0:06 hello and welcome to the way to wow business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel I'm going to try and sit up straight right like my mother taught me um and uh this is our regular Tuesday uh broadcast uh we we're here every Tuesday 10 30 a.m West uh Pacific Coast time and uh 1 30 p.m East Coast time and an hour in for Central and mountain time and our purpose here is to look at military Doctrine military history great military leaders and take what they used to
0:45 effectively uh fight war and fight Wars and and engage in combat and Lead their their troops or their Sailors and turn them into lessons that we can use in our businesses whether it's our own company or whether we work for an organization it doesn't really matter these lessons translate um equally well so uh they're not all Leadership Lessons um some of them are just ideas that we
1:20 have to wrestle with in order to run a business or run a division of a business successfully others them um others of them are more directly leadership oriented so it's it's kind of a a mixed bag um having said that excuse me I think you will find that um these these lessons will be useful to you as you deal with the ever-changing um climate for business um you know I I um pardon me I'm reminded of something that
1:56 happened uh relatively early in my business career at the time I was sharing an office with one of my clients and his father who was uh semi-retired he was probably as I think about it now about the ace the age that I am now he took he took his son and me out to lunch and we were just sitting and you know eating our food and just chatting and and at one point he turned to us and he said he said you know I don't know how you young guys do it it's just business changes so fast these days and mind you
2:34 this was back gosh you know I think I want to say the early early 1990s maybe the mid 1990s um at the latest and if you can imagine you know they're about 30 years ago right and and the pace of change has has we've all experienced has only gotten greater it seems like the challenges have gotten greater things things are more complex and so it takes a lot more uh thought and and I would argue a lot more courage to run a business these
3:10 days and and that's why I I launched this particular program I think there are more similarities between warfighting Doctrine and running a business today perhaps than ever excuse me even though I I do not equate uh running a business to the kind of existential uh situation that you know that that people face in in combat um you know coming out of World War II um it was it was an interesting time
3:45 because so many people had been in the military and or um connected with the military and and the government and and or large organizations providing materiel for the war efforts so the idea of of working in a um a disciplined environment in a chain of commands so to speak a hierarchical organization didn't phase them I think nearly as much as it as it does now and yet within those organizations because of how
4:20 things worked on the battlefield for American forces um I I I think they naturally did certain things that that perhaps today were less likely to do so what I mean by that is um one of the Hallmarks of American success in World War II was the initiative taken by what are called non-commissioned officers so um all branches of the military are
4:55 basically separated into three sort of classes if you will of personnel so there's enlisted personnel there are what what are called warrant officers and and warrant officers carried what was called a warrant hence the name and a warrant was different than the third Group which was the leadership group called commission officers so commissioned officers were commissioned by The Sovereign so in in England that was the king or queen in the United States that was essentially
5:31 the federal government which is which derives its power from The Sovereign the people in in this country whereas warrant officers were given a a piece of paper a warrant if you will um and the fact of the matter is the number of officers warrant and commissioned in the in the various branches was small percentage-wise relative to the number of enlisted personnel and the enlisted personnel were basically divided into three groups there was this sort of
6:06 you know basic enlisted people the soldiers the Marines the semen the Airmen then there was what are called um uh oh shoot I've lost the term motion um non-commissioned officers ncos so in the Navy this is uh Petty officers third through first class in the Army in the Marine Corps corporals and sergeants okay um and then in and then the highest level of enlisted officer were what are called sncos senior non-commissioned
6:43 officers okay so that would be a Staff Sergeant or above in in the Army and Marine Corps in the Navy it was chief petty officers and the thing about these senior non-commissioned officers is they had typically been in the military for quite some time they had a lot of experience not just training more Junior people but also training Junior officers okay now they didn't train warrant officers by the way typically warrant
7:18 officers were enlisted people with a lot of experience who were then sort of elevated to this rank of Warrant Officer they had a particular technical specialty and that's why they were made a warrant officer um they were in some ways relieved from the training duties that a senior non-commissioned officer had and it was the ability to train and Lead that made the by by senior non-commissioned officers that made the American Military so effective and so you would have a
