0:00 [Music] who are you and where are you going what do you [Music] want hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10 P 10:00 a.m. Pacific time a little bit confused here this morning and we talk about military history Doctrine the
0:38 practices of great military leaders and distill from them lessons that we can apply to our businesses and uh starting this week um this show is sponsored by and then there see I forgot to close my email again one moment okay this show is sponsored by excuse me the Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League of the United States so the Navy League of the United States is uh devoted to supporting the C Services which is the uh United States
1:16 Marine Corps the United States Navy the United States Coast Guard and the United States Merchant Marine and their mission is to support educate and Advocate on behalf of the sea Services if it's a civilian organization and actually it is an organization where civilians and people who have formerly served in the military or currently are serving the military can come together to uh learn about understand and and help the the US military in particularly the sea Services meet their mission within the
1:53 overall uh defense of the United States so uh thanks so much to the Beverly Hills Council for for sponsoring uh this show they're going to be a a The Perennial sponsor uh start again starting this week so today's show is called innovate or sync and I'm going to be talking about one of the most famous warships um certainly in American history uh perhaps in in the history of the world and that is the USS monitor so
2:29 this is a a wonderful book it's written by James Decay James terus terus uh Decay about the monitor the story of the legendary Civil War Ironclad and a man whose invention changed the course of history and indeed the mo the USS monitor changed the nature of Naval warships basically forever so excuse me um I I I'll put a link to the this book in the show notes it'll of course be an affiliate link um if if you
3:04 buy a copy I think I get three cents or something like that but in any event I I highly recommend this book so um the USS monitor uh was the first uh ironclad warship um built and sailed by the United States Navy um and and this happened during the American Civil War so it was designed by a swed British American engineer named John Erikson and we're I'm going to talk about John Ericson a little bit more in a few minutes and it was radically different
3:39 from uh traditional warships so at this time warships were still wooden sided ships with with masts a frigate which is the largest ship that was in the United States Navy although we made very large frigs compared to say The British Navy which had ships of the line uh a frigate had three masts a a four Maine and mizen Mast from which essentially rectangular sails uh were were hung from the uh um from the the the spars um and they they
4:18 their Weaponry was cannons or kades which fired uh round shots or they might they sometimes uh fired uh a shot that was kind of a metal bar with two round shots on either side of it that was designed to tear down the rigging of the ship they also fired grape shot which was a canister full of essentially bullets and that was designed to kill the PE the the sailors on the deck um and the whereas the mo so that was the kind of Warship that existed at the time
4:54 the monitor was a lowprofile uh metal ship uh iron hold armored ship with a rotating turret on top that allowed it to shoot its two cannons in any direction so whereas the the main fighting Power of a wooden warship was from the broadside so if it was if it was facing forward it would fire essentially to the sides there might be a couple of bow Chasers and Stern Chasers but there was very little power very little uh weap power could be could
5:31 be projected forward or AF it was to the sides basically the monitor could fire literally through a 360 degree radius um and amazingly uh the the monitor was built in 100 days by the Continental Iron Works in Brooklyn New York I'm also going to talk uh more about that um it was launched on on January 30th of 1862 so the monitor is famous for the
6:06 the Battle of Hampton Roads um it was the monitor the USS monitor fought the a Confederate uh Ironclad it wasn't originally it wasn't built as an ironclad um it was converted from a ship called the CSS the continental state ship marac which is why you hear this back referred to as the monitor versus the marac but when the ship was given um uh iron uh um armor on its sides um it
6:41 was renamed the CSS Virginia and the two met in Hampton Roads which is a a waterway in in Virginia um and um the reason that the mon one of the reasons the monitor was built so quickly or had to be built so quickly was the CSS Virginia because it was it had metal armor on its sides was going and just destroying Union Wooden Ships um it had destroyed two of it destroyed two of them on March 8th um and and basically when the Wooden Ships would
7:17 fire cannons at the marac the cannonballs would hit the armor and bounce off so it was essentially impregnable uh to you know bu by the Armament of of the wooden ships so the the monitor in the CSS Virginia um met on March 9th it was the first battle between two armored warships in Naval History in all of the world um I I should add the monitor was not the first ironclad vessel built um other countries including Britain France and Russia had
