0:01 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10: a Pacific Time 1 pm eastern time and we talk about military Doctrine history the practices of great military leaders and we translate that into lessons we can use to better run our businesses whether it's our own business or or one that we work for so today my my topic is um putting your people on par with your mission and that that may sound like uh
0:39 well of of course I do that um but but I I I wonder about that quite quite honestly and I will say that all the years that I spent in the military in general that is something that the military excels at especially the Marine Corps so I think I've told this um sort of it's not really a story but it's it's kind of a joke if you will but you know the the uh the Navy has its ships the Air Force has its airplanes the Army has its tanks and its howitzers and things
1:17 like that and the Marine Corps has its people that's very much how they look at it they're not um particularly equipment focused I mean they certainly have Humvees and rifles and all that kind of stuff um um but it's it's usually not the state-of-the-art equipment it seems like in many ways they get the cast offs from um the other branches of the military not not literally so but um uh in general the uh Marine Corps invests most of its funds in it in
1:52 its people um and that is why Marines are so effective at what they do but it goes Beyond just those kind of um if you will simple um um aspects of how the military works and it it's it's it's built into the entire military structure so when I uh joined the Navy and and I'm I joined in in 2006 and prior to that I've done a lot of reading about um military history in
2:30 particular World War II and one of the things that I didn't realize and and World War II was kind of where this started is the the military basically Works in in two parts so um at the time you and and technically they're still called this although you'll hear me refer to them as service branches um but you have what are called the military departments now in World War II there there were only two there was um the
3:07 department of the Navy and the department of the army um and you say well wait there was an Air Force in World War II yes there was um the the Air Force started out as the Army Air Service back in in kind of World War I time period it then became the Army Air core in around the 1920 s and into the 1930s and then became the Army Air Force the aaf and in fact it was known as the Army Air Forces during World War II so
3:42 it wasn't until after World War II was over that the Air Force became a separate service Branch or or military department and you you may also say well wait what about the Marine Corps so the Marine Corps um is is how if you wi if you will within the department of the Navy okay so um and and that has always been the case it continues to be the case candidly it's it's a it's um a source of some friction um with with the Marine Corps from time to time um
4:18 especially if the Navy uh or I should say the Navy Department adopts a um a practice or a regulation without consulting the Marine Corps because the Navy and the Marine Corps have fairly significantly different philosophies um about how they do things nonetheless they both inhabit the department of the Navy now in if if you are like me a you know a reader of World War II history so you'll you'll know
4:54 that that um uh all of a sudden I went up on his name um Admiral King on the Navy side was instrumental in executing Naval strategy throughout the war as was General Marshall who so Admiral King was the CNO the the chief of Naval operations um and and uh George Marshall General George Marshall was Chief of Staff of the army okay and those are the respective heads of those two military
5:29 departments but they were also absolutely crucial in developing the strategy that the United States pursued in fighting World War II so having been steeped in that knowledge I just thought okay well so you know that's how it works the the military departments not only do their thing which I'll talk about in a minute but they also direct strategy what what I didn't realize was that there was something called the the the the Chiefs of Staff or The Joint
6:05 Chiefs of Staff is what it's called now and it's made up of several individuals and it's actually The Joint Chiefs of Staff that develop military strategy um and and then that is conveyed to what are called the combatant commanders in in whatever you know um uh area of the world um a particular operation is taking place and that that that sort of World War II practice
6:40 developed into what we now have which is on the one hand we have military departments the department of army the department of the Navy and the department of the Air Force and and by the way the the space force as I understand it is part of the Department of the Air Force as well and then we have what are called combatant commands or unified commands those are separate okay and in fact I'm going to share my screen so you can see a little bit about um I I've I've brought up some slides on on how these
7:15 various things work so okay so here's basically What's called the national command Authority for the military so you have the president who is from a military standpoint known as the commanderin-chief okay now this is by Design in the US Constitution the uh commanderin-chief of the military is a civilian it is not military personnel because the founding fathers did not want the military to
7:51 ultimately be under military control they wanted it to be under civilian control so the military is sub it to the president to civilian control now in general the president delegates his authority as commanderin-chief or not all of it but much of it to the Secretary of Defense okay this is also a postor War II position a unified Department of Defense didn't exist back in the um early to mid 1940s it was
