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 bamel and we're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military Doctrine history and the practices of great military leaders and distill from them lessons that we can
0:37 apply to our business and professional lives in order to make them more prosperous make them run better um and keep them at the Forefront of our various Industries so today my topic is innovation doesn't mean first and this I'm going to be using as as my uh basis for today's show The Invention and introduction of uh jet powered aircraft
1:13 in military Aviation um which I think will very aptly um make make my point so um I recently finished uh reading a book um called uh the jet race um and the second world war so um the book is is not particularly long um it's about 200 Pages uh excluding the notes um actually about 180 Pages excluding the notes um it's written by a fellow named Sterling
1:48 Michael pavik um and and it's it's a very informative book although candidly the the way it's written makes it difficult to read so I I slogged through it for your benefit uh um but um um there were U so while um I had I I I had read quite a bit about um aircraft in in World War II and and the various types um and and which included toward
2:23 the later toward the latter part of the war the introduction of uh jet aircraft um particularly by Germany um um pavelic's book does is a nice summary of the issues um and and I I boiled all of this reading that I've done over the years into basically Five Points that I think are relevant to our our businesses and professional practices and so I'm I'm going to go through them and and um show you how the
3:00 history of of the invention of jet aircraft supports my contention so first of all we're we're we've heard this term servant leader for many many years now and I will be candid I don't like that term um it it it implies somehow that leaders serve their people now in some cases leaders are responsible for their
3:36 to their people but it's really it's not in the way of serving them it's in the way of essentially uh making making sure that they have the the tools and the resources they need to be successful it's making sure that um leader listens to what um the people he leads has to say okay but I I don't believe that the leader serves his
4:11 people in in the context of this idea of servant leadership and nowhere is that more important than in a situation where Innovation uh is necessary or where shifts in strategic thinking are necessary leaders need to first and foremost have a vision of what it is they're seeking to achieve okay this and this is what's this is the crucial aspect of of
4:49 leadership if the Endeavor is going to be successful and because people need to be able to unite behind this Vision okay and this was this was amply amply demonstrated in the invention of jet aircraft so in Britain there was a a young um uh he was sort of he was the son of a mechanic um he was sort of a self-taught engineer until eventually he
5:26 was able to um take engineering class is at um I believe it was Cambridge but I could be wrong um and his name was Frank Whitt and Whittle had an idea for creating an engine a jet powerered engine and and he had this it was it was not just an idea it was a vision and he largely single-handedly convinced both the British military and people in the aircraft
6:03 industry to take his vision seriously and to fund his research and to let him really be the one who guided its development now he he obviously didn't literally do it alone he had a lot of other people work working with him but he was the Visionary leader and and and even though um when he finally was a when he finally um created he and his team created a
6:38 workable jet engine and the production of that engine was actually turned over to other companies Frank Whittle continued to be the really the leader from an engineering Innovation creation standpoint okay now his pred essor on the other side was Hans Von oan in Germany who actually again he had the vision for jet propulsion he actually had it much earlier than Frank Whittle
7:14 um he started his experiments um in the 1930s that's that's how early uh Germany was looking at this new technology and once again it was the the the Visionary leadership of Hans van oan in Germany that enabled Germany actually was the first country to fly a jet aircraft successfully and they were really the only country to use jet aircraft during
7:49 World War II now I'm GNA talk a little bit more about that later but the the fact of the matter is um Whitt and oan for the the British and and and the Germans had this concept of jet propulsion and they made it become a reality through the tenacity of their leadership now in the United States now I'm sorry let me take a step back both Whittle and oan were inventors
8:24 engineers in the United States the Visionary leader was neither an inv nor an engineer it was General Hap Arnold he was the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces and when he saw what England was developing by way of jet propulsion he came back to the United States and it was through his effort that a a a program of creating jet propulsion systems was begun and
