0:02 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 uh military history, doctrine, and the practices of great military military leaders so we can distill from them lessons to apply to our businesses and
0:39 professional practices and to our careers. So today I'm going to be talking about something called wargaming. Now, uh, if you remember the, uh, Matthew Brderick movie War Games, I I'm pretty sure there was with, uh, with Hal, it was this computer that, uh, was was designed to basically go through war game scenarios, right? That may be what you have in mind when you hear the term war games, but in in fact, wargaming has been around for
1:15 really centuries. Um, and at places like if you saw if you saw the social media post for today's episode, you saw a picture of the uh Naval War College, which is in uh Newport, Rhode Island. So if you were to go there, you would see they still, I think, sometimes do tabletop war games uh with what you know what what look like u you know little marines and and you know soldiers and such. So um but in any event, war gaming is essentially the process where
1:51 a particular uh military operation is planned and tested out to get an idea of whether it will work. If so, how? What might some of the problems be? How can we expect the the enemy to respond or react to what we're doing? And look at all those kind of whatif scenarios prior to actually uh having a the a commander or it may be up, you know, going up so high as the
2:26 commanderin-chief, the president authorize a particular military operation. So, there's a I'm I I've kind of a six-point uh summary here of what wargaming is about. I'm going to talk about that first and then I'm going to give you an example of not not a real war gaming scenario. I don't have access to those, but I created one so you could see how it might work based on a recent military US military event. And then we'll we'll we'll there are many lessons we can
3:01 learn from this process and I'll talk about that next. So um so wargaming it really is it's a structured simulated conflict. Okay. And it's used to anticipate outcomes, explore strategies, um and in particular to improve decision making under pressure. Now, you're really not you're not really engaging tactical commanders, the ones who would actually be in the field in wargaming. Um, unless it's unless it's a largecale war field war game, that that does
3:37 sometimes take place. Um, but oftentimes the war gaming is done at the operational and strategic level. Okay? That's the kind of wargaming they would certainly do at the war college. Okay? And so it's looking it's it's looking to help leaders gain better decisionmaking ability and especially under under the pressures of an an operation being launched and pursued. Okay. And and part of the part of how wargaming works is some of the participants have the role
4:12 of being sort of the friendly forces, the ones who are, you know, planning and going to execute the operation. Some of them take on the role of the enemy forces against whom the operation is going to be launched. Right? And then sometimes there are uh other people will take on kind of neutral roles. Okay. And and and this this is done to simulate realworld um responses, reactions and and to essentially stress test assumptions. So
4:48 the the people taking on the the friendly roles obviously they're looking to figure out how is this operation going to work? What are the decisions we may need to make? What are what what have we neglected to consider? Those kinds of things. The the people who take on the role of the enemy are looking for ways to defeat the plan, right? They're looking to crawl into the enemy's head, so to speak. and figure out, okay, if if if we get attacked in this way, what are we going to do? Obviously, they're going to seek
5:24 to repel the attack or repel the operation, whatever that is. So, how might they do that, right? That's that. And and and so those playing the enemy, they have a crucial crucial role, right, in first of all trying to figure out what will what might the enemy do? And then you'll see that there there's us there's always a um um what's sometimes called a hotwash after a particular war game is is concluded where data is gathered. And
6:01 for those people planning the the operation, talking to the people who played the role of the enemy is crucial to see, you know, why did you do X? Why did you do Y? uh what was your basis for thinking that the enemy would respond in this particular way etc. Right? So all of that is then used to improve the operation. Okay? And then why would there be neutral so-called neutral actors? Well, you know, military operations don't happen in a vacuum.
