The WAY to WOW Shows
Making Sound Decisions
July 18, 2023
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[0:17] hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific time and 2 p.m eastern time with an hour in for Central and Mountain our purpose is to talk about military Doctrine military history military leadership and translate that into how those Concepts can be used to help you improve your professional life build your business or build help the company

[0:54] you're working for become more successful so uh we we took a couple weeks off over the last two weeks for some special shows and we're today we're going to go back to our discussion of Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and we're going to be talking about the the subject of decision making so I'm going to jump right into that and you'll see we have our our um uh you know hopefully you agree cool looking you know military uh you know PowerPoint because in the military you do not make a presentation

[1:31] without a PowerPoint it is a as the Germans used to say okay all right it's like why is a Jewish guy talking about German stuff because the Germans are cool um okay so everything we do uh here on the way to wow shows relates to the three pillars of attainment uh this show like my other ones deals with the Pursuits uh pillar and we're dealing specifically in the finance realm but as is the case with almost anything in our professional lives relationships are

[2:06] going to play a part um especially your friends and colleagues family is impacted by our professional lives and in the end our our self our identity our mindset our health both impact our business lives as well as are impacted by our business lives so um over the last uh several weeks we've talked about the conduct of War applied to business that's been our our most recent part of Marine Corps warfighting doctrine that we've dealt with and we've

[2:41] talked about maneuver Warfare orienting on the enemy philosophy of command and shaping the action so if you would like to if you miss those shows or would like to review them please go to my YouTube channel um it's youtube.com I think it's slash at the way to wow um and you'll see all of the past episodes for uh business lessons um uh military lessons uh applied to business um and um

[3:17] military wait lessons from the military fly to business okay anyway I can't remember the name of my own show it's it's that kind of morning here in Los Angeles um but anyway um you can see all those past episodes there as well as past episodes from my other shows um okay so today as I mentioned our topic is decision making and in any business venture decision making is a function of almost every single person

[3:53] involved in the Venture whether it's a huge retail um you know organization like for example Walmart or whether it's a solo entrepreneur or however that's pronounced business where it's just one person decision making is something that everybody does let's let's take the Walmart so you have the people who are there in the stores they have their vests on they're interacting with the customers directly and and just the simple decision of how they're going to help a customer who who asks you know

[4:29] where do I find uh you know potato chips right that how they how they decide to render that assistance will have an impact on that customer and and and the sales that that particular Walmart generates if they if they're dismissive of the customer oh that you know they're over there somewhere you know what are the chances that the customer is going to follow through they may just decide well I mean I don't care about me buying potato chips so I guess I'll leave whereas oh um you know what let me let me make sure I I give you the right information I think

[5:06] they're over here on aisle 12. let me let me just walk over with you and and make sure that I'm giving you the correct information oh yeah yeah there they are right down there do you see them great okay need anything else no okay excellent so just a simple decision like that and by the way those decisions are made by the front line staff you know dozens of times a day right and and they have a direct impact on the bottom line of that business so I think so here in Los Angeles um the grocery store I typically go to

[5:41] is Ralph's it's part of Kroger's and I think they've trained their people that when someone when a customer asks you know where do I find you know baby food um they must be trained to say oh I let here let me take you and they walk you over to where it is they don't just give you the uh aisle number or whatever okay even if they're involved in something else it appears to me they walk you over so you know that that's you may say Okay

[6:16] so the decision making has been just making has been taken out of their hands I I disagree the the the the employee still has the decision to make do I follow company policy or not right I mean are they really going to get fired if they don't walk me over to I don't buy baby food but you know whatever it is I'm looking for probably not I'm 99 customers out of 100 are not going to complain if the person were to say uh I think it's over on aisle 12 right okay thank you you know and in fact I I wouldn't I think that's

[6:51] perfectly fine you know I'm a big boy I can go over to aisle 12 if I don't find it on il-12 I can come back and say you know I looked on il-12 I didn't see it I must be blind or whatever you know so so decision making happens at all levels and the I've talked about this in other contexts in the in the Marine Corps especially decision making is pushed as far down the chain of command as possible because the closer someone is to the problem

[7:26] most likely the more information they're going to have the more situational awareness they're going to have and so they're going to be better poised to make that decision that that is the philosophy of the Marine Corps okay and and and generally I think that's true I think that's true in business as well so if you've got a customer in your in a you know in a retail store that that has a problem the person dealing with the customer is going to have a much better sense of what's going on than a supervisor up in the office or you know

