0:03 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about military Doctrine military history the practices of military leaders all by way of distilling from them lessons that we can apply to our business and professional lives so this is one of the ways that I do my best to give back to my fellow citizens for their support when when I was in the military I was in the Navy for a total of 16 years and we
0:42 we meaning uh service members we get so much training um that's that's so valuable for us in the work that we do and and and I I want to bring that out to my you know to all of you so that you get the benefit of of you know really the the huge amount of money that you spent training those of us in the military and and so today um I I titled the show Frozen by
1:17 philosophy so um I I I I um over the last few weeks um I've I've been reading or I finished reading a book a very well-known book about World War I called The Guns of August it's by Barbara touchman and this is one of the seminal works on World War I and it basically just covers the first month of the war so this is before the United States is even involved in the war because the war
1:53 started in 1914 and the United States get not did not get involved until 197 okay so it's it had been going on for several years so at the beginning of World War I basically Germany invaded France partly by through Belgium um violating Belgian neutrality um and in doing so um the United Kingdom Great Britain um came into the war allied with France now for
2:28 those of you who recall your early American history you'll you'll know that the French and the English fought constantly um and and that was the case until around kind of the middle of the 1800s um when Germany became the bigger threat so in 1870 during the Franco Prussian War um that was kind of the first clash between uh France and and and Germany um and that that actually in some ways
3:03 set the stage for World War I so the the French army um in post um post Franco Prussian War um realized it needed to go through kind of a a reform process and eventually they ended up with something called the French field regulations of octob October 1913 okay um it was in French it's it was called the
3:39 Grand okay and it really it was essentially setting out how the French military essentially the Army was going to perform in the event of Another War right and I'm I I have a copy of it right here that's why I'm kind of glancing over here because I want to make sure I'm I'm giving it to you accurately so they they the the French field regulations laid out six um principles if you will so
4:17 number one was the offensive Doctrine meaning that the Army was always going to be on offense driving forward driving forward forward forward offense offense offense that's what it was all about and and in doing so they were going to take advantage of a characteristic that in French they called cron and KRON basically means like like nerve like like guts almost so all this this sense of always being um you know on the on
4:53 offense really and you got to have the the the in in Yiddish it's like the kishkas the the guts to do this right and and the the the French um general staff really thought that with with KH the French army would always be successful they would always triumph over their enemies okay the next part of it was infantry tactics and it identified the Infantry as being the primary military force
5:30 um in terms of of use of formations Maneuvers like bayonet charges now if you can picture for a moment the idea in 1913 of making a bayonet charge against artillery right about how well would that work out right so you can already see that there's a philosophy here that is maybe somewhat detached from the technological reality of how war was
6:06 going to be fought going forward okay so artillery was had had been around for a long time um if if you look at for example the American Civil War we had cannons and and that sort of thing um as we move farther through the 1800s we got into things you know mobile artillery that could lay down you know shells at a high rate right and it became much more devastating a much more important weapon
6:41 another very important weapon was the invention of the machine gun so again picture a a bayonet charge against machine guns how well is that going to work out okay so but that's that was the second part of the third was um artillery support so it stressed the critical role of artillery in preparing and supporting an infantry attack okay so it was kind of a combined arms idea okay um but you know maybe not as
7:19 frankly um useful as as it could have been next was the command in control the decisionmaking process you know how that all that was going to work and and and in practice the way it worked out was um the the um the general in charge of of the overall operation um really everything had to be approved by him now in terms of at least the strategy and and the operations now that's of
7:56 course not always how things work there were times when when subordinate generals would would do what they thought they needed to do even if they had been um ordered to do something else um but there wasn't a there wasn't necessarily a sense of the person closest to the battle is the person best positioned to know what needs to happen in terms of Victory so it was a tighter command and control structure than you would typic Ally see first of all in in
8:31 the American Military today but really in the in the American Military even at that time so there was there was much more of a sense of here's the objective now you figure out how to meet the objective okay so that was another part okay five Flex mobility and flexibility so this was sort of played into this idea of always be on the offensive stay flexible mobile always keep moving and and and you will win and then finally morale and discipline so the idea was as
9:08 long as we kept tight discipline and high morale we were going to win now for those of you who know how World War I worked out right it's most famous for being a trench warfare war and it pretty quickly settled down into that and in fact while when I when I called this show Frozen by philosophy what I mean was that when the Germans invaded Belgium and
9:44 France the French well the Belgian Army really it wasn't that big it wasn't that strong um so it it pretty quickly retreated it knew it had to it didn't it didn't have the same philosophy um of the of as the French army um but when the Germans initially collided with the French army it really sort of set the French back on their heels because the doctrine was always to attack and yet they were essentially being overwhelmed by the the German Army and
10:22 so they they had to retreat otherwise they would have essentially been wiped out but the idea of retreat was so foreign to the philosophy of the French army that it caused a great deal of consternation among the various armies and and core and divisions that that made up the French armies the you know the F the overall French military effort I should say and and and so the ability
10:58 to re group so that they could go back on the offensive was really delayed to the point where the the Germans came pretty close to conquering France all the way to Paris now Paris was is the capital of France and if the Germans had gotten into Paris in World War I the way they did in World War II it's not at all clear that the French could have stayed active in World War I so then and the
11:33 Germans the Germans plan was basically to be in Paris within like 36 to 40 days was their time frame and and the idea was just to basically overwhelm the French and and and you know have this quick Victory and if they had accomplished that then you know they would basically be able to take over the West the rest of Western Europe so by by having this very um uncompromising philosophy the French army really put