8:27 created um in 19 49 I believe it was under the National Defense Act which took the department of the Navy and the department of the army and put them underneath the Department of Defense okay so it it's generally speaking through the Secretary of Defense that the president directs military policy okay now I'm I'm going to I I mentioned already unified commands and Military departments I'm just before I get into those in more depth I want to talk about two of the
9:03 things that I've I've already mentioned the Joint Chiefs of Staff you notice there's a dashed line here and that's because the Joint Chiefs of Staff advise the president okay and they also advise the unified commanders okay um Asda the National Security Council also advises the president but notice that don't have command Authority okay this this right here the reason this connection is is here is because the um the senior
9:42 military person in each of the military departments the Chief of Staff of the army the um um uh CNO the um chief of Naval operations and the chief of staff for the Air Force are all members of The Joint chief of Staff okay you notice the names are the same so that's that that's what goes on here um but command Authority comes through the presid goes from the president through the Secretary of Defense to the unified commands Okay so that that's what these are here these
10:17 are advisory they advise command Authority goes through the president okay and so why do we have military departments and unified commands well that's because the job of the military departments is to recruit train and equip Personnel within their respective departments okay so the main the the responsibility of the chief of staff of the Army is to recruit soldiers train them and equip them okay and same with
10:52 the cnno it's to recruit Sailors train them and equip them and same same with the Air Force okay unified commands actually execute missions they execute defense policy if you will in the field okay the military departments do not do that when a unified Commander needs people to execute a mission basically he goes to the particular military department and he says okay I need to I need to execute the foll order
11:29 on behalf of the president and this is what I need to do it and the military department or departments sends the the um the unified Commander the personnel and the equipment that he needs in order to execute that mission okay now and this is why I say you want you want to put your people on par with your mission so UniFi command are mission focused military departments are people
12:05 focused and notice they are on the same level okay and in fact the um the chiefs of the various military departments are typically uh fourstar um flag a fourstar flagger General officer and that the same is true of a unified Commander okay all right now let's let's look at um another slide here um real quickly
12:42 uh wait a minute United States oh it's not showing up oh here it is okay all right so let's look now for just a minute at how the the The Joint Chiefs of Staff works this is this is the advisor okay and here you see you have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff it's typically one of the previous um uh Military Department Chiefs okay and then it's you have a vice chairman of the joint chiefs' staff and then here's here's the Chiefs of Staff chief of the staff of the Air
13:17 Force of the army chief of Naval operations and commandant of the Marine Corps now you you may say well wait a minute common of Marine Corps is is not a uh is is not at the same level as the CNL technically that's true practically the the common of the Marine Corps um has the responsibility to recruit man and equip Marines okay so the common of the Marine Corps sits on the Joint Chiefs of Staff okay and then you have these various assistants okay and and you can see
13:53 assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff assistance to the chairman of the joint for National Guard and Reserve matters okay not going to get into what that is and then Senior elist advisor to the Joint Chiefs of to the Jo uh chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff okay so this is to make sure that these other parts of the military enlisted um National Guard and reserves that that that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has their input okay now you'll notice here directly you know coming directly from the vice chairman of the joint Chief staff you have the director of The Joint staff and here's
14:28 the various parts of the joint staff so director of Manpower and Personnel director of intelligence Operations Logistics and we've talked about this this sort of organization before in in a previous um in a previous show so I'm not going to get into here just notice that um unlike the Navy which has what are called n shops and the Army which has G shops here in The Joint Chiefs of Staff you have J shops okay that's typically that's what they're known as all right so this is the organization
15:03 then that advises the president and you notice again I'm gonna emphasize this director of Manpower and Personnel J1 in other words number one is um is is people okay most of the rest of this is um actually dedicated to Mission planning and execution okay but people are still number one and it shows you that in a way this is balanced against all these other ones okay so now let's look at the
15:39 various um combatant commands uh here we go okay so when we talk about unified commands or in in particular we talk about unified combatant commands okay there's two types of unified commands there's uh I so there's two types of combatant commands there's unified combatant commands and there's functional combatant commands Okay um unified combatant commands um relate basically to a part of the globe functional combatant commands relate as
