The WAY to WOW Shows
Always Hotwash
January 2, 2024
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:00] way to wow shows I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Tuesday at 10: a.m. Pacific 1 pm Eastern to talk about matters relating to military history military Doctrine the leadership practices of of great military uh uh leaders that's redundant um and uh we're kicking off season two of this show um same same as uh my my Monday show trust and Estates weekly we kicked off season two yesterday here we are on on the

[0:36] second day of January I'm doing likewise looking forward to covering a range of topics H this year um last year we focused um I think exclusively on Marine Corps Warf fighting Doctrine with the exception of of a couple of guests that I had uh during the year um this this year I think think we're going to kind of um not bounce around but but cover different topics um some one-offs like today and and maybe some um you know

[1:11] multi- episode topics um for for subjects that warrant the extra time so um today um oh and and for those of you who are either new to the show or um or actually for those of you who are not new to the show you're you're looking you're saying wow this this looks really different than than season one and that's true um we're I'm I'm uh broadcasting now from uh my restream studio I I feel like I should have something like you know the restream studio across the top um but you know

[1:48] they don't pay me a promotional fee so forget it but um um one of the things that this does is it allows me to take your comments live so if you're watching on any your favorite social media platform um you can post a comment there and and uh right over here you can't see it but I have a a chat um function that Aggregates all the comments and so that way we can interact live um without you necessarily having to join the meeting you don't have to worry about um getting

[2:24] a you know Eventbrite ticket and going through all that riger rooll so um this should give us an opportunity to um discuss these topics in in real time so um that having been said our topic for today is a a common military practice called a hot wash now you you may have heard this term before um the practice isn't unique to the military um but what I will say is throughout my military

[2:59] career I saw that it was a not only a a a frequently used practice but a highly effective one as well so um as usual I put together a little um presentation oh that worked much more smoothly today than it did yesterday um and uh we're we're we're calling this uh I'm calling this always hot wash um and the reality is um and I'm gonna I'm gonna well you'll see why I call it always hotwash as we get into uh the

[3:34] presentation um so let's let's um let's let's move on here um as is the case with all the way to wow shows um they relate to the three pillars of attainment um and and you see them here we are typically dealing in the finances realm um because uh we're we're talking about you know business lessons of course um but oftentimes we'll get involved in the other pillars relationships especially friends colleagues that sort of thing um and we

[4:09] we too get um involved in in some self- pillar issues particularly mindset but but sometimes I identity as as well all right so let's first of all let's look at a definition of a hotwash okay it's a quick informal discussion held immediately after an exercise or training session to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement okay now I I know I have you know violated the PowerPoint standard practices by having a long string of words there uh I this

[4:45] is this is uh gets back to what I was going to say a minute ago about why I'm calling this always hot wash so anytime that you're going to um conduct an exercise or some kind of training session or um in you know in the civilian World some kind of event okay immediately afterwards is the best time to just get very um candid feedback on how things

[5:20] went and more importantly identifying areas for improvement so the what happened is freshen people's minds um if it it's you know they're they're focused on what just recently happened and so in that respect um you you have you you have the best opportunity to gather information and ideas okay so um when we say um immediately after

[5:55] the exercise um you know probably you know give people just a little bit of a break to sort of come down um but um ideally you know within an hour or two um at the most I you can do um hot washes up to 24 hours later um but but just keep in mind the longer you wait the less fresh the information and the experience will be in people's minds and so you're getting a different kind of feedback okay and the idea here again is is to get is have the immediacy of the

[6:31] experience available to you all right so let's look at the purposes of it first or the purpose of it first of all um identify strengths and weaknesses so I'm going to talk first in a um military context so um virtually everything that goes on in the military happens in in teams okay so you while you know the Army had that that that um um what was it

[7:08] promotional saying or whatever you call it um the army of one you know candidly I always thought that didn't make a whole lot of sense because the Army doesn't operate as one I mean everything the Army does is with a group of soldiers it may be something as small as a fire team it may be as large as a division it just it depends on what needs to be done um so um you know in in in that respect um when we talk about identifying strengths

