The WAY to WOW Shows
The 24-Episode Campaign: Execution 3
April 14, 2026
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[0:13] >> 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 that lessons that we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So today I'm on episode 11 I think of our 24 episode um discussion on um sort of combined military doctrine

[0:48] and how we can use that to strengthen our our businesses, our position in the market uh and those kind of things. And my camera's off here a little bit. There we go. That's better. So today [clears throat] I'm going to I'm I'm on the third episode of the second uh segment of this. I started out talking about strategy. Now I'm talking about execution. So this is execution episode three. Training for the fight you'll actually face. So the the reality is that [clears throat]

[1:25] militaries typically don't fail um because they do nothing. And the reason they fail is because they spend their time training and preparing for the last war that they fought. And then they go into the next one uh illprepared. Essentially, conditions have changed. battlefield tactics have changed, how enemies behave have changed, and they've got a brilliantly trained military that can't deal with any of those challenges.

[2:00] And businesses often do the same thing. uh obviously not in an existential way like war, but but nonetheless [clears throat] they look at themselves uh as continuing to do what they've always done or maybe with just a little tweak here or there. And in in these times when market conditions, technology, consumer tastes are all changing so rapidly, it we cannot just sit back and rest on our laurels. So [clears throat]

[2:37] from from a from a business standpoint, where' my cursor go? There we go. So um businesses will rely on outdated models. They'll be slow to adapt to tech technologies changes and and they have too much confidence in in legacy strengths and and and for for example if you're if you you know listen to the business news there's a lot of discussions about what's going to happen with SAS now that AI AI has become uh so

[3:12] prominent in business operations SAS being software as a service where when you can use Claude's, you know, vibe coding to create whatever software you want, what value is there in paying, you know, monthly or annual subscriptions for software when you could at least in theory create your own custom software using quad, right? So is, you know, is is that business model viable going forward? I've heard lots of discussion.

[3:47] I don't think there's any consensus yet in that regard. But if if your business model is that kind of SAS subscriptionbased model. So, you know, minimally you've got to be involved in those discussions, at least listening to them, thinking about them, and and you know, brainstorming how can your business adapt if it turns out that that particular model is is no longer viable going forward or is is likely to

[4:25] sunset over the next, you know, few years, something like that. So, what I'm going to do in this episode is examine some of the false assumptions that both people in the, you know, military commanders and business leaders make that sabotage their execution so that you can hopefully become a more disciplined leader and train and and adapt your businesses for reality, not not history. So, uh, talking about it

[5:00] from the military standpoint first. So, this idea of fighting the last war, we we we've seen it really, you know, sort of time and time again. So um you know whe when when there's when there is a conflict, there is a battle, there is a war, um military will do, uh what they call hot washes, which are usually very quick debriefings after, you know, small engagements, but then they'll also do a more lengthy debriefing and analysis of lessons

[5:36] learned from whatever actions took place. and and that's valuable. That has to be done. Uh if if for no other reason than improving operations in the current conflict, improving actually across the board strategy, operations and tactics in the current um in the current conflict, it's crucial to do that kind of debriefing and analysis and lessons learned. [snorts] The problem is the problem comes from I should say the overgeneralization of those lessons. uh i.e.

[6:12] you know the these are these are immutable lessons that apply for all time. I know that's somewhat redundant but that becomes problematic. So while it's still valuable to read um you know books like the art of war and and Clauswitz so these books they're they're more philosophy than they are doctrine. And so what's so important about books like that is they

[6:47] undergur this idea of preparing for the fight coming up as opposed to relying on what you did before. So commanders and military strategists, they need to prepare for the next enemy, the next battle, not the last one, right? They they cannot rely on outdated operational procedures and tactics and they've got to invest in uh capabilities that will be useful going forward. Right? Otherwise doctrine becomes a liability