7:53 built ironclads however the monitor was the first to have a rotating tet um that fired two cannons that that was um one of its uh startling Innovations for its time um excuse me but um and and the the battle on March 9th between the Monitor and the Virginia basically was a draw neither ship was able to sync the other however be by fighting the CSS Virginia to a draw the USS monitor
8:30 showed that it could protect the Wooden Ships that were making up the union blockade of the South it was part of the Union's strategy to basically starve the south from um receiving the war materials that it needed on the one hand and also from cotton and tobacco and other Goods being shipped out in order and being sold for money that then could be used to buy War material so um it was one of the the huge advantages that the union had um in the American Civil War so um again that battle was fought to a
9:07 sandill um after that the um the monitor basically um was used for coastal defense um supporting the union ships and and and strengthening the blockade um but on December 31st of 1862 while it was being towed off the coast of North Carolina Ina um A storm blew up and it ended up sinking the monitor along with and and all 16 crew members on board uh were killed now um the legacy of the monitor which
9:44 is why we're still talking about it you know 150 years later basically or more than that What U 63 years later uh is that as I said at the beginning it it essentially and and in many ways almost overnight uh changed the nature of Naval vessels um and and convinced um navies tended to be very high-bound very conservative in their approach it convinced even uh very skeptical naval officers that indeed the
10:21 era of of wooden warships was over and the future lay with uh with with iron metal uh warships and uh T guns on turrets and and and that sort of thing um the the wreck was the wreck of the USS monitor was uh discovered in 1973 um and parts of it including the turret um were recovered and and preserved um and I you know I I've forgotten now where um where they are they're I believe they're on a naval museum somewhere um on on the East Coast
10:58 so the people um some of the key people involved in the design building well the design the approval and the building of of the USS monitor were first of all um John Erikson who I mentioned was a Swedish American engineer and Naval architect um he was he was born in Sweden um and early on he displayed a talent for mechanics and Engineering um he joined the Swedish army as a surveyor and engineer but soon moved to England where um he worked on
11:35 steam engines and ship propulsion systems Etc and in England he developed an early version of a screw propeller um but the British Navy um rejected it in favor of paddle wheels so if you're familiar with Fulton's Steamboat what was known as Fulton's Folly it was one of the first uh steam powered vessels so uh Robert Fulton used a steam engine to turn a Paddle Wheel on the back of a wooden boat um if you've ever seen for example the the classic Broadway show um
12:11 Showboat um uh which was also made into a movie twice um the the showboats that plied the Mississippi were these Stern wheeled um Wooden Ships um other other ships had uh the the wheel essentially on the side but was like a Paddle Wheel that propelled the ship um Erikson's idea was to attach a a steam engine to a shaft that would turn a propeller type a screw type propeller that would be underwater and and would Propel the ship
12:46 he felt that would be much more effective um the the the British disagreed with him and so frustrated by um the British Navy's um rejection of his ideas um Ericson immigrated to the United States in n in 1839 and he designed the screw propeller USS Princeton the first warship um to use a screw propeller successfully unfortunately um a gun explosion on the ship um for a new type of weapon that
13:21 that interestingly enough Ericson um had been opposed to um caused a a a great deal of damage to the ship um um killed a number of people as I recall um and it it really kind of soured Ericson's relationship with with the US Navy um but despite his falling out with the Navy uh Erikson continued to design new ships um and and again in in 18 um uh 62 he he was the designer of the uh
13:56 actually 1861 is is when the design phase started he was the designer of the USS monitor so um I I I've talked about the monitor already so I'm gonna I'm G to skip over that part of Ericson's career because we are going to talk about that in more depth um when we talk about the lessons that we can learn um Erikson um his his his later work and his legacy he continued inventing working on Torpedoes solar energy Concepts um and improved Naval propulsions propulsion systems um and he continued
14:33 to um contribute to Marine engineering and and and helping shape what became uh modern warships and um he he today is remembered as one of the greatest naval Engineers of of the 19th century so um John Ericson the the designer uh of the USS monitor now in addition to Erikson um a man by by the name of Cornelius Bushnell who was a businessman and ship Builder he was instrumental in getting the United
15:08 States government to approve Erikson's design so um he consulted with Ericson um a after realizing that um another Ironclad design had serious flaws um and um Bushnell was was kind of responsible for um convincing uh Erikson to present his concept to the new US Navy despite the sort of bad blood that that existed between them and he also played a key