7:53 sergeant who might be in his you know late 30s and he's dealing with his platoon commander who I'm sorry not a notice I shouldn't say a sergeant he probably was like a Staff Sergeant or or perhaps a technical Sergeant um and he was dealing with his platoon commander who might be uh literally 22 year old first lieutenant and the culture of the army was such that the first that that pretty green first
8:28 lieutenant would know to look to that seasoned staff sergeant in order to understand better what he needed to do how he needed to act the decisions he needed to make and oftentimes that when all was said and done it was that staff sergeant who was exercising the the the combat lead the sort of minute-by-minute combat leadership so there was a sense of ideas moving throughout the ranks and
9:03 and and The Taking of initiative even by in theory more Junior uh people they were Junior perhaps they were Junior in that they were seeing your non-commissioned officers as opposed to commissioned officers but they weren't Junior in years or experienced and so that all worked pretty well and but as we moved out of the World War II era and these hierarchies continue to exist in business people didn't have that that experience that Battlefield experience anymore and
9:38 so these hierarchies hardened in a way that more Junior people felt less comfortable I think voicing ideas for improvement and more senior people were less open to hearing them they hadn't been you know they didn't have a test of fire in that culture and and and and and eventually I think and this is for example if you look at what happened with the automobile industry in in the 1970s where it fell way behind it's it's German and Japanese competitors I think
10:15 that's one of the reasons why is that that they the the there was a loss of this inner flow of uh or interchange of ideas from the people who are actually executing the mission building the cars getting up to the leadership ranks and the leadership ranks are thinking hey I know what I'm doing I you know I don't need to hear from these people okay now if you were to go if you were to go into the military during those times it was a much smaller military of course than than during World War II but that exchange was still taking in place it's just as as people left the military in
10:50 the 60s and into the 70s they just weren't enough of them to maintain that culture within the larger civilian culture the way there had been post-world War II and to a much lesser extent even post-korean War where a lot of the people in Korea had had fought during World War II as well so um I I think that there's a lot to be learned by looking at how the military military branches operate what their doctrines are Etc and so I just I you know I thought I'd kind of throw a little bit of that history out there I'm
11:26 a history buff I I hope you find those kind of things interesting and and perhaps uh those those stories will encourage you to investigate more do some some reading about military history um and I'll I'll give a I'll give a plug for the Society of military history the president of of the Society of military history SMH is a friend of mine Jennifer Spielman of a very very talented um professor at the Merchant Marine Academy me and actually Jennifer was a
12:01 guest on my other show on Wednesday uh the way to wow people making money um and and and had a a number of great ideas again you know she's coming out of uh of the immersion in well I mean the merchant Merchant Marine is is not the military per se but it runs in a a fairly significantly similar way and so Jennifer being immersed in that uh environment can you know brought that
12:36 perspective to many of the things she talked about so I invite you to uh go to our YouTube channel um youtube.com at the way to wow show I think is is is our uh our URL and and check out um Jennifer's show and and in fact uh you know a Shameless plug right do subscribe and and I think you will find you'll you'll learn uh quite a bit by looking at past episodes as well as um viewing upcoming episodes so um now so so for today's topic we're
13:13 we're continuing examining Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and I'm I'm chuckling because last week I I continued with what I thought was the second uh uh presentation of of some information on um various uh principles and after I got done with that I looked back and I realized oops I hadn't done the first one so I'm gonna I'm gonna jump back and do the first part that that I missed and so last week's show is is out of order
13:48 for this one unfortunately but you know listen you know uh what can I say uh you know I guess you would you could call it a senior moment right um uh you know um that that's just how it goes sometimes let's let's uh get the show going here okay so in any event you know here's our our uh um our our PowerPoint presentation that that we that I used uh last week only this time we're not going to skip the first lesson oops uh what did I do here there we go so um we're talking about the nature of business now
14:25 oh wait I think I skipped something yeah there we go so you know as always um and I'm not gonna uh cover this in any depth but all of what I do is based on the three pillars of attainment so um you can look at previous episodes if you want uh an explanation a more in-depth explanation of what that's all about I want to get into our our the nature of business so so last week I dealt with fluidity and disorder um thinking I had already covered friction and uncertainty but indeed I hadn't so we're I'm gonna talk about the
