0:14 good morning and afternoon depending on where you are in the country this is uh Kevin bemel and I'm the host of the way to wow business lessons from the military we're at our new time uh to starting this week 11 A.M Tuesday 2 p.m 11 A.M uh Tuesday uh Pacific time uh 2 p.m eastern time and then um as I always say an hour in for uh Central and mountain time and we discuss military Doctrine history uh great leaders all by
0:49 way of distilling from them or from this information lessons that we can apply to our businesses and professional lives to increase our success and for the last few weeks we've been talking about um what happened foreign I just lost my thing my notes Here here we go um we've been talking about um the nature of business based on
1:26 Marine Corps Doctrine about the nature of warfare and starting this week um we're going to deal with the theory of War as it is as it is applied to business so I actually um touched on one of these topics or not touched on but dealt with one of these topics a few weeks ago I'm going to start with just a very quick review of of that uh of that show and then we're going to move on and and we're going to spend the next several weeks
2:02 um talking about these various Concepts and how we can use them so let's go ahead and I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here [Music] moment and there we go okay one of these days it's all gonna go smoothly okay so here we are the way to wow business lessons for the military
2:37 and as always this relates to the three pillars of attainment we're dealing here in the Pursuits pillar uh in the finances realm and you'll see how they sometimes apply to others so theory of War applied to business so a few weeks ago I talked about the levels of activity and we describe them as strategic operational and tactical strategic being the sort of top level at which we're dealing um it's it's about as its name says it's
3:14 the strategy we're using in order to make our business successful operational then are the different modes through which we're going to put that strategy into action and then the Tactical level is the sort of day-to-day activities that we're uh performing in order to work those modes that align with our strategic vision for our business so if
3:49 you want to hear more about the levels of activity go to my go to the our YouTube channel um and you you can find uh this show and and we'll and talk about that more so for for today here we go we're going to talk about actions so our actions business does not happen without actions our careers do not develop without actions and I'm as I say that I'm reminded of the wonderful show that I think I've mentioned before How To
4:24 Succeed In Business Without Really Trying I mean one of the characters there his whole plan for success is to not take action to stay below the radar because in his mind taking action is coupled with potentially taking the wrong action and getting fired and all he cares about is not getting fired right so for that particular employee he's he's not following the Strategic vision for for the business
5:02 he has one strategy one operational mode and all of his tactics align with it and that is no matter what happens he will still be there at the company that's the the lyric from the song and and if everyone in our businesses acted that way the business would fail right so without action there is there is no business whether it's your business whether it's a company you're working for or for that matter even a a non-profit without activity without actions nothing's going to happen so
5:38 there are in fact really only two actions that we can take in war and also in business and that is we can take the initiative or we can respond to an initiative that someone else has taken okay now uh in in I'm going to talk about this in a war context first off generally speaking in a war to win we have to take the initiative okay if we wait
6:14 for the enemy to take the initiative inevitably we're going to be set back on our heels okay now we need to be a little bit careful here about how we Define taking the initiative because you'll see below that I have the terms offense and then defense and counter attack okay the initiative isn't always taking offensive action okay so if you look at the Battle of Midway okay the Japanese were initiating
6:50 the battle they were they were attacking Midway but because the U.S Navy had broken well yeah the U.S Navy had broken their their code their uh and they knew that they were going to be attacking Midway indeed although they were really on the defensive they were able to take the initiative in defending themselves and that may sound a little bit strange but indeed that's how that's how the battle worked out and so the Japanese thinking they were launching a surprise attack in fact
7:27 turned around and the surprise of the defense and the depth of the defense was such that the Japanese were the Japanese Imperial Navy was Was Defeated okay so when we talk about initiative we I want to be clear we're not always talking about taking action ahead of everybody else sometimes being ahead of everybody else isn't necessarily the best plan especially in business okay would it have been the
8:04 best plan at Midway for the U.S Navy to sought out and destroy the invading Japanese Fleet and the answer probably is no because the U.S Navy at that point was a weaker force in the Pacific certainly and if they were pursuing the Japanese Navy without the support of Midway Island as what is sometimes referred to in World War II as kind of a stationary aircraft carrier right it was a place from which planes could be launched and recovered