[7:25] not an advantage because it's harming the training that's going on. So I'll I'll I'll give you an example. I'll give I'm going to give you actually several examples. So uh one of them is is uh the early part of World War I. So because of how combat had worked in the past in things like the American Civil War and then into the um the SpanishAmerican War, the Boore War uh that was fought uh in South Africa. So, uh, militaries

[8:01] emphasized infantry charges, offensive, uh, maneuvers by, you know, that were sort of traditionally how armies operated. And they had certain assumptions about mobility, right? in the idea that you were going to have these two armies sort of lined up on opposite sides of the battlefield and and they were going to lob artillery at each other and shoot at each other, you know, with with weapons that were essentially singleshot weapons. Well, okay, that's how things were done in the 19th century. But what they encountered

[8:36] in World War I was among other things machine guns, right? Which could fire hundreds if not thousands of rounds a minute, right? And and and so to be lined up in ranks while a machine gun is just, you know, decimating the field obviously makes no sense. But but it it didn't get into military planners uh thinking. uh until they saw the kind of devastation wreaked in the early period of World War I as well. Um they they

[9:12] they encountered entrenched defenses. So you didn't have the other side sort of lined up lined up against you on the field. They were in trenches where you know you you couldn't get at them, right? There was barbed wire between uh enemy uh you know enemy trenches. um and in some cases even artillery uh couldn't be projected accurately enough to hit these entrenched imp placements, right? Um and then you just you just had firepower on an absolutely industrial

[9:47] scale. There had never been anything like it, you know, in in prior human history. And so you just had massive massive casualties. you had uh you know what became known as trench warfare where you basically had enemies facing each other for long periods of time. When I say long periods of time, years where there was basically no progress made or very little progress made and you know you know charges would be mounted out of the trenches and they'd be mowed down

[10:23] and then the other side would try. There was you know gas warfare. Um, but the reality was the lines in World War I were static for long periods of time. And and so it it it became just this sort of massive killing grounds without any path to victory. And so and and by the way, the armies were well trained. They just weren't trained to fight the kind of war that they were fighting. So we saw a similar thing in the Vietnam War where American troops uh

[11:00] had been trained in in in World War II and and and and then in the Korean War for the kind of conventional combat that was fought in those wars. And then they got to Vietnam where there was a lot of guerilla warfare going on, nighttime incursions, snipers, a very sort it was one of the first times that the United States uh encountered the sort of um um shoot I'm I'm I've lost the name. um uh sort of un

[11:36] um unequal warfare where uh you know the United States has this massive massive power um but um because the enemy was was very you know tactical guerilla oriented the massive firepower didn't really help and so uh in the early part of the Vietnam War as well and to a certain extent throughout the war it was this sort of you know the United States was was was fighting a war that didn't really exist and they had to adapt and adopt their their tactics and operations and that's

[12:12] why things like napalm was um you know was was used that that would allow the the sort of you know destruction without having to send you know soldiers into the field to get uh tangled up in booby traps and snipers and all this kind of thing and and then bringing it to current time. So with the United States Navy, our most powerful vessels today are aircraft carriers. Now, if we were to go back uh 75 years, 80 years uh to just prior to

[12:49] World War II, a lot of the thinking from the Navy's perspective was that the battleship [snorts] was the most important capital ship in the United States Navy. That had been the case for literally centuries, not just with the United States Navy, but with the British Navy, the French Navy, etc. Uh, and and proponents of naval aviation had been trying to convince the, you know, powers that be within the Navy and within the, you know, US government that the days of the

[13:24] battleship being the predominant type of of naval combatant were over. Uh but it took um Pearl Harbor and and the kind of devastation that the the Japanese Imperial Navy rire on um on ships in Pearl Harbor, in particular battleships to convince uh the you the United States Navy that indeed the aircraft carrier had become the predominant capital ship. But now as we look at it today where you