12:11 themselves in a hole they did themselves a disservice so how do we then take this and use this in our own businesses our our professions so I've been thinking a lot about this um at you know in in in preparation for doing this show and and this this is this is the idea that that I came up with so I I sometimes I think we look at a philosophy and we say well philosophy should be unbending because it's our philosophy I I disagree with that I think what we need to be mostly
12:46 unbending about is our values and it's if our values are long long considered and deeply held that's what we need hang on to so if if I if I were the French in World War I my value would be the maintenance of France that France will always exist that would be my you know the existence of France that's what I would value first and
13:22 foremost so then philosophy and we'll call it action those both have to give way in the face of meeting of of staying true to my values okay now you in this case you could say the value is is is somewhat of a goal and I I think that would that works equally well so in our businesses hopefully our goals are being are coming out of our
13:57 values Okay so if if if if our values are money is the most important thing which I frankly hope that's not your values but if that's your values right so then that will lead lead you to a certain philosophy and a certain set of actions but if those if that philosophy and if those actions are not getting you to your goal then one or both of them needs to change okay so um to I'll give you an example from
14:34 my business career so when when I was when I was raised when I was a young man I was raised with this idea that wealthy people became wealthy by cheating okay that was a philosophy that I was given and you know I I absorbed it I I frankly didn't know any better right so then I got into business and in the real estate business
15:09 who do you need to do business with well primarily wealthy people right so I'm in a situation where I had to do be I you know my goal was to be successful in the real estate business right My Philosophy was the people I need to work with to be successful are all Crooks do you see a problem there My Philosophy was conflicted with my goal okay and so I had to reconsider was
15:44 My Philosophy correct was it true and over the first couple of years that I struggled after I started my business I met a lot of wealthy people most of whom didn't do business with me okay but I did get to know some of them and what I found was most of them were honest people they had worked hard and that's how they became successful yeah there were definitely some wealthy
16:20 people who were unsavory characters at best but this this sort of class struggle ideology was was not true and so I had to give up that philosophy right now imagine you were a you're a wealthy person a prospective client and I'm presenting to you and I have this underlying animosity toward you are you going to want to do business with me I don't think so right so
16:56 therein lies the rub and once I changed my philosophy and I realized that what I wanted was to work with people who shared my values and there were lots of wealthy people who shared my values then I started having success right so we don't want to be frozen by philosophy because that will as likely
17:33 impede our success as it will strengthen it okay um now the same thing is true by the way of actions so I had the same the same issue in my business I was committed to doing certain things in my business that at first worked pretty well but when the market changed I kept taking the same actions but I was getting different I.E much poorer results okay and what I realized then
18:12 was the actions I take need to be appropriate with within the framework of what's happening in the Market at that time okay now again my I had I stayed true to my value vales but I had to change my philosophy which was I know how to be successful right this this is how you get this is how you be successful you do these things that was my philosophy but that wasn't right again I
18:48 was frozen by philosophy and it wasn't until I could unfreeze my philosophy that I could also change my actions and go on to even more success right so this this is this is the lesson of France almost losing in the first little over a month in World War I so
19:25 the UN un the French field regulations of October 1913 set Force this philosophy of how the French army should act and in doing so it almost lost France now what what's interesting is the uh Ferdinand F who was the generalisimo of the French army the the the top general of French army he his his philosophy was yeah let them
20:03 take let them take Paris who cares right whereas General Gall gallani galleni sorry galleni who was charged with defense of Paris by the French government realized that at the heart of France was Paris and to lose Paris was very much to present to the people of France that France was lost so he understood the fundamental
20:40 goal and he fought against being frozen by that philosophy and I I see that in many businesses where people confuse the Phil sticking with a philosophy for they make sticking with the philosophy the goal as opposed to making the goal the goal right and and again the goal should be based on our values so the best thing we can do is
21:16 to examine our goal if we're achieving it okay good just be aware that as conditions and situations change we probably are going to have to change tactics we're probably going to have to change actions which may require a change in philosophy so we don't want to let philosophy and actions freeze us in a way that then makes us un unable to achieve our goals we want it the other way around here's the goal what are the
21:52 philosophies and actions necessary to support it and if we have ail philosophy or if we're taking an action that isn't supporting the goal then we have to examine that and see how does it need to change keeping in mind that there is a sort of inner working we we don't want to adopt a philosophy or a goal that is counter to our values but we we want to adopt a philosophy we want to adopt we want to
22:27 um um adapt is the word I'm looking for we want to adapt our philosophy in in concurrence with our goals but uh in concurrence with our values in a way that will support our goals so so that's again that's the the the lesson if you will of the French field regulations of October 1913 and indeed of the French involvement in World War one so I thank you very much for joining
23:03 me today hope you found this interesting if you have any thoughts um criticisms uh do share them on our social media all the links will be in the show notes after the show posts and U if you have U you know something private or personal my email address will also be in the show note so feel free to shoot me an email um and I and I will will respond as long as it's within my area of of knowledge um if it's something outside my area of knowledge I'll do my best to refer you to someone I think can help you and um while we're
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24:17 April 15 this is not the only way that that taxes affect our lives and so I think it's a good thing for us to understand the broader picture of of Taxation and its impact on the economy and us so we're going to talk about that tomorrow on people making money at 10: a.m. Pacific time and then next Monday at 10:00 am is my show uh uh trust and Estates weekly and then I'll be back uh seven days from today for the next edition
24:54 of of of business lessons from the military okay and then next week on Thursday is my every other week show jigger's place this is at 5:00 pm Pacific Time on every other Thursday so starting it'll be next week will be this next show and we sit back for a half an hour we have a cocktail or two and we talk about books life ideas all the things that that en enrich our lives beyond professional and business
25:29 Pursuits so it's an opportunity to kind of relax before the the the week ends officially um and and you know kind of delve into some of these other portions it takes the way to wow shows back uh to to their Roots so again I thank you very much for joining me today wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off Marie you are my bell courage at all times