0:01 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 10: amm Pacific time to talk about military history military Doctrine and the leadership practices of great military leaders all by way of distilling lessons from these that we can use in our business and professional lives so today my topic is shrewd risk-taking now anyone who's been in business knows that inherent in running
0:36 a business is the taking of risk so how how do we know what risks to take so I'm going to be talking about perhaps the well it is the most famous battle of the Korean War some consider it the most audacious military action in in history and this is what became known as the Battle of inchon it was it was um uh the brainchild if you will of general Douglas MacArthur who at
1:13 this point in his career was an absolutely extraordinary figure he was he was um one of the youngest if not the youngest Army Chiefs of Staff uh he had fought in World War I with distinct he fought in in World War II he was the commander of the Southwest Pacific um theater of the war he was responsible for among other things liberating the Philippines he oversaw the surrender of Imperial Japan um at the arm at the
1:49 Armistice or not at the Armistice at the at the surrender ceremony on the I believe it was the USS Missouri uh he was he was absolutely at the height of his um uh popularity if you will and um just a little bit of background about about the situation so at the time um Harry Truman was President of the United States and uh har Harry Truman was a Democrat MacArthur was a Republican and one of uh President Truman's concerns
2:25 was that um MacArthur would run for president and potentially beat him and so in the background of what was going on in the Korean War um the military operations of the Korean War was this sort of political tension um MacArthur had a habit of um putting his nose into politics in a way that General officers just really didn't do especially back in the the 1940s and 1950s um and and it what it so people
3:01 tended to either love MacArthur or hate him not there weren't too many people who were sort of you know neutral on Douglas MacArthur having said all that as background there is no question that the Battle of Inon was an absolutely phenomenal strategic operational and tactical uh success and the credit really does go to MacArthur he was the one who came up with the idea and he was the one who sold the idea uh not just to
3:39 um his the you know the the the leaders to whom that that reported to him um but also to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who in the beginning absolutely did not think that the Battle of Inon was you know the the strategy for the Battle of inan was anything that they wanted to be involved with so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and I've got to find where is it oh here it is okay great all right so what we're GNA look
4:15 at first is this is a map of the Korean Peninsula you can see it here it's it's Korea is this country in white okay and and of course it borders on China the Manchuria District of China but also you can see here up in the very um northeast corner it borders on the USSR as well and um um the the country was essentially divided along the 38th parallel okay or what's oftentimes called the DMZ the demilitarized zone
4:52 and into North Korea and South Korea so South Korea was aligned or is still aligned primarily with the West North Korea it was aligned and remains aligned with uh China communist China and the USSR so and indeed technically the Korean war is not over there is an Armistice but the war has has never has never ended and some some people will say it wasn't even a war um because it was a police action by the United
5:27 Nations you know the these of issues are best discussed over bourbon as you've heard me say many a time so the Korean war from from June to August 1950 essentially amounted to an invasion by North Korea of South Korea and if you you can see the North Korean Advance here um the the kPa um first core kPa second core and they pushed the South Korean forces all the way down to what became known as the pan perimeter now
6:03 pan today is called Busan um it's it's the same city it's just had a different name back in the in 1950 but the you know many people both in Korea and throughout the world were concerned that essentially the North Koreans were going to push the South Korean military basically into the Sea of Japan and you can see how tenuous it was North Korea controlled uh the entire country except for this little um almost Square shaped
6:38 uh parcel here and and and the you know the the um UN forces were essentially being uh resupplied through pan Harbor um you can see Japan is here so um at this time the United States was still administrating Japan post post World War II Japan and MacArthur was the military governor of Japan that's why he was tapped to oversee um American milit military operations in in in South in Korea not
7:13 not just in South Korea in Korea overall okay and so being being how tenuous the un's position was MacArthur came up with a plan to basically outflank the uh North Korean army by landing at Inon and you can see that here here's inchan it's it's it's the it's really the sort of port city that um that that supplies Soul now soul is the capital of South Korea it was then it is now you
7:49 can see that inan and soul are are you know pretty close together if you look at the scale down here they're maybe about 15 20 miles apart that's it not not very far uh and the reason that uh The Joint Chiefs of Staff was not initially not in favor of The inchan Landings was they were afraid that by splitting forces um they would um they would basically um be overtaken um in the pon area and and
