0:00 lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemmel and we are here every Tuesday morning at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about business um sorry business military Doctrine military history uh great military leadership military practices and how we can translate them into our business and professional lives so that we can take these um well-learned lessons and um improve how our business businesses run how we handle our professional activities so uh
0:36 have a little music in the background here I don't know if you can hear it but we're gonna we're gonna turn off the music now and um we're gonna jump right in today talking about basic training so if you saw any of the social media posts about today's episode so I talked about or it it highlighted the goals of basic training and I think those go goals are really Universal in terms of how we bring people into our organizations and so I put together a uh
1:12 a short presentation um and and I think this is what we're after doing we we want to model our onboarding to basic training or model it on basic training so um the way we bring people in can I think make a a big difference in whether they become effective members of our teams employees leaders Etc and so that's what we're going to talk about uh today so um let's let's uh jump right into it
1:48 here and there we go so for those of you who are new to the show everything in the way to wow shows is based on the three pillars of attainment and if you're interested in knowing more about this so um just uh go to our YouTube channel that's youtube.com/ at the way to wow and there is a whole show dedicated to explaining the three pillars of attainment uh we're dealing in the finances realm generally speaking although we do get involved in relationships and other issues as
2:23 well and okay so the the goals of basic training really boil down to three categories physical fitness and skills discipline and teamwork and Leadership and decision making okay now that's not to say that these are all handled individually often times the the types of uh exercises that the different training Evolutions are are designed to develop
2:58 you know more than one of these okay so I'll give you now I I didn't go through enlisted basic training I went through something called at the time officer indoctrination school ois it has a different name now I think it's called ODS if I'm not U mistaken and it's it's for staff Corp officers who are what are called direct accessions meaning um we come into the military directly from uh private life from uh yeah from
3:34 uh civilian life I should say um without uh uh going through um the longer uh training process that line officers go through so uh a staff core officer would be for example me I was a chaplain um lawyers what are known as J Jags J Judge Advocate Corp um Judge Advocate General core those are Jags so they they're direct concessions doctors nurses um all sorts of uh medical personnel officers
4:10 all of all of us are um come into directly and we go through kind of an abbreviated um what amounts to basic training for officers okay and then enlisted people go through what is typically call now what is now called basic training um but what oftentimes is still referred to as boot camp okay um and and depending on the service Branch there are different ways that it happen so in the Marine Corps basic training is the same for officers and enlisted that's part of the Marine Corps ethos
4:47 okay and and and in the Marine Corps um Everybody the the the sort of the saying in the Marine Corps is um every Marine is first and foremost a Rifleman um and I used to joke unless she's a rifle woman um but um while there are Marine Corps lawyers for example um they start out um as as all officers do and then after they go through regular officer training um then they they sort of Branch off into their specialty okay now there aren't uh
5:23 Marine Corps doctors or Marine Corps chaplain um be because um uh chaplain and medical personnel cannot uh handle weapons in an offensive stance um so they they can't be Riflemen and so the Navy provides those officers to the Marine Corps um and so but but um you know oftentimes there are there are similar um uh similarities between even what I went through officer indoctrination school and and basic
6:00 training so one of the things um we we got to do was it's called The Confidence course they used to call it an obstacle course you have different things that you have to do crawl up these sort of rope ladders and that kind of stuff and um part of it uh is used to bolster physical fitness physical skills um but also um the same exercises can be used to Foster teamwork um it can also Foster decision-making and Leadership so um one of the um uh really fun activities we
6:38 got to do in ois was called Buttercup so Buttercup is a simulator of a sinking ship if you can imagine and you're in this sort of it's it's it's not really a tank per se but it's it's this sort of mockup of the inside of a ship and um and then things start to go wrong wrong um water starts leaking in pipes start bursting water is coming up and you know and you've got to save the ship right and so it really Falls to somebody to sort of you know take the leadership role and start directing and
7:13 coordinating and create teamwork um build discipline Etc and um you know if you get the league stopped or whatever and then you know great and sometimes uh which was the case with my group as I recall um I I think we at least functionally drowned you know so so these different exercises that you go through depending on your service branch and and what type of basic training you go through oftentimes they have multiple multiple goals okay so uh let's move on all right so let's
7:48 talk about now physical fitness and and skills and how we can translate these into um the the the the business world if you will okay so um it is probably not the case that you know you're going to have a big physical fitness program um for for people coming into your organization for you know for new hes um I mean by by the way that might be something to consider giving um the overall poor physical condition of of of
