0:16 foreign I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Tuesday at 10 30 a.m Pacific Time 1 30 p.m eastern time and an hour in for Central and um mountain time and we talk each week about some aspect of military Doctrine or um military history or the philosophy
0:53 and or accomplishments of great military leaders that can be applied to our business and professional lives so in in past shows we've talked a little bit about uh General George Patton and I gave an example of of leadership that I think applies um both to to business as well as to be being an army General and for the last few weeks we've been discussing military war fighting principles from
1:29 Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and we're actually going to move on now to a a little bit different subject it's contained both in Marine Corps warfighting Doctrine but also Army warfighting and and it's a it's a fundamental principle about the levels at which a military uh plan if you will is organized in order to make obtaining the objective as as likely as possible so I'm going to go
2:05 ahead and share my screen as I normally do this is it I hope and let's see here let's go to there we go slideshow here we go okay so um this this is of course the uh the show today business principles or business lessons from the military and I'm not sure why that didn't work there we go and I I always take a moment just to remind everybody about the three pillars of attainment this is the basis
2:40 for all the work that I do it it's a way of organizing our lives so that we can first of all figure out who are we and what we want or so that's where the way to wow comes from who are you what you want right and these days unlike when I was a young man the definition of success is is is not at all um uh defined for us and so I think we need to figure that out I can tell you that I'm in that process with my
3:16 daughter who is a high school student just started ninth grade this year and she's figuring what does success mean to her and so this plan here if you will is a way of ordering the different aspects of our lives in such a way that we can figure that out so there's there's three pillars self relationships and Pursuits and within them there's three realms for a total of nine the we're dealing primarily in the Pursuits uh pillar primarily in finances
3:51 but as you'll see oftentimes these concept of Concepts apply to other areas including relationships and and how we view ourselves so okay so let's talk about there are three levels of activity in in Warfare um or in Warfare planning and these translate I think I just perfectly over into the business world so real quickly the three of them are strategic operational and tactical those are the three levels of activity I'm going to go
4:28 through each one of them in a little bit of depth now before I do that though I do want to talk about a little bit about the history where does this come from so these this this concept of levels of activity if you will has been around for close well yeah around 200 years so it started development started around the time of the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800s and on through um the Civil War which of course was in the mid 1800s and it continued on its
5:03 way little by little now in informal military in U.S military Doctrine it became it started becoming much more formal in the early 1980s if memory serves our army Doctrine adopted it in 1982 and it's been refined since then so the idea of different levels yeah that's serious talking to me the idea of different levels of activity helps us understand what do different people within our
5:40 organization need to be doing in order for us to meet our mission right so activity should not happen unless it's meeting the mission and or an objective for the organization for our company our business our our you know profession whatever whatever it is we're we're working on okay so the highest level of of of activity is the Strategic level this is describing how we're going to meet our objective so
6:19 let's take uh let's take Starbucks it's a well-known company and uh I I can't tell you specifically you know what what their mission is although I think it's pretty clear their mission is to be the the best coffee company in the world you know what's going on here with Siri she's just talking up the storm so Starbucks sorry oh so Starbucks wants to be the best and
6:57 and I think the biggest coffee company in the world okay that's let's let's just assume that that's their objective so how are they going to get there how are they going to accomplish that in other words what strategy are they going to use in order to meet that mission to achieve those objectives one of them has historically been to have the best coffee that's a strategy okay to have the best coffee now we can
7:35 chunk down from that into the other levels and we will but part of of becoming the best and biggest and best coffee company in the world is having the best coffee another part of its strategy is to be a place where people want to be so early on if you've ever read any of Howard Schultz's books I think it's in his first book he talks about how he wanted to make Starbucks cafes kind of everybody's second home or or their their living room away from
8:10 home I believe he called it right that again that's a strategy that's how he's built he that's how he sought to make Starbucks the biggest and best coffee company in the world okay so those are two Strate strategies that are happening and those are happening at what we in a company like Starbucks they're happening at what we might call the c-suite level the senior leadership level so in the military strategy would be set perhaps by the