16:16 as their name says to a function so just real quickly I'll cover these US Special Operations Command that deals with what are called spec ops Special Operations okay and those Special Operations can take place anywhere okay but this is a unified command that that deals with the Green Berets the seals um I believe Army Rangers are included in that there is a an Air Force Special Operations um Force as well the name of it is escaping me okay us Transportation command again it's this is a function of the military to
16:53 transport things okay Strat strategic command stratcom okay and then cyber command both of those are I think are are pretty self-explanatory strategic command is dealing with um things like uh you know strategic deterrence um so things like our our Boomer submarines that carry um nuclear missiles and and go on these 89 day missions underwater okay things like that okay and then us space command now us space command is actually a unified combatant command
17:28 because its domain is space okay all right and then there's um I think there's what one two three four five there's six um unified combatant commands there's us Northern command norcom Southern command Socom European command ukom uh Central Command centcom Africa command um I think it's I think it's afcom and then indopacific command and I don't know what the what the short short name is for that okay and and and by the way when when a ship when I was
18:03 on deployment for example okay we started out in in Northern command norcom because we were based in San Diego when we crossed this line right here that you see into the indopacific command we were we we um there there's also there's uh you know different fleets assigned to each command so we chopped from I think was third Fleet to fifth Fleet or something like that um and then um when we went from indopacific command into centcom we chopped into a different Fleet as well
18:40 okay and and and I I won't get into that too much only recognize that um there are different fleets assigned to different commands and and as an individual ship you can be you you can start out being assigned to one Fleet and then as you move from one combatant command to another you actually become you you become um part of a different Fleet okay now why am I going through all this stuff well you can see that all of these um these combatant commands
19:15 they are focused on executing missions within each of these areas of the world so for for most of the last what 20 almost 25 years centcom has really been the focus of of activity um by the United States because centcom comprises um Iraq it comprises Iran it comprises the Middle East it comprises Afghanistan okay and most of the action
19:51 on in terms of the military was taking place in this region Syria Etc okay now what's happened over the last few years is China has become a much more uh significant uh geopolitical issue for the United States and and so um and and this is even going back to the time that President Obama was was President there was starting to be a focus away from centcom and into the Indo Pacific command okay and so and there's been
20:26 some um tension maybe isn't the right word for it but there's been some there's there's a lot of discussion going on should we be you know much more focused on indopacific command versus Central Command now with what's going on with Russia and Ukraine there's renewed focus on European command so there's three areas of the world where the military the US military uh you know has has pretty significant um interests in keeping track of and that that's a lot um you
21:03 know on some level we haven't seen you know this much um um of the world needing to be of interest since perhaps World War II and by the way there are troops actively deployed in Africa um different parts um central Africa Horn of Africa Etc so there's some excuse me focus of of you know the United States on Africa so went away um you know we we have you know um global concerns today um unmatched since since World War II
21:40 okay so there's a lot going on from a mission standpoint however and I'm I'm going to go ahead and uh let's see close this out okay and I'm going to go back to the National command Authority okay so all of this stuff in the unified commands is is again it's Mission oriented it's it's dealing with our enemies or our our geopolitical Rivals we'll call them okay that all happens separate from what's going on in the
22:15 military departments okay so it's not that there's you know no interaction between the two there's lots however the military departments remained focused on their Three core purposes recruit train and equip okay and those go on despite what's what's happening on a mission level in the unified commands or in the unified combatant commands now
22:50 what what what needs to be done on a mission basis may change who gets recruited how they're trained and how they're equipped okay so that's that's the main connection here okay that's that's how Mission affects people okay but as you might as you might guess people also affect Mission okay so um for example um during I mentioned President
23:27 Obama during time in office he relied very heavily on um Special Operations Command for operations especially throughout centcom okay and I'm I'm I'm not going to get into the politics of it but but that's what he did to the point where the military departments especially the Army and the Navy had to really step up their recruiting training and equipping of things of of units like the Green
24:02 Berets and the seals because the unified commander in centcom was constantly calling for special operations forces for various missions within centcom okay so um it it but it got to the point where they just didn't have enough people and so um that's why um at times um uh missions authorized by President Obama um used um uh he he started using
