0:02 Who are you [music] and where are you going? [music] What do you want? 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 those lessons we can apply to our businesses and professional practices.
0:38 So, we're getting close to winding up the 24 episode campaign that I've been talking about now for the last 23 weeks. Um it's a compilation of uh looking at strategy across all the service branches and putting I put them into an overall format of three parts. We're in the the final part uh which is culture and long-term survival. We're in the seventh of the eight uh sections of or eight
1:14 episodes of of this uh section and we're gonna I'm gonna today I'm going to talk about winning the peace. So I think this has been a uh particular challenge uh especially since World War II and I'll talk more about that in a minute but I want to sort of frame the episode first and that is it from a business perspective oftent times um an objective is set and when that
1:49 objective is reached it seems like Okay, good. We're done. We we we we prevailed or we succeeded and now we move on to the next big thing. That is rarely a a a recipe for success. So if the [clears throat] if the big thing is a merger for example, so post merger integration becomes the challenge. [snorts] Um if if it's the launch of a new product, there
2:24 can be a lot of excitement in the beginning, but then there's the ongoing management of that new product or product line. And so just like we talk about the completion of college as being commencement, the completion or the reaching of a particular goal in a business is oftentimes really commencement because reaching that goal is really the start of a new phase for for the company. And this is highlighted uh particularly well
3:00 uh in in the military um because um of of how of of the inevitability a military um action is almost always a shortterm uh issue relative to the overall situation. So the problem is is that many leaders focus intensely on achieving victories. So they want to win the contract, they want to acquire the the you know the the company, they want to dominate the
3:35 market, they want to launch a new product, they want to complete a turnaround, right? And so then they succeed in one of those things and then something unexpected happens and that is the organization starts struggling after this great success and it it seems uh inexplicable. Why would that be the case? And that's because victory changes the mission, right? So the skills required to win, to conquer, to disrupt, to grow rapidly are often
4:13 different from the skills that are required to govern, to integrate, to sustain, and to uh preserve. And uh you know I I if if you look at uh leadership styles and such capabilities often times people do not have both sets of skills and that can be very frustrating not only for the for the leader who doesn't have the skills to sustain the
4:48 organization for for for the people working at the organization we're looking at the same way this isn't what we need now. We need something different. And so I'm this this episode is going going to explore really this age-old military lesson and that is winning the war and winning the peace are not the same thing. So first I want to talk about what does winning the peace mean. So military organizations, good ones anyway, have recognized that victory creates a new strategic phase.
5:25 So once combat ends, leaders have to address they have to address governance of maybe the new conquered territory or the newly conquered people. Creating stability so that society can uh recover and continue to develop reconstruction. oftentimes there's damage to buildings to um to to fields for growing crops to livestock etc. uh create legitimacy and build long-term security. It's all good and
6:01 well to conquer new territory, but if a year later the that territory is going to be taken away, what has really been gained? And so without a plan for the peace for peace, the battlefield victories often become strategic failures. So why is this so difficult then? And the answer is that combat provides clear objectives. Okay, there's a visible enemy and success is measurable. Whereas peace introduces a lot of ambiguity, competing
6:39 interests, political complexity and long-term responsibilities and those are far more difficult uh to handle than the you know clear taking of the objective, right? And so the mission completely changes and organizations that fail to recognize that that this shift needs to happen, they continue to use wartime methods during peacetime conditions and that
7:15 just does not work. So a couple of examples of this uh one of the I I I mentioned at the beginning of the show the in post world war this winning of the peace has seemed much more complicated. One of those reason one of the reasons why that's the case is the peace was so effectively won post world war II in both Germany and Japan. So there was a significant reconstruction effort launched in both
7:53 countries. In in Germany the uh Germany was split up into four zones between uh the four allies the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Now, right after that, of course, the Soviet Union sort of cordoned off uh what became known as uh East Germany. Um Berlin, the capital city was also divided into four parts. Um the three allies, the US, Great Britain, and France, kind of combined their three parts, but then the Berlin wall