[13:59] can have drones that cost maybe, you know, a few thousand dollars and you could mass them against an aircraft carrier and potentially destroy a ship that costs a billion dollars just to build the ship, let alone equip and man the ship uh with with drones that maybe cost a few million dollars. Is the aircraft carrier today still a viable platform or is it becoming or is it already kind of a relic of you know

[14:34] past battles? Right? This is this is a a a discussion that is going on in the Navy today. Although it it appears that um you know the the senior leadership in the Navy is is still intent on the you know maintaining the aircraft carrier as the dominant type of capital ship. Now you know as a sailor uh naval officer you know in in the early uh 2000s have I served on an aircraft carrier. I I it's hard for me to imagine these amazing

[15:11] ships with the kind of firepower they bring to bear in an airwing not being dominant. But the reality is the the feelings I have about it are not relevant to an objective evaluation of the kind of enemies the United States is going to face going forward and the kind of capabilities that the military needs to have. So, I was having this uh this discussion with a a a Navy colleague of mine, an intelligence officer, and he was talking about

[15:46] uh things like uh how bloated the defense budget is and and other issues like that. And I I don't disagree with him. the military wastes a lot of money. But but the idea that we should just one of the suggestions he had was we should get rid of separate aviation in the in the air force and the navy and the marine corps uh and and the army and and and the air force should take on all aviation. And one of the things I I said to him was well I don't think that's that that's too fil a a solution. The

[16:21] reality is is we need to look at what capabilities are necessary to execute national defense strategy and then how do we best supply those capabilities. That is that that is the core issue in developing a military strategy and in de and training equipment and putting into the field a military that can fight not yesterday's wars but the wars coming up

[16:56] right and so it you know do we really need every aviator to be able to land on an aircraft carrier I don't think So, so it may make sense to retain naval aviation, not because of its glorious history, although it certainly has one. Now, you'll say I'm not objective, and you're right. A lot of my career was spent in naval aviation. I have a very fond place for it in my heart. But the reality is, and this is not a knock on the Air Force, they're not trained to do this. Most if not any air force uh

[17:33] pilots cannot land a jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier. That's a very specific skill, right? And it takes a lot of training to be able to do that. Do we really want to spend all those resources training every pilot to be able to do it? Or if we're going to have a separate part of the Air Force that's trained to do, you know, aviation on aircraft carriers, well, then why are we going to spend the money to essentially move naval aviation into the Air Force? Why don't we just, you know, keep what

[18:08] we've got that's that's already working, right? So this this these are some illustrations from a military standpoint about how we um avoid falling into the trap of fighting you know yesterday's wars. So what what the what the military does today is it especially at war colleges uh for example it it does continuous war gaming. It does scenario-based training and it really looks to update doctrine much more rapidly than it probably did in the

[18:44] past. The goal is not perfection. Doctrine will never be perfect. But the goal is to uh is is to relevantly uh um um examine and approach the uncertainty of what combat is going to look like in the future so that we have the best chance of being able to prevail. And I think that's a lot of what we're seeing in the Iran war right now. So clearly the training that has been done recently has been very

[19:20] effective and that is why the United States and and Israel our ally have you know aerial dominance over Iran. That's why casualties have been so extraordinarily low uh for for the especially for the number of of sorties that have been flown. It's why they were able to get that flight officer out of the mountains in Iran. Right. So the military is at least right now it appears doing a good job of of preparing for the fight that they're coming to

[19:56] rather than you know making the mistake of fighting of preparing for the fight that has already been. So as as we look now how does this then apply to the business world? So some some common problems that businesses uh get into. So they include um scaling legacy products even though the market has shifted away from them, right? So you know Sodapop has become increasingly less popular, right? Um, I was listening to um I I

[20:32] believe it was um SquawkPod this morning and they were talk it was actually from the episode from yesterday and they were talking about changes that McDonald's is making because the consumption of soda pop at McDonald's has dropped so much and and soda is is a major profit center because it costs you know pennies for a cup of soda I guess. And of course they charge whatever they charge. I don't I haven't been to McDonald's a long time, but you know, several dollars for a cup of Coca-Cola or whatever it is, even though it only costs them a few pennies. So, the the the profit margins are off

