0:00 And [music] where are you going? What do you want? Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and leadership practices, and then distill from those lessons we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So, we're a little more than halfway through my uh or our uh 24 episode uh uh
0:39 series uh looking at military doctrine. and we're in the second phase of that, the execution phase. And we're today I'm going to be talking about the tyranny of distance. So, uh I if if you're following um the uh the war that's going on in the Middle East. So, uh you know, at least from here those of us here on the West Coast, we're talking about a time separation of I think around 10 hours, maybe 11 hours almost
1:14 exactly on the other side of the world, right? And so to to coordinate that uh becomes quite a chore and it requires really from a military standpoint roundthe-clock attention to what's what's going on. That's complex. It's exhausting and it can almost inevitably lead to a number of problems. And so the the fact that uh combat operations are taking place far
1:49 away from where uh the most senior commanders are operating is a level of complexity that in the end can cause an operation to fail. So it's not that the people are not competent or that the equipment is not right. It's it's that that distance distorts communication. It weakens trust. It slows down execution. And when any of these are crucial to an operation um that that it you know the
2:26 distance can mean can mean that the operation will not succeed. Now as we've seen the current war has not suffered from the tyranny of distance. uh those issues have been dealt with very well and that's why the United States and uh her ally Israel I think uh have had the kind of success they've had. Now for for [clears throat] Israel the the tyranny of distance is not nearly as applicable as it is for the United States. Israel is you know virtually next door. Okay. But still the communication between the
3:02 United States and Israel is is an another aspect of the tyranny of distance. Okay? And so I'm going to go into that in in some depth because today when businesses operate on a global scale and even a small business could be exporting its products or services quite literally all over the globe. That's what the internet has meant for business in the United States. So the tyranny of distance can have an impact and so it's it's it's a it's an issue that we need
3:38 to be intentional when we're when we're dealing with it. So [clears throat] uh looking at sort of the the the core frame of this issue. So what what works in a room you know often times will not work across time zones. So whether we realize it or not when we are in the same room as someone there are cues that we're getting um from how the person responds from how they look close up.
4:13 There are interactions between people that happen on a subconscious level that just are not existent even in a virtual situation like this. So you may be able to observe my facial expressions, you hear my voice and all of that, but you we're not getting the feel of each other in the room. and and that that uh lacking that information means we're not really getting a complete picture when uh when we're communicating when we're interacting. So
4:49 another issue that happens is there are cultural differences that arise when we're dealing with great distances because somebody else may be in another country. that country has different cultural norms than we do here in the United States. That's not a value judgment. It's just a a a matter of fact. [snorts] even among cultures that have a a a fairly high degree of hom homogeneity like you know say Western Europe and the United States where so much of American culture you know owes
5:24 its antecedance to Great Britain to France to Spain to Germany to the Scandinavian countries um Italy etc. still what's how the culture has developed here is different than how culture has developed in in the European countries. And so when we're dealing when we're dealing within the tyranny of distance, there's there's the added layer of how people handle things, how they perceive things will be different. And finally, um what moves fast locally
6:01 slows down globally. We we tend to think of communication even global communication as being instantaneous and in a certain sense it is. So I I have a a viewer um um layman who lives in Africa and when he's viewing the show our communication is essentially instantaneous. Having said that not all communication happens uh this way virtually per se. uh and some communication. Well, I'm sorry. Um there are things
6:37 other than communication that that need to happen in order for a a military force or a business to be able to to act um uh in accordance with its goals. So equipment has to be has to be able to move from one place to another. People have to move from one place to another. So to get a carrier strike group from an American port into the Middle East takes, you know, weeks because the ship can only sail so fast. The distances are what they are. There's no way to get,
7:12 you know, some giant, I don't know, helicopter and lift the ship up and zoom it over at jet speed. And even if there was, it would still take, you know, minimally several hours, right? So the the the the time for people and vehicles and such to move, okay, is different. So you know, if I'm doing business with someone here in LA, we can, you know, we can do a face toface meeting within, I don't know, maybe, you know, 10 minutes if they're close by, a half an hour, maybe an hour at the most. Okay. Uh later this week, um I'm supposed to go
7:48 to Meny, right? It'll take, I assume, I don't know, an hour and a half, two hours to get there, something like that, right? Uh but but still, you know, not not super long. As compared to if I want to have a meeting on the east coast, it's going to be a minimum of about 10 although although the flight time from the west coast to the east coast is maybe five to six hours, there's getting to the airport. there's, you know, waiting, boarding the plane there, and then on the other side there's landing, there's getting off the plane, collecting luggage, getting to wherever