8:24 a lot of people in the United States um but um you know most companies few companies of any I should say I think have real physical fitness training really in in the in the civilian World we're talking more about basic skills training okay now having said that um while we may not go through physical fitness training itself I think that we want to be mindful of the physical and mental and maybe even spiritual well-being of the people people in on our team and and
9:02 so we certainly want them to be aware of what the policies are of our company in terms of well-being and you know to to rely on an a new hire to you know to give them a link to you know a a website or something like that sayy check this out about well-being you know that that may not be sufficient because they're new they're they're you know trying to get their feet under them trying to figure out all the the people and and and all
9:37 kinds of things and so you know they may not be particularly focused on figuring out what the policies are with respect to to well-being so I think it it it's worthwhile to have you know kind of a sit down with new employees and actually brief them them on these these policies and and and how the company uh wants is you know how the company plans to support their well-being okay whether
10:12 it's whether it's health insurance whether there are um incentives for healthy living within your health insurance program or even outside of it as part of the company there's there's all kinds of things going on like this now in in organizations um both for-profit and nonprofit and I think it behooves us so generally speaking in in the military um while there is some online training um there's a lot of in-person briefs um and one of the reasons is to
10:50 start to create the kind of uh cohesion that is necessary to build an effective team so having people go through certain experiences together tends to bind them together so you may say well it's it's it's you know it's boring to sit through um a brief on the company's uh well-being policies well I mean that may be but they they probably can be presented in a non-boring way even if they are not the most
11:25 scintilating you know even if it's not the most scintilating subject that a bunch of new people go through it together gives them something to talk about and bond Bond over like wow that's you know 45 minutes of our life we're never going to get back that was so boring and yet um having introduced them to the subject it's still in the back of their minds that these programs the are available and and and that you know the company has policies um on these topics so um that's that's one idea for um
12:01 taking the goals of boot camp and and building them into your onboarding another um uh aspect would be use of technology so although especially younger people are probably coming to your firm with with you know pretty Sound Skills in at least basic skills in terms of using technology you may be using either proprietary technology or specialized technology that uh you know they may not be familiar with and you know you can just sort of throw them into the pool so to
12:37 speak and let them sink or swim however it may be much better to plan some um you know some uh group trainings or some one-on-one trainings uh on the technology so that um new people can really see how this works so if you can imagine in the military if you're going into well really any of the branches especially if you're enlisted so one of the types of training you're going to have is fire Small Arms training uh rifles and uh and and pistols okay now can you imagine uh you
13:14 know going online to complete uh you know training to use these weapons I mean not effective frankly you have to be able to shoot them um you know and have um practice firing these weapons in order to become proficient with them now of course some people enter the military more proficient with small arms than others um nonetheless again the experience of being trained handson in this technology that is you know probably these days new to far more
13:49 people entering the military than it was in former times when um use of firearms was was more widespread um so um again it's it's it it fills other goals of of basic training to do uh you know a practicum if you will a practical training and the same can be embedded in your training for getting people um up to speed on technology that you're using okay finally um mentorship so um mentorship you may say well that
14:26 falls more into team building and and Leadership well perhaps in this case what I'm what I'm talking about is one-on-one mentorship um with respect to um certain types of skills so I mentioned technology and and maybe you know there there's a there's a space if you will for doing one-on-one training on technology that it let's say you're some kind a professional firm you're an accounting firm or a law firm and there
15:03 are certain types of skills that um new lawyers and accountants they don't learn them in in college and they don't necessarily learn them by passing the accounting exam or or the bar so having a one-on-one mentors helping them learn these new skills um in in face-to-face sessions can be a very effective way to help new people start building relationships that will tie them into the firm now of course they'll they should have the freedom to um choose other mentors
15:41 especially mentors about their career progression and that sort of thing um but with respect to particular skills it may make a lot of sense to identify people in your organization that are particularly well-versed in these skills and and let them Mentor a few people each um a few new people each to get them up to speed and in that way help people understand where to go when they have a problem in a particular area and that way the best practices get spread throughout your firm um by the people
16:17 who really know how to work a particular issue a particular skill okay so that's that's kind of goal number one there all right so discipline and teamwork so in in in this respect or in this goal I think is is is going to be pretty similar to the goals that you that I'm sorry the military's goal is going to be pretty similar to uh the type of to the goal that you might have for your organization now um you know you you may