[21:07] the roof. But if people aren't buying the product, so it doesn't make sense to scale it, you've got to do something else. You've got to make those shifts. So, [clears throat] another problem is that uh businesses ignore emerging technologies. So if if you are in business today and you are not looking at how AI can enhance your business, how it can harm your business, but how it can enhance your business, you're making a huge strategic error. AI is especially large language models and automation, they are going to change the

[21:44] way business works. The question, the only open question is how and and and how quickly, right? And so we we can't sit back and say, "Oh, you know, I don't I don't want to deal with a fax machine or I don't want to deal with uh you know, cell phones or computer." It it you other businesses are going to and they'll they'll run you over, right? Uh another problem um that occurs with businesses is they assume that customer behavior is static and it's not. customer behavior changes and it can

[22:20] change very quickly. Look at what happened during COVID, right? All of a sudden, people were staying home within just a short period of time and they weren't comfortable going to restaurants. They started eating a lot of food at home. Businesses had to adapt very quickly, right? And if you were a restaurant owner, what did you do? So, some restaurant owners were able to adapt pretty quickly. They started they they created outdoor seating areas where people felt more comfortable as opposed to being indoors and in some cases uh government entities you know municipalities they adapted quickly to

[22:57] allow restaurants to do that. In other cases they didn't and and there was a lot of restaurants that went out of business. Right? So customer behavior does not remain stable. It it changes over the long term but it can also change very quickly. And finally, um, businesses seek to protect existing revenue streams at the expense of adapting to what's going forward. So that's that's the an example of that issue is the one I raised at the beginning talking about SAS and it will that be a viable model going forward.

[23:33] I'm not saying it is or it is or will not be. Uh, all I'm saying is we can't as a business just say, well, you know, SAS has worked for the last 10 years, so it's it's going to work for another 10 years. Maybe not. Maybe it's only going to be viable for another year or two or five years. So, we we we can't rely on past um revenue streams um you know, in the face of of change in the business world. So, so the the problem is is that current

[24:08] success tends to reinforce our assumptions and the result is a widening gap between how the company is operating and how the market is evolving. And so that's why um we we we need to look at how do we avoid you know fighting the last battle in business. So, let's take a quick break and let's look at some ways we can do that. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't

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[25:20] Okay. So, [snorts] let's let's look at some things that we can do to avoid falling into the trap of fighting the the last war. So, first and perhaps most important is we need to challenge core assumptions regularly, right? Every strategy that we have, everything we're doing in business rests on certain assumptions. So for example in my business where I administrate uh uh probates and trusts one of the assumptions on which my

[25:55] business rests is that the law will stay the same in essence there won't be major changes in the law. Okay. It would be a mistake for me to be um complacent about that assumption. Well, whereas right now, for example, uh the the exemption from est from federal estate taxes is very large. It's $15 million. Okay? And if you're a married couple, uh husband and wife get a total of $30 million, right? And so most

[26:33] estates are going to be exempt from federal estate taxes, right? Well, that'll probably stay the same for the next few years while the current administration is in office. But if there's a change of administration, um in in uh let's see, in 2028, I believe, is when the next presidential election is, and and and and so they're um so there's a change in party that holds the White House. And if they also um the same party gets uh control of

[27:10] Congress, I would say it's unlikely that that $15 million estate exemption is going to stay the same. And so, you know, as 2028 gets closer and people start handicapping the election, I think it's very important that, you know, myself and people in my profession start looking at what could change, how do we how should we be advising our clients, what should we be doing in a defensive way so that if things do change, our