15:43 role in lobbying Congress and the United States Navy to accept uh Ericson's design and fund the project so uh that that's sort of the you know the private sector influence um at the time um Gideon Wells was Secretary of the Navy under uh President Abraham Lincoln and uh Wells was undertaking an effort to uh modernize the union Fleet um he recognized the threat that the CSS Virginia posed to the union ships and
16:20 blockade and so um he started pushing for Ironclad warships in response and he was the one who in the end approved Ericson's proposal and fast-tracked um the the monitors construction so as part of uh Gideon wells's and the Navy's uh plan they created the Ironclad board I'm going to talk a little bit more about this um well I'll talk about here so it was a group of naval officers and experts including um I've got the list
16:56 here so Commodore Joseph Smith Commander hram paing and commodore Charles Henry Davis um they evaluated Ironclad proposals um and although they were initially skeptical of Ericson's uh design uh they ultimately did recommend its construction and and and good for them so they were able to overcome their sort of um High bound ways and re recognize um the Revolutionary nature the USS Monitor and then finally um
17:32 Thomas Fitch Roland he was a ship Builder his company was the Continental Iron Works so it was Lo located in Greenpoint Brooklyn or as as brooklynites often say Greenpoint um if you've ever heard the the wonderful song about Brooklyn um and he built the USS monitor in just 100 days and he was um responsible for manufacturing the iron hole and and assembling key components other parts of the of the ship were built elsewhere and then brought in um so what do we learn from the uh the the
18:12 the designing and building of the USS monitor right uh and and from from the the unions the United States uh perspective uh the the the uh CSS Virginia represented an almost existential threat to the United States Navy as as I mentioned at the beginning of the show it was impenetrable um by the Cannons that were mounted in the various uh ships in the
18:48 United States Navy at that time and and had it been allowed to run free for a long period of time it very well by itself could have uh substantially damaged if not destroyed um the Union's uh blockade of the of the South um and the whole tide of of the Civil War might have been different um just as a to digress for a minute while you know today it seems like the South was destined to lose the Civil War
19:25 um that was not at all the case at the Times so first of all um the the Southern military was far better LED uh than the Union forces were until uh finally ulyses srant um took over as as the uh Commander in Chief of of of the um Union forces um so that's number one number two um the the the typical Southern Soldier was a more effective combatant generally than his Northern
20:02 counterpart uh and as well um Great Britain um at Le certainly nominally um supported uh the South and um as I recall France did as well so um mostly because the South was uh not mostly because but at least in part because the South was a major supplier of uh cotton and British Mills uh that that M the cotton into cloth and and then you know various uh textils Etc um they needed
20:40 raw cotton um in in order to um you know pursue their their uh their economy so um you know again the the the South um had it had it been able to show it could break the blockade um could very well have solidified those um those allies um and had you know if the if uh Great Britain um had been able to be a more active Ally and Supply the South with the war material um that it needed that might
21:18 have overcome the unions Advantage um that it had in terms of uh manufacturing capacity railroad capacity um and sheer numbers in terms of population so um you know it's it's uh I don't want to you know overstate the impact that uh the CSS Virginia could have had on the War uh but but but certainly um SEC when secretary Wells saw um the CSS Virginia as uh a very
21:56 significant threat he he was is absolutely right um in that assessment so uh you know the the the um the monitor the USS monitor in essentially fighting the the CSS Virginia to a standstill um was a seminal moment um in in the American Civil War so um so the lessons we we can draw from this are first of all um if we're going to innovate we need to overcome uh
22:34 skepticism and we need to be willing to fight the resistance to change now that's probably easier today than it's ever been um we are are are so used to change much more rapid change than has ever really happened in the world before um having said that still um most change um it may seem revolutionary but it's much more evolutionary so even when we talk about things like um cellones fax machines these sort of things their
23:09 adoption periods were actually much longer than they seemed to be so uh the the fax machine for example um we think of it as as kind of a a creature of the um 80s through maybe the uh late 90s but it actually had been around for a number of decades um before that um it was used by a version of it was used by law enforcement and agencies and such to transmit uh pictures for example um and and so um it it it was it it actually