8:29 separated off um the uh the Soviet Union section. And so for what became known as West Germany, the the the winning of the peace was very successful. West Germany became a very econ an economic powerhouse really the strongest economy in Europe and a lot of that was due to an understanding on the part of the allies that if they wanted to prevent German militarism from rising again the
9:04 way it did after World War I resulting in World War II they couldn't allow Germany to languish um and and and its people to experience poverty and such that Germany needed to be rebuilt as a functioning society as a functioning economy and integrated more closely into the overall o into overall Western Europe. And so really a decadesl long process began uh shortly after the war and that has in the main
9:42 been tremendously successful. Now in Japan a similar thing took place. Um in this case uh uh General Douglas MacArthur was basically put in charge of the rebuilding of Japan which he did. He rewrote their constitution. He instituted small R republican uh government with with democratic uh again small d democratic uh institutions built in that essentially uh replaced uh the monarchy uh in Japan
10:17 and and the country was rebuilt again into one of the economic powerhouses in the world. And in so doing, the militarism that that uh Japan exhibited in the 1930s and 1940s really was I I don't want to say it was eradicated but it was in a way focused into economic dynamism and [clears throat and cough] excuse me. So, uh, you know, Japan is one of the great,
10:54 uh, winning of the peace success stories. It's been a pretty staunch ally of the United States over the last 75 years or so. Now, you know, one could argue, well, the way uh, General MacArthur rewrote the Japanese Constitution, they really couldn't build up a military. Um and and that has had some good effects and some bad effects. But the reality is is J Japan is is a a dynamic country economically and culturally uh to and to a large extent
11:29 Germany is as well. So we have these sort of startling success not startling but these sort of great successes in post world the postworld war II era. The counter example has been uh for example uh what happened in Iraq um after the Gulf Wars where there was great hopes uh after the uh overthrow of Saddam Hussein that Iraq was going to become kind of a a beacon of democracy in the Middle
12:04 East. That that clearly uh has has not happened. And in fact um you know Iraq has fallen after after having an absolutely you know devastatingly bloody war 10 years long war with Iran um in the uh 1990s I believe. Uh Iraq is now in some ways um an Iranian satellite um and is not at all a reliable ally of either the United States which really you know sponsored the and and hoped to
12:41 win the peace in Iraq or any of the other western powers. It is a pretty reliable ally of Iran. And so, you know, part of the problem was I well, I'll talk. Yeah. Part of the problem in Iraq, I think, is the there was an assumption that um Iraq could be um the peace could be won in Iraq similar to the way it was won in Germany. uh the the the problem is that German and and western culture I mean Germany is part of western culture so
13:18 whether whether it's music whether it's economic ideas philosophical ideas um a there Germany has made tremendous contributions to western culture Iraq does not have that uh cultural base and so trying to turn it into a country based on western norms just did not succeed. Now, it's interesting because Japan was not a country that was based on Western cultural norms either. And yet Douglas
13:53 MacArthur was able to um successfully win the piece there by I think a rather um uh clever mixture of western uh political institutions with Japanese culture. And uh you know while there's lots of detractions that can be made about General MacArthur, what he was able to do in in Japan uh was was astounding pretty much by any
14:28 measure. Um I wouldn't say that Japan is a western nation. I think it's retained its cultural character and yet it was able to build uh these kinds of uh governing institutions that have allowed it to be a stable successful um power in the world since World War II. Iraq did not have any of the um advantages that Japan had in terms of a developed economy, in terms of
15:06 you know ancient uh cultural and historical uh foundations um at least not in the same way that Japan did. And so the the so the peace was not won in Iraq, nor was it won in Afghanistan for I think similar reasons to Iraq. And and so there was a misreading of American leadership as to what needed to take place in those countries. And as a result uh while they were tactical victories uh I I think one
15:41 would have to uh put them down as strategic defeats. So businesses face the same problem and that's because um organizations um frequently they prepare for for growth for expansion for acquisitions for entry into new markets for dominating markets and they do not they do not prepare for integration of acquired businesses. They do not plan for maintenance of these
16:19 new initiatives so that they can s be sustained over the long term. They do not plan and look at new government governance that may be necessary in order to keep the business successful at its new place. And finally, they do not look at cultural alignment. So they just assume that oh this is a business, this is a business. Okay, we're going to put them together. Um that is, you know, as foolish as, well, the United States has a culture, Iraq has a culture, we won,