[27:46] clients have been well advised and are prepared for the changes, right? And so we can't and every again every business rests on those assumptions. I just gave you one example from my own business. So what we need to do and and I would say this needs to be done at least annually. Okay? At least annually. Maybe quarterly, maybe too often, maybe every six months, but annually is probably uh a good time. I know at the end of each calendar year, uh I I do a a an indepth

[28:24] analysis of how things have been the, you know, for the year that's ending and what what do I need to be thinking about, what changes do I need to make for the year coming up. So when when I do that evaluation the some of the things I need to look at are what needs to be true for my success to continue in succeeding years. Okay. Uh so for example one of the things that needs to be true is um you know I I I need to I need to uh comply with the license uh

[29:01] regime that we have here in California. uh you know whether I like it or not it artificially uh constrains my competition right now you can say well that's good for business it isn't it isn't right um one of the problems is that anyone who's been in my business for a while um they we realized pretty quickly handling small estates is not a very profitable thing to do. And so the people handling those are tend to be the newer people in

[29:37] the business. So I'm in a situation right now where I'm going to be resigning from administrating a small estate. One of my concerns is is that the judge will not allow it because who else is going to step in to what is in fact a very complicated situation and handle it? especially given how little how small the fee will be for doing so right so it would be better for me um if if if there wasn't this constraint on practitioners

[30:14] um because I you know I could I could find someone who is newer to the business and say hey why don't you just take this over and instead of me resigning we'll just do a substitution or something like that right so I'm presenting the judge with an option rather RA than just saying I'm out, right? Um, okay. So, so that's you know what what needs to be true for success? What next? I need to say what assumptions am I on what assumptions am I operating and how does that stack up against

[30:50] current data? Okay. So another assumption on which I operate is there is a mass there's there's a massive um passing down of wealth that's going to be happening uh over the next 5 10 20 years. I recently heard it's something like 148 hold your hat 148 trillion dollar between now and 2048. So over the next 22 years, $148

[31:25] trillion, including $19 trillion just in the value of homes, right? So on some level that says to me that there's going to be a big demand for people who do what I do, administrate trusts and estates because someone has to wrestle with all of the administrative uh tasks that are necessary for that wealth to be handed on. So how how is that changing? Right?

[32:00] I is that holding true or are we seeing that in fact I don't know longevity is extending. so much that maybe there's, you know, not going to be as mass of a turnover of wealth as as I think there's going to be. And then finally, you know, during, you know, during sort of daytoday, I've got to constantly be looking at, well, what is going on that that that that could change that could impact my business. So recently, California passed a law uh that that essentially

[32:36] treats small commercial tenants with um as giving them as much protection as residential tenants have. Now, that may seem not a big deal, but the fact of the matter is for anyone who owns real estate, if you own residential real estate here in California, especially in Los Angeles, and you have a tenant who's not paying, it is extremely difficult to evict that tenant. And even on the commercial side,

[33:11] it's pretty difficult to evict a tenant. Now, it's going to be even more so. So, how does that impact the recommendations that I make to clients about their holdings? How does that impact how I administrate an estate? How does that impact the recommendations I make about whether an estate should hang on to a property or sell it? All of those those are issues with which I have to wrestle right now because the change has occurred. Okay? And for clients who own small commercial or commercial buildings

[33:48] with small tenants and there's a definition for that. I've got to be prepared to discuss these issues with them. Okay. So unchallenged assumptions become hidden risks and we want to avoid that. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, we need to train and train our teams for future conditions. Right? So our training should reflect where the market is going. Okay, this is most relevant in talking about AI. So in the companies that I oversee as an

[34:24] administrator, one of the things that I encourage cajul um the people with whom I'm working is to start using AI especially large language models. Where can you use it in what you do on a day-to-day basis that will make you more efficient and keep you current with how business is happening? Okay. And it's a lot of experimentation right now. One of the things I I tell them is, you know, don't worry if you do something with with AI and it turns out to be a complete bust. That's still a lesson learned and it