23:48 took a quite a long time for it to be um adapted so that it could be widely adopted by business the same thing is true of C or phones so the technology was around for quite a while and it took a it took quite quite a long time for the technology to advance enough that it could be uh widely adopted um so um uh you know we we have this idea that change happens overnight but it does not and and with any new technology there's
24:25 going to be resistance if only because if it's going to overshadow an existing technology that can mean that those who control the existing technology see the new technology as an existential threat and so they will oppose it even if it would you know make people's lives better make businesses run more efficiently Etc so um this is what Ericson faced um with his uh screw propeller and Ironclad ships ship design so as I mentioned at the beginning of
25:00 the show warships up until this time were were wooden um they were heavily armed with with cannons and kades um and the idea of a and and by the way they especially with the mass they Rose you know 150 feet um above the the water level um so the idea of a ship that was was very low slung um and if you saw any of the uh social media posts promoting the show you can see how low
25:37 slung um the the the the monitor uh was um and and not having you know massive amounts of cannons but having this this turret with just two cannons basically it it it completely broke the mode um from traditional models as opposed to the CSS Virginia which was essentially a wooden warship that had had metal armor iron armor put on its sides to protect the the wood from being you know shot through with holes by by cannons right so um you know
26:17 one the the the monitor was revolutionary um the marry MAAC the CSS Virginia was uh evolutionary we might say and so because of this um Ericson as well as um uh I'm going up on um Bush now um right yeah Cornelius Bushnell um they had to be very tenacious very persistent um in um in convincing the Navy um that uh you know this this
26:53 revolutionary design was worth it so so how did they do it and and here's here here's some lessons it it's all good and well to say well we need to be um we need to overcome skepticism and and we need to fight um uh you know the the the the sort of uh resistance to change but but how do we do that so um first of all John Erikson um he provided the the sort of technical proof that the USS monitor would work um uh you know although um
27:28 you know he had had um this this bad experience with the Navy with the USS Princeton um the experimental gun that had killed the Secretary of State um he was willing to personally demonstrate that his Ironclad turret concept um would work he did detailed drawings um he built a working model of it um and showed that that it could function under battle conditions and um his his confidence his his very highly detailed
28:03 uh presentations reassured the the decision makers that um his his idea was not just a theoretical idea but it would work on a practical basis and so he was willing to really as we say you know roll up his sleeves and show them that this would work and and and overcome uh this this you know debacle with the USS Princeton so um so that would that one aspect is you know we have to if we're doing something technologically uh revolutionary we have to be willing to
28:39 show it will actually work and we can't rely on people to have the imagination um we' we've got to literally show them we have to pretend they're from Missouri right the show me state now Cornelius Bushnell provided the political influence that was necessary in in this type of situation now in in the case of the of the USS monitor of course we're talking about uh the Navy uh which is part of the federal government um needing to be convinced but even in private business um there
29:15 are political issues when and in this case when I mean political I mean issues between people right politics is is isn't just something that happens at the government level politics is another way of describing the interaction of of people and and the way um conflicts come about and the way they're resolved Etc right so um there's almost always a political aspect to a situation when when Innovation is being introduced and um because Bushnell was
29:52 an established ship Builder so he carried a lot of weight when he uh supported Erikson's design as being Superior to other Ironclad proposals because he had the experience with with as being a ship Builder to know what would work best and so he used Bushnell used his Connections in Washington DC to arrange a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of the Navy Gideon well
30:28 he lobbied Congress uh and in in particular um it appears he knew Lincoln well enough that that he knew that Lincoln was was quite intrigued by mechanical devices and such and so you know he he used that that knowledge to uh you know to successfully Lobby Lincoln Abraham Lincoln to support the the US s monitor design and so there there are some lessons there right when we have to deal with convincing
31:06 influential people uh to get on board with an innovation it's critical to to really understand what intrigues them okay and it's it's not enough to just know who they are and that they're influential what are their likes what are their dislikes what experiences have they had with you know various uh new situations what uh intrigues them about them what um um causes them to be skeptical about them so we want to do as
