The WAY to WOW Shows
What Business Can Learn from Combat Rotations
July 29, 2025
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[0:03] Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? [Music] 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 and military doctrine and the practices of military leaders from which we distill lessons that we can apply to our

[0:39] businesses and professional practices. So today I'm going to be talking about what businesses can learn from the uh military deployment or combat rotation cycle. And this is um this is a a subject that's uh near and dear to my heart isn't really the right way to describe it. Um I I it it's one that impacts me a lot I guess is the best way to put it because uh early in my

[1:14] uh Navy career uh I was asked to get involved in a situation where a Marine uh had um was was put in the Brig which is Navy and Marines speak for jail for having uh in the eyes of the Marine Corps prosecutor murdered his daughter. Now, you can imagine what was going through my head when I first heard this uh and and uh I went up to see this marine

[1:49] and without getting into the whole story uh one of the things that I learned was he had done three back-to-back combat tours in uh Iraq and Afghanistan. man with almost no what's called dwell time or downtime in between. And after the third one, instead of going back to the unit from which he had deployed, he was sent on to his new unit where the people didn't know him and

[2:25] didn't know what he was like. And the reality was he had a a a pretty severe case of posttraumatic stress. He probably was in full-blown PTSD, but the people in his new unit, since they didn't know him, didn't recognize it. And while that's not a reason to kill someone, of course, uh there is a difference between murder, which is the willful killing of an

[3:00] individual, and the killing of someone uh for other reasons. Uh, and just the again without getting into the whole story, the wrap-up of the story was the prosecutor decided to put him on on trial for capital murder. Um, and he was not u he was not found guilty of capital murder. He was found guilty of I believe it was seconddegree murder. Um, and I I ended up I got to know this particular marine and I testified in his trial. his his lawyer

[3:36] very kindly attributed to me probably the fact that he wasn't uh um found guilty of capital murder. So this this idea of of downtime or dwell time uh in in the military is is critical and to disregard it can have existential consequences. So it's it's for this reason that I wanted to talk to you about this subject today. I wouldn't say that the stakes are as

[4:12] high here in the civilian business world, but certainly the the kind of um physical and mental stress that that um to which we can become subject when we don't get uh time away from work. um can have pretty severe consequences for our health uh and for the well-being of our loved ones, our family and friends, etc. And and so it's in that

[4:48] context that that I, you know, pre present this to you today. um you know kind kind of heavy a little bit heavier topic maybe than we sometimes uh deal with here on business lessons from the military but I think it's important to recognize them. So the the the unit rotation system uh in in combat zones it it it there's several uh aspects of that that I want to talk about first and then I'll talk about you know how do we translate this into the civilian business world. So generally speaking,

[5:25] each branch of the military has defined deployment cycles. Generally uh the uh units will uh cycle into theater uh o in a 6 to 12 month period depending on uh what they're doing and uh what the circumstances are. So in theory for example when a ship deploys that deployment is supposed to be six months long because to be on a ship for that long is is it's doable but as it starts

[6:03] to extend beyond that it becomes more and more difficult. Okay. whereas to be deployed to uh you know a regular base um where you're not really you know facing combat conditions on a regular basis a deployment like that might last for as long as a year. Okay. So again it depends on on the the type of deployment. Now having said that it is not at all unusual for shipboard deployments to be longer than six months. I know the one I did was uh 7 months. Um and some of them sometimes

[6:38] say uh deploy shipboard deployments are extended because they need to be for you know national security reasons and so they they can be extended for a year and the the sailors just have to grin and bear it so to speak. Okay. So this the the 6 to 12 months in theater is supposed to be followed by a a what I what I call a dwell period or a down period where uh um service members uh reunite with their families. Um oftentimes they're

[7:14] given sort of what amounts to uh leave time. It's not officially leave because it doesn't count against their accumulated leave time. Um, but it's it's really for the unit as a whole um to to again reunite with their families and and sort of catch up with what's going on in in their, you know, non-military in their nonwork life. Um, and then there's a period of of just sort of uh more relaxed pace work. they'll there's refitting, there's retraining that goes