8:24 also The inan Landings would not be successful and that would essentially be you know the end the end of the war and North Korea would would have to overtaken Hyundai Tucson versus Toyota Rav 4 look what Tucson has and what Rav 4 doesn't Hyundai Tucson wins every time I don't know what that what what where that came from but uh anyway you know the mysteries of of the internet Okay so
8:59 uh so MacArthur had his staff put together um The inchon Landings it basically was going to it was going to be a a two division Landing uh one was in um one was the uh first Marine Corps Division and I believe the other was the seventh uh Army Division and the Marines were going to land first and then um they'd be followed up by the um by the seventh Army Division and MacArthur's thinking
9:36 was that the North Koreans were so focused on uh piercing the pon perimeter that they just weren't really thinking about anything happening in what amounted to kind of their their rear guard area and in the event MacArthur turned out to be right now know he probably had some intelligence that told him you know at least that gave him indication of where the main focus of the North Korean army was okay but but
10:13 in any event it was still a a big big gamble to split his forces because the United States did not have um you know a massive military uh forces available in Japan by 1950 a large part of the American Military had been demobilized from World War II and and so you know they only had what they had um and the idea that that they would be able to quickly you know move more Personnel in was was just was not possible okay I mean not even even
10:50 today it would still be you know very very difficult to move you know an an entire another division in for example um from you know the even Hawaii to to Korea uh you know let alone from the mainland USA um and but he had this plan developed and in and the bottom line was it worked so let me I'm gonna go back now and go to a different why doesn't this want
11:26 oops okay I'm going to take you to another another map here we go okay so um this this right here you see ten cor from Japan September 1415 okay so this was the initial inchon um Landings and and they they kind of swept in and again if you can remember that previous map the concentration of the North Korean army was was focused on the pan perimeter in
12:01 comes MacArthur Landing basically two divisions at inchon getting in behind the North Korean um army and and from there you can see that he completely changed the direction of the Korean War and so the The inchon Landings took place like like I said 145 September by the 26th of September they basically had been wrapped up um Soul was retaken H which was a a um a psychological Victory
12:39 because um the UN had retaken South Korea's capital um and and and in the meantime they had pushed the North Korean army not only back um above the 38th parallel but you can see that they were already threatening um the the the Kore North Korean China border uh and and and so the the entire War turned around now it didn't stay this way for those of you who have seen the TV show MASH you know that the Korean War basically settled into uh a stalemate
13:16 and eventually um you know there were there were peace talks going on and on and on and on and on and then finally at the time that um uh Dwight Eisenhower was elected president so there was an Armistice reached and as I mentioned at the beginning the 38th parallel was established as essentially what became a permanent dividing line between North Korea and South Korea that remains to this day but it was The inchon Landings The Battle of inchon that really changed the direction of the
13:55 Korean War really changed what would have been a disaster for South Korea and and was responsible for South Korea existing today as as a you know free country um and and you know if you follow it all you know what goes on in North Korea versus South Korea you know just just things like the the average size of a of a North Korean is far smaller than in South Korea because because of uh lower nutrition standards all all kinds of depredations that um
14:32 the the people of North Korea face um that the people of South Korea just just do not okay and and and so this this you know startling and and by the way just to sort of wrap up the story um basically um MacArthur um wanted to continue on um into uh China and essentially defeat the Communist Chinese at least that's what he was saying and President Truman uh did not want
15:08 MacArthur to do that he did not want to get into a war with with communist China and the the resulting the resulting event was um in a in a very controversial move um uh President Truman He relieved MacArthur of command in Korea and basically said you're going to have to come home uh to the United States that was for all intents and purposes the end of Douglas MacArthur's career um having having said that um
15:45 MacArthur retained enormous popularity uh and he he was greeted with parades and a claim and and all of that um he never did run for president um he never did serve in the military again and eventually he kind of faded off the the world stage um so you know at at perhaps what could be called the peak of his career with This brilliant um you know military maneuver the The inchan Invasion um it was only shortly after
16:22 that that essentially MacArthur's career crumbled and and and so you know know the these These are the fates uh these are how the fates work essentially so I'm going to go ahead and um stop the the screen share there okay so that's the background of the battle of enchant so the question is then what does this battle have to teach us from a Business and Professional perspective excuse me and I've got five uh key insights or takeaways um that I