31:42 much in-depth research about the people to whom we're going to be presenting as we possibly can so that we can tailor our presentation to those individuals okay and and the idea by the way that if we're presenting an Innovative idea that we're going to do one presentation for everybody that that that we you know convince to to um to to sit through our our our presentation that does not work every single presentation we do needs to
32:18 be customized for the audience okay that's that is just that is the way what's called pitching uh goes so you may have for example a master pitch deck um that contains all the possible slides you might want to show but each time you PR you make your pitch you need to pull out the specific slides that are relevant to the audience to whom you're going to be uh pitching right and so that's one of the things that Bushnell was able to do is he understood uh Lincoln he knew various
32:55 congressmen and so he was able to to um uh um to change his approach uh to to make to you know so that it was um uh targeting those aspects of each person um in the way that was most likely to engage their attention if not their support uh now I spoke um about the Ironclad board it was reluctant to approve um the USS monitor um it was
33:31 composed of uh Navy officers um and they were conservative as almost all Navy officers were during the day uh and um they really preferred uh traditional warship designs um the the um marry ma conversion to the Virginia was probably much more along the lines of of of what they thought was uh the right kind of Ironclad to build they were very skeptical of this lowprofile iron armored vessel with this you know
34:07 rotating tourret they just really couldn't see how it would work um but the the the success of the CSS Virginia essentially forced their hand and so um they in the end approved uh several Ironclad proposals including Ericson's uh and that's typically the case when you're facing uh you know a hidebound group is they're reluctant to place their soul and
34:43 premature on you know one option so you know they'll they'll approve several uh and and see which one works by the way we see this today with uh the competition between um SpaceX and blue origin and and there's there's a third um private uh space company I'm going up on the name right but NASA um was reluctant to choose uh just one uh private company uh space contractor um for for a number of reasons um but it it
35:19 is interesting um that um you know this is this just recently I think over the weekend um the the original um blue origin launch um that put astronauts up on the space station they had to be brought down nine months later you know by a SpaceX rocket and so evidently now you might argue well if they had used SpaceX from the beginning they wouldn't have been stuck up there for nine months maybe that's true um but in any event there is some wisdom in having multiple uh
35:56 competitors um you know do innovating um and then perhaps the you know the competition from them gets the best out of everyone so um uh in the case of the Ironclad board um that they ended up like I said um approving several plans including the one for the USS monitor so another way of overcoming uh the uh skepticism and and and the um uh um the resistance to
36:32 change is to leverage an urgent threat and that is what the CSS Virginia posed um I i' I've already talked about this uh somewhat so I'm not going to spent too much time on it but uh the you know when um when the uh uh Confederacy uh captured the USS marac and and and turned it into the iron clad CSS Virginia it it really did threaten uh Union Naval Supremacy and so um it it it
37:07 you know Gideon Wells recognized that and and he used that um as as a way of motivating uh Lincoln to get on board and of also impressing on the uniform Navy leadership that we need to move quickly uh to deal with this very urgent threat and so um really in the end the Navy the US Navy had no choice but to FastTrack uh development and and um the the the fact that the um USS Virginia
37:43 was so successful also gave Ericson Bushnell the kind of Leverage they needed to at least get a meeting right um and and get people to to listen to them um even if um you know they didn't U going into the meeting there was there seemed to be little chance that the people they were talking to were going to agree to their plans um so another um aspect of um overcoming uh skepticism was um the the the rapid prototyping
38:19 that Ericson was able to do um that allowed him to bring his design to fruition so quickly um and and um I I I want to so for those of you who like me are Wall Street Journal uh readers over the previous weekend um there was an article in the journal talking about the development of the US navies the current US navies um uh frigate the uh USS uh constellation I believe it is let me make sure I'll make sure yeah the US say
38:54 constellation so this this ship um uh physical construction was begun in mid 2022 um more than two and a half years later it's only 10% built so at the current Pace it's going to take nine years for the for for the USS Constellation to uh to to be ready to make its its first uh Maiden well that's redundant to make
39:30 its maiden voyage so nine years right now it supposedly is a is a a a a a fairly Innovative ship it's it's based on an Italian design although one of the problems with it is there were so many changes made to the Italian design this is so often the case with the with the United States Navy um so many changes were made they probably would have been better uh or might have been better off just designing it whole up rather than um using a design a previous design that then had to be modified and remodified