16:52 not be you may you may not want to need to be creating as strict a disciplinary um uh hierarchy if you will as as the military needs because you're not in an existential you know Venture nonetheless discipline about how things happen in your company um c will be a very important aspect okay so um first of all um when it comes to dealing within the hierarchy within your company okay how is how is that going to work so
17:30 is it a very strict what we call the military chain of command where people don't jump over the head of their supervisor or is it a looser kind of chain of command where um it and perhaps a very flat chain of command where people interact in a in a much Freer way okay and by the way um lest you think that that the um military only operates in one way that is not the case so so an aviation Squadron although it has I should say a Naval Aviation Squadron that's what I'm familiar with while it
18:07 certainly has a hierarchy and all of that um It's Not Unusual for you know a very Junior enlisted person to interact directly with the um commanding officer the co or the executive officer the EXO of the Squadron same even more the case on on a submarine now these are small units submarine may have a fast attack boat may only have you know a little over a hundred people on it and so and and and running at Optimum is absolutely crucial for a submarine which oftentimes is out
18:43 by itself it's not communicating with anybody else um in order to keep its position secret and so the the captain will will listen to the most Junior person if that if he has an idea about how to improve operation ations okay so what is who who is a new hire supervisor how does the hierarchy work um what are the expectations and and by the way it's important for the supervisors to know that as well some supervisors May resent a a a climate where their their direct
19:20 reports can talk to other people um who may be senior to them in the hierarchy about various matters um and and that's that's that that's a concern that shouldn't be just sort of Po poo pooed and pushed off to the side okay we don't you probably don't want a situation where your supervisors are feeling like their subordinates are going behind their back okay so there may be there may need to be ground rules as to what kinds of issues can be you know dealt with you know outside of going directly
19:56 to your supervisor okay okay maybe you can do it when when there's a an issue where it's felt that the supervisor has engaged in some kind of misconduct okay um May but maybe not maybe you know the the deal is you know you need to talk to the your your supervisor first um and see if it can be worked out at that low level before you go on okay all of this is depends on your company culture all of those kind of things but they definitely want to be thought out um clearly and and you want
20:31 to develop your culture and that's something that you will see beginning in basic training in that's something you see beginning in basic training in the military okay team team building needs to I would argue needs to be a part of your onboarding process always it's very rare these days that anything happens in an organization where only one person is is doing it almost everything happens as a team and so starting to build a team mindset the ability of
21:08 people to work together from the onboarding process is is crucial to your organization's success most likely okay and and this is one of the I think one of the most important parts of basic training in the military is so much is done as as a as a group as a team um even something like a one-on-one skill like I was talking about small Firearms Small Arms training um it's still done as a group okay and there's there's oftentimes some competition who can shoot the best this kind of thing okay
21:45 and so um that's that's one way to build a team is is by some healthy competition where people are interacting and kind of a you know in that competitive Spirit um other times teamwork is strictly we need to be able to work together and all kind of you know push the load up the hill in a coordinated way and that's another type of of of team building that I think you're going to want to build into your onboarding as well now I I I I'll I'll digress here for a minute you know clearly we're talking about an onboarding process that that is it's
22:20 we're not just talking about a day of onboarding okay and and I I think if you want to have effective employees and team members real team members so onboarding needs to be thought of as um a period of time maybe two weeks maybe a month may maybe it needs to be more than that okay basic training in in the military I think could be anywhere from seven to 10 or 12 weeks okay and and the Marine Corps I think has the longest basic training um I know my my officer indoctrination course was only um I
22:56 think it was five weeks if I remember correctly five weeks maybe seven at the most okay so depending on you know what level the employee is the team member is at depending on what they need to learn and know um you know that you may have different um lengths of of an onboarding process but I would encourage you to think of onboarding as being a period of time not just um a a you know a set of you know do these five things online and now you're on Ed and we've got your paperwork and you're good to go okay
23:31 okay finally is spree of core this may be the single most important aspect of military basic training is creating this um sense of belonging and being a part of something bigger than the individual okay now in in my training and I think this is generally the case throughout um basic training um we we did a lot of marching you know I mean I like what
24:06 does a chaplain need to March for you would you would say well the thing about marching is you've got to do it all in Rhythm you've got to stay in line you have to keep your intervals it's it's a team building um uh function but it's also it it develops discipline and it it also it gives you this sense of being part of the unit especially um we had a we we had a a a fellow he was a um a Marine Corps I think he was a Staff Sergeant or
