0:00 business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday morning at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about business um military Doctrine military history the U practices of great military leaders and translate those into ways of of running our businesses so as to make them work better so I'm going to jump right in today um if you saw any of the social media posts for today's episode um the the the topic is
0:38 is communicating more clearly and I'm sure you can appreciate that uh especially on the battlefield clear communication is essential and lack of clear communication can mean the difference between winning or losing a battle it can mean the difference between your people getting wounded or Worse killed um and so over the decades I guess you would say um the military especially um this is this is um really
1:15 kind of an army uh doctrine that I'm I'm going to be talking about here has developed a way of conveying orders to make them as clear as possible and to uh also to make them concise and make sure that they are comprehensive in in passing information uh down the chain of command so we use this term a lot in the military chain of command so if you think about um how the the military
1:50 works in the United States the president is the commanderin-chief and when he wants something done he directs the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff um to uh trans transmit those orders to um a combatant commander we're talking about in in a combat situation here so there are various combatant commands across the world for example there's Central Command which covers uh the middle east and south Asia
2:26 uh Central command's headquarters interestingly enough is in Tampa um but but whatever there's Socom Southern command paccom Pacific command Etc and there is a a flag officer um either a a fourstar general or fourstar Admiral in charge of each of the combatant commands and that uh that flag officer receives the order from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then he passes that order down the chain of command um
3:01 successively and each step down the chain of command you know passes the order on to the people who who need to have it in order to execute the the mission uh so in order to do that effectively um the Army has come up with something called smeak okay I'm going to bring my uh my trusty PowerPoint up here now so you can see it so communicate clear ly with smeak smeak is a an acronym and it stands for situation Mission execution Administration and
3:38 Logistics and command and signal so don't don't worry I'm going to go over those uh in in in more detail um but but you know the military dearly dearly loves its um it's its acronyms and so you know smeak is is is no different so just a quick reminder ER everything we do on the way to wow shows um is revolves around the three pillars of attainment and today we're dealing in as as we typically do on business lessons from the military in
4:14 the finances Realm of the Pursuits pillar um but we also are dealing with relationships um friends and colleagues if you will okay and if you want to know more about that feel free to go to our website um sorry our uh uh YouTube channel youtube.com theeway to wow okay so let's get into Communications now so uh as I mentioned in the sort of opening remarks smak is an acronym to remember the five paragraph order format
4:51 now you may be saying well wait a minute we don't give orders in business well maybe not quite the same way that they are given in the military um although uh I will tell you one of the things I found most surprising when I joined the Navy is how infrequently you hear I'm ordering you to do the following okay in fact I don't think I ever heard that in my entire career now I was a chaplain so to order a chaplain to do something uh was you know not really the way things worked
5:27 however even in just watching Ing and listening to interactions between my colleagues rarely did someone actually say you know a senior say to a junior I order you to blah blah blah blah blah now it was generally understood um but in most cases there was much more of a free flow of communication okay now having said that I I was you know never in combat so um things things could work can can work you know differently in combat nonetheless um there it doesn't it doesn't work
6:03 nearly as much like it it seems like it does in the movies um in in the actual military um nonetheless it it is called an order and um you know especially in a combat situation as I mentioned before where communication needs to be so clear um this this is the format used okay and it's a standard way of presenting information all right so let's let's get into this now all right so here's the um the five uh the F the uh titles if you will of the
6:38 five paragraphs I mentioned these a few minutes ago situation Mission execution Administration and Logistics and command and signal so I'm going to go through each one of these from a military standpoint and then we'll translate it I'll translate it into a business situation all right so um an order starts out with an appraisal of the situation so this is a a brief overview of what the current circumstances are okay now from a military standpoint it it's going to include you know what's
7:13 going on with the Enemy where they are um what what they're doing what it's you know what what may be um anticipated that they're going to do what their strength is etc etc okay it'll also um detail where friendly forces are so you know you you you don't want to have a situation where you're attacking your allies or your you know your your your um comrades so it'll it'll do the same thing and it'll also give um an uh information typically about um you know again how many they are is there a
7:48 platoon is it a company is it a you know an entire Battalion um and you know how how what what kind of um uh armorment they can bring to bear etc etc okay and then um it's also likely to give an assessment of the terrain of of weather predictions um all of these things that that give the person receiving the order the off typically an officer although it could be a a senior uh non-commission officer or even an NCO um to give them an
8:23 appreciation of what's going on in the battle space or the part of the battle space um in which they are going to be operating so um if if a um if a um Brigade Commander is giving an order to um the colonel of who's who you know is leading one of his battalions so the situation uh part of of the order is going to cover the entire territory that the that the battal for which the Battalion has responsibility however if not however