[7:51] on. So, this sort of RNR period, rest and recovery, is designed to reduce the long-term mental and physical fatigue that comes from being in theater. Okay? So, those are supposed to rotate. Now beyond that although this isn't really the topic for today uh I know in the in the Navy uh I mean in in the Navy so um one is supposed to

[8:26] um rotate between what's called an operational tour which is a tour when you know you're going to be deployed and you're going to be deployed for a significant part of of of that tour. So, I did my operational tour with uh with uh CVW uh Carrier Airwing uh 14. Okay. And it was supposed to be for uh I believe it was a year and a half, year and a half or two years of which we did works for about a year. uh during which

[9:04] time I was gone a great deal visiting squadrons in other parts of the country and then we did a deployment that lasted seven months and then when we got back from deployment you know there was kind of a threemonth downtime um after which um I I I in theory would have moved on to my next um my next uh billet in my case they wanted to send me on backtoback operational tours and I said no. So I ended up essentially uh that's when I went off active duty. So there's

[9:39] both a a combat rotation, but there's also a billet rotation at least in the Navy. I'm not sure how that's done in the other branches of the service. I believe the Marine Corps is is is similar as well with the uh rotation between shore what's called shore duty and an operational tour. Okay. So um we have the de the deployment cycle 6 to 12 months uh in in you know in theater you know with with workups um which is the training that prepares uh unit to

[10:14] deploy. So it can't it it will typically be longer than the 6 to 12 months. There may be six to 12 months of workups. And then if it's a 12-month workup, in theory, it's supposed the the the um in the Navy and Marine Corps, the cycle is supposed to be overall 18 months. Okay. But it does get extended as as was the case for me. Okay. So um al along with the uh rotation cycle for units is how this affects the overall um

[10:51] you know military situation in a particular area. So, so for example, um you know, take take Afghanistan, uh you know, when a unit rotated in, they were usually replacing another unit whose whose deployment time was up. Okay? Uh now, though, replacing units was usually done on a phased basis. So you didn't you don't want all of your units in theater leaving at the same time. First of all, it's a huge

[11:26] logistical uh you know problem to to have all of these units flying out and all the new ones flying in. So they're usually phased where you know it's a staggered um you know deployment and then redeployment. Redeployment means leaving the theater. Um and and also you don't want to lose all your corporate knowledge. So for a a new unit that's coming in, they need to interact with other units that have been in theater for a while so they can learn what's going on. Um figure out more effectively

[12:01] and efficiently what needs to be done. And there is in most cases there's no way to do that thoroughly without knowledge of or without having actually operated in theater. Okay. So that's another reason why we have these these phased or staggered replacement of units. Okay. But in in in so doing because of the overlap okay uh this also means that the larger you know army or or task force or whatever it is that's that's taking place. It means that they

[12:37] can operate, you know, at or close to peak efficiency all the time because of these phased replacements. Okay. Now, that's how the system is supposed to work. Of course, it it doesn't it doesn't work that that smoothly, I think, ever really. Okay. But ideally, that's how it's supposed to work. Okay? And and I will say that largely it does work that way except for you know units end up getting held longer sometimes and then sometimes you know a unit will get

[13:13] held so long that it leaves at the same time as another unit leaves and so now there's a knowledge gap and and you know because there are oftentimes more demands on the military than there are units to fill them. you know, the the military has to do the best it can to make sure that it's covering all of the uh responsibilities that it has. Okay. Um with within this uh um you know combat rotation cycle. So there is supposed to be a pretty um robust mental

[13:50] health care pretty pretty robust mental health care monitoring uh going on. So, uh, you know, part of determining whether an individual service member is going to go on a deployment includes that uh that service member essentially being certified by medical that they're fit to go, that they don't have any physical impairments that will prevent them from uh performing their duties, and that they are mentally fit to go. Okay? So, it's up to the doctors and

