Talent borrows, genius steals," the saying goes, but the leaked motivational e-mail sent to staff at the Sakhalin-2 gas and oil project is a salutary warning of the perils of appropriation.

Attempting to stir up his managers and engineers, some of whom he suspected of "running the risk of becoming a team that doesn't want to fight and lacks confidence in its own ability", David Greer, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company's deputy chief executive, borrowed heavily from the words of Gen George Patton.

In particular, he drew on the speech to the US Third Army - dramatised in the film Patton: Lust for Glory- that was given by the general on June 5th, 1944, the morning of the day before D-Day.

What was stirring when delivered without notes on an English hillside to men about to risk their lives to liberate Europe became incongruous in an e-mail about hitting targets for building a pipeline, even one in the challenging conditions of Sakhalin Island off the far eastern coast of Russia.

Phrases such as "I despise cowards and play to win all of the time", seem curiously aggressive.

Several sentences are loosely adapted, with the word "Americans" replaced by the words "professionals" or "engineers".

And a reference to the "champion marble player", which may have resonated with the childhood memories of young men in the 1940s, is perhaps less likely to have struck a chord with adults in the 21st century. Still, Mr Greer did at least avoid some of the most bloodthirsty passages from the general's speech. Charles M Province's book, The Unknown Patton, quotes the general as saying: "We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living God-damned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks.

"When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realise that, instead of dirt, it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do."

That, like his warning, "we don't want yellow cowards in this army. They should be killed off like rats", might be seen as taking the tough talk a little too far.

And Gen Patton's assurance to his troops that "you are not all going to die . . . Only 2 per cent of you right here today would die in a major battle", might not have sounded comforting to his engineers.

The general has spawned a small industry of books, such as Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons for Corporate Warfareand Patton's One-Minute Messages: Tactical Leadership Skills of Business Managers, claiming to let corporate executives in on his secrets. Mr Greer's experience suggests that the parallels should not be drawn too literally.