8:40 um it's unlike it's well I don't want to say it's unlikely but it's not at all clear that the United States would have won that battle okay so the same thing applies to us in business okay we want we we either are going to be taking the initiative in business or we're going to be responding to someone else taking the initiative okay and let's let's take a a famous example of this okay so this is going back uh quite a quite a number of decades ago I want to say maybe 30 I'm sorry not 30 not 30 decades
9:17 30 years about three decades maybe more Coca-Cola came out with what is now infamously known as New Coke so the new Coke recipe at least to my taste buds was sweeter than the what what became to be called classic Coke recipe and that was aimed to be an initiative to over to engage younger consumers who seem to be liking Pepsi more and and because Pepsi
9:55 I guess is sweeter I'm not a Pepsi drinker but you know how you know different taste buds differ but in any event Coca-Cola took that initiative and it turned out to be a horrible idea I mean they were just pounded okay so they would have been much better off either um um waiting to see how the competition really was coming out between them and Pepsi was it gonna was it gonna be durable number one or
10:31 and number two did they really need to change Coca-Cola or should they have brought out a new product that was sort of like Coca-Cola sweet or whatever you want to call it right so in any event those of you who know the story they very quickly after they brought out new Coke brought out what they called classic Coke which was the original Coca-Cola and after a few years at most New Coke went away that initiative disappeared and they went back to just the original Coca-Cola recipe okay so
11:08 they were trying to get ahead of the market so to speak or gonna jump on the competition in the market by taking the offensive initiative and that turned out not to be the right strategy for for Coca-Cola at least at that time okay so in business and and this is why business is so difficult right when do we take the initiative and how do we take the initiative now it is generally speaking true
11:45 that companies that take the initiative are the ones that are successful they're the innovators they're the ones who are actively out there seeking new clients seeking new customers and so we do in general want to default to being on the initiative always okay The crucial distinction is how do we want to be taking the initiative okay because you if you look at businesses that wait for you know that they're just
12:22 sort of cruise along until something happens that they then have to respond to I'm thinking of for example passenger rail service uh the railroads they saw no threat coming from either buses or airplanes they thought hey you know people have been taking the trains for decades and decades and decades at that point A Lot close to close to 100 years I think um and and so you know there's no need for
12:58 us to innovate and indeed what ended up happening happening is passenger rail service was virtually wiped out we still have Amtrak um but but Amtrak has not been a profitable business I don't think ever in its existence there are certain parts of Amtrak like the Acela line um on these on the in the Northeast that are profitable but overall uh um Amtrak is is not a profitable Venture right and part of the reason is they didn't take the initiative so the railroads were not in the passenger Rail
13:34 and the freight rail business they were actually in the um transportation business and they probably should have branched out into bus lines and perhaps even into Airlines and created some sort of integrated ability to travel that would have taken advantage of these new modes of transportation right they didn't take the initiative they sat back and by the time they realized what was going on they could only respond and and
14:10 and the response in the end was was not effective and so like I said passenger service has for all intents and purposes it's it's it's irrelevant in in the in the people moving part of of the transportation section okay will it rebuild um it's it's hard to say you know in Europe of course train travel is integrated into the way people move here in the United States that is that's just not the case anymore um so how do we deal with this then so as we are putting together our the
14:45 Strategic plans for our our businesses we need to be thinking how can we be taking the initiative in various areas of our business and then that may include marketing it may include product development it may include responding to the competition or or not responding is the wrong word because I'm I'm trapping you into thinking it's okay to wait to respond it's let's say dealing with the competition okay we and and
15:20 um you know am I suggesting you engage in you know industrial Espionage no but of course open source you know track your competitors know what they're doing and look to stay if not at least on par with them hopefully a step or two ahead of them okay so what does that mean well let's look at let's let's stick with our transportation business example let's look at what airlines are doing these days so excuse me one of the things most of the
15:55 Legacy carriers are doing because again they they ended up kind of behind the curve and and upstarts like Southwest and Alaska and these other carriers made big inroads into their business so they've invested heavily in a number of different Technologies one of them is air taxis so I know United Airlines is has invested I believe it's in two I want to say two air taxi companies um uh American Airlines has invested in them as well and they're they're looking how do we figure out