[35:00] would it's still a worthwhile thing to do. a lot of the things that we're going to try and do with AI are not going to be successful. Okay. Uh so to give you an example, um I I in one of my uh clients uh I I need to I I need to evaluate a whole bunch of historic financial data, but all I had was bank statements, right? And I was thinking about, oh my gosh, going through, you know, months and months and months of transactions on bank statements and trying to co collate

[35:37] it and correlate it and all that kind of stuff. And I was talking to a colleague and and you know, we started talking about, well, maybe we can just feed this into an LLM and then ask it to, you know, collate the data in a particular way, right? Um, and so of of course we didn't put it into a public one. we put it into a proprietary one to protect the privacy of the data. Um, but we did that and the results we got back were interesting. Now, were they highly useful? Frankly, no. But that wasn't because of the AI. It was because so

[36:14] much of the data we had wasn't specific enough uh to give us the the, you know, the the it wasn't specific enough to answer the questions that we had. Right? And so now I've gone back and if you if you were looking on my desk, you'd see right here a stack this thick so far. And there's more um for the bank that the bank just called me to let me know they had it of copies of individual checks and transaction notices. And the next step is we're going to feed that data into the LLM and see if that gives

[36:49] us more granularity, more specificity uh in terms of the financial analysis. And so then we can get better answers to the questions that we have. So we've got to be uh training teams for future conditions and we have to let them have the time they need to experiment. That may seem like a hit on productivity, but the the temporary, you know, perhaps reduction in productivity that we get now because we're we're

[37:24] training our teams to adapt will be made up in the productivity gains that they find. So, we need to give them opportunities to sim simulate, you know, emerging competitive scenarios. We need to prepare the teams with new tools, new workflow procedures. So in short, we need to be working with our people to so that their skills will match future market demands, not past successes. Okay? So we need to train for future

[38:01] conditions. Number three, we need to run scenariobased planning. Right? So, as I was mentioning when I was talking about this from a military standpoint, militaries war game, especially at war colleges, that's a lot of what they do. They try and think of like what are we going to be what what is battle going to look like going forward and how are we going to fight it, right? And they'll they'll do a tabletop or a computer simulated uh war game to get ideas about how all that might work. So, we need to do the same thing in our businesses. So

[38:37] I have a friend who works for a company uh that provides data to other companies that operate in in a highly government regulated sector of the economy, right? And when the current administration was elected into office, um it was, you know, it was done so with the understanding that they were going to alleviate a lot of regulation. And so I I asked my friend, I said, "So what what are you what are you doing at your company if if a lot of the products that

[39:12] you are currently supplying essentially become irrelevant?" And his answer was was interesting. He said, "Nothing. They're just assuming that they'll ride out, you know, the current wave um and it'll all come back." Okay. I mean, that's I guess that's one way of approaching it. I for you know if if it were me I would be looking at well you know what can I what can I be doing to make my business not so dependent on in this case uh you know regulatory

[39:47] requirements of a government so that I'm not having to be concerned about you know changes of in administration and that sort of thing right uh so uh we you know we need to look at you know what is what is the best case what is the worst case, what could disrupt our current business model and how are we going to respond to that? Right? So in each scenario, we need to identify vulnerabilities. Right? So, uh, one of the vulnerabilities, um, in in my practice is, uh, comes from

[40:23] how, um, uh, volatile and unpredictable heirs can be when an estate is being administrated. Right now, this isn't necessarily something that that that changes over time, per se. Um what what it is though where where it is relevant though is the risks to my business. How do how do I deal with the risks that come from the volatility of heirs or of of

[40:59] beneficiaries in the case of a trust? Right? So in in in a typical uh administration of an estate uh number one the heirs are not represented by legal counsel uh and number two they don't have a high degree of knowledge. Okay. And so, how do I make sure that they're getting the information that they need a timely way and in a way that forecloses them from potentially coming back after me if they don't like