6:36 Yes, there's a you know there's the the you know nation the military that launches them. There's the military that defends against them. But there's a lot of other militaries around the world. Those of allies, those who are allied with the enemy, those who may remain studiously neutral like Switzerland, right? But just because they're not allied with, you know, with with the military taking the action or even though they may be allied with the military against which the action is
7:11 being taken, that doesn't mean they're actively involved. And so they can be neutral with respect to a particular operation that's taking place and yet still have a response based on what's going on. Right? So a particular ally might not like that a particular operation was launched um because it it may um it may get in the way of of some initiative that they were pursuing. Okay. um an enemy an ally of the enemy may not like a
7:48 particular operation because it's going to force them maybe into taking some kind of military action that they don't want to take or it may force them to show to their wouldbe ally they're not going to take action in support of of that ally even though it's being attacked. Now in the case of neutrals a you know actual neutrals Switzerland being sort of the classic example. So even though Switzerland is perennially neutral um in in their public face behind the scenes they have not been
8:24 nearly as neutral as as they claim. So for example during World War II, Switzerland was heavily heavily involved with with uh performing monetary transactions on behalf of Nazi Germany and and many highranking Nazi officers. Okay. So and and facilitating that uh that that movement of funds and wealth. um that that almost for sure led to uh you know a longer conflict than would have been the case if Switzerland had truly
9:01 remained neutral and not gotting involved gotten involved with th with those issues. Okay. So, you know, there's there's neutral and there's neutral, right? And so again having people playing the role of the neutrals based on what they know about them not just public facing but from intelligence etc. Uh you know helps helps planners get a much better idea of how something may work out. Okay. Now wargaming is it's it's iterative and it's scenario driven. So uh you know there there'll be
9:39 an overall plan typically to start okay but as as the war game proceeds just like as would be the case in real life uh the plan will will typically may typically change develop okay and you know and so that's that may happen in real time if you will in the war game as well it may be a particular operation and and the plan is to work through that operation several times to so that with with the knowledge from
10:16 previous war games for the same operation to see how it improves um as more information is is uh developed as a better sense of how enemies and neutrals may be respon may respond is developed. Right? And so war games rarely happen just, you know, kind of one single war game. Now, having said that, if it's if it's a large field-based war game, so those are less likely to be iterative. They cost a lot of money. They involve a huge number of personnel uh and and and and a lot of
10:54 resources. So again, the the the type of iterative war gaming is more likely to happen at a war college. Okay. So I've been mentioning the naval war college. That's because I was in the Navy, but um there's an Army War College. I'm pretty sure there's an Air Force war college, right? Um, and then there's there's um uh well it's special operations university um which they do some uh war gaming there too although it's more operational war gaming for special ops. Okay. So
11:30 um you know a particular operation may have phases. Okay. So they may phases may be wargamed individually. Okay. So they won't go on to or they won't go on in war game uh phase two obviously until they've completed the war game for phase one but also maybe they want a war game phase one several times get that figured out before they commit to what a phase two plan may even look like. So there's lots of different ways that it c that that an overall war game can be crafted uh in order to get at the best possible
12:07 result in terms of information and assessment. Okay. Um, wargaming its major focus is on decision making. It is an opportunity for leaders to make decisions essentially in real time and get a sense of how those decisions play out without the risk of actual, you know, combat deaths, people being wounded, uh, e expending of material. Okay? So, it
12:43 doesn't have those kind of real life pressures on on the leader making the decision. Uh but you know the wargaming is done on a on a calendar on a on a timeline. Timeline in the sense of you know at 9:00 am you know 6 a.m. we launch at 6:30 this happens at 6:45 this happens. So it's it's it's a real time sequence in that sense. Okay. So the the the the commander or the leader is under actual pressure to make decisions. You know they're not able to say oh well this is just a war game. So, oh, well, 5:00, time to go home, you know, and and
13:19 and put it off and and now they can sleep on it overnight. That that is not part of how wargaming works. The idea is to create the same kind of decision-making constraints that the commander or leader would face in the field, so to speak. Okay. Um, and so it it it it often times the war game is built to create ambiguous situations where the so-called right decision either is not obvious at all or may not
13:57 exist. Okay. Uh I if you are familiar with uh the the the Star Trek uh I'm sorry, yeah, Star Trek series. Okay. uh in particular the um the original one with uh William Shatner as as Captain Kirk. So there's a famous episode called the Kobayashi Maru uh incident and that that um Captain Kirk talks about um I know he talks about it in one of the movies I but I think it's an episode of the original show as well. Um, and one goes through it as a cadet being trained
14:32 to become, you know, a star a Starfleet officer. And the the root issue of the Kob Kob Kobayashi Maru incident is there is no good solution to it. Commanders only can fail. The question is how badly are they going to fail? And the idea is it's a test. It's a test for a potential leader of how they will respond when they're in the no-win scenario, right?
