0:09 hello and welcome to the way to wow business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and for those of you who have joined me for the last couple of weeks we are here every Tuesday morning on the west coast 10 30 a.m and afternoon on the East Coast 1 30 p.m and an hour in for Central and mountain time so I guess we we're straddling you know each each side of uh the day here morning and afternoon and our purpose for this half hour program is to talk about
0:44 military Doctrine military history great leaders in military from the military and how we can take what they've used and apply it to our professional lives either running a business or perhaps as we direct our careers and so hence the name business lessons from the military and and um I invite you to go to our YouTube channel and you can see previous uh shows there because for the last two weeks we've been talking about objective
1:21 one from Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and I I feel compelled to mention this each time I do not think business is Warfare having said that many of the um lessons from how the Marine Corps looks at War fighting can be translated into how we would pursue or how we do pursue a successful business and so that's the process that I'm working through and I'm going to jump right into things
1:56 um sharing my screen here here we go and oops wait a minute hold on one second here I realized I got the slide starting on the wrong thing and what are we doing here okay let's cancel this scintillating television here right there we go okay and uh one more click it's always so much there we go so the way to wow business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel gonna move the
2:31 window that shows me here so I'm I'm you think I'm actually looking at you through you know the magic of so we used to say through the magic of television now we say through the magic of Zoom um by the way before I forget to mention it um if you would like to join me live um you are welcome to do so he says as he realizes he did not close his um partition here there we go see now you can see my Navy uh one of the gifts I got from uh some Shipmates in the Navy now you know why I'm I'm doing talking about business lessons from the military so
3:07 um as I as I like to do all of the shows that I uh produce and or host relate to this system called the three pillars of attainment it's how we look at life in a holistic way and my shows tend to focus on finances um however the concepts redound into the self pillar and the relationships pillar into many of these many of these other Realms and so as we talk about them um I I from time to time make comments
3:44 about these other Realms okay and just a quick review so um two weeks ago we talked about um the first two fundamentals of warfare and those were Unity of effort and concentration of power which I translated into resources um from a business perspective and I invite you to check those shows out to get more on that and from there we went to initiative and Agility and by the way you'll notice that these pairs tend to work together okay so concentration of
4:19 power supports Unity of effort and initiative being able to take the initiative in business requires that we act with agility okay if if we're if we're we're too sclerotic about how we pursue our business we're not going to be able to take initiative and and in today's um much more rapidly changing business environments um again even if we're working for a company we need to be able to adjust to changes quickly so if you look at what's
4:54 going on right now in the banking world with the um takeover of Silicon Valley Bank by the FDIC and the fall of signature one uh One Republic I guess has been having some problems I haven't read anything specifically on that but I I see them in the news and and a number of Community Banks have seen their stock sit pretty hard right so what does you know we have to be able to be agile to take initiative in dealing with those issues and and indeed many companies I think
5:29 were one of the reasons why svb um was taken over is companies were looking at uh their stability or lack thereof and and they took initiative by withdrawing their money right and and and there was a run on the bank basically and and uh those companies that were less agile got stuck right so now they're going to have to deal with the aftermath of that okay so today we're going to talk about two two more factors two more
6:05 fundamentals and those are maintaining freedom of action and sustainment and just like the first the first two pairs sustainment is what supports maintaining freedom of action and and by the way you'll notice maintaining freedom of action is what gives us the ability to be agile to therefore take the initiative if we don't have freedom of action if we've constrained ourselves somehow we can't be agile we can't take initiative okay and and it puts all all the way back I
6:42 don't know what this is doing here it fits all the way back to then we can't concentrate our resources and so then we no longer have Unity of effort so each one of these um Builds on on the previous ones all right so let's let's talk about this idea of maintaining freedom of action so at any given time presumably we are directing our business in a particular way so we may have certain objectives we're trying to achieve and we've