9:01 came to fruition here in the United States so the Visionary doesn't necessarily have to be the same be the person with the skills to be able to make the vision happen Okay the Visionary needs to be the one who provides the leadership the stimulus the ability to bring people together to to to work on this project to create something new okay that was Frank Whittle in England it was um Hans van
9:39 oain in Germany and it was General Hap Arnold in the United States okay so you know which is better a Visionary leader who can also design versus a Visionary leader who can't well um as I talk about this later maybe the answer to that question will will will become clear um but at the at the outset um it doesn't appear that one is particularly better than the other okay so that that's number one um Innovation takes Visionary
10:18 leadership okay but it doesn't mean the innovator or the Visionary does not need to be um the inventor okay two um the importance of timing being first does not assure success okay and and that was that was true in the invention of jet aircraft so as I mentioned a moment ago Germany created the first operable jet engine
10:53 they created the first they they flew the first jet propelled aircraft and yet in the end post World War II the United States who was actually the Third Country to begin a jet propuls jet propulsion uh program became the dominant inventor and producer of jet aircraft and not just military jet aircraft but civilian jet aircraft as
11:28 well just is an aside I've been watching a a program originally um produced in 2011 called PanAm and it's it's it takes place at the time when PanAm started flying uh Boeing 707 commercial jetliners right and and it's it's and this commercial uh um jet airliners revolutionized especially uh in international travel right and and so it's it's been it's
12:04 been interesting I mean the show is very melodramatic but the sort of technical side of it that that sometimes comes into play is is is very interesting so um again Germany flew planes first but the United States ended up dominating and and I mean now there's kind of this duopoly of Boeing and Airbus and and sometimes Boeing is ahead for the last several years Airbus has been ahead um so you know eventually um
12:40 this European Consortium called Airbus caught up and now has at least for now surpassed Boeing um but for decades the United States absolutely dominated in in jet aircraft even though they were the Third Country to uh start a jet propulsion uh program now by the way to take this into another non-military example if you ever if if you remember a a social media platform called Myspace that was the first social media
13:15 platform really um Facebook came along I think a couple of years later completely eclipsed Myspace and Facebook remains one of the most dominant social social media Platforms in the world so again um the first one to do something isn't necessarily the one that becomes the most successful so why why did Germany um not end up um you know the the number one jet aircraft producer well first of
13:51 all um although they were the first to fly um Germany was Nazi Germany was operating under resource constraints such that they could not really produce jet aircraft in sufficient numbers in order for it to really make a difference in Prosecuting the war so by by the time uh Germany was flying um the most common jet aircraft that flew was the the mes mmid m262 it was a a fighter uh jet platform
14:28 um the the Allies were so dominant with the the p52s I'm sorry I'm sorry the p-51s the Mustang the p47 Thunderbolt um the um F4U Corsair in the Pacific the F uh uh um X6 6f um the they had built so many of these planes that they were they controlled the Skies over Europe and in the Pacific in a way that you know
15:05 having some jet aircraft just couldn't couldn't be overcome and so the resource constraints that um that na Nazi Germany and and also for that matter um um Imperial Japan faced although jet aircraft was not a factor in the Pacific Theater um but the resource constraints that these countries uh faced were um as significant in whether Innovation was going to help them and whether they were
15:40 going to be able to take advantage of that Innovation as any other Factor so Germany faced fuel shortages for for jet aircraft they they um they had shortages of the the the materials and metals that uh were required for the very high temperatures at which uh jet engines run all of these things played into the fact that Germany could not build a lot of jet aircraft and so in in the end they couldn't win back uh the the dominance
16:15 of of the air that was held by um by the Allies so Innovation not only um so um Innovation not only needs to be first I mean it doesn't I'm sorry Innovation doesn't need to be first what it needs to be is something that will make a strategic difference in a situation so in our businesses right Innovation needs to make a strategic difference so I don't