[7:44] and weaknesses generally speaking we're talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the team as opposed to individuals okay and and this is this is one of the um I mean dangers is is is really overstating the case it's it's one of the challenges uh there's probably a better way of putting it of doing a hot wash is if it didn't if the exercise didn't go well so the uh tendency is to start assigning

[8:21] blame okay and that is generally speaking counterproductive now there there an individual may be at fault for something but dealing with that in the group generally is not appropriate first of all um I mean in the military context there can be extenda circumstances like if they're actually in combat of course you're going to um you know straighten the person out right away right to to prevent a a danger but in in the workplace rarely if ever is there a

[8:58] necess to um rebuke an individual in front of other people so um while it may be that um you know a particular person or two or three people really fell short those are best dealt with one in oneon-one with those people uh rather than during the hot wash so what what needs to be focused on is the strengths and weaknesses is of how the team worked together to achieve or not it's its

[9:37] objective okay and and the reason you want to focus on the team is you see there the second purpose is because you want open communication so um the the person who you know if there was an individual who who really you know let the group down um you still want to hear from that individual okay um what may look clearly like a fault of the individual could actually have been a team problem in that the individual

[10:14] wasn't able to do their part because of other things that were going on now you know I'm not saying that you know there's always an excuse for individual weakness what I'm saying is is is that we want to be as open as we can in analyzing what happened in order to make sure that we get to the third purpose which is finding actionable items okay so Le let's just follow on on this example of an individual who you know messed up okay it may be that um

[10:54] that you had a team that was very experienced working together okay and then this individual came into the game very very late and so um they they just didn't know the the way the team had of working together they weren't able to um pick up on subtle clues or whatever that that you know indicated what the team wanted done the kind of the kind of information that comes from working together for a long time of just knowing

[11:29] how a particular individual handles things someone brand new to the team isn't going to know those things okay so the fact that they may have been the weak performer it doesn't necessarily mean that they are a chronically weak performer there it could be that um you know what what needs to be done is when a new person joins the group they need to be briefed on as many of these um sort of group habits group traits as as possible and maybe those need to be

[12:05] documented in some way so that a newcomer can absorb them more quickly on the other hand it it may be that when someone is new to the group they need to be paired with someone else who's experienced who can show them what to pick up on and the strengths and or not the strengths and weaknesses the the the habits and behaviors of other people in the group group in order to make sure that you know the Newbie is is able to perform at the proper level okay so you can see that rather than focusing on the

[12:42] the bad performance of an individual when you're doing the hot wash you want to be looking at the team how do the team perform how can it do how how can we keep uh Communication open so that we can develop the best actionable items okay next um the process okay so um no magic I mean I broke this down into a five-step process I you could probably you know I don't know do it do it differently than this but this seems to be pretty pretty Su succinct in terms of

[13:18] how it goes first of all gather the participants so when the event is done or the exercise is done whatever it is um you you know s you know may want to say to people okay hey take a half hour break um you know go get some water or whatever or you know you you can use I was gonna say you can use the head that's Navy talk for use the bathroom you know whatever um and then let's reconvene in 30 minutes or 45 minutes whatever whatever it's going to be okay um and get people back together don't let people wander off um because then

[13:54] you're going to lose their input two set the ground rules okay so say at the beginning this is not about individual performance this is about how we work together as a team okay and that's what we want to focus on how can we work better as a team okay so you know you you we're not looking to we're not looking to criticize in fact we're not necessarily looking for to go you know super deep

[14:31] into uh a blame we're not looking to get into a Blame Game and we're not looking to get super deep into all the the micro problems that that we had there'll be a time for that perhaps but for now what we're looking at is the big picture how we work together as a team how we can do how can we do that better in the future okay so structure the discussion first of all have three maybe four open-ended questions ready okay so if you're the team leader you're going to be leading

[15:06] the hot wash okay and presumably you know what the goal of the event is or what the goal of the exercises so let's say for example the event was a presentation to a client or a prospective client okay and and let's let's you know kind of lower the stakes a little bit let's not say you know you're looking to close the client you're looking to um you know gauge the level of interest of the client okay so based on knowing what the um the goal