[14:26] other medical personnel to make that uh determination. Now, uh some of you may know if you've watched the show before, big fan of the show Hogan's Heroes. I was watching an episode last night where uh Colonel Clink uh the commonant of the Luchalog that you know which the show takes place uh is is suckered into uh not sort of being volunttoled to to take on a you know a combat position. He just has to pass the medical test. And so, uh, Hogan and his, uh, group, they

[15:04] basically cook up a plan to, you know, completely demolish Colonel Clink's health, figuring if he's in terrible physical shape, he won't be able to go and he'll be able to stay as the common of the camp. And of course, the the, you know, doctor shows up to examine Colonel Clink, and he does examine him. And at the end of the examination, he says he says, "Oh, you're in terrible shape." And Colonel Clink, you know, fains to be disappointed. Oh, no. Does that mean I can't go? And the doctor says, "But you do have the one thing that qualifies you for a combat assignment on the Eastern

[15:39] Front, and that is you have a pulse, right?" I mean, it's it's of course somewhat of a joke about how those things were were were handled or at least perceived to be handled by uh you know, the the the German by the Vermach back in World War II. uh today it really doesn't work that way. So um it's it's not this sort of um you know check in the box um you know physical and mental fitness uh that uh that that the doctors do. Um there are there are you know typically um you know at least a small

[16:16] percentage of members of a unit that don't go on deployment because the doctors or I should say I shouldn't say the doctors I should be saying the medical people determine that they're not fit to go. Uh and and I will say that look they're not perfect. So sometimes they make mistakes. Um on my deployment we had a situation where uh one of the senior enlisted people who was cleared to go um we were we got on board the ship and we're about I think about a month into our deployment maybe a little bit less than that. Um, and it

[16:52] was clear because of what was going on back home that he was not mentally unfit sounds harsher than I mean it, but it's just he his head was not in his work. And when you're flying, you know, jet aircraft off the deck of an aircraft carrier, the the level of family distractions with which he had to deal really, it caused me to go to our commanding officer and say, "Sir, you need to send this sailor home." You know, he's he's done honorable service

[17:27] at that point. I think it was for something like 25 years. um you you can't ask him to sacrifice his family uh at at this point and and this was not at all favorably received by the officer in charge of his department. Uh but uh you know my my commanding officer agreed with my assessment and the fact of the matter is we got through the deployment, we got through it fine and as far as I know uh you know he he was able to you know hold his family together and do what he needed to do. So these assessments are very important. Um

[18:03] they're they're not always made accurately. Um and and when they're not, accommodations have to be made. And so the physical and mental health monitoring which is part of the workups to a deployment should be should be taking place. Uh and it and it is again an important part of this whole cycle of events. Okay. Um so sometimes uh there you know a unit will be doing its workups preparing to deploy and for various reasons uh a particularly

[18:38] crucial member of that unit can't go and without without someone in that job uh the unit is not going to be able to fulfill its mission. Okay. And when that happens, what they'll do is is they'll look to another unit to augment theirs. So they'll if it's a um you know an air an um like a fighter squadron um and and their let's say their maintenance chief, excuse me, is you know has some physical things going on. He's not going to be

[19:13] able to be you know on an aircraft carrier and operate effectively. So what what the unit what what the squadron that's working up for deployment may do is trade their maintenance chief with the maintenance chief from another squadron who will be able to deploy. So they'll they'll augment their unit. In this case it's not really an augment because they're not adding to. It's really more of a trade if you will for you know personnel uh that that that is you know are ready

[19:48] to and able to deploy um for personnel who were not. Now in other cases because of the mission they may they just may need more people and so they may augment the the unit in order that it it can take care of what it needs to do on deployment. And in that case, the the actual number of people in the unit deploying uh is is increased. But typically, it's the same kind of process. They'll borrow people from another squadron. I'm I'm using an airplane squadron just because that's what I'm most familiar with. But these things can happen in in any type of

[20:24] unit, whether it's a Marine Corps infantry, whether it's, you know, an army artillery unit. I mean, it does it doesn't matter. It in that sense, all the services branches work the same. Okay. So, so I talked about the rotation cycle, some of the issues um that that are important in the working up to the deployment itself. Now um once the deployment has been completed so there are certain things that take place