24:41 a Gunnery Sergeant I I don't remember his his raid any longer um and he had become a chaplain and so he knew how to conduct drills and so he really drilled us and and and he could do all the calls and left right left right all this kind of stuff and it was like it was like you really felt like wow I'm really becoming part of the military okay and we we would have um you know sometimes we do it in our I mean we started out doing it on these overalls they gave us but then like we would we would put on our service dress blues with our our white covers and we'd be marching as a group
25:16 and so I think sometimes we even had a you know flag and you you just really kind of feel it getting into your your insid the yish word is your kishkas when you do that kind of a spree to core building activity and it really made you feel like something like you were part of something I should say so another um uh interesting way of building a spre de cor that we experienced was um if you did something wrong typically there was a punishment for it now the punishment
25:52 was usually push-ups okay so so for example if you passed one of the training Chiefs and you did not give him the greeting of the day good morning Chief or good afternoon Chief or whatever it was he he would stop you now I don't think I don't think I ever got ding for that but if he had like Mr bemel yes Chief uh did you forget something when you passed me uh oh good morning Chief you know something like that he's like Mr bimble that'll cost you 20 you know and so I you know I could do it right then and there you know 20 push-ups Bang out okay
26:28 thank you Mr bemel you know carry on you know and off I go um and um at one point something happened um and and um and I I got deemed for something and I'm doing my push-ups and I'm I'm smiling to the point of almost laughing um and uh and and after I go to the foots the the chief comes up to me kind of quietly he's like Mr bmel why were you laughing or why were you smiling I'm like well
27:03 Chief I suddenly got an insight into who my dad is and why he did certain things because he was an officer in the Navy and and he probably has had some similar experiences to what I'm going through now and it really what just happened here made me remember a story he told me one time and and it it just really connected me with my dad and I felt that very deep and you know you might say h you know crusty old you know Navy chief petty officer you know nothing like that he he I think he was really uh affected by my
27:40 telling him that um because he could feel the the tradition of the Navy actually happening okay could you imagine what that would mean to your organization if you could bring that a sense like that a sort of generational feeling of a spree to core to your organization that would really be something right and and that's again one of the things that the military does so so well so so powerfully and if we can build some things like that now now
28:16 we're probably not going to you know make people do push-ups for infractions you know in our businesses that's just probably not going to work but we could probably come up with some ideas that that would create the same sense of involvement in the in our organizations okay so that's that's the second goal we're we're running a little bit behind here all right finally um leadership and decisionmaking so um in in this case so each new hire needs to develop some conditions of
28:54 satisfaction they need to understand what would make my being here a satisfactory experience now you might say well I'm giving them paycheck they should work well okay fine right um and if you're if you're content with a lot of turnover then then perhaps that philosophy works if you however um want to maintain employee loyalty team loyalty then part of that is going to come
29:29 from how satisfied your people are with the experience of working in your organization okay and there are there are lots of polls out um I I I read one I think as recently as the last week or so that a significant percentage of especially younger people will take less money if they have a a greater sense of satisfaction in their work be it a sense of having an impact on the organization or an impact on the the customers the
30:06 clients um a sense that that that that they're they have a somewhat of a say in guiding the organization or or they have some impact on on the direction the organization takes all of these things can be very important to team members and so I think part of the onboarding process should involve them un not them understanding helping them come to understand what are their condition their professional conditions of satisfaction and how do those mesh with
30:41 your organization because if you can do that you can build loyalty and you can build uh longevity among the people that you're working with okay now coupled closely with that then is once you understand the conditions of satisfaction then you can help them understand what are the growth opportunities in your organization okay and this is both these are both decision-making but also leadership functions okay and and on on on your part and on the people of uh on
31:18 the part of the people that you have handling um on boarding for for your for your firm for your organization okay but there also how how does our organization build leaders that may be one of the growth opportunities and so as you talk about that with your new hires okay and some of it can be done as a group and some of it can be done one-on-one maybe with you know a formal Mentor or with informal mentors um who you know help uh someone's supervisor um understand um
31:55 where somebody wants to go um you know keep keeping in mind that we don't want people feeling like their you know their personal business is being trotted out um in the company but if you know if someone has a mentor and and that Mentor gets a sense of what some what a new hire's condition of satisfaction are what kind of growth opportunities might be good for them you know the mentor might say you know this is something I'd like to talk to your supervisor about so they can understand better um how to how to work with you and you know I can do that more sort of peer-to-peer perhaps than then you can sort of you know um supervise to supervisor and if if if you