16:54 we're going to integrate them. It just it just does not work that way, right? So there are many examples of where businesses uh in essence win the war but lose the peace. So, for example, there are mergers that destroy value. Um, one that comes to mind is the uh merger of AOL and um uh Warner Brothers. Um uh Warner Brothers is that wasn't the name. Um I think it was Warner Communications um in around 2000. It was touted as
17:30 being this, you know, amazing combination and, you know, nothing came of it. Nothing good came of it. Uh and and in fact it was really kind of the the merging of AOL which seemed like it was a great business but was really very rapidly falling behind in the internet age and Warner Brothers which also was just not staying at the top of its game in terms of what was happening in the media business. Right? So uh that's one example where uh the
18:08 the war is won but the peace is lost. Another is startups that can't scale. So you'll get you'll get a startup um we work is an example of that. So it was a very you know very popular startup but it it it it it scaled up in terms of huge size but just failed in terms of maintenance and governance um and eventually essentially collapsed. So market leaders uh become complacent, right? And so then other competitors overtake them and turnaround companies,
18:45 they often lose the discipline that that they acquired in order to recover thinking, okay, now we've we've solved the problem. So um you know, we can we can start, you know, doing whatever. uh that and and they go they actually go back to the kind of destructive uh processes and and and perspectives that necessitated the turnaround. So success changes the challenge fa challenges faced by a business. Uh, and
19:22 here's the thing. Uh, failure usually attracts attention. And so now the spotlight is put on a business. Uh, and so there there is, you know, an incentive to deal with the failure, right? Uh, success often reduces vigilance. So people, oh, it's a su successful company, blah blah blah blah blah. Um and and so people people reduce the criticality with which they're examining a company when it's
19:58 successful. So leaders begin to think well the hardest work is finished, right? We we made that victory, right? and and old methods will continue working even though there's a essentially a new company now especially if it's it was a merger and momentum will sustain itself just the calling it momentum sounds like ah it's going to go on and on and on but that is not the case there is there's no such thing as a perpetual motion machine there is no such thing as a perpetual perpetual business especially in today's economic
20:33 real especially facing today's economic realities. And so success uh creates complacency. It it creates bureaucracy, strategic drift, and cultural erosion. And all of these things lead to the decline and the losing of of the peace post a major business success. So [clears throat] uh in in in terms of looking at a merger. So um many acquisitions seem to
21:13 succeed financially but they fail operationally. And why is that the case? Well because leadership was so focused on completing the deal. They did not look at integrating systems between the two businesses so they could operate uh they could operate um more more cleanly. Um they they did not look at aligning cultures. They fa failed to retain talent or they retain people that should
21:51 have you know been sent on their way because they were going to hamper the integration of the companies and they did not establish common objectives. Right? So, so the battle is won, but the peace is lost. And, and you know, you look among some of the uh some of the uh media mergers that have gone on lately. Um, and like for example, Warner's Discovery. Um, it's been pretty bumpy. Now, I don't know, maybe they're going
22:26 to work it out in the end. Um, but but it has definitely been difficult. And you know, now they're going to um they're, you know, they've they've they're they're acquiring uh Paramount to get even bigger, right? How is that going to work out? Paramount has a very different uh culture than Warner's Discovery has. Um especially if you look at some of their TV and and and news operations, there's there's been a lot of push back. for example, um when Barry Weiss was named u editor-inchief of CBS
23:04 News. So, how are all these things going to shake out? Are they going to be able to mesh cultures with Warner Brothers? It it'll be an interesting situation to watch. Um and and and this this is one of the reasons why business can be so fascinating is, you know, are they going to win the peace? They won the battle, right? they fended off uh Netflix in getting Paramount or or National Amusements anyway. Um but what's going to happen? Are are they going to be successful in winning the piece of that act of that mergers battle? Right. So,
23:41 let's take a quick break and we'll look at some specific things that businesses can do that you can do to win the peace [clears throat] when life brings unexpected changes. Managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Properties specializes in probate and trust real estate management. We handle the complexities while you focus on what matters most. From property maintenance to tenant relations, from legal compliance to maximizing value. We're your trusted partner through every step.