[20:59] um sometimes before um the unit actually leaves the theater and is redeployed home. Other times it happens right when they get home and before they're they're, you know, set off to go, you know, be with their families and take this sort of quasi leave. And and other times it'll be after the the the family reunion time is over and now they're, you know, they're moving through their dwell period. So typically while they're

[21:34] still in theater, but they've but they've been deactivated. So, typically I I I should maybe should have mentioned this before. Typically, there'll be some crossover time when the unit that is being replaced is still there and the unit that's replacing them is now in theater and they're there at the same time. So, they can do kind of a a handover, if you will. uh and and they can um you know firsthand tell the incoming unit with what they've been

[22:09] dealing and how they've been handling things etc etc. So there's a turnover period if you will. Okay. So while the you new unit is taking over, okay, and the the unit going home is still in theater, that unit going home will oftent times do what we used to call in the Navy and the Marine Corps a hot wash. So this this is sort of an afteraction report that is done as as soon as the action is over. Now it's this is done both for let's say

[22:45] there was some sort of small unit action by a Marine Corps maybe it was a Marine Corps um uh shoot smaller than a company um platoon. So let's say a Marine Corps platoon does some kind of action. So typically as soon as they conclude that action they will do a hot wash. Okay. so that it's fresh in their minds any you know and they they sort of just get it all out get it on paper so to speak um and and then and then they you know they go

[23:20] do what they need to do and then there are other afteraction reports that happen. So, kind of in a similar vein, typically before they leave theater, the unit will do sort of an, you know, a right afteraction report, if you will. Okay? And they'll, you know, lessons learned is another, that's what we used to call it more sort of, you know, what do we take from this deployment that can be passed on to other units in order that in order to be more effective. Okay. So, uh, then you know the unit is

[23:55] deployed home. Um, sometimes there's some kind of lessons learned or afteraction reviewed once they get home but before they're released for this family reunion period. Okay? And then once they come back from the family reunion period, then there's a more extensive and detailed lessons learned process that the unit goes through in preparation for training um that that will prepare them for so

[24:32] that they they can be more effective in their next uh deployment. So these lessons learned are incorporated into future training and operations and it's it's a it's a process of continual improvement. Okay. So that's kind of that's one part of the postdeployment part of the cycle. Okay. Um, and then I I mentioned already there are downtime mandates, dwell time, um, and and you know how long it is and and what can

[25:07] happen and all that. That really to a certain extent is at the discretion of the commanding officer for the unit. Uh but but in any event they they look to scale it in accordance with how long the deployment was, how soon the unit is going to deploy again, uh how difficult the deployment was. So for example, the deployment I went on uh I was talking with my my CEO one day and he and this is this is someone who at the time had been in the Navy for I believe it was somewhere between 25 and 28 years. So long time he'd done seven or eight

[25:43] shipboard deployments and he said the deployment we were on lucky me right was the most difficult deployment he'd been on in his career. Okay. Uh and it we had very very little downtime uh I mean and very few port calls um during our deployment. Okay. We had one, two, three. We had three port calls during our deployment. And then once once we were once we were redeploying

[26:20] home, we did have a few more at that point. But during the operational phase of our uh of our deployment, we had three port calls that allowed us to be off the ship. I think it was a total of I want to say about 16 days in 16 months. Okay. The rest of the time we were on the ship. Okay. That's that's now if you've ever been on an aircraft carrier, it may look really big to you, but I can assure you being on that ship

[26:56] for and and I missed one of the one of the times I missed most of it because we pulled into port on a Friday afternoon right before the Jewish Sabbath and so I couldn't get off the ship until Sunday. We so we pulled in on a Friday and we left on a Monday. So I was off the ship for one day out of the sort of three to four that we were actually in port, right? So and there were other people like me who for various reasons because they had the duty or whatever couldn't get off the ship. So uh you know the dwell time then is scaled in accordance