24:37 a lot of drones and those sort of things because there there just was was not enough um Special Operations Personnel um to pursue all the missions now it was also the case that when they when they realize we can use drones without endangering people that was a better way to go okay so I'm I'm again there there's I'm giving you somewhat of a simplified look at all of this okay but but again this and this is the main point that I'm stressing people are on par with Mission okay and in fact the
25:15 the military is as um devoted to training uh recruiting training and equipping people as it is to pursuing its Mission so I would argue that that's what we need to do in our businesses so when you think about how our businesses are organized typically we have a CEO that CEO tends to be very Mission focused so kind of like the President right the president is there to develop and execute National um national
25:51 security policy okay um but there's typically the person in charge of personnel is a vice president or maybe a senior vice president okay typically executive VPS are mission focused and I think that that's a mistake from the standpoint of our businesses I think that we need to have the SC the person in charge of personnel recruiting and training and equipping our Personnel in business
26:27 needs to be on par with whoever is the senior person if you will who's um executing Mission okay so the CEO right needs you know CEO is is essentially responsible for both just like the president is okay but you know we typically have a coo Okay and in a small business we don't have these titles necessarily but typically we we have the same kind of positions right the COO tends to be very
27:03 um Mission oriented Mission oriented in a sense of executing on a day-by-day basis okay so you see companies that have a chief people officer a CPO or a chief Personnel officer okay that that those companies are putting their people on the same level as Mission okay or hopefully they are hopefully that's not just something they're doing in order to um you know make their people feel like they're important even though there's no real or there's not as much muscle put in the you know the chief
27:40 Personnel officer as there is in the Chief Operating Officer but that's what we want to do okay so if this if the clo is let's say you know um president or an Executive Vice President the chief Personnel officer needs to be to and and the chief Personnel officer should not be reporting to the COO the chief Personnel officer should be reporting to the CEO just like the COO they need to be at that same level okay so the issues
28:15 of recruiting and training the people in our businesses the issue of what kind of technology is available to them the the issue of what kind of environment they work in all of that needs needs to be as top a priority as executing the mission okay and that's that's how the military runs things and it's why in general there's such high satisfaction among people in the military now you you may hear things about how you know people in the milit they Grumble about this or they Grumble about that that's that's
28:51 true it's a they say it's a sailor's and a solders right to Grumble okay but the fact of the matter is there is a high level of satisfaction among people in the military it does fluctuate of course um sometimes it's better than others um and and and you know there are some um uh uh commanders in Chief that are better liked than others um and that can have an impact there are you know cosos of units that are better like than others that can have um a big impact on
29:26 on how much you know service members uh enjoy their service but overall there's a pretty high satisfaction um level in the military um and and and in business we would be wise to work to achieve that level as well and the and the way we can do that is not only by demonstrating that people are on the same level of M as mission in terms of the most senior person responsible for it but actually making it so in terms of of how we deal with resources how we deal with the
30:01 challenges of each okay so that's that's our our um episode for today here on business lessons from the military you also got a little bit of a lesson in how the military itself is organized so hopefully you found that interesting um I didn't know anything about this like I said when I joined in 2006 this was all learning this was all part of my initial military training and it took a little while to kind of figure it all out um and and and by the way I just gave you the most simplified version of it it gets very very complex because there's
30:36 multiple layers some might argue there's too many layers and and of course that those are those are uh issues best discussed I think over uh you know Bourbon and Branch so um but but welcome your your thoughts on this your questions um the uh links to social media will be in the show notes after this episode posts and uh thank you very much for joining me today so tomorrow at 10: am Pacific time is my show people making money we're going to talk about building a real estate portfolio using
31:11 leverage and in fact this is how almost all people who have built a large uh portfolio of real estate have have done so they use something called positive leverage we're we're going to do a a fairly Deep dive into that so I invite you to to join me tomorrow and then next week Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is the next episode of trust and Estates weekly and then seven days from today we'll be back again for the next episode of business lessons from the military so thanks again for joining me wishing you
31:46 a wonderful rest of the day and signing off Marie you are my bell all the best folks