24:18 Magnum Properties, Inc. turning property challenges into peace of mind. Call us today at 213-264-4396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay. So, let's look at then five things that businesses can do that you can do if you're looking to win the peace in your business uh in in in order to extend victory. Okay. And the first one probably sounds pretty obvious and that
24:55 is plan beyond victory. Right? So success in whatever the initiative was is not the end estate. It is in fact the beginning. Right? And so when you're working on the the merger or when you're working on the launch of a new product or the new or a new product line, take time to define what are the postsuccess objectives. What do they look like? What
25:32 does this merged firm look like once the merger has happened? And how you know how how does the integration how is the integration going to take place? That should be given at least as much thought as is put to figuring out what is the company with which my company should combine. Right? So there should be transition plans should be established. Now you've heard me on this show say many times plans are worthless. Planning is essential. And that's true. once the
26:08 acquisition closes uh or once the the new product or service has been launched. So your plan your transition plan may not be the correct plan. However, having gone through the process and identified what the challenges are going to be post victory, you should be able to pivot much more cleanly in order to make in order to create long-term success. Okay? So the planning
26:44 process is more about examining what what does the post victory period look like? What are likely to be the various issues with that are going to be uh that are going to need to be dealt with and and what are some ways of doing that? Okay. And then you know there may be kind of an ad hoc uh winning of the peace that's going to have to take place. Okay. And then identify long-term requirements early on. Right? So if we're talking about the merger of two
27:20 businesses, okay, what are the cultural differences between those two businesses? Okay. And one and if they and if they are profound, one of the long-term requirements is going to be how do we mesh these cultures? Okay. Um and that's that is probably the most complex issue because people get set in their ways. They get used to a particular tone in a business and it's very difficult to force people to
27:56 adapt to a new way of looking at things. So and and handling things. So that really needs those those um long-term requirements need to be decided early so that plans can be made as to how to achieve them recognizing that those plans will almost for sure have to adapt as they're implemented. Right? So victory is a phase. It's not a destination and it needs to be looked at that way. All right, that's number one.