15:00 in terms of the nature of business which comes from the nature of warfare friction and uncertainty so friction as the the word you know means is things don't go smoothly right there there's there is um things that that you know if if you've ever tried to you know drag um you know a a big rock across dirt it it doesn't go so smoothly because the friction between the Rock and the dirt slows you down there's there's ridges on
15:35 the rock that dig into the dirt that slow you down and and those kind of things you know as opposed to if you can picture you know an old old-time plow from uh you know the 1800s that steel blade was made to cut furrows in the ground with the least amount of friction possible so we'd like to have our businesses acting like if as if they're that plow making that neat very low friction cut into you know into the business world but the reality is that's just not how how business works so we have to deal with the fact that
16:12 oftentimes there are things going on in the business that are that are not going to go smoothly and rather than you know kind of wishing and hoping that the friction will go away we're much better dealing with the reality of the friction and putting processes into place for for overcoming that friction as as best and as quickly as possible okay so I was I was having a conversation with a friend of mine last night about this and one of
16:47 the things that that we were talking about is sometimes we let our our niceness get get in the way of really what I would say is being kind but also being effective in our businesses so there might be an employee that we have who really just they're they're in the wrong position they're they're unable to handle some aspect of their job maybe the leadership aspect maybe the creative
17:23 aspect and yet we we hold on to them because we feel like well maybe they'll they'll grow into the job or they'll they'll mature and become a better leader and the reality is hoping and wishing is not a good way to overcome friction right we either need to get that employee training and and real training that that that solves um the the root of whatever is is holding that employee back or we need to do one of two other things we need to
17:58 put the employee in a different position or let the employee go it's not helpful for the business to keep the employee because the employee is creating friction that makes it harder for everybody else it's not good for our other employees to witness that there's this um you know um weak link if you will in the chain or there's this this Cog that is consistently seeming to sort of gum up the works and and and and that person is is held on to and and and and
18:35 makes their jobs harder and yet is really I mean and it's making their jobs harder right and so why is this person here but it's also not good for the employee himself so to keep someone in a position that they're just not appropriate for is is stunting their growth okay we either need to to help them grow into the position or let them go and hopefully they will
19:10 either either what we were doing was it motivation enough for them to to grow in that particular area or maybe it's just not something they're interested in doing and so forcing them to stay in that job um and and and deal with issues that they just don't want to deal with that's that's not kind at all that's it's it's this kind of slow torture almost obviously not literally but but better to let them move on and find something they're better suited for that they can enjoy more rather than
19:46 um keeping them there and and indeed if we were to put this back in a military context for a minute think about having someone in a you know a combat unit who is is unable to either exercise the kind of leadership that is needed in combat or exercise the technical skill I mean maybe they you know they launch mortars or they they handle a shoulder launch a shoulder uh yeah shoulder launch missiles or something and they're just not able to do it or maybe they deal with Communications and they they can't deal
20:21 with the complexity uh is it helping anybody out for that person to be in that job and the answer is no right because they're they're putting their own life in danger they're putting the lives of their colleagues in danger Etc so we can in that case where literally lives could be lost it's we would probably pretty quickly recognize look we got to get this person out of here that we've got to put them in a a a different job or just they just need to leave the military where and and we're less likely to do that in business and and that that may be okay as long as we're actively working to help the
20:58 person um make up their deficiencies but but that can only go on for so long and then and then the person has got to be reassigned or let go okay and and that's just that that's just how we have to deal with with friction if the friction in that you know is coming from a particular individual so in and I'm I'm looking here at the Marine Corps War fighting manual so um I I want to you give you a couple of uh examples of other types of friction and I didn't want to miss any of these because I think they're they're so interesting so I'm gonna actually just
21:34 read you a little bit of so friction may be mental as in indecision right and and the friend I was talking with last night that that was uh you know that we were talking about that as an issue that we didn't talk about it in the context of friction but when you think about it indecision on the part of leadership is causes friction and and the longer the indecision goes on especially once people have broadly seen that there's a problem here that needs to be dealt with the longer the indecision goes on the