[15:43] for the event is you can in advance write down three or four uh open-ended questions uh for the for the hot wash that's inevitably going to follow okay and have those ready now by the way based on how the event went you may want to change one or even all of them okay and during the event you know you may be you may want to take some notes on um you know something that you saw that perhaps you thought could have gone better so that you can get the group's input and and you know maybe you think

[16:18] it could have gone better but when you hear from your team your team thought wow we thought actually that went really well so you know uh you know you can get that that kind of input okay but you want to have those open-ended uh questions open you don't want questions that can be answered with yes or no um did you think it went well no okay now where do you go right so you want to ask you know how do you how do you think the event went or what do you think the client's response was to the presentation okay how do you think we

[16:57] looked in terms of our ability to work together as a team or better yet how could we improve our teamwork so that we not only look uh that we so that not only do we work together better but we also appear to be working together uh as a cohesive team right those are the kind of hotwash questions you want to develop to structure the discussion okay next um capture Fe feedback okay so if you're going to lead the

[17:32] discussion you you may not want to be the person who's writing down the responses okay um maybe have someone else do that maybe you have maybe you're you you know you first first of all maybe there's co- team leaders so there's two of you so then maybe one can lead the discussion while the other takes down the information or you can you can trade off one asks a question and the other one takes down the the feedback and then you you flip rolls or something like that if you're the only team leader so then ask some another member of the team um you know to to

[18:07] take down uh the feedback another thing is you you can always record what people are saying okay with with cell phones these days right um they all have recording functions on it and and that way you can just get an audio record of what's said um you know for for later analysis okay and then number five is you want to create an action plan so the the best way to do the best hot washes is for your team to see that the

[18:43] results developed or I mean I should say the feedback developed actually is put into action okay now by the way it may not be at all clear that the action items are going to work or or or create a better result next time that's perfectly fine okay this is not about creating you know the perfect uh plan this is about incremental Improvement okay that's what a hot wash is about incremental Improvement so it's it's it's generating

[19:20] generating ideas on how things can go more smoothly or how the team can work better together um how the uh client can be engaged more directly or whatever you know whatever is appropriate to the particular event that you're you're hot washing okay so these are the five steps and you know if if when I do these um one of the things I do is I just I just have these you know okay I got my process here's my questions okay good I'm ready to go so I don't have to worry

[19:55] about am I going to miss a step or whatever especially esally if you're not you know um if if you're new to this process write it down there's no no no problem with that I mean if you're out in the field somewhere maybe put it on a 3x5 card with the process on one side of the card flip it over there's your questions for the hot wash good to go right I mean there's or you know if you have your phone you can put it on your phone whatever whatever you want to do um you know just um you know take take it down okay and and and and by the way if you want to you know click a a a quick um uh screenshot of the process or

[20:32] whatever feel free or um you'll see at the end um you'll I'm going to give you my email address if you want a copy of this presentation by all means um send me an email or or post in in the social media I'm I'm happy to to give you a a copy of of the PowerPoint okay next uh best practices so um you want the hot wash to be short and focused okay so you know 30 minutes maybe 45

[21:07] minutes an hour at the most okay um it's gonna you know you want people very much engaged okay so hot washes they can't be hours long events okay like I said 30 to 45 minutes is really um I think the ideal amount of time okay now if you really get into a good discussion and and you really come up with some great ideas and you want to extend it to an hour of course you know you don't have to you don't have to artificially cut it off um but but you know plan for whatever the time is and and if you know

[21:43] if you need to extend it fine okay um encourage participation so if you've got team members who don't seem to be engaged ask them you know Betty what do you think about this this issue or you know um George um you know I I as as I recall during this time you were able to just kind of uh observe and so you know what did you see um about what was going on that that

[22:19] you know will add to our understanding of the event okay um you know so work your best to get everybody talking and giving their input you know you look you can have shy people okay I I use the word shy not introverted introverted is is not the same thing as shy by the way um so you know but you may have some shy members of the team and maybe they were doing kind of the background work and they're just there in the event that there's you know something technical that had to be dealt with and perhaps they didn't even take place in in the

[22:56] presentation for example um that's fine they they can still have very valuable input and and it should be sought and and it should be made obvious by by you the team leader that you truly value their input okay especially going back to this issue of someone who appears to have let the team down okay one of the best ways of of of helping that person deal with um a subpar performance is to let them know that they're still a