28:31 Number two, leadership style may have to shift after success, after victory. So what I I this is one of the things I talked about at the very beginning of the show. What wins battles may not sustain the organization, right? So the the the um the the attaining a victory is oftentimes uh a a very sort of urgent process, right? Um negotiating a merger, launching a
29:07 product. Uh there, you know, there there's there's got to be a lot of momentum. Excitement has to be created. And that is different than stewardship. Right? So a business cannot constantly be dealing in urgency. It its people will be worn out. Leadership will get exhausted. Right? So there needs to be a transition to the stewardship phase. So you know we we going back to a combat example just for a moment. So George
29:43 Patton was famous for uh essentially arguing with Bernard Montgomery about this issue of consolidating one's gains pausing consolidating one's gains and then moving forward again. That's how Montgomery looked at uh war. Patton said, "No, we want to constantly be pushing pushing pushing pushing." Patton was the consumate uh you know war fighter. uh he was not
30:20 the postwar organizer and in fact um there was a lot of controversy surrounding uh surrounding his stewardship of the area of Germany over which he had cognizance because of some of the decisions that he made right and so it takes a different temperament a different perspective to handle stewardship and like patent many leaders ers are not qualified to handle both. So crisis management or that sort of hard
30:55 driving uh hard drive to success needs to be replaced with institution building. Now I want to be clear about this. I'm not suggesting a type of sclerotic institution building and and bureaucratic uh overreach and that sort of thing. No, not not at all. Businesses need to stay nimble. They need but they need to be nimble within the understanding of creating s sustainability
31:31 and uh uh and and and sort of a a calm to um to um codify um the gains that were made and make sure the company is is going to operate. well in the face of this these new situations before it launches onto the next big uh big push to victory. So um there you know there needs to be a focus on long-term systems. What is
32:06 going to make what is going to make this business sustainable in the face of the victory just won? Right? So leadership must evolve with circumstances and and now that evolution doesn't mean that each individual leader needs to evolve. It may be that there needs to be a leadership transition whereby the leaders who are good at stewardship sort of take the business in hand while the leaders who are good at achieving
32:43 victory go on to plan their next big initiative and and leadership the business kind of moves back and forth between these two groups. that can be an effective way of of doing things. And and by the way, that that that may happen naturally in a business where perhaps the CEO is the hard driving individual looking to expand, looking to launch new products, new services, whatever. And the COO is really concerned with stewardship of the day-to-day business. And you know
33:18 they they create their teams um from people within the organization who are qualified to handle those two different ways those two different phases of of the business. Okay. Number three, a business needs to guard against complacency. So success can often times create blind spots. So uh we were successful. So now we know how to do it. We have the formula. You hear these kinds of things spoken by business
33:54 leaders. They are rarely the case. Uh the business environment is uh changes much too rapidly. It's far too dynamic for that kind of complacency. And so businesses need to continue challenging assumptions even in the face of victory. Okay. And in fact I think a a strong argument can be made that one of the most important times to challenge assump assumptions is immediately post victory.
34:30 Okay. Just because these things brought us to a successful product or service launch doesn't mean that they're going to carry us through to the consolidation of our gains and raising the bill the business uh sustainably to a new level right that that is probably not going to be the case. Uh so uh businesses need to maintain accountability standards and they need to give a hard look at are the people who led us to victory are they
35:06 going to win the peace for this business? If the answer is no, by the way, it doesn't need mean they need to be fired. It just means that there needs to be a transition uh like that which I spoke about a moment ago to a different team to consolidate gains while the team that makes the gains goes on to plan for the next big uh the next big initiative, right? And so um there needs to be a monitoring of emerging threats to make sure that the
35:41 business has not or the lead really the leadership of the business hasn't become so complacent that they're overlooking the things that can undermine the gains that they've made. So today's strengths can become tomorrow's weaknesses and businesses really need to be uh vigilant in guarding against that. Okay. Next, make sure that you integrate before you expand again. Okay. uh in in this case,
36:16 as big a fan as I am of George Patton and and I'm I'm a huge fan, uh you know, Bernard Montgomery really has the uh the the the right idea here. Now really what should happen is you need a a George patent to to lead that initiative and then you need a Bernard Montgomery to kind of take those gains and and stabilize them while you know Patton plans for his next one. Um and and and