[41:35] something six months, a year, five years down the road, right? And so these are the kinds of um scenario-based planning that I need to do. And as information has become more available, as people have become um more assertive in protecting what they see as their own interests, so my need to protect myself from those types of liabilities becomes much greater. And so I can't be relying on how things used to work where uh

[42:12] someone in a position of authority like mine where I'm appointed by the court to do something. I can kind of rely on the if you will the prestige of that position to protect me. That is not viable any longer. Right? And so I have to be running uh scenario-based planning to figure out how am I going to protect myself. So, I've got to plan for multiple futures in order to build resilience into my practice. Okay, that's number three. Number four,

[42:44] >> [snorts]

[42:44] >> um I you know, we need to reward adaptability by our people, by our teams over stability. Okay. Um and and the reality is organizations often reward consistency and and even as conditions are changing, right, they're they're still keeping the reward scheme the same. So the reality is is we need to have our teams adapting quickly, right? And so to do that, we

[43:22] need to encourage experimentation and we need to avoid penalizing intelligent risktaking, right? And this is one of the hardest things to do because most people I it seems like especially employees are risk averse, right? And so they're not going to take on something that may fail for fear that they're going to get fired. What we need to do is let them know that they if they want to take a risk and they have good

[43:59] reasons for doing so, good reasons to think either it's going to pay off or even if it doesn't pay off, what will be learned from it will still help the firm move forward, help the organization move forward. So then they they should be able they they need you know they can take that risk without fear of negative repercussions. Right now this is a hard thing to balance. There'll be I think a temptation to to potentially micromanage. Okay. And especially if your people aren't used to being supported and

[44:35] risktaking. It's going to take some time to get them to make that perspective shift and do it. But we everybody needs in our organizations needs to be forwardthinking and taking taking some chances that are that are um scaled to the position that they have in in our organization. Right? So, you know, we don't want a junior employee taking a risk that basically could, you know, put us out of

[45:10] business. Um but they but they should be taking some small risks some risks with you know I don't know maybe some customer dealings or something like that maybe there is a more effective way for the customerf facing u port people in our business to handle things that will actually be better

[45:30] >> [snorts]

[45:30] >> uh how how are we going to use AI in customerf facing uh situations where so many people are so upset about customer service to begin with with call centers and all these things that feels and and often times are so impersonal. How might we use AI to actually make uh make customer service feel more personal? All of our customer service people can be experimenting with that. Okay? And even if they make some mistakes, okay,

[46:06] we can learn from those mistakes, right? So adaptability is a tremendous competitive advantage and we need to build it into our organizations. Finally, we need to separate legacy strength from future relevance. So what made a company successful in the past may not sustain it in the future. Right? I was talking with some friends um about uh McDonald's. It's a a storage company in American business and an and an

[46:41] American culture, right? McDonald's was built with the idea or on not with the idea on the idea of quickly supplying good quality food that was universal across the country. No matter when, you know, back in the, you know, 1960s, um, and and and prior to that, no matter where you got a a McDonald's hamburger in the United States, it was the same. Okay? No matter where you got a milkshake or French fries or whatever, it was it was the same. One could expect

[47:18] that same level of quality of food, but it was also not creative. It was the same food no matter where you went. Now, in the 1960s, that model worked really well. But today, that model is is just not going to work. People want, you know, they want their food the way they want it. Um, if you I think it was Burger King. Um, you know, they were the ones who launched that that fight against McDonald's to distinguish themselves in the Burger Wars, right? So when you went up when you went to a Burger King, you would get your your

[47:54] hamburger just the way you wanted it and and you would get it quickly and it would be freshly made as opposed to at McDonald's where they were all made in advance. And the one of the way one of the reasons they could deliver the food so quickly was because they could turn around, pick up a hamburger that's already wrapped, put it in the bag with the French fries or whatever, and there you go. Right? So, so legacy strength is not what's going to necessarily make a company more stronger in the future. And so, uh, we need to, um, evaluate

