Johns Hopkins University and Loyola College in Baltimore also offer Gettysburg seminars. Tigrett Corp., an Arlington consulting firm, has run Gettysburg tours since 1989 for the likes of MCI Communications Corp., and now holds six sessions annually. Former military officials are also getting in on the Gettysburg action. Business leaders have long been attracted by military analogies. But some people argue it is useless to study the wartime decision-making because soldiers' unquestioning obedience to their superiors is seldom found in the corporate world.
Experts attribute the popularity of the military model today to a new emphasis on leadership.
Although some trainers go to Montana to study the contrasting styles of Sitting Bull and Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn or to Normandy to study the site of the D-Day invasion, Gettysburg is one of the most popular destinations for executive trainers. It was at the tiny Pennsylvania town in July 1863 that approximately 172,000 soldiers fought a bloody three-day battle. Experts also point to Union Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's defense of Little Round Top as a model for how to motivate disgruntled workers who have suffered through corporate cutbacks. What Chamberlain teaches us is that as a manager, you must treat those left behind with respect.