15:07 But it turns out that Captain Kirk was the only officer ever to have beaten the Koba Kobayashi Maru scenario. And so uh I in in this this comes out in the movie the way he did it was by reprogramming the simulation so he could win right so typically that is not that does not happen in a war game. Okay that's something that they did you know for for the Star Trek movie and it's it's it's funny and it gives you insight into the characters etc. Uh but but in a typical
15:43 war game, you know, they will c they will sometimes create a no essentially a no-win scenario to see how is this leader going to respond when they're at that point where all they've got as options is bad and horrible, things like that. Okay? So ambiguity is typically built into a wargaming scenario. Okay? And so then once the war game is done, as I mentioned, they'll they'll do what what what oftentimes is called a hotwash or a postgame analysis, if you will, post-war game analysis. So it's an
16:19 afteraction review and it and it may there a hot wash is usually something that's done kind of immediately afterwards while everything is very fresh. Um emotions may be charged uh somewhat at that point. it sort of gets a lot of stuff out. But then um there'll be other um a there'll be afteraction reports written oftent times uh so that the the various players can can review them so that leaders senior to the ones who took play who took part in the war game can read about the results. Okay,
16:56 they may not have um watched the particular war game, but they can they can read the results and that can help them assess, you know, is is is this commander the right person to lead this particular operation, etc. or to, you know, again, I I should say that a war game doesn't necessarily have to focus on a a planned operation, although um oftentimes planned operations are war game, but it could just be something that's done in order to test leadership in a more general way uh to see how that how commanders and leaders will respond
17:31 in certain scenarios. Okay, that's certainly what Kobayashi Maru was, by the way. Okay. And and the main thing or not the main thing but but in in the end wargaming is it it's it's a training and innovation tool, right? So the idea is is to um build critical thinking, reveal blind spots and foster creativity in in leadership and in developing developing doctrine and strategy and and operational um operational um actions and tactics to see what what may work
18:07 better than what we've than what we're currently doing. Okay, doctrine being okay, this is this is how we handle these situations. But as as as weapons change, as threats change, doctrine has to be reviewed and oftentimes changed, updated, revised, however you however we would would would cast that in order to make a particular military or or military unit uh more effective in achieving the objective to which it has been assigned. Okay. So, so that's
18:43 that's what's that's what wargaming is. Um, now, uh, I'm I'm going to talk about an operation and how it might have been war gamed. Okay. Again, I I have no access to classified information, at least not any longer. At one time I I I had a secret clearance and and the um the Navy wanted me to have a top secret clearance, but uh I I I never got that only because I left the Navy before the the process was completed. Um but but this so I've kind of made made something up to what it might have been. So this
19:18 relates to um a very recent military operation called Operation Midnight Hammer. This was the operation um during which uh B2 bombers struck two Iranian uh nuclear sites um and a submarine launched um I believe it was tomahawk missiles against a third site um you know and and the you know the the point of doing this was to um if not you know literally completely destroy Iran's
19:53 nuclear capability to at least at least uh set it back far enough um that it was going to be very costly uh in terms of um finances and people to you know bring it back to the point where they could break through to a nuclear weapon. Right? So it took place on uh Saturday uh June 21st of this year. So just a couple of weeks ago basically. And um all three of of Iran's nuclear sites uh Fordo, Natans, and uh Isvahhattan um
20:31 were hit between uh 6:40 p.m. and 7:05 p.m. Eastern uh Eastern time. Um which local time that was 1:30 a.m. to 2:10 a.m. or thereabouts. Okay. and the the operation if if you've read about it. So it involved about 125 aircraft um including seven B2 stealth bombers. Those they they look like a big batwing basically um to carry out the missions um and and and as as well um um as I mentioned a moment ago uh tomahawk