[27:32] with the length of the deployment, the difficulty of the deployment, what happened. Ours was a particularly difficult deployment as well because we did humanitarian assistance after the tsunami in 20 2011. Um we were almost literally surrounded by death. Um which is you know a difficult thing for a lot of people to you know to deal with. And so you know we got some additional family reunion time uh because of that. So uh you know again this is often times

[28:08] um at the discretion of the commanding officer. However, the needs of the Navy come first. And so uh you know if if there's so sometimes you'll hear things about the the presence in the Persian Gulf, for example, and you'll hear oh there's a 1.5 presence or a 2.0 presence. So a one a 1.0 presence means there's always one aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. That was typically the case when I was in the Navy. Um but at

[28:43] various times presence was up to 1.5 which meant that there were two ships overlapping for part of each of their deployment times. So the ship one ship would be there sort of half the time and two ships would be there half the time. Okay. And a 2.0 know presence is obviously two ships are there the whole time. So when the orders come to up the presence that often times means a shortening of dwell time. So the commanding officer of the ship or or in my case an airwing might have had the

[29:18] best of intentions of giving you know his people uh you know sufficient or or you know a long long uh family reunion period, long dwell period. Um, and big Navy might call them up and say, "Hey, you know, I know you just got back. You're heading out again in four months." It's like, "Four months? What?" You know, um, I mean, in our case, we did head back to sea within a couple of months of getting back from deployment, which was unfortunately increasingly happening increasingly frequently

[29:54] um, be because of the deployment cycles uh, that were going on. um we we had to do some exercises and such uh and uh pe people were not happy about it. Family member family members especially were very unhappy about it. Okay. So so there were downtime uh mandates but you know in accordance with the issues I mentioned. Um and then um finally um and I and I' I've mentioned this a little bit. These various factors, they're not set in stone. So missions change, the

[30:32] needs of the nation and the Navy change and so what can be a very well-laidout plan um will can can get altered. Um that was the case for for my deployment. So, uh, we we got to, uh, San Diego, I believe it was in a February, and we were supposed to be doing just a a traditional what's called Westpack, which is a Western Pacific deployment. Uh, we didn't have anything in particular to do except for participating in an exercise called, I think it was Full Eagle with the the

[31:08] South Korean Navy. Um, and then we, you know, we'd be the ship in the Persian Gulf for a while. um and then come home. And then the uh earthquake and tsunami hit in Japan and we were off to do humanitarian assistance. We ended up not uh going to full eagle because we were still helping the the Japan out. Um and then everything from there was was on a somewhat of an ad hoc basis while the Navy rejiggered deployment schedules. So that you know that is the

[31:44] somewhat chaotic nature of military life and it is to be expected. Okay. So with with that as the background, let's let's let's take a sponsor break and then we'll talk about some lessons learned. America is a maritime nation. Our freedom and security depend on strong sea services. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League stands with our Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine through community support, education, and advocacy. For over 120 years, Americans of all walks of life

[32:20] have heeded our call. No prior military services required to join our mission. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League of the United States. Help us support those who serve at sea. Visit navyleague.org. Okay, so this is Business Lessons from the Military and I'm your host, Kevin Beml. We're talking about the military combat rotation system and how we can apply this to the the civilian world. So

[32:55] I have uh I'll I have a number of ideas on how you can u apply this and I'll I'll I'll go through them sort of one by one. This is food for you, food for thought for you in in how you you know deal with um keeping your personnel at the top of their game despite uh sometimes you know very um demanding and stressful excuse me work periods. So uh one of excuse me

[33:36] so one of the most obvious applications is to introduce schedule downtime into the schedule of of of how you into the sort of larger schedule the you know annual schedule or the multi-year your schedule uh that you have for your company. So if you you know routinely for example re uh roll out new products or services. So typically there's a lot more work a lot more stress in the

[34:11] period leading up to the roll out of the product or service and then during the actual roll out right again a lot more work um time demands are higher lot more stress right so um once that roll out is stabilized it may be a good idea to give your people some additional downtime. So for example, maybe uh in instead you know post uh product or service roll out instead of continuing