8:59 but that Battalion Commander that that Colonel probably or Lieutenant Colonel when he gives an order to the captain of one of his companies he's not going to pass on the situation the appraisal of the situation for the entire Battalion rather he's going to pass on the the the information about the situation that concerns the area that that for which that Captain and his company are responsible okay so that's situation next is Mission so the mission is just like what it sounds like it's it's the
9:34 task to be accomplished take this hill uh destroy this you know enemy gun imp placement um you know uh take out um this platoon of Tanks or you know what whatever the mission is okay it's going to specify the mission um as Su succinctly and clearly as possible okay to avoid any ambiguity any you know mistaken communication okay number three execution
10:09 so depending on now again we're talking primarily in the context of the army although the Marine Corps does work in a a similar fashion so execution is going to talk about how the mission is to be accomplished now depending on um which size unit is receiving the order so the the specificity of the execution will be greater or lesser okay and and it also depends on
10:46 um uh the sort of the state of the battle etc etc so um the you know if if you're at the if you're the Battalion commander and you have let's say four companies in your Battalion so in terms of execution you're going to give information that will allow the companies to work in coordination rather than uh in Conflict okay so um you know you may direct one company into this particular sector another company into this one etc
11:23 etc the one thing you want to do is make sure the the the the line where the companies could potentially overlap are clear so that they know um as they get closer to that line they're more likely for example to encounter their you know one of their um other one of the other companies of the Battalion operating in that space okay so um you know the the execution part of smeak it may not get into you know specific tactics like you
11:58 know send a squad here here send a squad there it it it that may be may very well be left to the company Commander um to determine the Tactical execution of the mission um but at at you know depending on again at the Battalion level so they're going to make sure that the individual missions of the companies are um deconflict if you will so that they're working in a coordinated way not in a way where they're you know getting getting in in the way of each other okay
12:35 um next Administration and Logistics so um this deals with just what it's saying what what are what is what are the what does the unit need in order to accomplish its Mission so what does it need in terms of equipment ammunition food um you know map res resources all those kind of things are Administration and Logistics okay and so um making sure that the unit has what it needs to be
13:11 successful is part of the order and by the way if you think about it the order comes I'm going to stick with this Battalion company example so the Battalion issues an order to a company the company looks through the order that's the first thing they're going to do they may look at the administration and Logistics part of the order and say wait they're they they think we've got you know um three hozers um we have only one the other two were put out of action so they're able then to pass back up the
13:47 chain of command um you know in in you know order such and such um you know we're we're told logistically we're supposed to have three howitzers um two of our howitzers you know have been destroyed we only have one and so you know now they can deal with that that shortfall okay um and and by the way that is true of the other um aspects of this so if the appraisal of the situation by the higher Echelon is different than what the unit who receives the order is seeing there on
14:23 the battlefield right so then they're going to pass that information back up the chain of command um with a request for clarification um etc etc um to make sure that in this case the Battalion Commander you know knows really what's going on um and is not sending one of his units into uh you know a situation where you know failure is is is more likely than success okay um you know other other parts of administration Logistics transportation Medical Care all of these
15:00 things um you know go into um making sure that the the the this aspect of the order um it can you know is is is filled and and that um the unit has what it needs uh to to execute the mission okay finally command and signals so um this in in in military terms command deals with the chain of command so the Battalion is is the next Echelon up from the company basically um and uh so um
15:39 you know how reporting is going to work up and up and down I should be going like this up and down the chain of command um will be specified in the order um as well as what Communications procedures will be used okay signal is is a kind of a it's a term from gosh you know really over a hundred years ago at least um in terms of how communication is going to take place so um if if you you know going back to those you know those those military movies if you think about how signaling was done prior to electronics so um you
16:17 might have uh you know signal fires um which which go back literally thousands of years um you had signal by Flags um by mirrors all these things they that was you know called signal because they use signs and signals in order to translate information we tend to think of it as Communications now because we have radios we have even even even cell phones there you know there's the famous um instance uh when uh when the US invaded the island in the Caribbean gr gr gr
16:53 Grenada and um it turned out that um the name Navy and the uh Army uh or navy and the Marine Corps I should say um they did not have interoperable communications if you can imagine so they actually used cell phones to communicate right and and it was you know this was at the beginning of the of much T tighter joint operations than had ever been done in the military before we think of of World War II as as having joint operations and and it was the cas
17:30 but they weren't as tightly coordinated as as they are these days so while the Navy and the Marine Corps for example worked get together in the Pacific um basically the Navy dropped the Marines off at the shore and then they took their ships back out to sea and that was pretty much it they might Pro provide some gunfire support from their ships but um there's much much closer um coordination between the service branches today than ever before um and and that was starting to happen in in the 1980s um when when the you know