22:11 more friction is created right and so one of the one of the best ways to reduce friction is to overcome indecision right and and that by the way is going to um lead into our next topic which is uncertainty and we'll talk about that um in in a minute so um it can also be physical there can be physical types of friction so for example they in this in in warfighting Doctrine they use you know enemy you're like you're having bullets coming at you that certainly creates friction we probably don't have that in the
22:47 business World hopefully not um I'm sorry but stray thought you know I was like unless we work in the post office God forbid um uh but um we do we can have uh physical friction for example if we have um two small a workplace or a workplace that is not set up to accommodate the activities that need to happen there so people are constantly almost fighting against their physical environment as they're trying to get their work done
23:23 and it's very very difficult so you know for a long time it was thought that these open work floor plans were great for productivity because people could interact more readily and all that kind of stuff and more you know recent more recent research has shown that indeed these open workspace plans are actually counterproductive to productivity because what they encourage is interruptions to people working and that sort of thing right so so there there again you know we've got
23:58 um we've got physical uh friction um uh a physical issue creating friction uh in the workplace so the friction can be external so that might be our competition they're creating friction for us if they've got a a a a product that's better than what we're selling so that's going to create friction for us or if they've got a more efficient way to deliver their product again that's creating friction for us because people
24:34 are gonna more are more likely to gravitate toward our competitor than than our business right but it can also be self-induced and I think this is this is a very uh cogent point in that if we're not clear what we're trying to accomplish we've created friction by that lack of clarity right because everybody people come to work each day and it's like okay well I guess I'm I'm
25:09 shipping stuff out today I I guess but but then if a problem comes up there's no basis from which to prioritize and determine how best to solve the problem because the goal for the company is is not clear right so the the more clear our mission the the clearer our goals and and the better we communicate that to the people we work with the less self-induced friction will have okay and and and I would as I have on other uh
25:46 shows a lot of dealing with the nature of business does come down to leadership so part of and and one of the big parts of leadership is recognizing where is there friction and how can I help my people deal with that friction hopefully of overcome it may be eradicated although we're not going to eradicate friction it is a constant in business because once we take care of friction in one area it's going to arise in another because the business environment changes
26:22 okay so it's that ever it's that ongoing pursuit of reduction of friction that is a key aspect of of leadership Okay so um we so so so friction I I think is one of the most important qualities of the nature of business that we should wrestle with and the more we the more quickly we can identify it in our business is the the the obviously the faster we can get to solving it okay and
26:57 and and as we we create that sort of identification solution cycle right we want to try and shorten the uh length of time to run through that cycle as best we can okay all right so let's now go to uncertainty so uncertainty is the reality that no matter what we do we are not going to know exactly what our competition is doing what what every
27:34 aspect of our our company is doing how people are going to respond in a given situation uncertainty is just a given because in the end we're human beings okay and even if we've known someone for a long long time they may still respond in a way that that we don't anticipate and certainly people we don't know well or people who are our competitors uh they're going to in some cases do their best to hide how they're going
28:10 to respond or or even um uh a trick is the wrong word but but mislead like sort of put out sort of false uh signals here and there so we think oh they're going to go over this way and then the next thing we know they're you know they're going in this other direction so uncertainty is an issue that again we just have to resign ourselves to to it and and deal with it as best we can and this is where um the this this uh idea of mental
28:47 friction and decision being one of them relates directly to uncertainty often times right indecision comes from uncertainty well if we if we only analyze this more if we only collect more data if we only do this if we only do that let's just wait a little bit longer right and and then and the picture will become clearer it might but something else might happen that will cause the picture to get fuzzier we can't be sure that the that the The View
29:26 will come into greater Focus if we wait longer and oftentimes what we need to do is make a good decision rather than delay trying to make the best decision or even worse the perfect decision there is no perfect decision right if you've probably heard the old saying um perfect is the enemy of the good and the better right what we want to strive for is good and Improvement always especially in our decision making okay
