0:01 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 10: am and we talk about uh business um sorry we talk about military Doctrine military history the practices of great military leaders all by way of distilling lessons that we can use in our business and professional lives and the the intent behind this as I've mentioned a few times on the show is for uh all all all Americans to benefit from
0:37 um the the the the time the money the experiences that um have grown in the American Military over the decades and centuries um because there are quite a number of of of quite good practices that have been developed that that we can that we can translate and use in like I said in in our uh civilian Business and Professional lives so one of the things that um I've I've read about seems like with greater frequency lately is um a sense of kind
1:16 of contentiousness in in the workplace um it's it's somewhat uh generate or it's it's it's typically framed generationally I.E you know old old people like me versus you know Gen X or or sorry not Gen X gen Z and Millennials and um I I I I think that that's um unfortunate now I I I don't experience it but the fact the matter is um the only time in the recent past I dealt
1:51 with um younger people in the workplace was in the military and um you really don't see that kind of um generational contentiousness in the military um but but I can imagine it it it is happening here um one of the places where I've I've talked about it um in particular although not on any of my shows that I recall is in Academia where it appears that that my generation the Baby Boomers are holding on for dear life to all these
2:27 professorships and you know it it on some level it's long past time for for my generation to retire and hand over the Reigns of Academia to the Next Generation Um to you know to take over and and and the problem is is is you know it doesn't take a lot of physical stamina to be a professor um and and so you know as people live longer even though they you know someone in their 70s or 80s might might not be as physically fit as someone in their 40s
3:02 50s or 60s nonetheless they can do the the mental work and so they you know stay on in in these tenured positions and yet now there for the younger generation of academics coming up there is there isn't opportunity for them to advance the the 10year professorship slots stay filled um much longer than they used to and and so what do they do they end up as adjunct professors which is a a very low-paying um position at a university and and um you know I can
3:39 imagine that there is resentment built up there so and and and I use Academia just as an example um you know I I can imagine it it happening in a lot of other areas um we we baby boomers are a tenacious Bunch it turns out um number one and number two um the whole um the whole system of retirement is different um now than it was for my parents generation so um a large percentage of my parents
4:15 generation had defined benefit pensions meaning that um they their pension is is is decided by how much they get paid each month and it was it was during you know my younger working days that um as as the birth rate declined um the practicality of defined benefit pensions decreased and and so defined contribution pensions became the norm things like IRAs and and 401ks and Kos
4:52 and all all those those savings plans so um the and I remember a as as a um you know a young man in my 30s um the dire predictions about not being able to retire etc etc um that were um you know being discussed in the media and business circles I mean it has turned out that the the transition from defined benefit to defined contribution plans has has created a great deal of wealth for people um but but nonetheless
5:27 there's a a lower level of um a feeling of security in retirement I think for for Baby Boomers in younger Generations number one and number two I think there's a desire to keep doing things um and and not sort of retire and go you know sit on a farm in a chair and and just sort of while away one's time so um the desire to keep active and involved is there which also uh delays um if not you know fully cancels uh you know the the the idea of of retirement as it was
6:03 previously known so all of these things are are creating uh generational tensions um and you know what what their results are will be I it's I think it's it's it's unknown at this point hard to say um but um you know hopefully um we will find a path through them without further fraying of the society um so my my topic for today is to talk about a couple of the things that happen
6:41 in the military that make um that make interactions between service members um um more uh if not respectful Pleasant so these are somewhat ritualized behaviors and and um many if not all of well I'm going to discuss two both of them have have been in practice for decades if not longer um I can't I can't say for sure that they happened in you know George
7:16 Washington's Army um but I I know they were happening in My Father's Day when he was in the Navy back in starting in the 1950s so you know they've been around for at least you know 75 years I think um you know certainly um one of the practices has been around since the days of chivalry it actually dates from chivalry at least that's one of the one of the UN understandings of of how it it evolved so the two I'm going to talk about are number one the greeting of the