16:59 want to um share with you and and and and how they apply to our business and professional lives so first of all as I've mentioned a number of times already The inchon Landings this this amphibious operation was was a very very bold and risky undertaking on MacArthur's part so um The Joint Chiefs of Staff were not on board in the beginning many of his uh commanders had to be sold in the idea um MacArthur though he he was he was
17:36 convinced he could catch the enemy off guard and and and and in doing so uh achieve an absolutely decisive Victory and in the event he was right and so from a business perspective the lesson there I think is as we look at how we're running our businesses sometimes we need to consider bold calculated risky actions if there are significant enough rewards and here's here's I think where sometimes
18:12 it's it's these are difficult calculations to make so some people are just so add addicted to risks that you know they they they want to take risks even when the rewards are not commensurate to what's at stake and I think that the important thing to to realize is the the reward has to be at least as great as the risk if not greater and if you look at uh the Battle of inshan what you see is MacArthur
18:47 wasn't just going for a victory right which is which is what he he got he got a victory but he also complet turned around how the Korean war was going up to that point it shifted everything so the potential reward for the risk at inhon was huge now you can say well the risk was huge as well I think that that uh that MacArthur was able to mitigate a
19:23 lot of that risk by understanding what the posture of the North Korean military was okay that in fact they really they were very very focused on piercing the pus the pon perimeter they weren't they just weren't thinking anything like we got to protect our rear they just weren't and so I think he realized that although it was a big risk the potential payoff was so much larger he could take this bold move and and in a way even if it failed
19:59 he'd be okay by the way you see kind of the reverse of this I I don't mean the well reverse is probably too strong a word but i' I've talked previously about operation Market Garden in World War II which was a an operation put together by field Marshall Montgomery so his idea was to do this piercing move through the Netherlands that would take them right into the part of Germany's industrial production and the ability to conquer
20:35 Germany's industrial production had had operation Market Garden been successful and had the Allies been able to get into the industrial Heartland of Europe the r Valley Etc the way um that Montgomery thought they would it could it could have completely changed the the direction or or the completion of World War II and in fact it what may have been possible that World War II at least in Europe would have ended in 1944 as opposed to
21:11 stretching on into 1945 um and so again Montgomery was looking at the risk versus reward scenario I think where now in in the event Montgomery did not succeed and and and I think the difference was that um Montgomery Far Over far underestimated I should say um how readily the uh Nazi German military the the vermac could respond to
21:46 operation Market Garden whereas in MacArthur's case he was looking at the North Korean Army's ability to respond and because they were so focused on what they thought was going to be the war-winning you know takeover of the pon perimeter they they just excluded any other possibility so that that they were in a they were in a they were in an offensive the North Korean military was in an offensive posture operation Market Garden Nazi German the vermak was in a defensive
22:22 posture so those are those are very different and the kind of risks we take uh are are also I think we need to be we we need to think about the the risk reward calculation differently as well right so at the time um uh in operation Market Garden the Allies were clearly in the ascendants they they had a a lot of the advantages right whereas in in in the Korean War um the UN Force
22:59 were I mean they were desperate and so sometimes you know when when your forces are demoralized and and and you need to somehow turn things around a bold more risky move is the best choice because it basically says to your people uh at least upper leadership we're confident in your ability to overcome the setbacks we've suffered and eventually be triumphant and that that's a very powerful message to send to our
23:35 people likewise in business you know if um it may be you know the boldest moves may be best when in some ways our our businesses are kind of on the defensive and we need to really shift the momentum to get back on the offensive that's not to say by the way that if that things are going well we should estu all risk quite to the contrary I think that's where businesses get into trouble is things are going so well that they absolutely refrain from any kind of risk in you know in a hope in the hopes of
24:11 sustaining their success neither one of those postures is is good it always needs to be this this sort of weighing out of risk versus reward but part of the risk versus reward scenario is different depending on whether we're already you know on in the ascendency growing our businesses whether our businesses are in trouble and we really need to make make a strategic shift okay and I can I can say from my own business life so back in the very late 1980s and into the very
24:47 early 1990s so I'm talking 89 through about 90 early 91 my company at that time was in deep deep deep deep trouble and I I I had tried a number of things in order to sustain my business during what was a pretty bad recession um and and a recession that in fact was greater than the Great Recession of 20072 2008 and was not having any success and then I saw an opportunity to really completely not completely but dramatically change