40:05 and remodified um but the L the long time it's taking to get the constellation built and in the meantime of course things keep changing and so things change and so then there's more changes need that's further delays that is not an effective way to overcome skepticism the way to overcome skepticism is to get it designed get it built get it floating right and and you know prove that it can be successful so that is um one of the things that
40:41 Erikson and his team were able to uh bring to the table and and and as a result they were able to win over the traditionalists with results so the ship is launched and unlike how things work today where um there's there's a maiden voyage and there's Shakedown cruises and all those kind of things before um a naval warship will go into battle um the USS monitor went into battle basically the next day um and proved itself very effective against a
41:16 tremendous threat the CSS Virginia right and so in the end there is nothing like being able to De demonstrate the success of an Innovative idea too convincing people to give up their skepticism and to stop fighting change right and so all of those are uh lessons that we can apply um you know in in our businesses um so uh you know the idea of um to go back to SpaceX for example the idea of a reusable
41:51 booster um very revolutionary um excuse me it been done kind of um with the space shuttle um but the astonishing success that space that SpaceX had with the booster and catching it with those sort of Chopstick things really captured people's imagination and so again we can see in a realtime basis the principles that we uncover here in looking at the history of the USS U monitor so okay so so that's that's
42:27 number one um overcoming skepticism number two um um and this was this is part of the the the prior one um rapid prototyping um and iteration from idea to execution So Not only was the USS monitor built in a 100 days it was essentially designed in 100 days so um the US uh Navy the union Navy um um responding to the CSS Virginia in July of 1861 invited iron ship war uh ironclad
43:04 warship proposals in um 18 I'm sorry in August of 1861 um John Erikson submitted his design for the USS uh for what became the USS monitor in September of 1861 um after some debate and modifications the Ironclad board approved Erikson's design and on October 25th 1861 they signed a contract so you know July August September October like I said a little over three months from um
43:40 request for proposal to signing a contract enormously short by by today's uh time frame and even back then that was a a very fast turnaround and then uh construction began the end of October 1861 and the USS uh monitor was was launched on uh January 30th 1862 so again it was built in in in basically a 100 days um an amazing feat for such a complicated um piece of of of
44:15 engineering and ship building right and and so the fact that um that Erikson and his team were able to design it and and and build it so quickly I think gave confidence to some of the people who were skeptical about uh the idea of Ironclad warships especially of the type of the USS monitor that um that that these people really knew what they were doing and so when we're going to launch some kind of innovative initiative whether it's a product or a service we
44:51 really have to be prepared to perform and perform quickly and show show people that indeed we really know what we're doing we are committed we've spent the time we've done the training and and we're going to deliver uh that that is a a large part of making Innovation work whether it's in a you know Naval situation or whether it's in a business situation um another key component of making Innovation work is inis
45:27 interdisciplinary collaboration so um on on just the pure ship building side um Erikson was a a brilliant designer and engineer um but he needed the work of metallurgists he needed the work of uh Navy strategists he needed the work of um ship Builders all of them had to come together in order to especially build this this ship so quickly so Eriksson all by himself could not have pulled this off um he was he was not just
46:04 willing he was desirous of working with the top top people in the areas where he did not have sufficient knowledge um in order to collaborate and really make this happen i' I've started saying in my own business if I'm the smartest person in the room I'm the dumbest person in the room because I can't afford to be the smartest person in the room I've got to have people in the room with me who are smarter than I am um in in the areas where it's necessary so that we can collaborate and do the best job possible
46:40 for our clients so I on my team as a professional fiduciary I need to have a smart lawyer a smart accountant a smart appraiser a smart real estate individual um and and and you know a smart wealth advisor and they've got to know much more than I could possibly know about their areas um if I know more than they do in in their various areas that's stupid of me because I'm I'm short I would be short changing uh the client so um I think that that's the the perspective we want to adopt we if we're