7:52 day and number two saluting now let me let me say right away I'm not suggesting that adopt saluting in the business place um not at all um but hear me out on this because I think you will find um some first of all I want to explain how these work in practice as opposed to what you see you know on television or in the movies and and how we you know we might um adopt them so I'm going to talk first about the greeting of the day so in in the
8:27 military when uh two service members are you know walking past each other on on on on the sidewalk or or whatever the circumstance may be the more Junior of the two and then we're not talking age now we're talking rate or rank the more Junior of the two is obligated to offer the greeting of the day to the more senior of the two the first time they meet on that day okay so I'll I'll give you an example Le from from my career when I was in officer training um I was
9:04 a what's called a lieutenant Junior grade in the Navy an O2 and if I walked by let's say a a Navy Commander an' 05 and it was before 12 noon okay I would I would I was obligated to say to that person whether I knew the person or not completely immaterial all I needed to know was their rank which I could see by looking generally speaking at the their callar because we were in what what we called our khaki uniforms and so we wore our our rank insignia on our collars okay um
9:41 and and so if I walked as I saw that Commander approaching I would say to the that person uh good morning sir or good morning ma'am okay and then that person was obligated to say back to me good morning lieutenant or in my case good morning chaplain or at least good morning okay if I did not offer the greeting of the day to to the person senior to me I was in breach of military protocol now was I you know gonna get
10:18 punished probably not okay and and in many you know most officers would would probably ignore it frankly um you know but some wouldn't I can tell you for sure some wouldn't okay now if the senior did not return the greeting okay again it wasn't like they were going to get into trouble but it got around pretty quickly that they were the the type of of person who was discourteous okay so they got in essence
10:54 you know in the lingo a bad rep now let me give you an example where this played out actual practice when I was deployed um on on on the I was on the USS Ronald Reagan nuclear aircraft carrier so I I I was the an the airwing chaplain so I had um a half a dozen uh squadrons assigned to our airwing one of them was the was was the um uh Infamous rattlesnakes it was the a Marine Corps Fighter Squadron um vmf 32 3 as I recall and the Marines
11:33 are particularly uh strict about adhering to what are called the sort of customs and courtesies of military life and so a a marine he might be a Corporal or Lance corporal or Sergeant staff sergeant whatever um would would be walking down the a peeway passageway in the ship and would see an officer could have been a you know a lieutenant could have been a lieutenant commander whoever whatever was and he would offer that officer a greeting of the day
12:09 now generally speaking so on on a on well I I'll talk about this some other time anyway um generally speaking the officers in the airwing knew the airwing personel and we would never decline to respond to one of our you know fellow Aires as they called us um in giving the greeting of the day so if uh you know a lance corporal walked by me and said good morning chaplain I'd say you know good morning Lance corporal or how you doing Lance corporal or or you know
12:44 something like that making sure that I acknowledged his greeting that was that was derrier in the airwing the problem arose in that um what what we and the airwing somewhat derisively called the shoes so the the the or the swos the the this um surface Warfare officers the officers assigned to the ship itself many many times ignored the Marines offering the greeting of the day and this wrinkled the Marines in in the
13:21 airwing because they felt it was and and indeed it was discourteous and I finally got wind of it um I I I think it was the the sergeant major for for the for the Squadron mentioned it to me and and I I took it for Action so I so I went and saw my commanding officer the the captain of the airwing and I explained to him actually I think I went and got our Command Master Chief of the airwing on board on this first I think we both went and talked to him and we and we said you know this is not right for the
13:58 ship's office ERS to ignore the Marines in our airwing they they really take umbrage at it they they view it as as as discourteous and and it is um it is negatively impacting morale and and it's it's just plain Flatout rude I mean to walk by walk by somebody in a passage is passages were not that wide you're like walking right by them and not even acknowledge their existence very rude and so we requested that he speak to the captain of the ship sh and and and and make it known that we did not appreciate
14:34 our s well our Marines in this case being treated so rudely and indeed the commanding officer of the airwing did take it up with the captain and I I don't know exactly what I don't know what the captain said to the the officers on his ship but the word got passed when um someone on this ship offers you a greeting of the day you return that greeting of the day Peri period end of story so good morning good afternoon good evening that is what you do now you might say well how does forcing people to be