8:23 I'm going. Right? So, you're talking 10, maybe 12 hours. And then once you factor in the time change, right? Traveling west to east coast, uh, you know, unless unless one is getting up very early in the morning, you're not meeting that same day. You're probably meeting the day after. So these are the kinds of issues that that that crop up when we're dealing with distance and these are first and foremost leadership challenges because as leaders of our businesses we need to work with our team
9:01 members in order to minimize the disruption caused by the tyranny of distance. Right? So looking at it from a military standpoint, so u you have you have friction created by forces that are spread across geography. They're spread across time zones and they're spread across communications constraints. So if there is a SEAL team operating in somewhere in South Asia, for example, there's going to be communications constraints on them because um they're
9:38 going to want to be very careful about having communications intercepted, revealing their position, etc. Right? So all of these create the kind of friction that that comes about because of distance. So as distance increases, information arrives later. Um machinery, equipment, people uh arrive later, decisions can be delayed and um intent can become distorted. And so it it it it it layers on
10:16 uh an it puts on another layer of risk when you're doing an operation that's that's far away. So I'm going to talk in a minute about uh an historical example operating in the Pacific theater in World War II, but I want to share a a personal story um about this tyranny of of distance. So when I was deployed in um it would have been 2011. Okay. So I was on a aircraft carrier because I was the chaplain for for a um a carrier
10:51 airwing. And about five months or so into the deployment, we had an opportunity to do a uh basically a video conference with our family members. Now this was my first deployment. I'd never done anything like this before, but I w I was, you know, my my my commanding officer explained to me how it works. Um, it is it it's mostly the, you know, husbands and fathers who were gone and the wives are back, most of whom lived on the in my case, it was uh Naval Air
11:28 Station Lore. And the the the women and the children, they get dressed up very nicely, makeup, kind of the whole thing. and they go to what amounts to kind of a a TV studio and each one of us gets uh what amounts to about uh I think it was 15 minutes I think they we was 15 minutes um and then the next one you know and the next one the next one right and so um because of the the tyranny of distance the time shift right we didn't want our families to have to get up in the we hours of the morning so
12:04 we we we were up I think I was up at like, you know, 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m., something like that, for my appointment. And we go into a room in the ship. There's a a camera facing us and then there's a TV screen. So, the camera is, you know, photographing us and we can see our family members on the screen and it's my turn. And so, I go and I I sit in the chair and my then wife and and and daughter, uh, you know, they I come into the screen screen and we're you know, hi. you know, my my my daughter who at the time was uh four years old,
12:39 she may have not been not quite four, uh but she was almost four years old, you know, she's there and I'm just like, it was so great to see them and my daughter's like, "Hi, daddy." You know, and we're talking and talking and talking. Um and I mean, the time goes like, you know, like that. And after 10 minutes, they go like this. Meaning, you know, 5 minutes left, right? And then a at at the 1 minute left mark, they go like this, and they let you know, you've got one minute left. And they're very strict about uh the the timing because there's thousands
13:15 of people on the ship, and there's hundreds and hundreds of people who want to do these conferences. They want to make sure that everybody gets their turn. And so I get the one mark and I say, "Okay, well, we're going to have to wrap this up. that's, you know, my turn is almost over. I love you very much. I'm so glad to see you and uh, you know, I'll be home. I'll be home, you know, pretty soon and I can't wait, you know, kind of thing. And, you know, my wife at the time, she, you know, she waves goodbye and says goodbye and my daughter my daughter, I can see she's getting upset and [snorts] they tell my they tell them, "Okay, you know, your turn's over." And my daughter screams, "No,
13:52 daddy, don't go. Don't go." Right? like, "Oh, I'm telling you, I just I just I couldn't take it. I just, you know, they I had to leave anyway because the next person was coming in." I went to my office. I sent my my wife a uh an email. I said, "Okay, we're not ever doing this again." [laughter] I was just It was so traumatic for her, for me. I mean the the the desperation in her voice of me not of her not wanting me to go was it was just it was
14:28 heartbreaking. Right? That is in a nutshell the tyranny of distance. Now of course you know our business colleagues are not doing that to us nor our military colleagues. But I I wanted to share that example because it is so dramatic, but it is also emblematic of the difficulties that come in dealing over long distances. So going to the historical example of the Pacific theater in World War II. So, we're talking about combat operations that are
15:05 stretching over literally thousands of miles, right? The Pacific Ocean is enormous. [snorts] And these operations had to take place. Ships, planes, soldiers, marines, sailors had to be moved, uh equipment had to be moved, supplies had to be moved. It was an enormous operation. and and commanders faced all kinds of delays, communications delays, they faced real-time issues of visibility, right?