21:06 missiles were launched from a US submarine. Um, I haven't been able to find out where that submarine was when it launched those tomahawks. I I presume it was either in the Mediterranean or in the Mediterranean Sea or in the Indian Ocean, but I still haven't been able to find that out um through through my contacts. I don't know if I don't know if it's if it was if it's been classified. And so that's why um it hasn't been released. That that may be it. the submarine may still be patrolling where the missile from, you know, in the same area where the missiles were launched. You know, again,
21:42 I I I don't know. So, you know, no no secret information being released here. Um and uh you know, the you know, in the event uh the the Operation Midnight Hammer was very successful. Okay. Um and so, um it's it's possible. I'm not saying it did happen, but it's possible that the operation was war gamed in order to better understand how it would work, what would be entailed, and what kind of response um you know um allies, enemies,
22:19 and neutrals might have had. So um you know had it been war gamed okay it would the war game would have started out um with a detailed intelligence assessment of the three uh nuclear sites the three target sites for Natans and Isvahan um and that would have included their their defensive capabilities um the underground fortification certain geographic challenges of approach of of you know laying the bomb s where they needed to go. Uh it would
22:54 have also that that intelligence assessment would have included uh an assessment of the weaknesses of the facilities to know how best to attack them, where best to lay the bombs, how best to do so. It would have also included information on um the Iranian air defense systems such as they were after the you know days and you know many days of of attacks by Israel radar coverage um and uh the the potential response patterns to to this kind of
23:32 operation against them. So what how would how would you know the Iranian air force such as it is how would how might it respond um how might the Iranian revolutionary guard corps respond? Right? All intelligence on all of that would have been gathered and assessed um in the planning of the operation and in war gaining it uh you know if that had happened. Okay. So that's that that would be the that would be the first step in planning the war game. Okay. And then, you know, given the complexity of
24:07 the operation, so the B2 bombers uh flew from an air base here in the US. I when I first heard about it, I assumed they had been um forward uh staged in Diego Garcia, which is a little island in the Indian Ocean. Um but again, that was just my assumption. Turned out to be incorrect. They flew from Missouri. They flew for I believe it was a total of 38 hours, right? So, you know, how did the pilots because there's only two pilots in each one, how did they stay awake for that time? I mean, I know a little bit
24:42 about that from having been in naval aviation, right? Uh but um there you know the the operation was uh multifaceted and multi-dommain. So, there was the attack from the air uh by the B2 bombers. There was the attack by from the sea by the submarine. There were um uh decoy missions. So some bombers evidently were sent toward the Pacific. So it wasn't obvious that you know the ones going toward the Atlantic were necessarily going to be attacking Iran, right? And so there was that sort
25:19 of fainting maneuver. So all of and all of this was you know all of this would have been planned out as part of the war game to see how it worked to see how how the uh timing needed to needed to happen when was it best should the bombers going to Iran be sent first and the decoys second? should the decoys fly out kind of grabbing attention and then when the other ones went it was like oh they're just flying a bunch of you know B2s like they always do or whatever it is right all of that would have been planned out when should the submarine launch the tomahawk missiles right what
25:56 kind of deception uh tactics or strategy was necessary to protect the submarine and its crew right so the the the war game would have um simulated conditions uh across air, sea, and potentially even in cyber domains. Um I I haven't heard anything that there was any particular uh you know cyber attack going on concurrently uh with the the B2 bomber attacks and and the submarine missile launches uh for Operation Midnight Hammer. But it might have been and again
26:31 that might be a classified part of the mission that just you know wasn't disclosed because there's no there's no reason to do so. Okay. So then um you know it it um um almost for sure um oh and but and and then you know it would have the war game would have taken place in with the time constraints that um it was assessed the the the actual mission would have. So, um, as I mentioned in in describing the mission, so um, it happened between 6:20 and 7:05 p.m.