[8:02] were some you know customer service um you know vice president back at corporate headquarters um and and and while you may set General policy for how to deal with customer complaints or whatever um it's it's very powerful to give Frontline people the authority to make a decision about how to help a customer with their complaint okay and and and and uh it it it it ends up paying off both in employee retention from what I understand and certainly in in customer

[8:37] satisfaction most customers do not have to go through a whole long thing and to deal with their complaints so all right so let's let's now look at the conduct of war is applied to business with respect to decision making okay so Marine Corps Doctrine says any decision is better than no decision excuse me now that doesn't mean that the decision has to be the decision to act what it means is affirmatively deciding

[9:14] whether to act or not and if to act what that act will be is better than delaying the decision not making a decision and being overtaken by events okay and the same is true in business we want to we want to make it an affirmative decision now we may make the decision saying you know based on what we know about the situation right now we are not in it we're not in a position to

[9:49] decide whether you know option A B or C is the best way to go we need the following in order to make that decision that's still a decision right it may not be the ultimate decision but it is a decision that's better than just sort of letting things bump along until the picture you know potentially becomes clearer uh I I think we would all agree these days business moves so quickly that it it it it it it just gets out of hand if we're not

[10:25] staying on top of it and and it can I I understand it can be exhausting constantly having to make decisions that's the nature of business today though okay so we have to be ready to do that so excuse me any decision is better than no decision okay and I will I will go so far as to say in most cases the decision to take an action is going to be better than the decision not to act

[11:02] okay faced with a problem we're better off taking some kind of action than just sitting back and and and the reason is is because if we keep ourselves in a mode of responding we are more likely to get to the best the best response than if we are constantly standing back okay because when we stand back we give the initiative to someone else

[11:39] and now all of a sudden they're more likely to control the results or control the events so in business to the extent possible we want to keep as much control of events as we can now obviously we we do not control Destiny but if we are in an action mode okay actively going out where are the problems where are the issues what do we need to be focused on how do we respond to this okay let's do this okay we're more likely to keep ahead of the

[12:14] competition okay and and just just you know look at um you know the business landscape companies just you know being overtaken by events because they just couldn't keep their decision making active enough and so they got essentially run over by the competition or Run Over By changes in the business okay it happened it's happening to bet well it happened to Bed Bath and Beyond at this point um and and uh what was the one I was

[12:50] just reading about um the other day uh shoot I can't remember the name of the company but but at the last minute they they got rescued so it looks like they won't be closing um look at h m h m is working to stay ahead of the curve so they used to just sell their own their own uh clothing um that and that was it now they're they're bringing in other clothing suppliers Adidas and whatever so you know they're they're they're looking to bring other people into their orbit they're looking to sell

[13:27] um Home Furnishings they're looking to sell Cosmetics right and by the way every single one of those decisions may be wrong I I don't know I don't know I don't know H M's business that well um what I will say though is by being willing to experiment by being willing to take on new challenges and see how they work out they're going to learn okay and they'll be less likely to be overtaken by changes in the market okay by the way h m is also looking they've set up a um like a Online Marketplace to

[14:03] sell second-hand clothes what amounts to use clothes okay um is is that going to go anywhere who who knows but it's it is something that's happening in clothing retail right now okay and so I think they're smart to be trying out these different things how do they work right um if if we end up in kind of the economic doldrums for a longer period of time having an online uh second-hand clothing Marketplace could be a very good thing because people will look for bargains in their clothing right and so

[14:39] again the idea that they're they're trying new things they're experimenting how do we how do we extend our brand how do we keep ahead of what the other competitors are doing all of that is is is I think very smart activity on their part okay and it all gets down to decision making right all right so one of the key parts of decision making is to understand how much time is available for information gathering and Analysis before the decision needs to be made or

[15:15] before we get overtaken by events so anytime you're faced with a decision the next thought should be okay how much time do I have to make this decision it's probably less than you think that's why when I was talking about customer complaints and customer service I said it's best to give Frontline people as much Authority as possible because the reality is if someone has a complaint if someone takes the time to come into a store to complain about something to return a piece of merchandise or whatever it is there's

[15:51] probably a relatively short window of time in which to satisfy that customer okay now let me quickly add I I do not subscribe to the philosophy that the customer is always right sometimes the customer is bloody wrong okay empowering Frontline people to be able to say you know with all due respect sir ma'am this is not this is not our problem I mean that's not very diplomatic you wouldn't want to