[48:29] which capabilities remain valuable, right? Some of what we're doing, what we're already doing is going to be valuable. Okay? um some of the things that we've done to build a brand to deliver a solid product or a solid service um like integrity right integrity is probably about as timeless a quality as we can bring as timeless a strength as we can bring to our businesses right um but other things are not going to remain valuable so we need to sunset those processes or those

[49:04] products okay and we need to invest in emerging ing strengths. Okay, so uh McDonald's uh I just I just heard this morning McDonald's is is coming out with a new drink called dirty Dr. Pepper. I don't think it's something like salacious Dr. Pepper. I'm not sure what it is. I don't know. Is it Dr. Pepper with olive juice in it? Right. Like a dirty martini. I I don't know. Um and the people who were the um I think it was Bloomberg was talking about it. They didn't know what it was either. They

[49:40] were they were laughing like what is that? Right. Um but I I will say one thing, it's intriguing, right? They got me talking about it here on the show, right? So, um you know, there there's, you know, McDonald's looking at, okay, people aren't drinking enough soda pop, so we've got to be offering beverages they do want to drink. And those include um so-called uh um like power drinks, I guess, like you know, Red Bull or whatever. I don't I don't mean that. I don't know if it's that one specifically, but but those kinds of beverages and then things like, you

[50:16] know, dirty Dr. Pepper, right? So, this is this is McDonald's looking to stay relevant in the future and not being tied to uh legacy success, right? So, okay. So, real quickly, I'll just go over the five things that I mentioned. Challenge core assumptions regularly. Train your people and teams for future conditions. Run scenario-based planning. Reward adaptability over stability. And separate legacy strength from future relevance. Right? And so um I've talked

[50:53] about um I mean the you know the the issue right now of course is AI large language models um automation. I've talked about that we need to be looking at how do we integrate these new technological tools into our businesses and the longer we delay in working on that the larger the gap will widen between us and our competitors and the harder it will be to catch up. So this requires among other things but maybe

[51:29] primarily disciplined leadership like so many of the of the concepts I talk about on this show it comes down to disciplined leadership. One of the reasons why that's true is because in the military success rests on disciplined leadership. So leaders have to question their own assumptions. They have to resist becoming overconfident based on past successes. They need to invest in a a a vision of of the future while at the

[52:06] same time tolerating uncertainty as their people and their teams figure out how are we going to address what's likely to be happening going forward. So this requires um a great deal of intellectual humility even as we look to gain strategic foresight. Right? So the most dangerous position in strategy it's not weakness. Okay? It's it's it's not typically we know when we're weak. It's

[52:41] actually confidence built on an outdated understanding of what's required for these times and going forward. So armies that train for the last war lose the next one, but and businesses that prepare for yesterday's markets lose tomorrow's business success. So uh you know we don't need to be leaders who can predict the future perfectly. What we need to be is leaders who are engaged in

[53:18] preparing for change, who are willing to make mistakes and let our people and teams make some mistakes so that as we progress forward, we can do so in an adaptive way that gives us the best shot at being successful. So, I hope you enjoyed today's show. Uh, let's see. uh schedule of shows. Um, Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show Trust and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays, like today, 10 a.m. Pacific time,

[53:53] business lessons from the military. Wednesdays 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, uh, people making money. And every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time is my show, Jiggers's Place, where we have a cocktail and a schmoo and talk about things not related to finances. So, lots of opportunities for us to be together during the week. I hope you'll join me again. And if you have uh questions, comments, criticism, thoughts about today's show or any of my shows, uh links to social media as well as my email address are in the show notes. You can watch my shows on YouTube, Spotify,

[54:29] and Apple Podcast. Always uh interested to hear your thoughts and hear from you. And that just leaves me leaves me again to thank you again so much for joining me Lammond. Good to see you my friend and just sign off by telling you or reminding you not telling you reminding you. Marie darling you are my bell. courage and