16:32 how do we deal with what is inevitably going to be this or what it appears to inevitably going to be this new business that in theory could take away from our short all routes right so um I think the airlines are looking at it from the standpoint of well rather than letting this pass Us by let's be involved with it let's be involved in the discussions about how this works and and integrate it into our overall plans uh for continuing to be at the Forefront
17:08 of the transportation business okay so that's one way they're dealing with it another way is there looking at alternatives for fueling their aircraft okay and so um I think they're they're looking at um uh shoot I can't think of um hydrogen I believe is a fuel in lieu of um you know petroleum-based fuels and they're working with um airliner manufacturers Boeing and Airbus and engine makers Rolls-Royce Etc
17:43 Lockheed um and figuring out how do we drive forward with more efficient less polluting means of flying our aircraft and again it's taking that initiative and I I don't know any of the people who run these Airlines but I could imagine that they're having discussions frequently on how do we how do we keep up with these Trends how do we take advantage of them and analyzing and getting involved with this startup or
18:18 that startup or this company or that company and then analyzing how do we think this one's going to play out in practice knowing that out of you know 10 Investments probably only one is is going to pay off that's how it works in the startup world Okay so now here's the thing if we think of it being on the initiative as only being on the offense eventually we're going to hit a point of fatigue we can't always be driving forward
18:54 and and and after a prolonged drive forward we may need to kind of rest and regroup now some of you are out there saying wait a minute I thought you were a big patent official Aficionado Patton would never stop and regroup well that's not exactly the case I mean there were certainly times when uh Patton had to regroup typically it was when the enemy uh was pushing back so hard that that his aggressive um advancement just stopped okay now in
19:33 in in in business where the end results are not um as immediately existential as they are in war um it may not be um as important it probably is not as important for us to constantly be driving our people forward so there are there probably will be appropriate times for us to we'll get to a certain point now let's let's let's evaluate where we're at what directions are we going into are we heading into which ones appear to be fruitful which ones don't and probably shed some of the the ones
20:10 that don't appear to be um likely to pay dividends in the future redirect our forces and get ready for the next offensive initiative put forward and in doing so we we we take some rest and we may need to initiate some defensive Maneuvers okay and we see we see companies doing this quite often so um for example when Instagram started
20:46 becoming quite popular at least partly at the expense of Facebook Facebook had a couple of choices they could initiate a direct competitor to Instagram um and and I if memory serves I think they even tried to do that um and it didn't really work and so what they did was they ended up buying Instagram and making it part of kind of a suite of social media services that are now under this umbrella called meta so that's really
21:22 um a defensive and counter-attack form of initiative okay so by buying Instagram they were defending themselves against it intruding and potentially overtaking their business and they did it they they defended themselves by in essence counter-attacking and grabbing their competitor and that happens in lots of businesses I'll I'll give you a much smaller example so um a number of years ago I want to say now
21:57 it's probably a good five to eight years ago um there was a uh kosher wine that was available at Trader Joe's um there it was a there was a temprania it was called uh taranol terenol uh was was the winemaker and it was from uh Spain or Italy and it was very inexpensive four to five dollars a bottle which is that's that's what Trader Joe's um especially at that time really Excel
22:32 that was Finding good products at a very low price point and people bought it by the case I know I did um and we drank it all the time and it was good especially when you consider it was half the cost of its nearest competitor okay and it was and it was starting to steal market share from its from its big competitor so one day I show up to do my regular Trader Joe's shopping and it was gone
23:10 like wow that's weird they must be out of it and over the next several weeks it never came back it was never on the shelves ever again I've never seen it since then so finally one day I was talking to one of the wine reps at Trader Joe's and I and I asked them I said whatever happened to it and he said well he said the rumor is that this big kosher wine company bought it because it was eating into their business and then closed it right so it was a defensive move on
23:46 their part by counter-attacking but taking it even one step further and just closing it down so whatever they paid for it evidently it was worth it to then just shut down the operation now one would have thought hey just keep it going put it under your label and you have this new lower price point but I guess their their idea was if this doesn't exist people will have to buy the more expensive products right and and that happens uh from uh from the from the larger companies perspective it it evidently