7:17 created plans in order to in order to gain those objectives in order to achieve those objectives okay however it's it's dangerous or we'll call it a bad policy I don't I don't want to you know sort of get you know two uh hyperbolic about this but it's it's bad policy to get so ingrained in a particular course of action that we cannot change okay I was talking with a friend last night and we were we were discussing them on
7:54 the other things what was happening in uh the United States back in the 1970s when it looked like the Japanese Auto industry was going to just clobber the American Auto industry and one of the problems was the American Auto industry had so committed to a particular direction all the all the big companies did um GM Ford um Chrysler I think American Motors was a separate company at that time they were all so I used that term sclerotic
8:30 it's a medical term right it's it's it's hardening of the arteries basically they they could not shift and Along Came the Japanese who had much more agile way of pursuing the automobile business and they just started cleaning the clocks of the U.S automakers and and because the U.S automakers had so constrained themselves they had no freedom of action okay now part of that had to do with how they had negotiated their Union contracts and so
9:05 it was very difficult for them to redeploy labor to to make changes okay and that was a problem but also it was the thinking of management management had been they'd been so used to being the the top dogs in the automobile business throughout the world that they only saw one way to do it they had blinders on okay and so when they got hit with serious competition they had no freedom of action because they just could not see how it could be done any other way okay and one of the
9:42 key aspects of Marine Corps War fighting is although they will have a plan okay their plans follow the dicta dictum I should say of uh Von malke he was a famous German general at the end of the 19th century and he said no plan survives first contact with the Enemy right and what he meant was you you make all these plans and you make contingencies in the plans and and then you go for it knowing that
10:17 once you actually get into combat you're going to have to be flexible because it's that freedom of action that in the end will win the battle win the victory okay I was I was watching um with my daughter oh uh the longest day so uh on on Turner Classic Movies right now they're doing the 31 days of Oscar Oscars and they're they play a lot of the great movies uh from you know the classic period of Hollywood the longest day is about D-Day the D-Day
10:54 invasion the Normandy invasion I should call it and one of the reasons why the Allies were successful is because the way Hitler had set up the German army most of the major decisions had to go through him so as the Americans and the and the British and the Canadians and and the French the free French and the other Allied nations are storming the beaches of Normandy and the Germans needed their backup Panzer Division their backup tank divisions or Army divisions really in
11:29 order to uh Propel you know push the the Allies back into the English Channel they needed Hitler's okay to release those Panzer reserves and Hitler was asleep and no one would wake him up right they had they had no freedom of action and in the end that was the key to the Allies gaining that foothold in Normandy that eventually LED them to victory in the European theater of World War II and indeed in general the Allies
12:07 as a matter of War fighting Doctrine fought a much more freedom of action style of warfare that allowed them to be not just the Germans and the Italians and and their allies in Europe but also the Japanese in the Pacific right so we've we I've mentioned this before in the Marine Corps there's there's this idea of what they call the Strategic Corporal and what they mean by that is decision making is pushed down to the lowest possible level
12:42 and that's part of maintaining this freedom of action so if the rifle team they're right in the midst of the battle sees that whatever the plan was is not going to be successful they have the flexibility to adjust as long as they keep the uh you know the higher echelons informed okay in those they need they're expected to take that initiative and the whole structure of the Marine Corps is one where
13:17 where uh higher echelons are helping maintain the freedom of action of the lower echelons so that in battle they had stand the greatest chance of success Okay so as we talk about this idea of maintaining freedom of action I made a couple of notes here I just want to make sure I cover these so one characteristic of being able to maintain freedom of action is having the logistical support in order to make changes okay so the same is true in business
13:52 even in a business that isn't a manufacturing business we need logistical support it it may be office support or um administrative support I should say it it may be uh technological support okay all of all of the things that your business or your company needs in order for your people to be successful needs to be able to be used as much as possible in a flexible manner so that if the direction needs to be changed your
14:28 people have the freedom of action to do that pink and that includes the process for making the decision to change action to change how how they're attacking a problem okay if everything has to be if you're the you know the CEO of your company and everything has to be run through you well what happens when you're not available evidently progress towards your objectives stops hey that's now you you're the people you