15:41 They, you know, often times couldn't see the battles that they were commanding. We didn't have the kind of technology 80 years ago, uh, or a little over 80 years ago that we have now. And so they had to decentralize decisionmaking in order to have a chance at being successful in these various combat operations. And that is a key aspect of dealing with the tyranny of distance. We have to be willing to give up
16:19 decision-making authority to people who are as close to the scene as possible. We have and to do that we have to build trust number one. And number two, we have the commanders in World War II in the Pacific theater, really in all the theaters, but especially in the Pacific theater, they had to be crystal clear about what their intent was because they were not going to be able to manage the battle, let alone micromanage the battle. They had to rely on junior officers at the unit level, at the
16:56 platoon level, at the company level to be able to actually see to it that their intent was fulfilled. Right? And so by empowering their local commanders and being very disciplined about their communications, they I don't want to say they overcame the tyranny of distance, but they did significantly reduce the chances that it would negatively impact combat operations. Now, there were times when it just it just could not be overcome
17:33 sufficiently. Um and and that's why some battles were lost or some battles went on long, you know, for long periods of time with great losses. By the by the way, even though the battles were being fought, especially toward the end of the war, much much closer to the Japanese home islands, still the Japanese had to deal with the tyranny of distance as well. Right. the and and at the start of of uh combat operations in World War II with the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was indeed the tyranny of distance that in
18:10 the end, I think partly made the attack on Pearl Harbor not become the decisive operation that the Japanese thought it would be. The same is true at Midway. The Japanese were so far away from their home islands and the distances they had to cover were so great that uh it was it was while Pearl Harbor was a surprise, Mid Midway was not because by then the United States had been alerted. We had um broken the Japanese code and so you know we knew they were coming. We had time to
18:46 prepare etc. Right? And so [clears throat] as we look at the uh the military lessons related to the tyranny of distance. So [snorts] the reality is distance cannot be eliminated. It is a function of of warfare today because warfare is almost always global. Okay? Especially for the United States. So, I I was talking to someone I met um last week and she was telling me about having grown up in
19:21 Croatia during the war there. And one of the things I said to her was, you know, here in the United States, it's we really can't understand that other than perhaps intellectually because the the US homeland really isn't under any serious threat of attack. uh we're we're because we have an ocean on both sides of us and it's extremely unlikely that Mexico and you know Canada are going to attack us, right? Um so uh you know we we have to understand
19:57 that although an an exterior attack on us um is is unlikely most other countries in the world it is a much more realistic issue and we have to be able to see things through their eyes. They're not protected by the tyranny of distance. they're threatened by it on you know routinely because of their their proximity to uh to to you know their geopolitical enemies. Okay. So in the military we have to manage the
20:34 tyranny of distance in a very deliberate way and we do that through decentralized execution. We do it through standardized communication and we do it through redundancy in information flow. So by building in systems to effectively deal with distance, we make its its negative impact uh less severe. Okay. So turning to businesses now, why do businesses underestimate uh distance? And I think it's it's for
21:09 several reasons. So we we you know we we start dealing with remote teams and global offices and we don't we don't focus sufficiently perhaps on or or we also have cross-cultural collaborations and we have and as a result of all these things we have asynchronous communication and so leaders take this attitude oh technology will solve this we'll set up a slack uh you know communication system or we have email or we have this or we have that we have you know we can do zoom meetings or whatever. The the issue
21:45 though is not the technology. Technology doesn't solve the tyranny of distance. Technology provides a tool through which solutions can be used or can be made. So uh you know if if if the intention of the senior leadership in a company is not clear it doesn't matter that it can be communicated through email or slack or whatever it's still unclear and so teams are are are you know not going to execute well because they don't know
22:20 what to do. So that's one issue. Another is you can have the you can have instantaneous communication tools as much as you want but decisions can still get delayed. They can be delayed because you know some it's it's uh you know it's 8:00 p.m. in I'm sorry it's 8:00 a.m. in you know England. Uh but that means it's still the middle of the night in the United States. So you know someone is you know a team member in England needs a decision but the person making the decision is not even going to be in the office for another whatever it's going