25:22 the direction of my company and and and I grabbed it and indeed um that changed the whole momentum of my company and I went on to even greater success than I had had before the recession so you you know if if you said well sounds like you made a desperation move well yeah I did right because I was afraid I was going to lose my business but sometimes and and sometimes out of desperation we're willing to take more risks okay so boldness and R risk taking uh you know at balanced with what what are the you know are the rewards
25:58 adequate that's that's you know key takeaway number one key takeaway number two is strategic timing so MacArthur's timing could not have been better if you recall that map with the red lines you could see the Korean forces were extended through essentially throughout the the the Korean Peninsula but but they were extended but ever more concent ated at the pson perimeter and so what the Koreans were expecting was a
26:36 frontal attack by the UN forces at the pan perimeter and instead of that um uh you know MacArthur planned this you know end run so to speak and and and it was so effective because the enemy was so focused on their own plan they they completely lost sight of what else was going around them in the battle space and and so that was one of the reasons why the the Strategic timing of
27:11 inan that was one of the reasons why it ended up in a essentially a complete re reversal of of the situation in the Korean War so so too for us and our businesses okay when when we need to make a decision especially a decision that takes a great deal of that that means assuming a great deal of risk so the timing of that is critically important so one one of the things we among the things we want to look at is first of all where what is the state of the market okay is the market very
27:49 Dynamic and and if so is this the right time to launch a a risky initiative it may when when markets are when the market the economy is in a big state of flux often times that can be the best time to launch uh a new initiative on the other hand depending on what your business is and depending on what the economic climate is it may be very foolish to take a big risk um because U you know it could mean that everything can be
28:24 planned right but since the economy is against you it it's almost certain to fail and the other thing is to understand when our competitors are vulnerable so uh you know we have to we have to understand the market competition and in a sense this is this is what made MacArthur's timing so so perfect really was he understood how the North Koreans were so completely focused in another area and and he also had confidence that because of their
28:59 unifocus um if he attacked them somewhere else it would it would not only surprise them but it would inevitably mean they had to pull their they would pull their focus off of the pon perimeter because they were so surprised by being attacked another area and so while the Joint Chiefs of Staff were concerned about losing pan and inan not being successful um m Arthur realized that that in just the action of inchon was as likely to create a better
29:36 situation at the pson perimeter um than than potentially anything that could have been done on the on the pan perimeter itself right and so so his timing was was was absolutely brilliant and and we need to take an example from that now now timing is hard right and we have to look at what resources do we have what um what what are the what again what's the economic climate that we face what is the situation with our competitors all of these need to be
30:13 taken into consideration so that we we create a situation with the greatest likelihood of success when we're we're we're mounting a potentially Risky Business initiative okay next number three innovation in adversity so there were a lot of challenges to The inchon Landing first of all there was an island at the harbor and I don't remember the name of the island I don't think I have it in my notes here but anyway the this island
30:48 basically appeared to make the harbor impregnable because it was it was so strategically placed you couldn't get into the harbor um this you know the the defenses on this island would prevent it so there was that there were issues of terrain there were issues of doing an amphibious Landing in in a port where the tide would change on any given day by I believe it was it's 10 10 feet I think it was I don't think it was 10 meters 10 feet but even so 10 feet is is is is a lot and indeed for only about
31:25 six hours each day was it even even possible to mount The Landings so fortunately for the United States military and MacArthur in particular there they had had so much experience with amphibious Landings during World War II in the Pacific Theater of course Normandy was probably the largest um amphibious Landing of all time but you know that was one large amphibious Landing in in the European theater versus the hopping that had gone on during World War II so the Marine Corps
32:03 units and the Army units in the Pacific many of them were very experienced in amphibious Landings and so MacArthur had a high level of confidence that his his troops would be able to uh innovate and and accommodate to things that might unexpected things that might come up because they had done that in the last three years of World War II to the point where amphibious Landings were just I I don't want to say they were second
32:38 nature because they were they were never not highly dangerous but but you know they were highly highly skilled at them espe and this is why um the the MacArthur was happy to have the first Marines because the Marine Corps really specialized in amphibious Landings and so um you know they knew how to innovate in order to get around obstacles how to deal with unexpected situations they were very good at at sort of adjusting plans on the Fly which is something that