8:45 cheat The Joint Chiefs of Staff um and and in most likely in consultation with the senior um uh operational leadership of the different branches of the of the military the the generals of the Army Air Force and Marine Corps and then and the Admirals of the Navy okay so that's that's where the Strategic level happens and again in a business it would be the CEO the CFO
9:21 um the president executive and or senior vice presidents there that's that's the level at which they're operating the Strategic level now by the way they might have some lower level responsibilities as well okay but it's unlikely that the the sort of rank and file people in the organization are developing strategy they may be giving input about how the other levels are going that then plays into strategy and forms the strategies that the senior leadership adopts but
9:58 they're probably not setting the strategy okay and so part of being at that senior level is not only setting the strategy but then getting buy-in by people more Junior to as to why that strategy is the best way for achieving the mission of the company of the organization okay so you see how those play and by the way it's it's harder to do that these days you know post-world War II when people were used to how the military worked they were
10:34 used to the present the company setting the strategy in is like okay that's a strategy we just go do it because that's how they were trained in the military these days employees are much less likely to follow the strategy set by senior uh senior leadership if they either disagree with it don't like it or if they didn't have some kind of a feeling that they had some kind of hand in developing that strategy Okay so so while in the end the the decisions about strategy happen at that most senior
11:10 leadership level it still has to be informed in some way by people in the mid and lower levels if you want them to buy into the strategy okay so that's strategic that's the that's the top level the middle level which connects the Strategic to the Tactical is the operational level okay and and this is sometimes the hardest to figure out because we we can understand tactics which we'll talk about in a
11:45 minute we understand strategy what is operational in that middle ground okay well so the the operational level of activity is taking the strategy and breaking it down into broadly what we're going to do so in the case of Starbucks okay um one we said one of their strategies is to have the best tasting coffee in the world the operationally then how are we going to how how are they going to bring that about
12:21 okay well part of the operational philosophy was we're not going to make coffee from Robusta coffee beans we're only going to make it from arabica beans now if you've ever drank uh Folgers coffee and these sort of mainstream brands that you get in the supermarkets you know go I mean they're still available but going back free Starbucks those coffees were primarily made from Robusta Robusta is a lot less expansive than Arabica it it was a lot um a lot uh
12:57 more available and larger crops of it I believe it's easier to grow and that's why the reason Robusta was more plentiful is the word I was looking for okay um however along comes well there were other there were always small coffee uh businesses coffee shops for example Pete's Coffee which is now a it was originally just a single coffee shop in Berkeley California I believe it was so they were very very particular about the kind of beans they used
13:33 how they roasted them how they dried them every every step was very very carefully worked out and so Starbucks did essentially the same thing they used only Arabica they they used them you know they they when they were picked and and how they were dried and how they were roasted everything was very carefully figured out in order to gain the maximum amount of flavor from the coffees and also then to highlight the differences of different beings from
14:08 different parts of the world so Colombian tasted different than Zanzibar which tasted different than I don't know Madagascar I I I I don't drink a lot of coffee because I can't take the caffeine so I don't remember exactly where they're all from but if you if you look at the different types of coffees that are out there if you taste them you can taste differences in the level of acidity and in the kind of flavor notes in in the kind of Aroma that the coffee has right Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee has a very uh it's very different than you know
14:45 your typical Colombian coffee for example okay so Starbucks operationally Starbucks said okay this is what we need to do in terms of operations in order to make the best coffee and they've refined that and continue to refine that over over the years okay so another uh strategic goal was to make Starbucks a second living room so to speak or your living room away from home okay and the way they did that was in how they built out their cafes so um they I know they in the early days
15:21 they had pouches and kind of pushy arm shares with with side tables and you could go in there with a book um when when Starbucks was first around here in Los Angeles I used to go virtually every morning with my newspaper I'd get my cup of coffee and I'd read my newspaper there at Starbucks before I went to the office it was like my second office right so they there was a way they achieved that and and how the stores were you know laid out and all of that okay and then another part of the operational plan was how they were going to expand you know go starting out in I
15:59 I think they I mean they started out in um Seattle and I'm not exactly sure what the growth plan was but I think they grew kind of down the west coast and then across the country something like that however that was worked out Bulls were all operational level activities and for the most part they were driven by the more sort of mid-level management so I'd say kind of Vice Presidents um I I don't know what their exact names are in Starbucks but kind of area supervisors those those those people at