27:08 Eastern time. So, that's a 25 minute window when the bombers, you know, were basically, you know, going to be coming to their target, dropping the bombs, and leaving, right? So, that would that that time constraint would have been part of of the the the war game as well. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. 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
27:44 Marine through community support, education, and advocacy. For over 120 years, Americans of all walks of life have heeded our call. No prior military service is 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 this is Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and we're talking about war gaming as something we can use uh in our
28:22 businesses to make something like a product launch or a service launch uh go better. So, I'm I'm I'm giving you an example of how something might have been war gamed. And I'm and as my example, I'm using Operation Midnight Hammer, which was the um the the the bombing of uh the Iranian nuclear facilities um by a combined operation of the United States Air Force um and the United States Navy. And uh so you know I talked about um the intelligence assessment that was
28:58 likely done and I talked about u the uh the multi-dommain nature of the operation air perhaps cyber domain as well. Okay. Now um along with the um you know the the American team uh you know being being involved in a war game there would have been you know what might have been called the American team might be called the blue team or they might be called the red team and then the the opposing forces would have been given some kind of u you know color they might be called if the US forces were the blue
29:33 team so then the opposition Iranian forces might have been called the red team red team opposition ition forces. Okay. And they they would be they would be tasked with determining how is uh Iran going to respond to this operation. First of all, are they going to be able to get wind of it, right? Which which raises the risk of the operation. uh you know because if they have air defenses available so you know perhaps
30:09 those air defenses would be able to attack a B2 bomber right um and then having you know if if the operation is successful and those bunker bust those huge bombs 3,000 pound bombs you know are dropped successfully so at that point even if Iran didn't detect the bombers you know you on on their radar prior prior to the bombing. After the bombing, they know they're there, right? It's it's it's it's like the great line in um uh Inarm's Way, the the wonderful Auto Premier World War II movie with
30:44 John Wayne. Uh it's the very beginning of the movie and John Wayne is the captain of uh a Navy cruiser and they get uh they get torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and the the John Wayne the captain turns to one of his uh officers I think he's the the opso the operations officer and he says uh radio Pearl Harbor and let them know what happened and uh you know have a tanker out here because we're probably going to need you know additional fuel oil to get back to Pearl Harbor and and then you know get one of the uh destroyers to you know rig
31:21 for towing and the opso says uh should we break radio silence and John Wayne says don't you think the Japanese know we're here now right they just torpedoed his ship right so once the operation has been you know fulfilled right the enemy knows you're there right so that obviously that becomes part of the scenario uh and and So at that point, you know, once again, once the bombs are dropped, once the missiles from the submarine hit their targets, you know, the Iranian military, the um uh the IRGC
31:57 knows that, you know, they've been attacked. So then what are they going to do at that point? Even if they were surprised, okay, they're still they still may mount a response um once once the you know, the action has has taken place, right? So, so there will be uh some people who are assigned to, you know, essentially be this red team oppositional force to try and figure out what might the Iranians do once they're once they get hit. Okay. And and again, they're going to have the same um intelligence u uh information available to them. they'll have a sense of of
32:33 what, you know, Iran's capabilities may still be and they're going to game out are, you know, are will the Iranians launch, let's say, some fighter jets? They have some old um F-14 Tomcats, I I believe is the most most recent type aircraft that they have, you know, are they going to launch some, you know, F-14 Tomcats against these, you know, B2 bombers to try and, I don't know, shoot them down or something like that, right? So, I mean, in the event it didn't actually happen, as far as I know, but in the war gaming, you're going to look
33:08 at what what if you're part of the opposition red team. So, you're going to look at, well, what can I do about this? I'm not just going to, you know, I'm not just going to sit on my hands., you know, I'm going to look for a way to to retaliate. So, that would be part of the gaming uh uh situation as well. Okay. And then, you know, the war game would simulate the performance of the weapons used, the bunker buster uh bunker buster bombs. That's hard to say, right? Try saying that five times fast. Um against these, you know, hardened nuclear
33:43 facilities. Um especially at at the Fordo site where I've heard various estimates, but the the facility was at least 90 m underground. That's, you know, roughly 300 ft, right? And so, um, as I understand, those bunker busters, they they'll they'll pierce down at least 60 feet, right? So, that's why they drop several of them in essentially the same place because in doing so, they're able to go deeper, deeper, deeper kind of thing. Um, but also, I guess there was some kind of ventilation duct that was hit and of course to have
34:18 that kind of impact on a ventilation duct sends shock waves, you know, through the facility. So again, these are the kind of things that would have been, you know, if there had been a war game, would have been checked out to see, you know, what what might have happened. And then there would, you know, as part of the um wargaming of the technical systems themselves, there would have been some kind of assessment made as to well, what kind of damage could we could we expect there to be? What kind of afteraction situation could we expect from Operation Midnight Hammer