33:13 they would need to do because the they had such a short window for The Landings they were faced with such big obstacles those kind of things and so in our businesses the same thing is true you know in the in the military we say we need to train like we fight and in businesses we need to train like we do business so we need to look at what are potential obstacles how can we creatively overcome them that should always be our mindset so for those of you who saw my show yesterday I had one
33:48 of my closest friends on Bill gross to talk about changes in real estate agency as a result of the lawsuit against the National Association of realtor Realtors and several of the large real estate companies they entered into a settlement and and the terms of that settlement basically went into effect on on August 17th of last year of last month August 17th of last month on August 17th in other words last month middle of last month and it was the the the biggest changes certainly I've ever seen in the real
34:23 estate business in the gosh it's uh you know 45 years or more uh so so actually over 45 years that I've been in that business uh and and I take that back it's about about 45 years that I was yeah that I've been in the business little bit less actually now that I think about it 43 years I want to say okay but but nonetheless these huge huge changes and for a lot of real estate agents it's basically devastated their business about 30% of real estate agents have left the business
34:58 now if you listen to what bill was saying he was saying well there was this massive change my job is to figure out how to innovate to my advantage and so he spent a great deal of time learning about what had happened learning about what the plans were for dealing with it and thinking about okay how do I take this change and use it to my advantage to expand my business to to deepen my market penetration to lengthen the the
35:36 the um distance I have over my competitors and the way he's done that is by thinking deeply about how can I help people customers as Bill calls them deal with these changes in a way that will be best for them right so Bill wasn't looking at it from the standpoint of how do I use these changes to make more money per se what he was what he looked at is how do I confront these changes that are so negative for other people in the real estate business and
36:13 and use them to help customers better than I've helped them before right and there's a now I I'm I'm pretty sure bill is a fan of um oh gosh all of a sudden I went up in his name Zig Ziggler um as am I Zig Ziggler is a very well-known uh speaker he he he basically motivational speaker and he tells a story Zig Zig Zig Ziggler passed away a number of years ago now but in in one of the recordings I have that Zig Ziggler made he tells a story about how uh he
36:49 was at a uh realtor meeting uh one particular day and it happened to be during a recession I I think it was probably the recession in the 70s and he was sitting with you know real estate agent on each side of him and and as was his practice he turned to one of them and and said how's business and the and the person started complaining about how awful business was we're in a recession nobody has any money nobody's can buy you know houses and my business is falling apart I don't know what I'm going to do and it was like and and and
37:25 Zig Ziggler you know he's like wow he say I felt so horrible after hearing that but he said you know so then I turned to um the woman on the other side of me and while I was afraid to get blasted again with negativity I I asked her how's business and she said are you kidding business couldn't be better first of all there's much less competition for among you know among real estate agents because so many people have have uh left the business that's number one number two there's a lot of people who aren't working as much as they used to and so they have lots of
38:00 times lots of time to go out and look at houses and get an idea of of what what they would want to buy and so inevitably when the economy turns around there's going to be all this huge flood of business and it's just going to be absolutely fantastic right and so you know Zig Ziggler's point in telling the story is we we need to innovate in adversity and our perspective on that is is the first step so just because things are going wrong doesn't mean that we have to sink into Doom and Gloom and an
38:37 eventual defeat and that was part of what MacArthur felt he could count on from his troops is that whatever uh adversity they faced in this daring uh amphibious assault that they would be able to overcome it okay and that gets down to num the fourth uh key takeaway and that is decisive leadership in the beginning it was only Douglas MacArthur who believed that the inchon landings would be successful okay
39:14 even his planning staff had severe doubts about whether this could actually work or not I've mentioned several times The Joint Chiefs of Staff were not on board many as of his subordinate commanders were not on board but the the fact of the matter is um whatever one thinks about Douglas MacArthur he was one of the most charismatic leaders the Army has ever seen he's he's certainly up there with uh my personal favorite George Patton that I've spoken about so many times and he had a way of
39:51 inspiring his people and essentially instilling them with a sense of we can accomplish this and and part of that was his decisiveness when he made a decision that was it drove forward and and by the way that was a quality that he shared with Patton and I think that's one of the reasons why George Patton and Douglas MacArthur were two of the most successful combat generals of all time because decisiveness in combat is critically important if you're in an