22:56 to be six hours or are they going to wake the person up in the middle of the night to you know to get this decision right so you have delayed decisionmaking uh you also end up getting inconsistent execution because different teams in different locations they develop their ways of of working together and since one team is not seeing the other team on a regular basis, those idioms turn out to be different. And then finally, it's easy for accountability to break down, especially when senior leadership
23:31 is in a different place than teams. If they're not staying in proper contact with those teams, accountability can break down. And so distance amplifies every weakness in leadership. And so then businesses have to create ways to overcome that tyranny of distance. So let's take a break and we'll come back and look at some specifics. [snorts] [clears throat] When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't
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24:45 Okay, so let's look at five ways that businesses can deal with the the tyranny of distance. So number one, and you probably could, you know, I telegraph this, right? Communicate intent with extreme clarity. Okay. So, clarity has to increase as distance increases. Okay. So, if you're working on a maybe the launch of a new uh a new service, okay, and and that service has a particular
25:21 purpose. Maybe it is to increase the uh the am the the amount of time or the amount of business if you will that the company is doing with existing clients. Right? So this isn't some initiative to take out to brand new clients. It's intended to enhance the relationships with existing clients. Right? that has to be articulated very very clearly, right? To make sure that it goes off as as well as possible.
25:58 So what what we want to do then is define outcomes, not necessarily or not just tasks. Tasks are fine, but that gets into the micromanagement realm and it degrades the ability of of the people on on site so to speak to be able to respond to the intent of the initiative, right? So define the if you define the outcomes for which you're looking. So then teams can be creative on their
26:36 own in achieving those outcomes and that will be a much more efficient way of conquering distance. Next, document the the outcomes that you want. document the decisions that went into that and document the expectations so that people can see them. Right? We can be in a meeting, we can hear something said, but what was actually said can fade pretty quickly. So after a meeting there should be posted if you will a summary of what
27:12 was discussed so that people can go back to that and refresh their memories as to what the intent is. Right? And in that way everybody's looking back to the same information, the same document. And then finally repeat key messages consistently. Okay. So [clears throat] it, you know, it may seem annoying, but as leaders, we need to be setting the direction. And one of the ways we do that is with repetition, right? And so
27:49 that's that is how everybody learns. That's how everybody gets ingrained in their minds what's going on. So if an an initiative is is launched to enhance relations with existing customers that me that message has to be reinforced. So in subsequent meetings it should all be couched in those terms. How are things going with respect to uh adoption of this new service by our existing customers. Right? So we don't necessarily want to ask the the the kind you know point of things like are you
28:24 only focusing on new customers that that's not the way we want to do it. What we want to do it is engage with our team members in the context of what the intent is how it's best articulated and and within the outcomes that we have defined. Okay. So communicate intent with extreme clarity. That's number one. Number two, standardized communication systems. Okay, so ad hoc communication fails at scale because people don't know
29:02 when they're going to be able to communicate. They may not be able to get a hold of you uh or you may not be able to reach them. So systems need to be set up so that everybody knows for sure when they will be able to communicate on a routine basis. Okay. And then if an emergency comes up, okay, that can be dealt with and there can be a protocol, a standardized protocol for dealing with emergencies. Okay? And then everybody can build their workflow around the standardized communication. Right? So although it may seem annoying
29:39 to have, you know, a staff a regular staff meeting or, you know, multiple, you know, check-in meetings each week, the problem isn't the meetings themselves. The problem is almost almost always because the meetings are not handled well. They're not handled efficiently and people start thinking these are a waste of time. If a meeting is going to be created as a standardized system of communication, so then first and foremost, someone has to own that meeting and make sure that it
30:14 accomplishes what it's intended to accomplish. Okay? So if you're the senior leader of a team at a distance or the senior leader I should say of an initiative and one of your teams is a far distance distance away and you're going to have let's say a weekly meeting to discuss how the how the uh launching and of that initiative is going. So then you own that meeting. You have to show up, right? I I'm I have a friend who works for a company and and one of the