15:10 polite sustain morale but that's just it um you know we don't if you think about when you were a child our you know our parents had to teach us to do the right thing and after a while it became habit and in the habit came a certain behavior that makes it easier or more comfortable for people to interact and and that's really what the offering of the greeting of the day is is it becomes a a a habit a way of
15:45 interacting and and I know that if I'm gonna if I'm passing by someone I'm gonna be doing one of two things I'm either going to be saying good morning good afternoon good evening or I'm going to be responding good morning good afternoon good evening okay and I I know that I have to be on on my toes a little bit to make sure that number one I do not ignore this person and number two that I greet the person with a pleasant countenance okay now to to to um to to go off top just a little bit in in
16:20 Judaism there's this idea that we should always greet another person with a pleasant countenance right we don't want to we're not supposed to do that so um you could say that this military practice comes all the way from you know biblical practice um but even if you don't subscribe to such things I think you can appreciate that creating in your workplace an at an atmosphere of um sort of decency um is is very important we shouldn't be wandering around um you
16:56 know so completely absorbed in our ourselves that we don't acknowledge our colleagues and in fact we should go out of the way to acknowledge our colleagues when we have the opportunity to do so so for walking down a hallway and we pass somebody or we we're where we walk into uh the lobby and and perhaps the receptionist is there or something good morning or or good afternoon or or you know hello Helen how are you today some something like that but and and and you
17:31 say well who cares about a ritualized um you know greeting well it shouldn't be so ritualized it's like hello Helen and you know you're looking somewhere else no no no hello Helen good morning Helen you know it should be directed look at the person really you know for a moment anyway engage with the person and and and that way that person really knows that that that that you you know that you see them and and and they can feel for a moment valued okay and how you say oh that's so you know woo woo woo kind of stuff
18:07 believe me the the the military wouldn't do it if that's what it was about it's it's about creating a a a good solid working environment okay so I think this is something that can be translated directly from the military um to the civilian World um would I recommend that you you know make this as a policy no I think this is the kind of thing where you get together with the senior people in in your organization and you say okay from now on I I I I want us to model the
18:42 following behavior that any time we you know meet somebody in the hallway or or or whatever we we we say good morning or good afternoon we greet them acknowledge that we see them and and do so in a way that they they they realize that you know we're connecting with them human to human for a moment doesn't need to be a long you know doesn't need to be a conversation just a a direct acknowledgement of that person um and and if they respond back perhaps
19:18 a thank you so you know good morning uh George good good morning you know Bob or good morning sir oh thank you you know or something like that so that brief exchange that brief connection between two colleagues can can do a lot to build camaraderie in in in the workplace so that's one practice that I recommend now the other practice I mentioned a moment ago is saluting so whereas the greeting of the day is there to promote um a sense of um
19:57 collegiality saluting is there to promote a sense of discipline it's an acknowledgment of the chain of command now saluting works as as follows so um enlisted people do not salute each other okay so if a Corporal sees a uh Gunnery Sergeant he does not salute him okay that that doesn't happen between um member enlisted uh ranks saluting happens between enlisted and
20:33 officers and officers and officers okay so if that same Corporal were to see you know me I I was a lieutenant commander he's required to salute me okay and then I'm required to salute him back okay again he is entitled to that uh to that um courtesy okay now as as a you know a brand new officer Lieutenant Junior grade an O2 if I Came Upon even an 03 a
21:09 lieutenant and some of my classmates were lieutenants right I always used to get a kick out of having one of my classmates come by who was senior to me in rank and I'd have to salute them and then they'd have to salute me back right um and we were you know we were classmates but it's part of the system right so whether the Gap is just one and O 2 to an 033 or you know an 01 an enen in the Navy to you know an 07 a rear Admiral right makes no difference it all works the same now um by the by the way if a if a seaman
21:45 recruit an E1 were to walk by an admiral he's required to salute that Admiral and the Admiral is required to salute him back if that Admiral does not salute return the salute of that E1 especially if if if his senior enlisted advisor were to see it he's going to get pulled aside and that senior enlisted adviser is g to say Sir With all do respect I maybe you didn't see him but that that E1 saluted you and he was
22:21 entitled to a return salute and it's not it's not showing the Navy in good light that you did not salute him back and you think he's going to rebuke an admiral hopefully he will now if he doesn't it shows you what kind of person that Admiral is that his senior enlisted advisor is not comfortable enough with him to point out when there's been a significant breach of Navy e Navy etiquette or military etiquette okay so you know we have this idea that oh there's you know this kind of criticism