16:52 know about you but I I play around with AI quite a bit to see how I can use it so I can work more efficiently right and I don't it doesn't really matter to me whether I'm the first person to figure something out or the 10th person what matters to me is that I innovate within my business using new using new technologies figuring out new ways to use new technologies so that I can make my business run better become more
17:27 efficient and stay ahead of the pack right so that's what matters and also Innovation needs to be supported by sufficient industrial and logistical capacity so that it can be scaled especially if you're talking about um you know some some sort of large business so if you're talking about this is one of the problems with the electric vehicle um situation and and why electric vehicle sales have just not kept up with with or have not met the projections Etc there is very little
18:05 logistical support for electric vehicles so to drive a electric vehicle cross country is a difficult proposition at best even more so for electric trucks so there is not at all the infrastructure in the United States to to ship goods uh nationally using electric trucks so electric trucks are much heavier they take heavier toll on the roads that they take a long a much longer time to charge than than the refueling of a diesel truck and they have they don't have
18:42 anywhere near the the the travel distance that a diesel truck does so that means even more time charging them so all of these things until they're worked out are like likely to prevent the wide adoption of electric vehicles and electric trucks um because the Innovation is not supported by industrial and and in and in this example logistical capabilities right so whenever you're looking at an innovation
19:18 right how how how is it going to play a role and what is that going to mean in terms of being able to support it so it can actually be relevant to the role that you that you're hoping it'll play okay next um um Innovation requires an investment in research and development and that investment needs to be continual it can't be fits and starts so this was another reason why Germany fell behind
19:54 so after the war the German economy was decimated it did not have the resources to pursue large research and large and ongoing research and development projects and so it fell behind as well there was a huge brain drain out of Germany both the Soviet Union and the United States especially uh recruited as many of the scientific and Engineering Personnel that were driving innovation in Germany as they could they and they basically brought them to their respective
20:30 countries in order to develop those domestic programs now it's interesting to note that although um Russia did get or the Soviet Union did get some of this Talent they really stayed way behind the United States in development now part of the reason was given a choice most of the the scientists wanted to come to the United States where they felt they would have um freeer Reign to do their work um and and in many cases they fled from the approaching uh Soviet Army um and and
21:08 and tried to essentially find the American line so they could surrender and and and go to America uh so um while the German effort um did result in the building of the the platform I mentioned before the M Schmidt Emy two 62 um and then there was a second measer SMI um that that was built aado also built a fighter um you know these really came to not because after the war uh it took quite a long
21:45 time for Germany to get on her feet economically um and be able to uh build the kind of sustained research and development program that was necessary um England too fell behind even though it had um a a jet U propulsion program but England 2 was um was economically um damaged by World War II and didn't have the resources to continue to invest what
22:20 needed to be invested in research and development same with Russia really only the United States at ended up after World War II stronger than when it started at least in terms of its industrial capability and its ability to mount sustained research and development and so uh you know this was also what helped America become the leader in jet aircraft because it had the the ability year after year decade after decade to
22:55 make these Investments now it is interesting to note the United States although this is not a military example per se the United States also became dominant in automobiles um and they and the United States remained dominant in automobiles through the 1960s and and into the early 1970s at the same time we were helping rebuild the economy uh during which time we rebuilt the economy of Germany and the economy of Japan and eventually Japan
23:31 and Germany became the United States's two biggest competitors in uh producing and innovating with Automobiles and if you remember the like late 1970s and into the 1980s the Japanese car companies became absolutely dominant in terms of sort of everyday cars especially Toyota I believe um by the end of the 1980s was the large largest uh car company in the world as the big four and then big three us automakers uh lost
24:07 ground um Germany became the leader in high-end cars so mercedesbenz BMW um probably the the and Porsche by the way and and and Audi probably among the four best luxury brand or still among still the four best luxury Brands um in the United States um I'm sorry in the world um and um you know you you had uh Rolls-Royce and Bentley in in the UK but