36:51 by the way to a certain extent that that is what happened in World War II. It wasn't Montgomery who was consolidating. it was uh it was Omar Bradley and and more broadly Dwight Eisenhower, right? And so uh you know Patton was the perfect instrument. He would gain territory and then they would take care of seeing to it that the peace was won as as Patton moved on to another victory. Right? So the integration process needs to take place um before expanding again in a business. And one
37:26 of the reasons is because businesses have a limited amount of resources. Okay? Unlike a war where especially a war like World War II where I don't want to say there was infinite resources, that is not the case. But it was understood that uh that that that victory was going to be pursued until Germany surrendered unconditionally. So the the uh integration and and the um the uh sustainability
38:02 of the uh reconquered territories was taking place while battles continued. For most businesses that's not going to work. They don't have the resources to do that. And so um con they need to consolidate before they reacelerate. Okay, they it shouldn't businesses most businesses shouldn't operate under a continual situation of the accelerator being pressed to the floorboard, right? And so uh it needs to a business needs to align
38:39 people and processes. That was again the process to which to which about which I spoke um in in uh number two about a shift of leadership. So they need businesses need to stabilize uh operations and they need to ensure cultural cohesion right all of that needs to take place before the next big initiative goes on. And I've I've talked about this example many times with Crispy Cream where they launched on this huge expansion effort and but they did
39:14 not integrate before trying to expand again. And so they just could not keep up with supplying all the myriad numbers of new stores and and and therefore their quality control slipped and and the whole expansion effort ended up failing um and and and almost destroying the company. Right. That's that's a textbook example of a failure to integrate before expanding again, right? And and you know that we should all be aware of that. And by the way, I I've been talking about some large examples, but the same is true even for a small
39:51 business. So, I know for me in my business, when I take on a a large new client, okay, I know that I've got to integrate that client into my systems, into my practice, and and I'm going to be really challenged to take on another big new client while I'm still integrating the previous one. Okay. Now, [clears throat] um, what that compels me to do is to be very diligent about that integration
40:27 process so that if I have an opportunity to bring another large client in, I'm able to do so without causing conflict and without slipping on the clients uh that I already have, right? And so I you know I go through a period of very frenzied almost uh integration. Okay. So that I can expand again right um and and and so like let's even with a you know soloreneur business like mine all of these lessons apply. Okay.
41:02 Finally okay we I you know we need to define the new mission. So victory changes priorities. I know I've seen that in in in my business. So two years ago, I was quite happy to take on small um probates, probate administrations. Today, having had some some big victories and taken on some large clients, I really can't afford to handle small estates anymore.
41:39 They take up too much of my time and they pull away too much of my time from my larger clients which are much more important to the success of my practice. Right? And so victory for me has changed my priority priorities and and that is the case for almost all businesses. Right? So once an objective has been changed uh an organization needs to re reassess its future objectives, right? it, you know, maybe the business is is kind of at
42:14 capacity or at least it's at capacity for a while and so it doesn't need to be marketing so aggressively. Uh rather it's its objectives need to be to create stability and a high level of service for the clients and customers that it's already gotten. Right? So we all need to look at that. Um also the a new mission the defining of a new mission means that the business and leaders in the business need to communicate this new reality to
42:51 uh other other team members in the business itself to clients and customers so they understand how they're going to be serviced how the products they're buying are going to be handled right all of that needs to come together [snorts] and so then Businesses need to make sure that they align incentives with the next phase. So if the next phase is this consolidation and attainment of sustainability. So then it may be that the that the incentives that were used to uh to drive
43:29 growth need to change to ones that that w are you know focus on sustaining client existing client and customer relationships. Right? So every victory creates a new strategic environment and we need to examine that and redefine our mission or at least the the current phase of our mission so that we we do consolidate that victory. Right? So uh organizations rarely collapse because
44:04 they failed to win. They collapse because they failed to manage success and that overwhelms the organization. So long-term survival requires adaptation after achievement. It reply it requires discipline after growth and vigilance after victory. Right? And so the challenge shifts from conquest to preservation. Right? So as with all of the aspects of the 24 episode campaign,