30:49 most frustrating things about it is they set up a weekly meeting. It's it was supposed to be for the CEO to learn what's going on and give direction and correction to what whatever is going on. And most of the time he doesn't show up. And so then the people show up at the meeting and they're they feel like they're wasting their time, which in fact they are, right? Because they can't own a meeting that's designed for a senior leader to get up to speed. It that that's just that's just a complete waste of time, right? So
31:26 figure out what is the proper channel of communication for whatever information has to be conveyed. Is it a virtual meeting? Is it a Slack channel? Is it email? Okay, figure out what those are, right? Is if there if you're going to set up an emergency communication system, what is that going to be? Okay, my people know, anyone who works with me knows that if you if you need to get a hold of me, you know, ASAP, send me a text message. Okay, that is the communication that I check most often because I almost always have my phone
32:02 with me even though I don't like being on my phone all the time. If you send me an email, there's a good chance I'm, you know, I'm not going to see it, especially if it's, you know, very late in the afternoon or even or into early evening. I'm probably not going to see that until the following morning. That's just because I don't stay, you know, glued to my computer and I don't get email on my phone, right? On the other hand, if you call me, unless I recognize the number, you know, I have you plugged into my phone, I'm not going to pick up the phone. Okay? So, define the channels of communication and and which ones
32:39 should be used for which circumstances. Okay? And then establish response expectations. So again, using myself as an example, uh my people know that if you contact me during regular working hours, um I'm I'm almost for sure going to get back to you by the end of the day, unless I'm having to deal with some kind of crisis. On the other hand, if you contact me after sundown on Friday, you're not getting a response even in an emergency until at the earliest sundown Saturday
33:14 because I observe a traditional Jewish Sabbath and I'm not getting any communications unless you walk to my house and find me at home. Right? That's just the way it is. uh so set the uh expectations for response time and from your people as well. This is not just senior leadership or team leadership setting expectations. It's each member of the team setting their expectations. So I tell my people if I send you an email on Sunday, if I'm working on Sunday, I'm not expecting a
33:50 response on a Sunday. Okay? as far as I'm concerned, you're not working. I'm not expecting you to work on the weekends. Uh, unless it's some kind of emergency, right? And despite setting that expectation, I find I get responses. So now what I do is if I'm working on a Sunday and I send an email, I set it to not go to be sent until Monday morning because I don't want to disturb my people at home. Okay? I don't think that's the right way to deal with things right now. I'm of course my people are are local or most of them are local. I deal with people all over the
34:25 country, but the same issues apply and and even more so when when you're dealing over long distances. And then finally, document your workflow and processes so that people again have a place to go to see okay, how's how should this be handled? Okay, I can go into the workflow processes uh file and see okay this is how this is handled. Okay, good to go. Right. So structure replaces proximity and that way people know what the expectations are. They can work within those expectations. They can
35:00 plan within those expectations and then as long as there's uh as long as there's a structure for dealing with issues that don't fall within routine operations. So you'll have gone a long way to overcoming the tyranny of distance. Okay. Next, build trust without proximity. This can be very difficult. So much of people getting to know each other happens through being around each other, right? This is why,
35:36 you know, we we talk about the difficulty of long-distance dating. It's very hard to create and maintain a relationship when two people are very far apart. They're never in, you know, immediate contact with each other. Nonetheless, in order to overcome the tyranny of distance, trust does have to be established, but it's not going to happen naturally in distributed teams. And so first and foremost to build trust
36:11 leadership has to exhibit consistent behavior. Okay. The best way to destroy trust is to be erratic in the kind of responses that you give team members. Okay? because they don't know what to expect and so they start to become reticent about raising an issue or communicating um some kind of news other than good news that sort of thing. So it is absolutely imperative that
36:48 leadership be very consistent in in in their behavior and that means not just in what is said but how it's said and in setting the tone. Okay. So, uh I I'm working with a client who is uh just hired an interior decorator uh for a home that they bought. And she sent out several documents for for for people to sign uh and and one of the things that she put in her contract, which I thought
37:24 was very interesting, is that there's an expectation that all interactions will be professional and cordial. That wasn't the exact word she used, but but it'll it'll suffice. And when I first saw, I'm like, "Wow." And then I thought about it, you know, I bet a lot of clients when they get mad, they just go off on their designer. And that's not appropriate. And if she's experienced that more than once, I can see why she puts that in her