40:28 existential situation like combat and your wishy-washy and your leadership and decision making that trickles down to all the subordinate units and and it and it almost inevitably will lead to disaster whereas if you are de decisive and and you are self- assured it instills those same qualities in your troops and they are much more likely to Prevail with those qualities than with the the sort of tentativeness that comes from a lack of decisiveness and the same is true in our
41:05 businesses so this is this is something that um I talk with my people about quite often and that is I don't start out by saying this is what we're going to do that's I don't think that's decisive leadership decisive leadership comes from sound planning gaining an understanding of the picture the in this case the business picture the the things we've been talking about up till now the the the economy the market uh conditions uh the conditions of our business the
41:41 conditions of our competitors and then when sufficient information has been gathered Whoever has the Whoever has the responsibility for making that decision makes the decision and bang now we execute okay and there's there's there's no second thoughts at least in the short term now by the way that's not to say that if as as you know the business pursues its goal one never makes changes sometimes we have to make strategic with withdrawals in business just like we
42:17 have to do in a military situation but people I think want to feel that they're being well Le and decisiveness is part of people feeling that they're well-led the first part is having a sense that the person leading them has the information the perspective the desire to hear good and bad what what is going on before making a decision and so has taken all those factors into account and the second is
42:52 that that leader has the courage of his convictions and and MacArthur definitely had those had that uh at at the Battle of inchon absolutely that was the case and we can develop that quality okay this is not something we're born with Patton was not born with it now MacArthur I mean if you saw my show I think it was last week or the week before where I talked about Talent is overrated uh one of the reasons why M Douglas MacArthur was um such a
43:27 brilliant General was his father was a brilliant General so he grew up at the feet of a master and and as we saw in Talent is overrated to have that kind of mentorship from the very earliest Days of Our Lives really is what matters Talent sort of inborn talent is not really a a thing so M um Arthur MacArthur was his father's name he was a a a great military leader himself self and and Douglas MacArthur grew up under his tutelage he also had a mother who
44:03 absolutely was uh devoted to his success and so he had two parents who really um nurtured sounds like a funny word with respect to a military person but they really nurtured his success and so uh he he he became the great General I I don't think you could say that he was born a great General any more than we can say that Patton was born a great General he was not these men made themselves into great military leaders and part of that
44:38 was by developing a decisive leadership style and so we in business and professions can do the same thing finally this is the fifth and final takeaway is MacArthur leveraged surprise okay and and and in the final analysis it was the surprise that was the key component that's why he launched The inchon Landings was he wanted to just completely flabbergast the North Korean military
45:14 and he succeeded in that first of all whereas an operation like this would normally be planned over maybe a five or six month period MacArthur basically planned it out in about a month so there wasn't a lot of opportunity for information to leak out which which was very very good because this had if if it had leaked out it almost for sure would have been a disaster because the North Koreans would have shifted their uh their military to um to rebuff The inchon Landings and and so by by acting
45:53 so decisively so secretively and and in such a bold manner uh MacArthur was able to just completely surprise the enemy and in so doing completely turn around the Korean War and we can do the same thing in business so we can surprise our competitors now it it it can be difficult if you know we we have to our people have to um you know be able to keep a secret first of all and and and it's it can be difficult these days um
46:30 to not fall prey to leaks and such and of course the minute something leaks out on social media if it's of any note it can spread over you know like wildfire very very quickly nonetheless if we plan things correctly and if we do so in a very expedient way we can launch a an initiative that will completely surprise our competitors and by the time they can respond we can create enough momentum that it's makes it difficult if not impossible for them
47:06 at least in the short run to catch up with us and sometimes that's all it takes okay so uh this is this is a harder one to come up with because um I can't think of a you know a surprise in business um I mean I I can give you negative examples of surprises in business right like um um Airbus uh you know there's basically duopoly in commercial uh commercial Aviation building airliners U Boeing here in the US and um uh Airbus in the uh in Europe
47:45 and Airbus for the last number of years has really been the dominant of the two because Boeing has suffered from um a number of of mishaps both in terms of um crashes and supply chain issues that that were exacerbated Etc and and and Airbus really looked like it was in the catbird seat and then all of a sudden um an issue came up with um um one of the engines that Airbus uses on one of its plane and and this surprise thing that