[16:27] quite say it that way but you know this is this is not this is not a complaint that you know is is valid um that that sometimes just the customer getting a final decision right away is the best thing rather than I mean would it be better for them to go through you know hours of dealing with different people in the store and in corporate to find out no this this is not something we're prepared to do anything about no that would be worse okay and the

[17:03] reality too is by the way if a customer is unreasonable what good does it do to try and retain that customer okay that customer is only going to take up a lot of time and a lot of expense to the business for no return no Financial return Okay so but going back to time available okay the time available is probably shorter than you think and so there especially when there's some kind of problem the pressure is on okay and and and that's

[17:41] why if I get that I'm going to go back to any decision is better than no decision okay um it because you're not most of the time you're not going to have the time to thoroughly analyze every single decision that needs to be made sometimes you're going to have to go with your gut what do you think is the the best decision in this okay and the best way to develop good gut making decision ability is to use it

[18:17] have it for your people or you to have the leeway to make some mistakes hopefully be able to fix those mistakes learn from them and then move on to making the next decision there is no substitute for learning to make better decisions than making decision more decisions no substitute at all okay now one of the ways to mitigate the time constraint is to be as situationally aware as possible

[18:52] okay because good decision making comes from number one situational awareness and two creative ability okay those two combined are going to give you the best decisions okay as opposed to a strict sort of hierarchy of well if this happens this happens this sort of you know rote decision making wrote decision making there's nothing that will infuriate most people more than a sense that they're just being treated

[19:27] like a number okay um I I I will I will confess to that when I feel like I'm I'm getting like this sort of automatic response where I might as well be talking to um you know uh if if your problem is is this press one if your problem is this press two it's like okay why am I even bothering right so people want to be treated as individuals okay I've been focusing on customer service let's let's now turn this to some other um issue let's say you need to make some

[20:04] kind of decision about the Strategic direction of your business okay so situational awareness in that case is going to be much broader what's happening in the marketplace what's happening in the industry what's happening in the economy what's happening globally politically Supply chains all those all those kinds of issues okay do we really want to be making strategic decisions strategic Decisions by rote I don't think so right we want to be as creative as we

[20:39] can and and and and that's fostering that creativity can be a big challenge because it's a risk right I've I've mentioned one of my favorite musicals many times How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying there's a guy there who he does it the company way right he's always trying to figure out what do they want to hear from me that's what I say right terrible for the success of a business especially these days where where business and the business environment is changing so quickly so we want to Foster our own creative

[21:16] ability we want to Foster the exercise of creativity on the part of our people on the part of our team okay and that and and and and and that's also why then any decision is better than no decision so if people know that a decision is required they're going to work on their creativity okay and and and they're gonna know I've got to exercise my creativity I've got to get it going it's it's a part of my everyday work okay so quickly assess the situation or

[21:51] or res or or assess the situation in in whatever time is available and get to developing creative options okay rarely is there only one choice for making a decision right rarely is the choice yes or no okay no sometimes it is but that's usually not the case usually there are other options when we're talking about strategy for a business unless we've gotten to the point where the business is on the brink of collapse there are usually multiple strategic

[22:26] directions in which we can go going back to the customer service rarely is it a decision of either yes or no to the customer really it's it's it's more a decision of how do I satisfy the customer okay assuming the customer can be satisfied right so that's why I say rarely is it a yes or no sometimes it is a yes or no sometimes the answer is no okay thank you very much you know we can't help you with this sorry about that goodbye okay but normally it's a matter

[23:03] of have taking the time to come up with creative options okay and that that is the crucial part of the decision-making process all right what good decision comes down to or what good decision making comes down to I should say is figuring out based on time available awareness of the situation generation of creative options what is the most promising course of action

[23:38] for an acceptable level of risk that I can make in the time available to stay ahead of the competition okay now let's put this in a combat context for a minute so you can see why War fighting Doctrine works this way if you're in the midst of a battle look you're a small unit Commander right you're there on the front lines keeping the initiative probably means the difference between attaining your objective and not it also probably means the difference between your people

[24:14] getting killed or wounded or not because the more we can keep the enemy off balance the greater the opportunity we have for success so as we have a very short time frame in which to make decisions we need to come we need to figure out what is the most promising course of action okay and and by the way the most promising course of action may not be that great but it just may be the best one we have okay and and given but we have to balance that with the acceptable level of risk so the most