16:36 that middle level they were responsible for figuring out and executing on the operational level okay so that's the second the second level Act of activity is operational all right the third then is Tactical and the Tactical level is the day-to-day activities that are in pursuit of achieving the mission Okay so
17:11 um sticking with our example of Starbucks the Tactical the tactics they use are for example how do they make a particular coffee drink like a Frappuccino or uh um a cafe mocha or an espresso right those tactics are Opera operate are taking the operational level and actually making them happen Okay so if the operational level is being very careful about the
17:49 beans that you choose how you dry them how you roast them how you ship them all that kind of stuff okay so now you got the beans there but they're still not coffee right so tactically then how do we make the best coffee from the best beans and that that's a whole again if you read Howard Schultz's books um he talks about how much time they spent figuring out how hot should the water be how finely should the beans be ground how long after their ground are they still usable uh how much
18:25 and how much should be ground at any one given time all of these little decisions that the Baristas use um in order to make sure that your cup of coffee is the best it can be and again Starbucks didn't necessarily invent those kind of things they were being done at Pete's Coffee and and and probably most cafes most premium coffee shops across the country um they were paying very careful attention to each little step each
19:02 tactic that they executed in order to make their coffee shop unique a place where people wanted to come to have you know mind-blowingly great coffee Okay so there's you notice that throughout this it's not necessary that um your business be the only one doing a particular pursuing a particular strategy operas operate operationalizing a strategy in a particular way or using particular
19:37 tactics they don't have to be novel necessarily they may be things that other businesses are doing that you're benchmarking in other words you're you're seeing what they do and using and applying it to your own business or maybe you're going to take them and just tweak them a little bit or you are going to come up with a novel strategy a novel operational or a novel tactical activity it's going to depend on what your goals are what your mission is Okay so
20:14 um another tactic um that that Starbucks used was putting people's names on the cups so that when an order was ready they would call out the person's name and instead of you know using numbers because it's friendlier to talk to people using their names so it made it a more congenial atmosphere all of this was thought out it wasn't just sort of ah we'll just use people's names I I it wasn't like that it was all planned out each tactic was planned out
20:50 and and Starbucks has continued to do this over the decades refining refining refining now by the way they've made missteps at various times so they've they've adopted their their strategy their growth strategy for example at one time it just was going too fast they couldn't control it they had to scale it back down they took different operational directions like serving um hot breakfast foods that um while they sounded good at the
21:25 operational level and they seemed to be something that is was putting into operation the the attainment of uh or the pursuit of certain strategies when they got down to the Tactical level of actually doing it in their their cafes it just didn't work out the the smell sort of overwhelmed the coffee smell which uh Howard Schultz didn't like it was very complex for the Baristas to do and and it it it just they couldn't handle all of the different things they needed to be doing and so that's why
22:02 um after experimenting with it for a while um breakfast these sort of like there was like a uh I think it was like a ham and cheese and egg thing they did or whatever that's why they they stopped doing those things um I I think I read a while back that they were trying a new strategy and you can see that just because of strategy or an operational or tactical activity doesn't work the first time doesn't mean it's forever pushed to the side or or or or sideline it could be that it needs to be rethought at one of those three levels
22:38 so that it will work more effectively okay so as you look at your own business this is an excellent strategy to follow now you might say well wait I'm it's just me and my business okay that's fine you don't necessarily have to have different people uh doing different activities so you don't have to have you know senior c-suite people doing strategy mid-level people doing operational and Frontline people doing tactical you know the Baristas and the
23:14 store managers doing tactical it doesn't have to work that way these levels of activity are still important to understand and Define so that you can be I didn't get that so that you can be more certain that you are indeed pursuing your mission it's a way of of making sure if this is my mission what are the strategy what are my strategies for meeting my mission if we just go straight to tactics how do we know that the tactics were were using
23:50 are eventually going to get us here so we need to work this in steps to make sure that all of our tactics are focused on operational level goals and all of our relate operational level goals are focused on strategies and those strategies are going to lead us to meeting our mission okay so so that's why I think this levels of activity is is so important uh obviously in war fighting it's it's been around like I said for a couple of centuries and and formally for now what about 40 years