22:57 would never happen you know Admirals are sacrosanct no not at all not at all and in a previous episode I think I um related a situation where I essentially rebuked an admiral much to his Chagrin um but to the Delight of nearly everybody else on the ship so you know this this does happen and by the way there was no no negative impact on my career I think in the in his heart of hearts this Admiral knew he was being a jerk and and he need he needed to hear what I I had to say to him um now um when it
23:34 um uh when it when it comes to um saluting it's not just the junior saluting the senior and then the senior returning the salute so tell you a just a a short story about something that happened to me in the Navy that that illustrates this point so um I was I was as an airwing chaplain one of the coolest parts of that was um if I wanted to I could launch off an aircraft carrier in in a fighter jet
24:09 right something I'd wanted to do since high school when um this guy had come to my high school San Marcus High School in Santa Barbara and talked about all these cool things he did he got to do over the years and one of them was to fly off an aircraft carrier right and so when I got assigned to to to the airwing um I was talking to my CEO my commanding officer one day and I said Hey sir do you think it would be possible for me to you know take a ride in a in a fighter jet off a carrier he said oh yeah for sure chaplain we can arrange
24:44 that so you have to take this training thing that you do and whatever um and and so then when we were deployed the day came when it was my turn to fly off the aircraft carrier and uh it it's it's really impossible to describe launching off a carrier because you you're flung off that carrier on a catapult so fast that once you leave the Catapult it actually feels like you're stopping it's kind of a weird sensation but indeed it's just that um you you slow down and you actually you go off the carrier kind of dip as the engines ke kick in and then off you go and so
25:21 there we were launched into you know the wild blue yonder as as the Air Force says I was in a a two-seater of course I was not the pilot of the Jet and um we were we were doing what's called a tanker hop meaning that we had extra uh fuel tanks on our jet so that if any of the other uh planes that were up flying needed some additional fuel they would come and get additional fuel from us and so we were the we had to be the last plane to land to make sure that everybody else was down safely and didn't need gas you know in order to be
25:56 able to recover on the carrier so we're we're up there at about 15,000 ft just doing kind of lazy circles um while the other planes are off doing you know whatever their exercise was and I hear the radio crackle the call sign of my of of of of of the pilot was job okay and then and then the Radio Calls job uh yeah would you take a look we got a boat about 500 yards ahead of us and he's not answering to our calls and we don't want to run him down we want to know what's up right so so job radios back to me
26:33 hang on hang on chaplain and we did an inverted dive from 15,000 feet to a th000 feet and I got ravingly sick I me I I just I wanted to die I I just I've never felt that sick before in my life and so we go and we check out this boat and we do whatever in the meantime I'm like Oh my can we go back up there and get my stomach right um and so we do what we needed to do and now we're still flying because we're we can't land until all the other planes are back on the carrier deck and so we
27:10 just continue we we go back up and we're making like I say these kind of lazy circles and all I want to do is is get out of there and we're up there for another 30 minutes until we see the the planes lining up to recover so we get into the P what's called the path right we're the last in the pattern and and as we're coming up to it being our turn to recover um I hear my my pilot say we're missing someone we're gonna have to go around again like no I'm thinking to myself no please right and uh and and so
27:49 but we go around again we had to do that two more times before the final jet landed and it was our turn so now we're we're finally it's our turn land and we're we're lining up to land you know on the back of you know going over the back of the carrier now my co had told me that when you land on a carrier you have to line up high to the point where it looks like you're going to overfly the deck and and and end up in the water and the reason is because as the air goes off the back of the
28:24 carrier it creates a downdraft that pulls the aircraft down just as it hits that pocket and it hits the deck if you lined up at what looked like the right height to land on the deck that air pocket would pull you down and you'll hit the back of the ship which of of course is a really bad day so as we're lining up to land I'm looking at this and I'm thinking to myself I'm sick I'm ravingly sick and I'm gonna end up in the water right because I completely forgotten what my co had told me right so I'm just I'm just watching this and I
29:00 just I'm like like praying we don't end up in the water and of course my pilot was very experienced it's like bang caught the first arresting wire and you know the jet comes to a stop and and you know the the the tail hook unhooks and it rises back up and the plane pulls off to the side no problem you know great landing and he you know the the canopy goes up he gets out of the Jet and now it's my turn get and I'm so sick I craw down the the the the the uh ladder like head first and I'm I'm kneeling on the deck on my hands and knees I can't even