24:43 those were super super luxury most people were not of all those and then you had you know Lamborghini and and Ferrari um in uh Italy but in terms of luxury brands that became widely adopted um BMW mercedesbenz Porsche and Audi um and then eventually Japan entered that market as well with Lexus and uh Acura and I'm going up on the other one um
25:19 which were basically just brands of the big Japanese automakers so um and the the the United States um car industry um it to a certain extent survives um because it produces pickup trucks and SUVs and also because um we don't allow the import of pickup trucks into the United States right so um the the US
25:54 automakers did not keep up with the R&D investment necessary to build ever more Innovative products whereas Germany and Japan did continue to do so right Japan really um developed the first uh somewhat electric vehicle with the the the Toyota Prius it's a hybrid vehicle right it's not a battery vehicle but a hybrid very very popular and it was only with the Advent of Tesla and and uh Alon Musk that the United States started
26:31 to become a a place where automobile Innovation was happening again but if you look at some of the um electric vehicles of the big three automobile companies like the the Chevrolet Vol and stuff these cars were disasterous people didn't want them they were too expensive and indeed with the exception of Tesla the electrical Vehicles sold in the United States by The Big Three auto companies they lose tens of thousands of dollars on each vehicle so these are not economically viable products and part of the reason is because the
27:08 research and development the ongoing Innovation that's necessary has not has was has not been taking place in the United States right so the example from the development of jet aircraft is one you know a a an industry has to continue continually be pursuing research and development right this is why by the way um Boeing despite its problems is still staying competitive with uh with um all
27:43 a sudden I've gone up on the name of the the European with Airbus um so things like the uh the the um the 787 I actually got to fly on one it is an amazing aircraft the the the m materials technology that makes it so much lighter than other aircraft but stronger which means it uses less fuel so it's more fuel efficient um the comfort of of the the seating and the ability for the lights to change in the cabin to simulate uh how the how the day is
28:18 changing all of these things very Innovative it is an amazing aircraft now I will be uh you know full disclosure here I I'm I'm a Boeing fan in in the you know commercial jet duopoly but I've never been on an Airbus uh aircraft that impressed me as much as the the the 787 so uh and and and evil even the the Triple 7 um the 747 these were a these were amazing Innovations um in in aircraft technology and and so while Airbus has done some
28:54 things the real technological breakthroughs can continue to really come from the United States um and and generally what happens is uh Airbus sort of looks what looks at what Boeing's doing and then tries to Horn in on their Market um what's interesting is um at a time when Boeing was scaling back on super jumbo Jets like the 747 um Airbus decided on on a I I think I think it was the 380 I want to say it was it was a it was a huge jet the the program has not worked
29:32 out well they've sold very few of them um and it was because I think the leadership at Airbus didn't recognize what the leadership at Boeing did which is that in order for uh commercial Aviation to stay viable um you know things like resource constraints had to be looked at much more closely and these were much more important for for the financial uh stability or the ability of Airlines to grow than uh having you know
30:07 a huge plane that they could fly and so uh you know not as huge planes that are very fuel efficient that allow for schedule flexibility that is what allows um Airlines to stay economically viable and and and or to grow okay so continual research and development is is important um the next thing is the adoption um the adaption to challenges so um when when when jet aircraft first became uh first started flying in World
30:44 War II again basically by Germany so the the logistical challenges of them have been largely overlooked so for example the the range of these aircraft was very short um es especially compared to uh piston engine aircraft as well the maintenance needs were very high so generally speaking an engine a jet engine had to be completely rebuilt after running for 10 hours okay that
31:20 means 10 hours of flight time basically so when you think about it if if a if a jet aircraft would fly for about an hour and a half and that might be all it could fly because that's all you know it it had Fuel and range to to cover still that meant basically after six to seven flights that engine had to be totally rebuilt this was far more frequent than the maintenance needs of piston engines and so what that meant is you needed even more jet aircraft to operate uh you