[34:48] with a five day or maybe you were working you know six day weeks something like that you reduce people to a 4 day work week for a few weeks to give them some time to recharge spend some additional time with their families. Right. While you in the military, people I think generally speaking recognize the impact that military service has on families, especially spouses. I I think it's less recognized in the civilian business world. um you

[35:23] know as if having a a a a stressful long day or I not not one but a series of of stressful long days at the office you know the person is goes home and sort of magically transitions into you know being you know an available uh energetic spouse and parent right I I I don't think it happens any more easily here in the civilian world than it does in the military and So having this, you know, sort of um the idea of like a rest and recreation period built in to these

[35:59] cycles can work. Maybe you give all of your people a week off that's not charged against their vacation time and that way, you know, they they have this time to like to sort of reunite with their families. you know, if they've if people have been working 12, 15, 18 hour days for several weeks, okay, they have probably seen their children little if at all. Um, they probably have seen and interacted with their spouse very little. Takes a big toll on marriages, right? And there's there's nothing like

[36:35] an employee going through a divorce to distract that employee from you know doing well for for your organization. Okay. So um one idea is to introduce some schedule downtime as part of your uh overall uh you know planning cycle for your business. Okay. The next is consider some crossraining and and role rotation. So, um, one of the aspects of of the military and and I I mentioned this a little bit is,

[37:10] uh, units rotate into combat and back out. Um, but oftent times the particular combat assignments they have are different. Okay? So, they don't they oftentimes they don't let's say there's an it's an it's an a two-year cycle. uh 18 months of which is workups and deployment, right? And so then at the end of that two-year cycle, uh when that unit enters the next one, uh they're typically

[37:45] I'm not I shouldn't say typically, but many times they're not um gearing up to deploy for the same kind of combat activity that they did that the unit did last time. Okay. Now, in in my case, I I rotated billets every two or three years. So, rarely did I do uh two deployments. Well, I never I never did two deployments, but people in in the Navy typically, unless they're more junior enlisted, um won't do two deployments in, you know, when they're

[38:20] in one billet. Okay? But there are people there and there are units that have a four your four years in the same billet. And so you might do two deployments during that time and but typically you you're not going to deploy to do the same thing twice. You're going to have some kind of different role in in your second deployment, right? And so this is something that you can build in for your team members as well. So although somebody may be in marketing and somebody else may be in product development, okay fine. But even within

[38:56] those department, there are different roles that people can play. And so as part of your overall plan, maybe you have a system whereby people ro rotate through different roles within their department commensurate with the level at which they're at, right? and and this this gives them a chance to uh explore new things uh pro provide new ideas because you know they're coming from a different perspective and that's to the good of

[39:32] the company. So, for example, um you might take a a software engineer and and and rotate him into user experience design. Um and and maybe he's there for maybe it's just for a short time. Maybe he's just there for a month or three months, right? This gets him out of his normal software engineering role. It allows him to see another aspect of what the company does, right? But it also helps the other people who are in UX design

[40:08] get some insight into how the back end or the you know the back office works or the back end works right so that kind of crosspollinization can be very good. So this idea of rotating people in this case on a shortterm basis can be can be positive not only for the people but for your organization. Okay. Uh the next is I talked about scheduling dwell time uh where it's part of the overall plan. Um even if you don't do that uh you you may

[40:45] want to essentially enforce a dwell time period between projects where you know you have to be careful about the laws. Of course, you can I don't think you can force people to go on vacation. Um but you can make it attractive for people to use their vacation time uh you know voluntarily uh once a project has concluded, right? And so um you know if you've got a consulting team for example um and they go and they work on a project for one

[41:20] particular client okay once that project wraps up you may purposely have them you know off for a week before they move on to the next project. Even even though the project they were doing maybe it was a six week or an eightweek project and they saying oh come on it's just a month and a half two months. What do they need downtime for? Well, it's important to make that separation so they can approach the new project well-rested, clear-minded. Okay. So even though it may not be the overall