37:59 contract. Because if a client starts doing that too often, if I were her, I'd fire the client. Okay? So, we need to be we need to set the expectations on behavior and then be consistent with th and then act consistently with those expectations and that will build trust. Okay? And then if there is an aberant situation, it won't destroy everything. Okay? So look, sometimes people get
38:34 upset. Okay? Well, if we've been completely consistent for months and months and months and then something aberrant happens, people are much more likely to say, gosh, I wonder what's going on with Kevin. Why did he why did he do that? That's not how he normally behaves. Something must be wrong. Right? And then you know then it's you know may they may reach out to me or I may reach out to them. Hey hey hey you know what I have to apologize for my behavior. It it had nothing to do with any of the team members. There was something else going on uh and and I apologize for uh for not
39:10 you know behaving appropriately or something like that. Right? So that is key. Leadership has to model the kind of consistent behavior that is desired. Next, everyone has to follow through on commitments. Okay? Now, by the way, notice I said follow through on commitments, not meet commitments, because it will not always be the case that a commitment can be met. Okay? Sometimes meeting a commitment requires deliverables from somebody else. And so
39:47 following through on the commitment means keeping other members of the team apprised of what's going on. Okay? So if if if you've got a deliverable that's that's supposed that's due today and you realize you're not going to be able to meet that, you we have to let people know. It's always better to overcommunicate a little bit than undercommunicate and leave people wondering, well, I mean, you know, what what's going on with Kevin? and I thought we were supposed to have X Y or Z. No, just you know through whatever the channel is, make sure people know
40:23 what's going on so that they can plan accordingly. Okay. And then finally create visibility into decisions. Okay. So when a decision is made it's not sufficient to just say okay here's the decision. it the why was the decision made that way? Give people some insight in some visibility into what the the various issues that were considered in reaching the decision because we need to get buy in from our team members. Okay.
41:00 And while in some cases a decision may have to be implemented in a very directive way. This is a decision go for it. that should be reserved for crisis times. In general, people team members should be accorded the respect of having decisions explained to them so that they can understand how those decisions were reached. The all the information should be socialized with them, their input uh sought and and and and received before the decision is
41:36 made. All of that is part of giving visibility into decisions and building trust. Okay? So most people they don't have to always get their way in order to trust someone. What they have to get is is the respect that their position demands in terms of proper influence on decisions. Okay. So through these mechanisms we can build trust. Okay. again consistent behavior following through on commitments and giving visibility into decisions. Now all of
42:13 trust has to be engineered not assumed. Okay. And as leaders we've got to make sure that it gets engineered. [snorts] Okay. Next I I mentioned this uh toward the beginning of the show. We need to push authority closer to the work. Okay. The farther away we are from our team members, the more authority should be pushed to the local team, okay, that overcomes things like delay in decision making and delay in communication, right? And so centralized control, it
42:51 slows down distributed teams. So we've got to counteract that by pushing authority out. So again, empower local decision makers. Okay. And as much as possible, reduce dependency on headquarters, right? So align decisions with intent. That's why I started out by saying intent has to be crystal clear. If your team members in the field are crystal clear as to your intent, then
43:26 they can align their decisions, the decisions they're making locally as well as possible. Okay? And they're not going to need to constantly be coming back to you in order to get decisions made, which delays the whole process. Okay? So speed requires local authority. Okay? And you can see that part of of granting local authority is going to be mutual trust. That's why I tal talked about trust first. But if you build if you build mutual trust and you build the right
44:01 communication channels and systems, if you are crystal clear about intent, so then you can confidently push authority forward and be well assured that your intent is going to be fulfilled and things are going to work more more smoothly in the face of the tyranny of distance. Okay, fine. Finally, last one. Not fine. Finally, last one. Design for asynchronous execution, right? So, global teams cannot re cannot rely on
44:39 real time coordination, right? Um, going back to the example I gave where, you know, someone is in England and someone's in the United States. If it's early in the morning in England, it's the middle of the night here. That's just, you know, coordination is going to be difficult. And by the way, people need to get their sleep in order to operate properly. So we can't constantly be having team members in the United States being woken up to to coordinate uh issues. Nor, by the way, if if we're, you know, in the afternoon in the United States, can we be calling team members in England in the middle of the night and waking them up. Neither one of those