31:59 know against piston aircraft whichi which didn't have anything like the downtime so these uh and by the way these same kind of constraints applied to the early um English and and American aircraft the so the the Gloucester meteor was was was the first UK platform the Bell p59 AOC Comet that was the first um US jet uh platform um they had high maintenance needs short ranges but in the end it didn't matter for the English and
32:34 the Americans because we had such dominance in in piston aircraft both in numbers and in quality and and so the fact that jet aircraft needed such a Hu uh posed such huge challenges to them being widely adopted didn't matter because we didn't need to widely adopt them okay so it's all good and well to have disruptive innovation in your business but we also need to adapt to
33:09 what that means uh you know logistically and and and in the in the deployment of of that technology so that it can actually become a part of our businesses right so so to to take AI is an example um AI can do a lot of things but can AI do it in a way that's faster more efficient higher quality and and and if so can it do it in a way that doesn't
33:46 absorb even more resources so that net net we're not really making any gains okay so that's that's really in the adoption of new technology new technology is great but if it's going to take such huge if there's going to be such huge challenges to adapting to it it may make it difficult for that innov Innovative technology to be useful right so both of those those have to go hand in glove in order for Innovation to be useful and then finally one one last
34:23 lesson I I want to talk about from this so in reality what drove the adoption of jet propulsion was necessity so Germany saw that um it was losing out in the conventional the piston engine powered aircraft in World War II and so it need to come up it needed to come up with something that would uh give it a chance of obtaining
34:58 uh air dominance and take taking that away from the allies and so this was one of the reasons why uh Adolf Hitler eventually got behind um uh jet propulsion now it's interesting that when when when uh Germany started uh you know taking flights a jet powered flights um the what what um Von o um had in mind was uh jet fighters they were small and and and so you know
35:36 didn't take as big a power plant ET etc for them to work um when Hitler learned that Jet flight was was successful what he wanted was jet bombers to the point where he uh basically put out a um um like a memorandum you know an edict is really what it was saying that jet propulsion would be used to build bombers now interestingly enough and this shows you a little bit about how um dictatorships work um the people
36:13 involved with innovating jet aircraft essentially ignored that edict by Hitler and continued to to um work to to create jet fighters and eventually when they got a jet fighter that that was uh operable um the the me262 they basically use that to convince Hitler to allow them to produce these Fighters so uh you know often times it's necessity that will drive Innovation but
36:48 so you know um as we look at this um as we look at our businesses if we hit a crisis point in business that's a time to really look at what would get us out of this crisis and that's essentially what Germany said what would get us out of this crisis of lacking air dominance well if we could come up with a platform that's much much faster than what the Allies are flying that could give us air that could uh help us uh regain air dominance right
37:24 and so that's what really was the driving force behind the pro the jet propuls jet propulsion program in uh Germany and what pushed it to become first now it's interesting to note for both the United States and England um there wasn't really that necessity per se first of all they didn't know until very late in the war that Germany uh had had had successful jet FL fights now they they were aware of the v1s and the
38:00 V2s which were really more Rockets than than jets in that sense um but in in any event um the United States and and England they were not under the burden of necessity and so that's why um they lagged at least TimeWise initially in in creating their their jet propulsion programs um but in the end okay uh um you know the United States became dominant as I noted before so when when
38:36 our business or professional practices hit a point of Crisis that is a time to re-examine our R&D what efforts we're making at Innovation because maybe there maybe some kind of innovation will get us out of that crisis okay and by the way if Germany had not been so resourced constrained and if they had been able to build jet aircraft in large numbers it's pretty clear that they
39:11 could have regained air dominance and what that would have meant for how the war worked out you know it it it might have turn the war around it it would seem to almost certainly it would have uh lengthened the War um and so uh sometimes you know if if if if we're if our businesses are in a point of Crisis and we come up with an innovation that we think can get us out of the crisis and put us back on top as long as we're making sure we can adapt