34:54 based on how we see this, you know, all coming together? Okay. Um, another part of the of the operation that would have been war gamed was would would have been the deception and operational strategy. So, like I said, they they sent some planes flying west over the Pacific, right? And from what I've read and and and and heard discussed that that that that deception strategy worked. It it you know every the entire world was completely surprised basically by this operation. So there was no indication
35:30 that Iran was any you know sort of special target and and again and and that you know that could have come from the war gaming of this operation as a planning tool and seeing hey you know if we do this you know and and let's say we had they had some people playing the roles of kind of neutrals in the sense of you know people who are not directly involved in confronting uh Iran militarily. how might they respond right and and you know if they see planes flying this way and planes flying that way etc right so the deception and
36:06 operational strategy I mean security uh would have been examined as well um and then finally they would have they might have war game just the the coalition and diplomatic considerations so certainly there was a high level of coordination between Israel and the United States for this operation that would have been war gamed. Now, you know, would they have brought Israelis, you know, over to the United States to actually participate in the war game? Who knows? Probably not right before the mission. It's it's not clear when exactly this this operation
36:41 was planned. It could have been something that was planned a few months ago and was and and was held uh for, you know, for a time to see if it would be necessary. Um but you know there there was an opportunity for uh uh American and Israeli military personnel to actually work together wargaming it or maybe they did some sort of virtual war game uh that allowed them to check out how do we work as a coalition what might be the diplomatic responses that we get etc etc. Okay. So, you know, a war game
37:16 could have been run uh for a couple of days. It could have been done iterative iterative iteratively over a few weeks. Um but these are you know this is how an actual operation might have been war gamed. Okay. So give to give you kind of a flavor for how it works. So, I'm going to look now I'm going to look at eight ways that war gaming could be applied to a business. Um, and you know, and typically I I would say typically
37:51 would probably be because um the business is launching a new product or some new service. Okay. Um, but it could be that the business um, you know, is withdrawing a product. Let's say maybe it's a beloved product that it no longer makes sense for the business to continue manufacturing, right? That could be something else that could be war game. You could also wargame a situation where there's been uh some sort of well like the the the Tylenol scare of of a a number of years ago where um somebody uh poisoned some
38:27 Tylenol, somebody bought the poison Tylenol and uh and and took it and died as a result. And so the fallout from you know a major public relations uh problem that could be war games. So any any situation in which you might think your business could be found could be war game to give your people an opportunity to figure out how might this all work. Okay. So um I'm going to give you eight eight of these now. So first of all market entry uh strategy. Okay. So you might want you
39:03 might um uh be as I mentioned a minute ago launching a new product or service. So you you you know some of the things you would want to simulate um would be how are your people going to respond? How are competitors going to respond? How might regulators respond if if you live in a regulated industry? Let's say it's a pharmaceutical um which obviously there's all kinds of approvals that need to be obtained. How might your customers and the media respond to a new product or service um before its launch and then during the
39:39 launch itself, right? All of this could be war gamed out and you could have people from different departments in your business or just people who handle different aspects of your business taking on the roles so they can better understand what they might have to deal with at the actual launch. Right? So if you've got someone who handles public relations, right, they might be the person to act as as the media, right? So that they really have to give some deep
40:14 thought into how is the media going to respond to this product launch, right? And if you've got people maybe they're, you know, at a at a lower level and so they're not um, you know, directly involved in the product launch, but they might make, you know, good pot, you know, they might roll act the roles of customers, right? How how would they respond to this this new product or service? Okay. Um, another uh another situation you might war game is is customer response forecasting. So,
40:50 um you could just do one where you have different people roleplaying different kind of personas um to identify, you know, how how would um you know, how would parents respond to a product? How would children respond to a product? How would teenagers, how would young adults who are unmarried respond to it? Right? And so by by wargaming, you know, different sort of profiles of people, um you you might be able to you you you might be able to better understand um why might a certain
41:27 group be more open to um buying this product or service whereas other ones are more hesitant. uh for you know what what barriers might there be to adoption of or the the sort of use of the service or product um by a particular demographic or a particular group, right? Um what what ways might the product or service be used that you didn't anticipate? Right? So, you know, look, we can intend for something to be used in a particular way. That doesn't mean that that's how people will will
42:03 actually use it. they might have some other use for it that's we hadn't thought of. So all of that um we you know is is something that we can you could war we can war we could war game to get and and then get some insight on that. Okay. Another uh situation to war game is is competitor response simulation. So in this case, you might create a rival team that is the your competitors and and they would, you know, as much as possible research and get a sense of how your
