committed to the establishment of service democracy. This is a democracy that brought Britain through the blitzes. This is a democracy that is manning our forces. This is a democracy that is bringing ships, planes, tanks and guns in growing volume from your factories and from ours. This is the People’s democracy. We must keep it wide and vigorous, alive to need, of whatever kind, and ready to meet it, whether it be danger from without or well-being from within, always remembering that it is the things of the spirit that in the end prevail - that caring counts, and where there is no vision people perish, that hope and faith count and that without charity there can be nothing good, that daring to live dangerously we are learning to live generously, and believing in the inherent goodness of man we may meet the call of your great prime minister and “strive forward into the unknown with growing confidence”

If you are a Change Leader yourself, there is much to learn in this speech. If you are inspired by this.. I recommend tracking down and old copy of ‘Our Greatest Harvest - selected speeches of John G. Winant 1941-1946’ (Hodder & Stoughton). As well as hearing directly from Winant, it's a fascinating time-capsule of contextual insights alongside well known historical events of WW2.?

Other quotes from this book:

What we do alone is of little importance, because what we accomplish is always measured by what others can do in relation to it.

Nations, like individuals, derive greatness from deeds which benefit not themselves alone but all mankind.

We have made our tasks infinitely more difficult because we failed to do yesterday what we gladly do today.

‘..we won a lease on liberty, not a deed’.?‘...fighting to renew it, or letting it go by default’.

We have come to learn within our individual countries that an order which is based on the assumption that we could create prosperity and security by setting each man to pursue his own self interest without relation to the common good could not be maintained.