44:43 uh leadership discipline is required. Business is first and foremost a a a a function of strong leadership. That's why I think there's such a strong alignment between how a military and military victory works and how business and and and business and victories in business work. Not that business is the existential uh enterprise that war is, but they're both human endeavors and so
45:18 they they have very similar aspects, right? So leaders must resist complacency and that's hard. Winning a victory can m can exhaust leaders and and and and they all they may crave is just some downtime. So take your vacation but don't let the organization become complacent in the meantime. So leaders must recognize changing conditions. They need to they need to proactively see and manage that transition from
45:54 urgency to stability and they need to redefine success continuously. Okay? Because what qualifies as success right now is unlikely to be what qualifies as success in 6 months or 12 months or two years. Okay. And finally, while they may want to celebrate, they really need to focus on sustainability. So, I this is one of the sort of ongoing not conflicts I have, but with with my
46:29 friend Bill, he's always telling me, "Celebrate your victories. Celebrate." I'm like, "I got to keep I got to keep my eye on the ball. I've got to integrate my re my most recent client, make sure they're well taken care of. I'll have to celebrate later. Right. [laughter] He's always he chides me bec and and and look I think I think Bill is right in the sense that we do need to take satisfaction in our victories but we cannot allow the celebration to overtake what is the next step which is creating
47:05 sustainability. So uh the the hardest leadership transition oftentimes comes after achieving the goal because as leadership is like we we met this goal like how can they be supplanted right at the at the you know apex of their victory you're going to push them aside. Well no that's that's why I'm going to repeat this yet again. It's not a matter of pushing them aside. It's putting them in a position to plan the next victory while the leadership that is suited for creating
47:41 for consolidating victory and creating sustainability takes takes over the stewardship of the organization. Right? So it's it's a it's a dance and each partner needs to do their part in order for the dance to work out. So what does this mean today? Well, modern organizations experience rapid scaling, acquisitions, technological breakthroughs, market dominance, right? We're seeing one of the biggest challenges to business with the right
48:16 now with the adoption of artificial intelligence and and and trying to figure out what is this going to mean. So, the question isn't whether they can succeed. The question is whether they can sustain success. Okay. And so history shows that organizations most often are not com they're not defeated by competitors but by their own inability to adapt after victory. So, my my friend uh uh
48:51 Michael um and I [clears throat] were talking uh last night um about a couple of companies um that they they weren't defeated by their competitors. Um they were actually compete they were actually defeated by their own inability to adapt to victory. One of the ones we talked about was Kodak. Kodak actually invented digital photography, but they didn't exploit it because they were afraid that it would erode the the market dominance they had in photography by selling cameras and film, right? And and so it
49:29 wasn't competitors that harmed them. It's they basically shot themselves in the foot. Now, one of the things Michael and I was talking about is like it's so hard to basically say we're going to launch a new product that has the potential to destroy our current business. How would investors have responded to that, [snorts] right? They probably not very good, right? Um and and that therein lies one of the sort of built-in challenges of this issue of winning the peace. Now you could one
50:05 could argue that Kodak won the peace for a long time but when the new war came up when this new technology was developed right they were not able to prevent other people from coming up with a similar technology and so it was their decline was almost inevitable. All right closing closing thoughts. So many people assume victory solves problems. In reality, victory only creates new problems. Okay? So, winning
50:42 the fight is an achievement. Winning the peace is really what leadership is all about. So in war and in business, the ultimate measure of success is not whether you can win, it's whether you can build something that endures after the victory is won. So I thank you very much for joining me today. real quickly, my uh schedule of shows. Mondays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Trust and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays, like today at
51:17 10 a.m. Pacific time, business lessons from the military. Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, people making money. And every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time, join me at Jiggers's Place for a cocktail and a smoo. We'll talk about all kinds of things unrelated to finances. So, uh, from your perspective, where do you struggle to win the peace? Okay, look right down below. You you'll see uh in the show notes links to social
51:52 media. Post a comment where where do you find this idea of consolidating victories to be difficult? or conversely, where did you have uh success in consolidating your victories and building a platform from which you could launch your business to an even higher level? I'd love to hear your thoughts. And that just leaves me then to thank you very much for joining me today, wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do. Marie darling, you are