45:14 is going to be is going to work, especially as a routine way of handling matters. Okay? In an emergency, maybe that is what has to happen. But it can't be it can't be part of the system for asynchronous. It can't be part of the system for communication. So there's got to be ways of dealing with matters asynchronously. Okay? And so create systems that don't require immediate response. Okay? So if if headquarters has to make certain decisions, okay, those should be decisions that don't
45:49 require immediate response, okay? And the people in the field should know, okay, if you need a decision at this level, just know it's going to be 24 to 48 hours uh before you get that decision once you submit the question or submit the issue. Right? So create those expectations, okay? So that they're not expecting uh an immediate response. Number one. Number two, document knowledge thoroughly. So in the case in cases where uh headquarters has reserved
46:26 decision making, okay, whenever they do make a decision, make sure they're documented. Okay? And in that way, if a similar issue comes up in the future and for whatever reason the decision has to be made more quickly than the normal response time, people can see how the decision was made in the past and they can use that as guidance in how to make that decision in the face of not being able to, you know, get a live decision so to speak from headquarters. Okay? and and and this is all by way of enabling
47:01 people to work across time zones effectively. So this is where you know email can be good, a slack channel can be good. These things can be documented but you know if I'm asleep my email can come in and I can respond to it the next morning. Uh so these kinds of so this is where technology helps inter in ter income come overcome the tyranny of distance by providing asynchronous communication. Okay. So the hidden risk in the tyranny of distance is communication drift. So um
47:39 as as organizations disperse right they they the priorities can get misaligned. um there can be inconsistent standards, there can be a fragmented culture and so the the the shift is not dramatic. It's actually gradual. These things you know the the the fabric of the company starts to fray over time from you know a hundred little things that are not being wellcoordinated accumulating and then at some point there's there's there's a now there's a big problem. So uh without without
48:16 correction to these all these little things so strategy fragments uh um execution diverges and performance declines. So as as is the case with so many of the execution issues that we've talked about on the 24 uh episode campaign, leadership discipline is essential. So, uh, leaders have to overcommunicate without creating just useless noise. Okay, I mentioned that um a few minutes ago. Okay, make sure make sure that
48:54 you're not undercommunicating. Okay, and even if so, always uh always heir on the side of a little bit of overcommunication. Number two, reinforce priorities on a consistent basis. We talked about that at the very beginning. Invest in systems, not just conversations. Okay? So, you may have to invest in some technology. You will you may have to invest in writing down some procedures and writing down what we talked about last week, some afteraction reports so
49:29 people can see how decisions were made. Okay? And then leaders have to continuously monitor alignment. They can't do just a set and go when teams are dispersed, when there's a lot of distance. They've got to be actively keeping track of what's going on and keeping everything in alignment. Okay. So, uh, dealing with the tyranny of distance requires an intentional effort, not passive management. So, what does this mean for, you know, modern business
50:05 organizations? Well, organizations that master the tyranny of distance, they move faster despite geography and distance. They maintain alignment across teams and they can scale without losing control. Those that do not, they experience friction and execution. They lose clarity and accountability and they fall behind more complic more competent competitors. Right? So this is really what's at stake in dealing with the tyranny of distance. So finally, keep in mind distance is not just physical. It's
50:43 organizational because it has as much to do with cultural issues, trust and communication as it does the actual physical distance. Okay? So the greater the distance, the greater the need for clarity, for trust and for structure. So in a war that makes that those mean the difference between victory and defeat and in a business it determines whether a strategy survives and thrives or whether it falls prey to reality.
51:19 So I thank you very much for joining me today and uh Lament, it's good to see you. I mentioned you earlier in the show. You might have heard uh tomorrow uh let's see schedule of shows uh 10:00 a.m. Mondays uh 10 a.m. Pacific time Mondays trust and estates weekly 10:00 a.m. Tuesdays like today uh um business lessons from the military 10 a.m. Pacific time Wednesdays people making money and then every other Thursday at 5:00 p p.m. Pacific time is my show Jiggers. This place where we have a cocktail and schmoo and talk about things completely unrelated to finances.
51:56 So if you have any questions, comments, criticisms, uh uh links to social media and my email address will be in the show notes. My shows are on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcast, so you can watch it on your favorite platform. And that just leaves me to again thank you very much for joining me. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times my friends.