39:46 to the challenges of implementing that that Innovative technology we may be taking almost a Quantum Leap with our businesses by looking at it Innovation through those lenses so so the the you know invention of of jet aircraft in World War II I think is a a very strong uh example of how Innovation Works in practice and the kind of issues that we need to be aware of as we pursue a program of
40:21 continual or continuous uh research and development and and and build build the kinds of businesses that are always um looking at how we can innovate how we we can um create more with perhaps fewer resources and therefore make our bu businesses more client responsive um more uh uh resource um uh uh what's the word more um uh using less resources and more
40:56 produ and using resources more productively and and therefore staying at the Forefront of our Industries so uh you know I if I had thought about it I I had some models of some of these I I just occurred to me I have a a huge uh um not a huge but I have about 400 model aircraft stored away in my garage they're not out I should have gone and and dug out some of the um early jet aircraft models so you could see what they look like um U well hopefully I'll remember to do that next time I do a
41:31 show based on something where I have models to show you um but in any event um that the the adoption of jet propulsion is is is a fascinating story and and uh you know if you're at all interested in in military history um I encourage you to to read up on it um there's a whole ser and I I I just realized there's a whole series of short uh books and I'm I'm going to get you the name of them um while we're uh you know while while we're here toward the end of the show um that it's a series of
42:09 books on individual um aircraft um and and you can read about each one and okay yeah here we go and [Music] um yeah um uh shiffer U military history and Squadron signal Publications so um I'll put those I'll put those names in the show notes um so that if you're interested in in you know reading up on
42:46 um you know some of these aircraft um you you you can each book is about 60 to maybe 80 page no not even 80 I think it's like 60 to 70 Pages a lot of of of pictures so they're really they're really uh interesting because you can see a lot of um you know what the the writer is is is writing about um and uh like I'm I'm just looking at my list here of of some of the ones I've read the um the uh f84 thunderjet um one of the early uh us uh
43:23 fighter jets um of course the B52 Strat foress which was a uh a jet engine um bomber uh let's see what are the other ones I have oh the U2 spy spy plane of course um and the sr51 Blackbird um here actually let's see if I can get it I'm GNA duck down for a moment so here's you know this was uh this the S um the SR uh
44:01 71 um a this is the a um by Loi Martin it's known as the Blackbird this was one of the most Innovative jet uh military jet spy platforms um that that really has ever been it's quite a quite a a beautiful Jet and here you can see from uh you can see it from the top from the side from the front you can see the the very narrow um radar signature not narrow but the very small radar signature it had
44:36 which made it very difficult uh to to track so you know this was this was kind of the the state-of-the-art of uh of US jet uh technology um you know during its time so anyway I I like I said I could have brought out more of these I realized but uh oh well that's uh you know but it's fun it's fun to read about these things and look at them and and understand how they um impacted uh you know uh how they impacted not just Warfare um but um you
45:14 know eventually the civili civilian economy and how the lessons that we can learn from them impact our own businesses so I thank you very much for joining me today uh especially my my live viewers um tomorrow at 10: a.m. Pacific time tomorrow Wednesday 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show people making money we're going to be doing our monthly economic Echoes looking at the uh economic data and seeing how uh what that what that means in terms of our own lives um we don't live the national
45:50 economy we live our own individual economies and so how various things like inflation unemployment and such uh affect us is is different for each of us and our as individuals and of course our families so I hope we join me for that so once again thanks so much for joining me um if you have um questions comments uh feel free to drop them in our social media drop me an email all of those links will be in the show notes after the show posts um you can um listen to
46:25 replays of the show on on YouTube as well as Spotify and apple podcast um if you have someone you think um it will be would be interested in the show um you know share with them a link from uh you know one of those one of those podcasting sources um and and and maybe they'll uh they'll benefit from from you letting them know about the shows so wishing you a wonderful rest of the day hope to see you tomorrow and signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell courage at all times my friends