15:04 work with your team doesn't have freedom of action and so you're not going to make progress okay so again just just as I've spoken about in previous uh lessons here the primary one of the primary uh challenges of being the leaders in a business is to see to it that the the people who you who are your the people who you're working with have the support have the supplies have the various things that they need so that if there does need to be a change in Direction they're able to do so okay
15:42 now um another key element of maintaining freedom of action is is as much as possible to anticipate um what the developments are going to be I.E if we do if we pursue this particular strategy okay or we use these particular tactics what do we what do we anticipate as being the results of of that strategy those tactics okay rarely is there only one possible Resort or result I mean not Resort one possible
16:18 result okay so um um one of the one of the um uh sort of operational principles that General Patton used that made him so successful was he always was planning two or three steps ahead of wherever his army was so that they could con just keep rolling and keep rolling and keep rolling and the speed at which they operated
16:53 overwhelmed the enemy so that even when his army hit a roadblock they were already looking for they had already looked for I should say ways to get around the roadblock get over the roadblock whatever that advanced planning was crucial to Patton's success as an army Commander okay so when his forces were bogged down in Sicily he had already found a way across you know the the I believe it was a river I think it was in Sicily
17:29 um and and and and you know one of his uh battalions is looking for a way across and they got the maps all this stuff and he's already on the other side like how did you get there sir and he said I went down there and got across right so and that was part of his genius as a commander is he was always looking ahead what are the potential obstacles how can we overcome those obstacles how do I as the top dog how can I make sure that my my team my Army can overcome these obstacles and what are they likely
18:05 to be how do we how do we overcome them okay so that's another issue is to as much as possible figure out what are the unanticipated developments that hence become anticipated okay and therefore how can we solve them finally we in order to maintain freedom of action we need to be on the lookout for the enemy now of course again in business we don't have an enemy in the sense of someone who's trying to you know shoot us or mow us down or with
18:40 machine guns or anything like that not not at all however we do have competitors and those competitors are trying to grab as much market share as they can typically at our expense if if you know when we're in the same business right so we need to be as aware as possible of who are our competitors okay what are they doing what are their resources how are they likely to respond to what we do
19:16 right so if we're if we're a fast food business um uh let's um let's say Jack in the Box right and we decide we're going to have a new a new product maybe it's some kind of Mexican food okay it may be terrific but we're not operating in a vacuum what is Taco Bell gonna do if we release a new Mexican food product and it's very popular what is chipotle gonna do what is um Del Taco going to do if they're still around so what are our competitors likely to do
19:53 in response to whatever action we take because we need to have we in order to maintain freedom of action we need to not underestimate and think well they're not going to do anything we're just going to roll right over them no that's not the case even as much as as General Patton pursued this active aggressive posture he also knew that at some point the enemy was going to stand and fight and in order for him to maintain freedom of action he had to be prepared for that what would how did he respond to the enemy so that he didn't underestimate
20:29 what they would do how are we in business going to respond to our competitors okay so that we don't underestimate them but we're prepared to meet them uh based on whatever they come back at us with okay all of those are components of maintaining freedom of action okay so let's shift now to sustainment so in order to maintain freedom of action we need to have sustainment now sustainment basically comes down to recognizing who am I supporting and who is
21:05 supporting me okay so we call it the supported the supporting and the supported and it's not a matter of I'm only one or the other typically everybody is both with respect to other parts of the organization okay so if we're if we're looking at an army okay we we think of um let's look at Transportation the the the the the group who maintains the vehicles and drives the vehicles and such okay they get Personnel up to where the
21:42 fighting needs to happen so they are supporting let's call it the the platoon and the platoon is the supported in that situation do you see that okay Transportation getting people where they need to go they're supporting the platoon the supported where they need to go okay but the platoon may be supporting uh let's say an artillery uh Battalion or not until