[23:32] valuable member of the team okay and the and one of the ways to do that is to encourage their participation in the hot wash if you know you're if you're the you're the team leader you're the supervis or whatever the boss right if despite what you know the person is feeling is is sort of a a sense from the team that that that they you know they messed up if if you reach out the person um you know uh um Joel um you know give us your perspective on um how

[24:08] the clients seem to be responding to you know this part of the presentation because you know um really want to hear what you have to say you know everyone's an important member of this team that kind of thing okay and I mean this isn't by the way this isn't you know everybody gets a gold star no matter how badly they performed it's it's not about that it's making sure that you're keeping the um the camaraderie the morale of the team up okay and and that you're getting the

[24:44] most valuable feedback that you can okay and again while there may be a reason to rebuke someone save that for later oneon-one there's no point in embarrassing them and in front of other team members okay but you know look if you've worked in offices you know inevitably it gets around that somebody's you know been you know called on the carpet uh you know there's no reason though to to to make it obvious the the rumor mill unfortunately will take care of that for you all right next focus on Solutions okay so let's say

[25:22] that um you know um what do I say Betty I'm trying to remember the names of the people um so let's let's say bet Betty's input was she felt like the client wasn't engaged enough or the client look bored um just get of curiosity Betty why do you say that well I don't know he he was playing U you know um woku on his phone you know something like whoa that that's not good right so how can we solve that how what can we do to Garner

[25:58] greater client attention greater client participation right and you know one way may be asking the client questions periodically during the presentation right work those into the presentation so the client is involved or whatever that is but that's what you want to focus that's what you want to yeah focus on is is what are the solutions to um the problems that we identify so you know you spend 25% on identifying problem areas 75% on potential Solutions okay and then

[26:35] follow up okay again going back to the previous uh slide for just a moment action plan okay the action this is the point right is the action plan so there's got to be followup if there's not followup your team members just to say oh well you know we're we're doing this but in the end it doesn't really matter so I don't I don't really have to to be that engaged in it if indeed what they see is as a result of the hot wash new things are tried ideas are experimented with then they will be motivated to really do their best during

[27:11] the hot wash okay all right and I think that is it right yep there we go okay so um if if you uh would like to get some help or you have questions or you have thoughts whatever these are some of the places to share them I mentioned my my email addresses there all of this will be in the show notes when the or after the U show posts on YouTube um and if you're on whatever um social media platform so you know you you you see these there um and feel free to to drop

[27:46] a comment and then I think we just have uh yes the legal stuff there we go so let's um see cancel that yeah there we go okay I'm still you know not 100% uh you know uh confident on on using restream so um so anyway that's that's our show for today and I I hope that in your professional whether it's your business or whether you work for someone else you're looking to improve your professional standing that you if if you're not already using it you will adopt this practice of a hot wash and by

[28:22] the way you you know you can you could do it over a cup of coffee or you know water or what whatever you know um um you know look people like to eat and drink and and and and after a particularly um challenging event or or or exercise or training thing um it it can be good to you know get a little um you know a little nourishment you know into the system and that will help that can help people perk up and and and really uh um you know feel feel feel uh um committed to participating so uh

[28:59] that's our show for today thank you very much for joining me tomorrow is uh my show people making money at uh 10:00 a.m. uh Pacific time and we're going to be talking about uh 10 best 10 habits 10 career building habits I think it is I I I just I just posted I just set up the uh social media posts and the and the email to to go out um but but in any event um it'll it we're we'll be heading into season five if you can imagine of uh people making

[29:36] money um which is really that's an extension of of my original show which was just called the way to wow show um can't can't believe I've been doing this for four years already but um it's it's it's been great and and hopefully you've you found it uh useful in in building your professional Endeavors your relationships Etc um and then starting next week um again we'll be back Monday at 10:00 a.m. with trust and Estates weekly I think I have a guest uh next week if I'm not mistaken so um that'll be good and then seven days from today we'll be back with the next edition of

[30:12] business lessons for the military so again thank you very much for joining me wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and uh signing off Marie you're my bell take care