Summer Space Reading List: Templar Incorporated by ULA’s Tory Bruno

Templar Incorporated – Tory Bruno (BookSurge, 2006)

Favorite quote from this book:

If you want to trounce the other guy, winning every time—you must enter the competition unevenly matched. You have to create an advantage that they can never overcome. You must exploit a weakness that they can never correct.

Templar Incorporated: Medieval History Meets Modern Business, Tory Bruno (BookSurge, 2006).

I wasn’t expecting a rocket scientist and corporate executive to author a book on medieval warrior monks … but then nobody expects Tory Bruno! The CEO of United Launch Alliance is one of today’s most amazing corporate leaders, in or out of space. Not only does Tory run the rocket company with the world’s best launch record – zero failures in over 145 flights – he also shares an expansive vision of a future filled with people living and working in space. Tory’s Cis-Lunar 1,000 plan is just as inspiring as those of his new space competitors, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, while offering a more practical path to space settlement by focusing on near-term economic development. Bruno’s applied futurism is grounded in the lessons of history and is informed by a solid understanding of strategy and management theory. His surprising book, Templar Incorporated leverages all this. Being a history wonk, I enjoyed his book immensely when I read it on a recent cruise in the Baltic.

What is even more unexpected is that Templar Incorporated is really a book on business strategy, set in the context of the late medieval world. I knew a lot about the conflict between the Christian Frankish knights and Saracens during the crusades. (It may surprise my own readers to learn that I deliver history lectures on luxury cruise ships.) Bruno’s book surprised me by revealing how the Templars simultaneously manipulated the internal politics of both these groups to achieve their “corporate objectives.” Bruno shows us how the heavy Frankish armor and war horses were undefeatable when they chose their ground well and disastrous if the quick and agile Muslim forces could lure the crusaders into territory where a mass charge wouldn’t play. The rocket guy is teaching us sustainable competitive advantage without putting us to sleep (check out Michael Porter’s weighty tomes if insomnia is your problem).

Tory’s credibility in real-world strategic management is unassailable. In 2014, he took on a company in serious trouble and delivered a surprising victory, by surviving. ULA had strong technology and a great record, but it suffered from a bloated management structure and an uncompetitive cost model. At its founding in 2006, ULA was blessed and cursed with a monopoly in the lucrative U.S. government launch business. When entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk rode onto the battlefield at the head of his hyper-innovative and hyper-competitive SpaceX in the early 2010s, that market was swiftly disrupted. A recent Washington Post story notes that Tory has described the situation at ULA as “Really heading in a pretty negative direction.” and recognized that, “From a business school point of view, companies that have that profound a disruption in their environment generally go out of business.” ULA did not go out of business. The firm continues to capture a significant portion of an increasingly competitive governmental and commercial launch markets while still delivering the planet’s most reliable ride to space.

Surviving a disruptive market assault from Elon Musk is hard enough, ask Toyota or General Motors, but Bruno faced simultaneous challenges on the supply and ownership fronts as well. ULA was under punishing public and political pressure (including from me) to abandon the use of the Russian RD-180 engines that power their venerable Atlas V rocket. Tory has had to develop a whole new launch system and engine supply chain, while fighting the SpaceX invasion of his home territory. He is making the often-challenging transition to big new Vulcan rocket without missing a launch, despite challenging delays from engine provider, Blue Origin.

As if that was not enough to deal with, Tory has performed his strategic magic under the worst possible ownership structure. ULA is jointly owned by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, two huge firms that are bitter rivals for many U.S. government projects. Under a tragic 50/50 split either of their bureaucracies could say “no” and stop one of Tory’s initiatives but neither owner can force a move forward. There is no third party to resolve a conflict. I warn against this partnership model in my own entrepreneurship textbook as an arrangement designed for paralysis. Yet, ULA has somehow managed to evolve rapidly. The knight who rode out of that battle unscathed is worth listening to.

One of the most important lessons Tory Bruno offers us in Templar Incorporated is the importance of setting clear and simple organizational goals that everyone understands. These must be free from the buzzword infested, gobbledygook of modern mission statements. Tory defines the Templar goal as “Defense of the Holy Land” period. It was not a corporate “monstrosity” like:

Achieve total mission success by establishing and maintaining a highly professional learning organization with developmental opportunities for its members, who will be devoted to a pure and lean monastic lifestyle, eliminating waste while creating complete customer satisfaction in business so as to support a military mission in the current regions occupied by the Latin States, which will safeguard access to Holy sites of worship by using network centric control over a rapid deployment force, thus furthering the establishment of God’s Kingdom on Earth.

Tory notes that these MBA crafted monstrosities, “only have meaning if you’ve read the latest issue of Harvard Business Review” and are far from clear to the non-MBA team members that must implement them. Tory takes no prisoners in skewering traditional corporate management and education, something that may surprise those who have, incorrectly, come to view him as the “anti-Elon Musk.” Tory is every bit as likely as Elon to dive into a Monty Python sketch or sneak in an obscure cultural reference, for those few in the know. Templar Incorporated is filled with easter eggs and other treasures.

I’ll leave the rest of the hunt for Templar treasure to you, but if you want a direct view of the ULA CEO’s strategic genius check out this video. Earlier this year Tory zoomed in for an hour-long discussion with students from the inaugural cohort of my Thunderbird Executive Masters in Global Management – Space Leadership, Policy and Business program at ASU’sLA campus.

Unfortunately, Templar Incorporated is out of print, but not to fret because used copies are readily available on eBay and the Amazon Kindle ebook is just $9.99. I will note the Kindle edition has some annoying minor formatting issues and lacks illustrations, so if you can grab the paperback.