[24:52] promising course of action may be a frontal assault except for the frontal assault is on machine guns you know masked and we're probably you know there's going to be a very high rate of casualties okay and so assuming we can attain that objective we're not going to be able to go any farther and yet our ultimate objective is farther down the battlefield Okay so we've got to balance the promising course of action with the acceptable risk and the same thing is true in business okay we may

[25:29] have several strategic directions in which we can take our business which ones of them which one of them is most likely to pay off okay one may look like it's a really good opportunity but it may suck up every bit of spare Capital we have every bit of focus on the part of our employees and if it if it doesn't pan out we may lose the business as a result whereas this other option that maybe doesn't look quite so promising and yet if it doesn't work out well it doesn't put us out of the game

[26:06] we live to try another option that may be the better the better decision is to go that route okay obviously the specifics in in both of these cases would matter sometimes we're going to have to we make the best decision may be to risk it all on one toss of the dice other times maybe not the main the main thing is we need to balance those two faster than the competition okay of course I'm worth faster than the enemy right the competition is I I don't want to make it like the enemy like you know they're going to kill us that kind

[26:41] of thing but the competition is is is ruthless is the wrong word it's just it's there it's just always there it's always looking to overtake us so we need to make our decision-making loop as fast as possible as as small as possible okay still still hopefully more often than not coming up with good decisions and and so this all plays into company Philosophy okay it's part of the culture of the

[27:18] company so if you're if you're for example looking for a a job we're looking to affiliate with an organization or you're building your own organization one of the things to look at is how do I Foster a culture of good decision making part of that is going to come from people knowing that even if they make the wrong decision if their rationale was essentially sound

[27:53] it's going to be okay to make wrong decisions okay it's gonna happen think about it in the military when if you're in the Marine Corps in combat and a wrong decision is made it probably means one or more of your Marines is shot maybe killed and that's horrible okay but the reality is that that is the nature of battle mistakes get made people get hurt the effort gets damaged it needs to regroup to fight on for the next day so the same

[28:29] is true of our businesses we're gonna make mistakes are people are going to make mistakes we've got to be resilient enough to survive those mistakes and one way we can do that is by fostering a culture of decision making whereby everybody is involved in analyzing the situation and and giving their input wow you know we made that decision last week you know what I don't think it's working out that well I think we need to do something else and that's coming from you know one of your Frontline employees they may be the

[29:05] first person to people to know okay so this is this is the philosophy for making decisions that will take your business to its best place or the company that you're working for and by the way this is this is true of non-profits as I've mentioned before this is true I I would argue in Academia um I think it would be true in government too um it doesn't seem government doesn't seem to work that way okay so let's let's just review these real quickly because we're going to run out of time here so first of all any decision is

[29:41] better than no decision okay time available is a crucial Factor we want to be situationally aware we want to exercise creativity in figuring out our options so that so that a decision a decision that so the decision we make has explored these various options and finally the decision we make should be best on what is the most promising course of action balanced against acceptable risk made faster than

[30:17] the competition okay if we consistently do that then we're going to be successful okay when I say consistently I mean more often than not we're not going to always do that we're going to make mistakes we're going to have to you know maybe Retreat a little bit regroup and then push forward again okay sorry George Patton um we may have to stand fast and and alter our battle plan okay from George Patton's perspective all right so that's that's good decision making

[30:52] um developed from um the conduct of war is applied to business so I'll I'll uh you know take the screen sharing away to wrap up so that's our show for today tomorrow I have my show people making money 12 30 p.m Pacific 3 30 p.m eastern time my guest is Paul of honorable marketing I'm I don't want to mangle his last name so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try and say it he'll he'll teach me to say his last name uh Paul is an army veteran who has started additional

[31:28] marketing who started a digital marketing company a number of years ago and and I think you will both profit from hearing his story as well as hearing his thoughts on digital marketing which of course is such a big part of of business today and then next week on Monday we'll be starting it all again so Monday is trust in the states weekly and then of course we'll be here again next Tuesday for the next edition of business lessons from the military so I thank you very much for watching any questions comments good or bad feel free to drop them into

[32:05] um our our social media send me an email which that my email address will be in the comments section of uh once this video posts on YouTube and do me a favor consider if you're new to the way to wow shows consider uh subscribing to my channel um that way you'll always be notified when a new show posts um and uh we can all grow together in our professional lives so thank you very much for joining me and signing off as I always do to Marie my dear friend darling you are my bell thank you all

[32:42] very much enjoy the rest of your day hope to see you tomorrow