32:33 feel that that would be something worthwhile then I'd be happy to do that you know these kinds of situations can be worked out okay and finally uh um help the person to understand their role in in your organization what really I mean are they just a cog that you can replace tomorrow with a new hire I mean and if so you may not want to point point that out but but they're going to pick up on it pretty quickly if if they're if if if they're really viewed as not being um at all necessary to the organization so they're going to pick that up so I think it behooves um us as
33:12 business owners and and our our our senior leadership our Frontline supervisors all of us need to understand what are the roles that new people are going to be taking on how do we describe those roles to them articulate them and and then how do we get them to understand where the growth opportunities are for them based on you know Performance Based on getting additional training etc etc etc helping them understand how that's going to develop over time okay and again this is
33:48 something that the military does very well so now of course the military is a hierarchal hierarchical organization and if you saw my show last week we talked about Army organization and and you know you start out as a private and then a PFC and then a Corporal and then a sergeant Etc and from officers you start out as a second Lieutenant a first lieutenant Captain Etc it's different for the Navy but but but whatever it's very clear and for example in the Marine Corps once you become um a PFC I'm sorry once you become uh once you advance from
34:24 PFC to Corporal so now you have an opport to go to something called the corporals course it's your first leadership course and then when you advance to Sergeant you go to the Sergeant's course and then the staff Sergeant's course and the Gunnery Sergeant's course so these are all mapped out okay and it's all training designed to help Marines Advance grow their careers um continue to get satisfaction in in being a member of the Marine Corps now you can do the same thing um in your organization it may not be as regimented because you're not as
34:59 big as the Marine Corps fine okay but you can still do things like that to give people a a sort of a a clear path or a clearer path um as to how they can potentially put themselves in line to advance through your organization okay one of the things I used to talk about um when I ran a coaching program for people coming out of the military is the advancement in the military is is is pretty linear and it's somewhat of a a pyramid the higher you go the fewer people there are in in civilian life it's it's much more of a Meandering
35:35 Trail and it's one of the things that makes civilian life mo more difficult than military life um and I you know this may sound like heresy like well military life is much more difficult than civilian life in some ways it is you're you know probably rarely getting you know shot at in in civilian life although if you're a police officer maybe more often than you'd care to right but there are things about civilian life that are that are more difficult than military life and one of them is the much less defined route to
36:11 success okay and for someone coming out of a hierarchical organization that IL defined route to success can be very difficult to navigate okay and for people coming out of uh high school or college which are both also pretty regimented here in this country okay navigating that can be difficult it can be disheartening at times and so to that you know putting some um rigor some putting some rigor to it and and some
36:46 definition to it may really help our organization retain people um it may help us um really figure out who are the best people for us to be um you know looking at okay I think that's it um yep so these these will be in the show notes if you if you have any questions you want any help again always feel free to reach out to me happy to answer your emails um by the way during the show you can um put uh uh comments and questions in um uh you know in the various social media Outlets they all show up here um and I can respond to
37:21 them in real time uh and we just have some legal stuff okay good go ahead and close this out so that's that's our show for today uh I hope you found it useful some ideas on how you can um build or improve a truly effective onboarding process for your organization and uh you know I do want to emphasize again that uh you know obviously military is a big organization they can spend you know tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars developing basic training and all of that and you may not have those kind of resources fine yeah I I get it um that's
38:00 why I encourage you to look at what the military does in basic training because you can just borrow those ideas okay um and and really dig in you can you can do some additional research on them um I'm going to look at having some um some guests uh this year who can talk in more detail about basic training and how it works and why they do certain things um because I think that how we bring people into our organization is a a crucial aspect of building uh building success so thank you very much
38:35 for joining me uh just want to mention tomorrow at 10: am is uh my show people making money that's 10 AM uh Pacific time and so I hope you'll join me um and I I don't remember what the topic is but I'm I'm pretty sure you'll find it interesting uh no it's not coming to me I I I know I already put together the presentation for it um but uh it's not coming to me but I'm sure you'll if follow social media and and and and it will tell you what it's about and then next week Monday at 10: am Pacific time is the next edition of um trust and
39:12 Estates weekly and I invite you to uh join me for that so thanks again for tuning in wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie you are my bell all the best folks