24:26 almost half a century um but in the business world um I I you know I I'm it's probably happening but perhaps not as formally as it could and having a structure within which to think about these things I think will be very useful in in planning and executing on your business right because uh it's it's it's it's difficult to figure out what all do I need to think about when it's very amorphous but
25:02 when you can divide it up into into three three pieces let's go back and look at them strategic operational and tactical so as you think as you get different ideas you can say well is that a strategic idea is that an operational idea is that a tactical idea and maybe just have three sheets of paper and it's each idea comes up just put it on the paper when you're kind of freely when you're just you know brainstorming with yourself or with your team right and then you can start to organize each group in the way that it needs to go in order to be most
25:39 efficient in reaching your objectives Okay so that's all I have uh for you today I think yeah we're coming up on a half an hour here if you want any help with any of this um here's where you can contact me this this information will also be in the show notes so I invite you to share ideas uh thoughts uh criticisms um any anything that is relevant to the discussions that that we're having always feel free to email me at the way to wow show at bummel.com
26:15 um and or you know ping me on social media we are on Instagram as well I for some reason the Instagram thing is in here but you can find the way to wow show on Instagram too you can contact me there and uh you know here's all the you know the kind of legal stuff that uh uh you know that that exists and uh so let's go ahead and stop the sharing come back here into my uh my office so I encourage you to work within Frameworks that's why you'll notice back here here's our three pillars of attainment
26:50 that's uh why I developed the three pillars of attainment it gives us a framework in which to organize our ideas so that we can be more certain that we're gaining the objectives that we're aiming for Okay so again today we spoke about levels of activity strategic operational tactical those combined with the various principles of of uh War fighting that we translated to business principles over the last over the previous uh four or
27:26 five weeks will give you a good start in in either getting your business going or in taking a a very close look at what your business needs to accomplish and how it should be accomplishing it what people do you need in your business in order to pursue the Strategic the operational the Tactical level if it's just you that's fine and one of the good things about thinking about these levels is eventually your business is going to grow and you're going to need to bring more people in so where do you need to
28:01 bring people in do you need to bring them in at the Tactical level maybe but maybe you're best at the operational and tactical level level and actually it would be better to bring someone in at the Strategic level you say wait a minute I'm the founder I'm going to bring someone in who's senior to to me well perhaps you you might you know you might be Vice President of Operations and you'll bring in a president okay that doesn't mean that you know the president necessarily orders you around it's just that he may be better at coming up with strategy okay and you're
28:36 better at operate operate no I can't see this word today I don't know why operationalizing that strategy and then planning the tactics Okay so Don't Be Afraid about you know not being at the right level choose the level you need to be at based on your experience your skills your knowledge those are the things that you want to take advantage of in order to have the best shot at being successful and and also I would say it at feeling
29:12 most gratified in the work that you're doing okay so we tend to like doing things that we're good at as opposed to you know doing things that we're not good at doing things we're not good at oftentimes is very frustrating now sometimes we have to do those things it's part of part of life but to the extent that you can build a business where everybody is doing something they're good at and enjoys so that that sense of of it doesn't necessarily have to be passion per se but enjoyment will make your business activity go much more smoothly all right so that that is
29:49 today's business lessons from the military just a quick reminder that on uh this this show is every Tuesday 10 30 a.m Pacific time uh 1 30 p.m Eastern Time on Wednesdays every Wednesday at 12 30 p.m Pacific 3 30 p.m Eastern is the way to wow show people making money and we talked we had um we have guests sometimes other times we talk about principles of job hunting principles of um investing other things that we can do
30:27 to have a solid to build a solid Financial foundation for ourselves okay so I hope you'll join me tomorrow at 12 30 we're on all well not all the social media networks we're on YouTube LinkedIn uh Facebook and and Twitter live and you can join us live you can also um go to our goodness Siri is just really active today I'm not sure what she's up to you can always go to our Eventbrite page and if you want to join these meetings live oftentimes there are Eventbrite tickets
31:04 available they're free of course and you can join live we can have a discussion you can ask questions uh and and and we can engage uh you know directly directly through Zoom okay so that's what I've got for you today thank you so much for joining me and I'll sign off as I always do by remembering my dear friend uh Marie and reminding you dear that you are my bell so thanks so much and hopefully I will see you tomorrow