30:02 we're much better off after having given reasonable consideration to the various issues that that are confronting us making a decision moving forward and and then collecting feedback on how that decision is working and then if we have to we can modify that decision okay or we may need to retract it and decide something else okay that's not a sign of weakness I it feels like it viscerally right oh my gosh I made a mistake but
30:37 it's very it's a very very powerful aspect of leadership to essentially say to your people look I made the best decision I could at the time in order to help us move forward turned out not to be the right decision so now I think we need to change you know I've gotten input from a lot of people now we need to to change directions okay and and and I would say by the way that this is one reason why sort of I'm making big public announcements and all that kind of stuff is is oftentimes counterproductive because now a company publicly appears
31:15 to be committed to a particular decision and for the the the constituencies that that want that decision whether it's good for the company or not if we have to then change it we we risk um you know alienating those people so I think you know businesses would be better off you know keeping their keeping their own counsel so to speak and and and having a culture where we're we're striving to get better even as we make decisions and
31:51 you know but even as we try to I should say overcome indecision and make make decisions in a timely fashion that allow us to move forward knowing that oftentimes we're not going to be going in the exact direction we we we hope to go we're going to be kind of over here and so we're gonna have to correct and come back over here it's it's like the old uh idea of the you know the airplane flying from Los Angeles to Hawaii rarely is the airplane actually pointed directly at Honolulu typically it's it may it's making a path that goes like
32:27 this and it there's a constant series of Corrections that that keep the plane going in the direction of Honolulu Okay but never aimed directly are rarely aimed directly at it because of wind and various other forces that are acting on the airplane that's the same thing is true of of our uh uh of of our businesses so so friction and uncertainty are two aspects of the nature of business the more comfortable we can come become with their existence as as opposed to trying to eradicate
33:04 them the better will be so so so that's what I have for you today um and and like I said you could if you if you're watching the show now you can now go back to last week's show where I talk about the next two fluidity and disorder and you'll see I talk about them and say you know well last week we covered these two and forgetting that I hadn't but you'll see then how fluidity and disorder connect in terms of again the nature of business and you see again the fluidity and disorder are a natural part of business they're not going to go
33:39 away they they just keep going on and that's why I call this the nature of business it's just how business is right it's it's like you know um deer want to run giraffes have tall necks um excuse me flies Buzz around it's the nature of these animals and and there's a nature of business as well and and for the most part we're not going to change it because it is it comes from just the way things are among humans right businesses in the end a human endeavor and so we just have to learn to to deal
34:15 with that um rather than you know hope and wish that uh you know that it will change so that's our show for today I went a little bit over time but uh hopefully you you got you got some good ideas out of this if you have any thoughts about what I said please drop a comment in any of the um social media sites that you may be watching this on or or put a comment in in the uh uh YouTube you know the YouTube comments if you're watching this on our YouTube channel and if it's a
34:52 question you have I'm happy to respond to your questions would love to and indeed may you know bring the question up in a succeeding show um unless unless you don't want me to so don't bring this up but you know that kind of thing um but I think to you know share share your questions will help other people when I was teaching in the classroom I would tell people there there are no you know dumb questions which isn't precisely correct but it's probably 95 correct you may get dub answers I I you know that's absolutely a possibility um but uh but but no dumb questions and
35:27 typically what I found is if one of my students had a question it was you know courageous enough to ask the question I'd see you know usually about 10 of the people in the room at least kind of going hmm yeah that's a good question I wish I you know I I I need to know that right so you're helping other people out if you you bring your questions to light so thank you very much for joining me today and uh remember our my other show on uh Wednesday's 12 30 Pacific Time 3 30 Eastern time uh the way to wow show
36:03 people making money where we talk to people about their interesting careers and or talk about various aspects of finding a career or starting a business that that you can really enjoy and that's every Wednesday and I will be back here next Tuesday uh 10 30 a.m Pacific uh 1 30 p.m Eastern for the way to wow Show Business lessons from the military so thanks again for watching wishing you a wonderful week and as I always do sign off by saying Marie darling you are my bell take care now