47:15 the smartest person in the room we're the stupidest person in the room we want to collaborate on an inter interdisciplinary basis and that will give Innovation the most likely chance of success and then uh finally we want we need to adapt to the changing environment so I you know um in the article about the USS Constellation um well so the this the example with respect to the USS monitor is is the whole um urgent threat posed by the CSS Virginia right the the US the
47:53 union Navy could have been in very very bad shape by this uh Innovation by the Confederate Navy so um in this article about the USS Constellation uh one of the uh comments made is uh evidently president Trump when he saw the design initially uh looked at and said basically this is an ugly warship can't we build uh good-look warships now I I I get it um you know US Sailing uh wooden sailing ship sh were
48:28 much were were beautiful vessels many of them they were graceful tall with the sails flying I mean they they just they had a beauty to them that that iron warships steel warships just just do not have uh but I will say this the steel warships of the late 19th and early 20th century were built with a much greater eye to their beauty than worships are today so the question comes down to you know what's more important being being
49:04 effective or um being beautiful and the fact of the matter is in in the changing environment where for example uh presenting as as small a radar signature as possible the the the beauty of a ship uh probably needs to be sacrificed uh in order for it to more effectively protect itself against a threat and so if if we want to uh innovate successfully we we need to deal honestly with the changing
49:41 environment so that we're adapting to it to the actual environment not the environment of of days gone by or the environment in which we wish we lived okay and so not kidding ourselves if you will um about really what Innovation needs to be is important and it's a very difficult thing to do it's very hard to pull ourselves out of our own time and our own histories and and imagine what the future can be that's why doing revolutionary change in the end is so so
50:18 difficult it's just it it it's it's really hard to to propel one's imagination in a way that it doesn't stay anchored to the past but nonetheless if we want to innovate effectively we need to follow the example of John Ericson and his team and do our best to not be high bound but to truly innovate based on adapting to the changing environment so um you know in summary um great Innovation requires
50:53 bold Vision rapid execution persistence against skepticism cross-disciplinary teamwork and the ability to adapt to emerging challenges all of those are required and we can do that in the business environment just like John Erikson did it in the government slm military environment so I thank you very much for joining me today uh we're we're coming just up on an hour here so I don't want to take a lot of time wrapping up um I do want to thank my sponsor the Beverly Hills Council of the US United States
51:30 Navy League for uh for sponsoring this show um I I I'm G to put a link in the show notes I encourage you to consider becoming a member of the uh of the US of United States Navy League and join us in in the mission of uh support education and advocacy on behalf of the sea Services if you're in the um greater Beverly Hills West Los Angeles Long Beach uh San Fernando Valley area here in the in the LA area um if you decide
52:05 to join please join as a member of the Beverly Hills Council um we'll we'll be delighted to to have you um a a as a member and uh and and be involved with the various programs that we're going to be doing over the coming uh months and years so uh real quickly before we sign off tomorrow Wednesday at 10: a.m. is my show uh people making money my guest is Tom Karens and he's going to be talking about uh how to avoid getting scammed um
52:41 there's so many Financial scams out there these days it's an important thing for us to to look at and be aware of and then on Thursday is my every every other week show jigger's place we're at 5:00 pm uh Pacific time we're I'm sorry uh special time uh this week um at 6: pm. Pacific time we're going to sit back have a cocktail and we're going to talk about the Federalist Papers as a way to understand what is the US Constitution really all about so we're we're we're
53:17 fortunate as legatees uh of of the founding fathers to have insight into their deeper thinking about the Constitution as uh written in the 85 uh Federalist Papers and we're I'm going to talk about a few of them not all 85 um so I hope you'll join me at jigger's Place uh Thursday at 6 PM Pacific Time a special time this week and then uh next week on Monday at uh at at 10: am uh Pacific time is my
53:53 show um uh trust and Estates weekly my guest is going to be Jolene Blackburn and she's going to talk about funeral planning this is a part of estate planning that oftentimes is is overlooked and so I I'm I for one I'm very interested in in talking with Jolene um and and and going in Greater depth on her topic we talked um a little bit a few months ago but I'm really looking to to go in depth on this topic and then seven days from today we'll be back with the next edition of business
54:29 lessons from the military sponsored by the Beverly Hills Council of the United States Navy League so thank you so much for joining me especially those of of you joining live always a treat to see you wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie darling you