18:06 Invasion of Grenada took place um and and that was one of the things that showed the shortcomings of of American Communications or of military Communications uh interoperability so um all of that needs to be specified in the order as well um if there's going to be coded Communications you know what code etc etc okay so that that's how smeak works in the military so if we translate this now into the the the business World um it's not going to be so different the mission obviously is not going to be the
18:42 same thing it's it's not going to be to you know take take some ground or you know destroy a gun in placement or whatever um but but the the the same the same philosophy the same ideas are at work so um when we're giv giving uh some you know one of our one of the members of our team um a a a task if you want to call it or a I mean you could call it a mission um I I think you know Mission has a certain ring to it that that um perhaps uh signifies the importance of
19:17 what it is that um you know we want to have done so we we we they they need in the business world all five of these still need to be specif ified in order for the person receiving um the mission to know what it is he needs to do so first of all he needs to know what is the situation so let's let's use uh um let's let's let's use a a a fast food uh restaurant okay um and uh let's say that
19:52 you're you know you're a you know a regional manager or maybe you're the national manager and you're you're you know you you you want to you know increase the the the the mission is to increase sales of a a particular uh food product maybe you're introducing you know chicken has become all the rage now um so maybe you're introducing a new you know chicken sandwich in your fast food restaurant right so um the if you want your uh store manager to be able to effectively execute the
20:27 mission increasing the sales of chicken sandwiches the first thing um that that manager needs to know is what is the situation so perhaps right now the the situation is that um you know uh you know chain wide um sales of of chicken sandwiches versus hamburgers is you know 5% versus uh you know 95% um at the same time competitors have increased their their percentage of chicken sales to
21:02 20% and that 20% was actually an overall volume increase so it didn't come at at at the expense of decreasing hamburger sales but they were able to just increase Chicken sales and chicken sandwich sales in in in a way that maybe in increase the customer base by the way I'm not basing this on any specific company I'm I'm just I'm just making these up so uh I'm not saying that you know increasing chicken s chicken sandwich sales won't cannibalize uh other types of products it very well may
21:37 but let's just say in this particular s this particular case the situation is that competitors are have been able to increase their sales of chicken sandwiches without cannibalizing their sales of other products okay um and um um maybe uh another region of the country in this same fast food chain has been able to increase their sales of chicken sandwiches to 15% of sales again without reducing without cannibalizing
22:12 the hamburger sales and so now um they're they're you know moving to launching this program um in another part of the country okay um and uh and then when we talk about you know terrain well so Terrain in in the business World Won't necessarily translate exactly but when we talk about terrain we could be talking about the market so you know what's happening in in the broader Market um are are people um looking for healthier options for example so chicken seems to be considered a healthier option than than
22:48 beef uh so that's part of the terrain um maybe chicken sandwiches can be produced um less expensively or maybe they're more expensive but because they're perceived as being healthier um they they sell nonetheless and so that can be a way of of increasing sales um even in the face of um restrained uh or constrained I should say not restrained constrained consumer budgets right so an an appreciation of the you know economics facing a fast food restaurant
23:26 would be included in in the situation part of of the order next is the mission okay so maybe the mission uh in this case is to increase like like the other region to increase uh the sales of of chicken sandwiches uh to 15% of of sales without uh uh cannibalizing sales of hamburgers okay like the other region was able to do or maybe the region of the country is is one where um competitors um while
24:02 overall uh chicken sandwiches make up 20% of their sales um in this particular region they actually make up 25% of their sales so it appears that in this region it would be uh feasible for the mission to to be to increase Chicken sales to a higher percentage than in another region of the same company so maybe in this case the mission is increase CH sales of chicken sandwiches to 20% of sales um without uh cannibalizing hamburger sales okay so that's that's a mission and and it should be something clear uh it should
24:39 be something that um you know can be um uh substantiated completion of which can be can be substantiated through metrics of some kind okay just like in the battlefield if the if the mission is to take you know Hill one two3 well so when you know the the unit has you know controls Hill one two three so the mission has been successful so um increasing just increasing sales of chicken sandwiches isn't a good Mission because what does that mean increasing it by one you know we sold 10 last week
25:16 so we'll sell 11 this week I mean that's not really a mission so the mission should be should be definable like like a goal in that sense right a goal for goals should be smart specific measurable etc etc okay so that would be the mission so then execution um and again this is how is this going to be accomplished well so um you know we're we're probably talking about some sort of marketing campaign okay um or maybe
25:52 uh um uh people working at the uh fast food restaurant Resturant are going to be trained that when uh someone comes up to order and they say you know what what can I get for you or or what would you like to have and the person says well I'm not really sure so then you know maybe they're trying to say well we have this new chicken sandwich it's it's been very popular and would you be interested in trying that so you know however the execution is going to take place and there's probably there may need to be some some training that uh that needs to
26:28 be done in order so that the execution can go smoothly um the fact of the matter is in in in the military that's what exercises and training are for it's so that when when soldiers Marines need to execute on the battlefield they can do so smoothly because they know exactly what to do and and how to how to respond etc etc so same is true for our people um our team members here in the business World they they need to have the training uh that's necessary in order for them to be successful at at their positions and