24:22 may you know look to them like smart business from a consumer standpoint it was a shame because we lost a very you know low-cost good product that's how business goes okay so like I said when we're dealing with actions we do want to be taking the initiative but taking the initiative doesn't always mean taking the offense sometimes we need to sit on defense right sometimes we can see a competitor
24:59 taking what they think is going to be a really bright initiative and it's going to wipe us out and as we as we analyze it we determine note they're going to fall flat on their face right so do we want to take some kind of initiative to try and overrun them or are we better sitting taking the initiative to sit back on defense and letting them Crash and Burn right it was their decision I we're not under any obligation
25:34 to rescue our competitors if they're doing something that we think is a bad business decision okay and we don't even necessarily need to counter-attack we can just you know what let's let this play out for them okay blows up okay and now we can go back to taking the initiative Okay so are taking the offensive initiative is is really the more correct way to put it okay in general between the two choices for Action we have initiative and response
26:11 we don't want to be on the response okay because then we're typically going to be scrambling figuring out what do we do to stay competitive how do we deal with this latest shift in the market how do we deal with this um most recent change in product offerings that compete with us so we want to be looking forward we want to be acting forward and we want to be pushing forward uh like you know General Patton talks about however there are times when being on the offensive is not going to
26:47 be the right course of action and so we are better off taking a defensive pause and either using that to sort of let the let the competitor come in so that we can counter-attack or just letting their initiative Peter out okay maybe for lack of money maybe for lack of their actually being a market there for it whatever it is that we've analyzed that will make their initiative fail let that happen and then you know we don't need to waste for example marketing dollars
27:22 trying to fight it we're better off husbanding our resources so that once they once that one fails now we can just LeapFrog over them while they sit back and figure out what what happened here we have this great initiative and it didn't work and we go Merrily on our way right while they have to deal with the losses from taking a poorly conceived initiative okay and and you can you can see the same thing happening um I mean a direct correlation to how things happen in war that's why I particularly like this uh this
28:00 particular uh aspect of the theory of War applied to business it's it's it's virtually a one-to-one correlation in how you would apply it and so when you're watching um you know an old uh war movie or or something like that or a TV show think about look at how they're acting within the battles within the the Tactical battles the operational scheme the Strategic level think about analyze those and how might this work out in my business play that game you know in your
28:35 mind you know sort of business game we call it wargaming right in the military business game in your mind based on what you're seeing is there a lesson there that you can that you can pull out and apply to your business so this is that this is what I uh I have for you today in our uh this our next series on Military uh Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine applied to business um uh the theory of of war and um we will be back next Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific Time 2 p.m Eastern Time an
29:12 hour in for Central and uh mountain time to discuss the next uh group uh the next uh part of the theory of War applied to business we'll be doing this for the next few weeks and I invite you to watch tomorrow the way to wow show people making money um and uh always uh interesting uh guests and ideas about how we can better position ourselves for professional success as well as invest better and and and build build our financial success
29:48 build our wealth in a more efficient way now starting next week at actually I'm gonna go ahead and stop sharing here for a minute and here it is starting next week on uh I don't see I don't see where the where the time is oops well okay so starting next week on March 8th I will be launching my third show and this is
30:23 going to be how to work with a professional fiduciary so this is one of the business activities I conduct it's a it's a new business activity for me in terms of being a licensed professional fiduciary although I have done work like this uh for the last few years that I didn't need to be licensed for and have done very similar work for many many years before that so if you are interested in dealing with trusts in Estates with special needs trusts and and the the kinds of issues whether they be real
31:00 estate whether they be Financial Services issues whether they be management issues agreement issues um personality issues all of those things that play into uh working with a professional fiduciary and and the people who they essentially represent do join me uh starting on May 8th it'll be a weekly show that's those that's on Monday and we will discuss those issues and and figure out ways we can work together on them and so uh that's that's what I have for you today thank you very
31:37 much for joining me and it just leads me to remind her Marie darling you are my bell so thanks very much and look forward to seeing you tomorrow and next week