48:22 evidently analysts were were were not taking into account uh you know strongly enough has it it it significantly hurt airbus's prospects and their ability to continue to take advantage of Boeing's woses now I think Boeing is probably clapping about that because they feel like they have an opportunity maybe to catch up a little bit so surprises can work both ways but the more effective way is for us to create in our businesses create a surprise initiative
48:57 that other people um you know don't don't are surprised by a surprise initiative okay they're surprised by but an initiative that people are surprised by that gives us at least a tactical Edge in the beginning and that maybe we can exploit to get a longer term Strategic Benefit so it could be the launch of a new product okay oh here's here's a good one right uh the iPhone right um Apple developed what came what came to be known as the smartphone and they had tremendous success and even though apple is a smaller company than Samsung and a smaller company than
49:34 Google Etc at least it was at the time um the iPhone was such a surprise and such a tactical success Apple was able to Parlay it into a long-term strategic success that has really powered their business now for what it's been um you know close to 20 years I think the first iPhone came out in around 20072 2008 so so you can see how a surprise initiative like that um can really you know again it can start out with a short-term
50:09 advantage that can continue on now does Apple enjoy as big a strategic Advantage now as it did when it first launched the iPhone no because there's competitors and and and it's strategic Advantage has eroded over the years um and I I and now this isn't a secret obviously because it was reported in the Wall Street Journal but um apple is now planning to use AI in its phones in some way that evidently they hope will be another almost strategic leap in in product advancement for their phones in order to get a big
50:46 gain on their competitors so uh you could say well that's not really a secret but what they're doing with AI that that the article didn't really say and so uh you know who who who knows maybe this would be you know the next sort of leap that a company takes by leveraging surprise so the again the five takeaways from the Battle of inchon um that we can apply to our businesses is first of all boldness and risk-taking balanced by an appropriate reward for the amount of risks being
51:22 taken two strategic timing right really studying the situation and knowing when is the best time to launch an initiative third innovation in adversity knowing that no matter how well planned an operation is things are going to go wrong and so we're going in the midst of these difficulties we're going to have to be able to make strategic CH or tactical changes and our people need to know how to do that four decisive leadership right says it right there
51:58 leadership has to be decisive and five we need to leverage surprise so if we do those things then we can shrewdly take risks that can advance our businesses and our professions our professional practices much farther than they otherwise would have okay now it's it's difficult there's no straightforward answer we need to study we need to observe and in the end we need to make that decisive
52:33 decision and we need to be willing if it looks like it's going to work to drive forward and if it looks like it's not going to work we're gonna have to pull back lick our wounds and live to fight another day like for example what happened with Montgomery in operation Market Garden so that's the lessons in shrewd risk-taking from the Battle of Inon again the led by uh general Douglas MacArthur so I thank you very much for joining me today the show went a little bit longer than normally does uh it's
53:10 it's exciting to to talk about these battles and I I I hope you enjoy hearing about them not just from the business perspective but just you know for some history as well I know I I'm a big lover of history as I'm sure you've already figured out um and but that any thoughts that you have questions comments criticisms please feel free to drop them in into social media all the links will be in the show notes after the show posts on on um YouTube and um and and we can you know start a conversation I'd love
53:45 I'd love really love to hear your thoughts about this okay and then coming up next tomorrow Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. I'm going to be talking about the spiritual dimension of business so um you know we I don't think we think about this sometimes but success in business often times comes by having faith in what we're doing so that there was a spiritual component by the way to MacArthur's success at inhon in that he absolutely had faith in his people right
54:21 I mean he couldn't know for sure that they would be successful but having worked with these soldiers um and and Marines and and and trained them etc etc he had a deep Abiding Faith that they would be able to do what he called upon them to do and so we're going to talk about the role Faith's role in in um our our professional success tomorrow Wednesday at 10: am Pacific time and then on Thursday it's our it's my every other week show jiggers his place and we're going to be talking about
54:56 treating people should we treat them kind or should we treat them nice and this this is a much more complex question than it sounds there's some very deep issues here so I hope you'll join me for a cocktail and and a a Schmo as we sometimes say in Yiddish a talk about this issue and and and as we head into the end of the week that that's that's my that's jigger's place as a Time time for us to relax like I said have a cocktail talk about all those things not related to business and
55:32 profession so 5 PM Pacific Time on tomorrow I mean not tomorrow 5: PM Pacific time on Thursday so real quickly wrap up thank you so much for joining me today really appreciate you tuning in and look forward to seeing you again I hope this week and signing off as I always do Marie darling You are my B