29:35 I I just I'm so sick I can't even stand up and it and i' I've talked about these before every jet has a plane Captain it's a junior sailor typically it's the first job that a sailor will get when they report to a squadron 18 19 years old e E3 usually um and they are in charge of that plane and everything that happens with it and so I'm I'm on the deck trying to figure out what I'm gonna do and the plane Captain comes up to me
30:11 little just a tiny little young woman who's in charge of the plane and she salutes and I can feel her standing next to me and I look up at her and I'm like do I really have to return the salute and she said to me oh yes sir you [Laughter] do so I I drag myself standing worst salute ever I'm not even sure like I salute her and I'm holding and I said may I go now ma'am and she's trying not to laugh
30:46 because even though I was sick and I'm laughing about it now it was hilarious for her I'm sure and she said she says to me she says yes sir you may go right now why do I bring this up so here's this this this courtesy saluting that a junior does to a senior right um and and you know I'm in this ridiculous situation right and and she she basically had the authority to make me
31:21 return her salute okay not literally right nothing would have happened to me if I didn't except that it would have gotten all over the ship that you know Chaplan bemel was so sick he couldn't return my salute because there's no way she wasn't gonna tell everybody what happened you know as it was even though I got ravingly sick nobody teased me about it BEC well one person teased me about it but he's he was kind of a jerk anyway um but none of the sailors tease me about it because I got up there and I
31:56 returned her salute and I think you know and I asked her for permission to go and that was so funny right that that everybody was like okay so like he's he's he's a cool guy you know we're gonna cut him we're gonna cut him some slack so this is the kind of camaraderie the kind of morale that can come from what otherwise seems like a very stale you know ritualized you know action that's that's done in the military so how do we you know how do we use that
32:32 with within you know the civilian workplace again obviously we're not going to you know salute people in the work although I will tell you that when I'm out walking um and and I see somebody I'll kind of like give them a little bit of a salute sometimes people like it it's a nice acknowledgement and and I I you know I think we could do something like that especially you know like if you're wearing a ball I wear a ball cap when I when I go out walking and people like that it you know know it's a little bit of a military gesture kind of you know alternated or not alternated kind of um uh changed a little bit you know for for civilian
33:08 life but but something like that something that acknowledges you know um I if you remember the movie um The Sting but they had this thing where they they kind of fingered their nose and then he would finger it back and it was an acknowledgement between the two characters um Paul Newman and Robert Redford um that you know they were acknowledging each other so you know there are things like that we the handshake is is I think you know probably about as close as we come to a salute um in in professional life and it's one of the reasons why I I
33:43 still think handshaking is a great thing to do um more so than fist bumping I'm I'm not a big fist bumping guy frankly um I like the a little bit of the formality of a handshake an actual handshake not the you know where you grab the thumb or whatever like they did in the 70s but like I used to say to people you know shake my hand like your father did you know um but but you know something like that some little ritual that can be exchanged that is of a little bit of a formal nature again and and the reason I like the handshake by the way is it's
34:18 it's actual skin-to-skin contact and that's a different kind of thing in a world where we're so separated so sterilized from each other I think it's a good idea to have a little human contact okay not a big fan of hugging in the workplace frankly um but a but a handshake I think is is is the right amount so think about building these two um rituals if you want to call them these two actions into your workplace in order to build morale
34:55 camaraderie um a greater sense of cohesion I can assure you they work you know yes there are some Junior um service members who who resent having to salute but but typically really if if there's resentment and it's usually aimed at a particular officer who is either laxidasical about returning the salute or doesn't return the salute and so that's on that officer who's not giving back courtesy the courtesy he's receiving okay and so that's why the
35:31 culture of mutuality is so important and that's really the Crux of it is creating that culture of mutuality that acknowledgment of another person a colleague you know a fellow human being in the workplace okay so that's the show for today and let's see tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. is my show people making money and and our topic is uncover valuable unknown skills so if you are looking to increase your
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