22:18 an artillery uh shoot I can't think of what the smallest grouping of artillery is but an artillery unit to make sure that they're not surprised by the enemy okay so now this platoon that was the supported is now the supporting so they're supported while they're on the trucks and then the trucks drop them off and and they disperse around the artillery unit and now all of a sudden they're the supporting to make sure that the artillery can keep firing and don't get caught from behind um and wiped out and therefore they're not able to
22:53 uh so now see now the artillery is the supported based on the platoon that's protecting them but the artillery now is supporting maybe another part of the Battalion that is the spearhead of the action forward so you see how these things work in concert okay so the same thing happens in business okay if your Senior Management in the business you you may look at yourselves we may look at ourselves as well we're the supported everybody else is working for
23:28 us while that's true in terms of we're setting the Strategic objectives we are also the supporting in making sure that our team has what they need in order to support us in meeting those objectives so it's a somewhat circular relationship so when it comes to what we were just talking about freedom of Action Logistics and supplies we may be the supporting and making sure that the resources are there we're the supporting with respect to the supply
24:03 people in our business because we got to make sure the money is there for them to buy the supplies that they need Okay so we're the supporting with respect to supply who are the supported in getting what's needed but then Supply is the supporting with respect to the people in the company who are sort of on the front lines of the business making the business happen on a day-to-day basis so those people the front line people in your business now they're the supported and Supply is the supporting so we have
24:38 the same kind of relationship in a business that we do in a war fighting unit whether it's the Marine Corps whether it's the Army whatever we could I could give you examples from the Navy from the Air Force the Coast Guard everybody okay so that supported supporting relationship is very important to keep in mind as we look at our business and how how effective can we be in achieving our objectives by maintaining freedom of action which will allow us to get around
25:13 the obstacles that are for sure going to come up it's never a smooth path to meeting our objection objectives not in war and not in business that's that's not in life in general right and I think we're coming up on time here yeah we sure are so so again I want to just repeat this one more time in sustainment we have the supported and the supporting and but they can change places depending on what part of our business we're dealing with and that is that is the support for
25:51 maintaining freedom of action so that our especially our Frontline people whether it's our sales people our customer service people are r d people they all have needs in order to pursue their part of meeting our mission of meeting their their objectives that relate to meeting the overall mission okay and so that's supported supporting relationship is there and we need to make sure they have the logistics that they are working to anticipate
26:26 unanticipated developments that they're working on making sure they're not underestimating the competition um so that they can maintain freedom of action and be most efficient in meeting and getting in in pursuing the mission of our of our organization of our company so that's what I've got for you today and uh next week we'll deal with the last three fundamentals of War fighting translated into business from Marine Corps Doctrine warfighting Doctrine objective number one okay and we'll we'll wrap it up
27:02 there and then we'll we'll move on and we'll go we'll go into other subjects we'll go more deeply into some subjects and we'll continue on with this discussion so we can see how can we make our businesses as successful as possible how can we make the companies we work for as successful as possible so thank you very much for watching uh again this is the way to wow Show Business lessons from the military I'm gonna go ahead and stop the screen sharing here and we are here every Tuesday 10 30 a.m Pacific 1 30 p.m Eastern an hour in for
27:38 the Central and mountain time tomorrow is my other show the way to wow people making money and my guest is going to be Norm Mitchell of Primerica and he's going to talk about being in the financial services business so I invite you to join me when I talk to Norm and that is at 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m eastern time again an hour in for Central and mountain and we're every Wednesday the way to wow show people making money at the times I just mentioned please if you haven't visited it yet go
28:16 check out our YouTube channel hey it's uh uh YouTube slash the way to wow and you can look at many other episodes including interviews with successful people people like us not not the Elon musks of the world I mean whatever you know he's obviously very successful but most of us are not going to be Elon Musk but we can be more successful than we are however we Define that and that's what we talk about and then that's really the point of the shows that I do so thank you very much
28:51 for joining me I wish you a great rest of the day and wrapping up my show as I always do for my dear dear friend Marie darling you are and ever will be my Belle thanks so much hope to see you tomorrow