[41:55] company that's that's um you know that's part of the dwell dwell dwell time schedule um you may have a particular team um for which you're going to enforce some dwell time and in this case it would it would be you know paid paid time off maybe for a week something like that. Okay. Um, next, uh, when you've got a team coming off of a major project, a product launch, wrapping up a project for a client or a customer, think about what I the the the sort of

[42:32] afteraction reports that I mentioned when I was talking about how it works in the military, right? Are you doing um hot washes a at at critical points during the project? So let's say you have a big meeting to present your ideas to the client. Okay. When that meeting is over, right then there should be a hot wash. Okay. What went well? What didn't go well? What do we need to do differently next time? Right then and there. you

[43:08] know, if the meeting ends at uh, you know, 300 pm, at 3 p 3:15 p.m. after uh, you know, a break for people to get some water or use the facilities or whatever. 3:15 p.m. the hot wash begins. We're going to take 30 minutes. We're just going to get all this out, okay, in its raw form, and then, you know, tomorrow or over the coming few days, we'll digest it and actually apply it. Okay, that's one way to use the afteraction report uh the afteraction uh yeah

[43:43] reporting uh in in your business. Another way is when a team wraps up a project or when a project launch is completed or service launch is completed. So take the time to do an afteraction review period looking back over the whole process. This would be in addition to hot washes after specific events during the overall launch or the overall project. Right? So take that longer view. Let's say the you know the the project with the client took three months or the project launch there was

[44:20] uh you know uh three months leading up to it. There was the product was launched and there was a threemonth period after the launch that was you know actually performing the product launch in the aftermath. So, you've got a a six-month period to review, do that afteraction port re that that afteraction report review uh and and gather that data and then then you know people can you know they can go on their dwell time and when they come back they can start breaking that information down and now doing the

[44:56] longer term afteraction work of you know sorting the lessons validating them, working them into the plan for the next product or service launch or the next project. Okay? So, embed a lessoned a a multiaceted lessons learned process into your overall uh you know planning. Okay. Um, next, uh, so, um, when you're dealing with a team, uh, and

[45:32] and and and these the these I actually have these divi divided into two. Let let me talk about actually my next one and then I'm going to go back to the previous one. So, you know, protect your team members, identify which of your employees may be at risk and needs support, right? So, uh let's say you've got a team member who is uh you know going through a difficult family situation, maybe a divorce, maybe there's uh a spouse, a child, a parent,

[46:08] god forbid, who is sick. Okay, that takes away from the bandwidth they have to do work. Now, you know, there's two approaches. One is to support them through uh you know a a a you know highpaced uh project or service launch or other project. Another is to consider well maybe you need to swap them out for someone else who can fill that role so they can focus on what they need to do in their personal life. Now it can be

[46:44] difficult because people may not want to be swapped out. they're they they look at as I'm losing an opportunity, my career will get off track, right? So, all of that, of course, needs to be worked out. And and by the way, it's the same thing in the military. If there's someone who can't go on a deployment, while you may think they're the person is thinking, "Oh, great. I don't have to go on deployment. I can stay home." That's not always the case. People are concerned about their career advancement in the military and they know that being left behind on a deployment can have a negative impact on their advancement. Right? So these have to be worked out.

[47:21] that among the team leadership, they need to be in touch with their people and know what's going on with them so that they don't have a situation arise where there's a a a critical ability lost because the team member wasn't uh physically or mentally uh able to bear the rigors of of of what's going on at that time and now ends up uh you know not being able to perform in an optimal manner. or you know even worse they're they're not able to come to work. They end up you know god forbid in the hospital or

[47:59] you know because of their family situation they're so so distracted they really they can't get the job done right. So leadership needs to be in in in close touch with their team members and looking after their well-being and dealing with potential at risk uh uh members. Now by the same token continuity and cohesion among the leadership of the team needs to be maintained through throughout the project or the I'm going to start using

[48:35] project instead of project product launch you know service launch etc throughout the project right one of the problems is if leadership is replaced partway through the new leadership may not know what's going on with the uh the team members, they may not know the lessons that have been learned and so they're more likely to repeat mistakes that were already made and corrected. Okay. Um they may also be less patient with what's going on because they're new and they have a lot more energy. They