27:03 I I think this is not a one-time training where you know a new you have a new employee who who comes on board and they get their initial training and then after that there's no more training I don't think that's uh a feasible plan in American business anymore because the business changes pretty constantly and so there's a need for ongoing training no matter what no matter the people no matter what the business is no matter what job the the our team members have okay and so next uh Administration and Logistics so if if you know one of the
27:40 things we want to do is increase sales of chicken sandwiches so um first of all that's going to mean we need to have chicken you know on hand at the restaurant that may require a a shifting of of focus in our supply chains okay and it it may also include um new procedures um for um for for making these chicken sandwiches which again that that actually goes back to execution but then we need to have the things there so that um the mission can be executed um logistically there may be a need for some in in store um
28:17 promotional pieces something like that maybe we're going to change the placemats that go on the the trays um there may need some to have some things changed on the board now if it's an electronic board so maybe just needs to be reprogrammed or whatever um but whatever those administrative and logistical issues are they need to be considered so that the store manager can effective has has the um resources in order to effectively execute um uh achieving the mission okay and then finally command and signal so this may
28:53 not sound like really part of of the business world but uh it's it just like it is on the battlefield it's vital in business as well so um you know to whom is the manager going to be reporting sales how often um by what methodology right now these days of course with you know um electronics and computers all that stuff so a lot of that stuff you know the minute you know someone you know who works in the store Rings up a chicken sandwich it can go all the way to to headquarters of course
29:29 um and and so maybe that's going to be um how command and Signal works in the restaurant so um but but nonetheless there still needs to be while the the data can move um almost seamlessly um the analysis of that data and and decisions made on um you know whether it looks like the mission is going to be achieved or whether uh a change in tactics is necessary all that needs to happen apart from just the
30:05 signal the information going back and forth and that's where the command structure comes in so we don't think of of businesses as having a command structure but indeed you have a a restaurant manager you typically have some sort of regional manager um that person probably reports to some national manager and you know kind of on up a chain of command it it it is a chain of command we again we don't think about it that way necessarily but that's really what it is and so that way through command and Signal progress toward the mission can be can be tracked and ideas
30:41 for executing the mission more effectively can be generated maybe they can be tested out um maybe someone who has been more maybe there's you know I don't you know 20 stores in this particular region and one of the man managers has been much more effective in achieving the goal U achieving the mission than than the other 19 managers so maybe you know that manager gets on some sort of um uh you know Zoom meeting or something and and talks about what he's doing in order to give ideas to the other managers Etc that's all part of
31:18 command and Signal okay so you can see how there's there's really a onetoone correlation uh in smeak from the milit AR to the business world and and and really by thinking about um uh you know tasking or giving Mission missions to our team members this makes it very clear it gives them not only the responsibility but also the authority they need to carry out a mission and it also provides a forum where they can
31:53 review what it is they're supposed to accomplish and and if they have questions or if they think something doesn't make sense they can convey that back up the chain of command and get clarification so so as to make it more likely that they'll be able to achieve the mission all right and that's that's what we've got for today so here's here's where you can get help these links will all be in the show notes so feel free to reach out feel free to comment on um social media uh any thoughts or are always welcome okay and here's the legal stuff
32:31 that that we always get okay going to close this out and that's our show for today so I I hope you found this useful I think it's a a very a real nice uh easy to remember uh concept smeak um for situation uh Mission execution Administration and Logistics and communication and um sorry um command and signal so um think about how you can uh integrate this into how you do business at all levels whether you're
33:06 you know in the in the sea suite and and you know you're you know you're directing down to to you know directors and supervisors or if you're if you're more of a mid-level manager and you're directing to people in the field um I think there's a you know you can you can make this your own and make it a very effective tool um maybe even you know have it you know on your computer with those five things and you you fill them in um and and and you know email that off to your people or whatever your communication systems are so so there you have it so thanks very much for
33:42 tuning in today and uh I appreciate it very much if um tomorrow um at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show people making money and we're going to be talking about a something that should be on your radar but unfortunately probably is not it's a new compliance regulation um at the federal level and the penalties for not complying can be substantial um so I I invite you to tune in at uh 10 o'clock tomorrow morning Pacific time uh 1 pm eastern time to
34:19 talk about um this new frankly burden that is falling primarily on small business and then next week on Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific time is the next edition of people making money I'm going to have a guest so tune in for that and we'll be back a week from today with the next edition of business lessons from the military so thanks again for watching have a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie you're my bell all the best folks