[49:10] haven't been working through all of the challenges and problems that have been going on. And so uh they may not have a s sufficient appreciation for how to uh make this project work out successfully. Now of course that's not to say that leadership needs to be maintained in the face of a leader who's not doing a good job. If a leader is not doing a good job then of course the the need for continuity and cohesion goes away. Okay. So

[49:45] um you know there there are various factors um that need to be considered in in both of these uh but they need to be a primary consideration throughout the whole project to give it the best chance of success just like it at least should be in the Navy or in the military. Now again, mistakes are going to be made, right? And um we don't want to get into a situation where we're, you know, castigating people because they made mistakes. Um but, you know, we do

[50:23] want to do our best to pay attention to these issues. Okay. One way of doing that is by the strategic use of temporary staff. Okay. You may pull in actual temps. Okay. Maybe you need some social additional social media support. So you bring in uh you know a social media um person to provide some additional support uh from from literally outside the company. Or maybe you've got a social social media people working in a different department and you can augment your department by bringing those people in just like I was

[50:58] talking about the maintenance uh the maintenance department of a of an airplane squadron. You know, maybe they bring in maintainers from another squadron so they have additional maintenance capacity. So that's one way to deal with uh some of your team members maybe um maybe they're starting to burn out and they're you know the momentum is slowing etc. So consider augmenting the team with temps from outside the company or from people inside the company from a different a different department or a

[51:33] different part of the company. Okay. Now, uh, sometimes you'll need to adjust business goals. Okay? Now, as I said, you know, the the the military, I use the Navy because that's where I was. We were always subject to the needs of the country and the needs of the Navy. So, sometimes that meant we thought we were going to do one thing and we ended up doing another, right? So, that may happen in a business as well. the goals of the business may need to be adjusted based on you know emerging priorities. Uh and and if that's the case then you

[52:09] whatever schedule you have set will will need to be adjusted but it needs to be adjusted in view of the overall cycle for your business as much as possible. Right? Just like in the Navy, if a if a deployment gets extended, then once once people get home, they should typically would get more family reunion time. There'd be some additional dwell time again in theory, right? And so these are the kind of situations kind of issues I should say that you

[52:45] want to consider if you have to change priorities in in your organization that require maybe some additional uh you know um high times of of you know longer hours and greater stress from your people. Okay. So, these are the some of the ways that you can apply the combat rotation cycle or the deployment cycle to your businesses. And uh um I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. All my social media links will be in the show notes when the when the episode uh posts on on YouTube. So, love to hear

[53:22] from you. And if you have any questions, other questions, comments, again, uh please share them. So, uh that's the that's the show for today. And thank you so much for joining me, especially my my live viewers. Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show uh people making money. I'm going to be talking about Cal Newport's um really wonderful book called Deep Work. In these times of large language models, I think Cal Newport's ideas are more

[54:00] perhaps even more vital than when he wrote the B book, which is now I think about I want to say it's a number of years ago now. I want to say maybe about eight years ago, something like that. I think it was written in 2017. So, if you are concerned about how AI uh may impact your your business or professional life, um this is this will be a great show for you to to watch. And if you know of someone with those concerns, uh again, um you know, do me, you know, do them a favor and me a favor. I would appreciate it. Tell them about the show and and and

[54:36] we'll, you know, hopefully they'll learn something good that'll help them with this challenge. Okay? And then on Thursday at 5:00 p p.m. Pacific time is my show Jiggers's Place. We're going to have a cocktail and talk about one of my favorite things which is film noir. And uh this is the the uh movie genre of u you know private eyes and tough cops and fem fatal. uh usually oftentimes almost always I should say shot in black and white uh with against the gritty backdrop of the city. So I hope you'll

[55:12] join me for a cocktail in a smooz as we head into the end of the week. And then next week on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show uh Trust and Estates Weekly. And then of course a week from today I'll be back with the next edition of Business Lessons for the Military. So thanks again for joining me. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do.