42:38 competitors tend to handle various situations and then they would war game out. Well, how might they respond to the launch of a new product or a new service? What kind of counter marketing tactics uh strategies might they employ? How might they let's say they have a competitive a yeah competing product on the market already and and your strategy is to come in and undercut them on price right in order to take away market share. Well, how might that competitor respond to such a strategy, right? Do
43:14 they have the ability to drop their price even more? And if so, what is that going to mean for the response uh I mean for the success of of your you know new product right so war game out how competitors uh might respond to a a particular situation by the way you could also let's let's you going back to the Tylenol situation you could also war game out how might competitors respond to a public relations situ situation like the Tylenol the Tylenol
43:51 um um poisoning. So, uh you may recall um I think it's Johnson and Johnson was making Tylenol at the time. They essentially immediately pulled it off the market. Well, by doing that um you know, Tylenol's maker left themselves vulnerable to competitors coming in with replacement products to try and grab market share. So, how might that look? How might that work? How solidly would the competitors u be able to take over market share? Because at some point, of
44:28 course, I'm sure Tylenol was going to, you know, the makers of Tylenol were going to relaunch it, right? So um in the meantime what might happen to uh you know to to with competitors such that re-entering the market could be much more difficult potentially even prohibitive to go back in. Okay. Um and and that that that feeds directly into the next scenario number four which is crisis and failure readiness. Right. So, I mentioned uh you know a PR issue, but
45:04 you could have a scenario where um there's a a supply chain problem that prevents being able to deliver products in a timely way to customers, right? This was uh one of the this is one of the concerns with what's going on with tariffs is uh you know we think of the Christmas season starting roughly around Thanksgiving but for retailers they start ordering their the products they're going to sell for the Christmas season much earlier in the year. So if
45:41 there's a lot of turmoil over supply chains because of tariffs or if there's problems with shipping because of the Houthies re reinitiating attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, right? So all of these are potential crises. Um and and it may be worthwhile if you're a retailer or maybe you're a wholesaler or you're some sort of supplier to war game out with your people how you will deal with any particular one of the crises that I just mentioned. So again, that's another another possibility. Um another
46:19 scenario that you might want to war game is is crossf functional alignment, right? So most companies if if they're not big enough to have you know different teams handling you know different aspects whether it's um uh bringing in u you know raw materials man manufacturing marketing public relations uh labor relations right these are all different aspects of bringing a product or uh without raw materials uh services to to the marketplace right so you may have only one person handling each of
46:56 those aspects that I just mentioned or you may have a whole department handling it. How are those going to interact, right? what kind of crossf functional I this is a buzz word but synergies might be developed and you can explore that through wargaming before you actually launch a product to see where are their weak spots where are there blind spots where may where may we be caught unawares or where are we vulnerable to something unexpected happening and what are we going to do if that unexpected
47:32 thing happens to mitigate the downside of that occurrence, right? So, and how can our people work together to, you know, best respond to something uh unexpected? Okay. Uh so, all that that's a kind of a crossf functional war game and and and it'll it'll look at how how well your team plays together, right? Um, next is you could wargame how you're uh doing your public relations. Just how you're you're you're um presenting uh let's say a new product uh to to the
48:08 public. So you could roleplay press interviews uh pitches to customers. So, if if you're a re uh I mean a if you're a wholesaler um who sells to retailers, you could war game how that how it will work for your sales team to be going out and and making presentations to retailers trying to get them to order your product for a particular period of time or whatever it is. Okay. You might uh roleplay social media engagement um excuse me to refine your your brand's voice. So um all of these
48:45 are things that you can wargaming in this sense is essentially practice. You can practice um your your messaging and your positioning how you're presenting your brand uh through wargaming. Now, in in that case, like if you're doing something with social media, you wouldn't necessarily, you know, use your actual social media outlets, but you could maybe your tech people can create kind of a just an an in-house, you know, social media situation uh maybe on on Slack or something like that. So, so these things can kind of be tested out
49:21 and you can give your people a sense of what how the real world might respond before they actually go to to the launch. Okay. Uh, another uh issue that can be wargamed is is having to make a strategic pivot uh during maybe a test launch of a product, right? So you could actually war game out um that you know you're let's say you're not getting the response you want uh from a from a a particular product launch. So how might the the launch be changed kind of on a
49:58 dime in in you know in real time although obviously you're practicing it's a war game but you know create create the real time pressures that the team will be under uh um when when the product is actually launched. create those same kind of conditions so they can practice how what strategic pivot they may make, how they how they might make it, how the team members or the the the team, you know, units of the team will work together to make that strategic pivot, how will and how might it work out. Okay. And then finally,
50:34 just like military uh wargaming, you can war game in order for leadership to develop uh better uh you know better um decision making u better a better ability to make judgment calls and see how those might work out, right? Um and and it that that could be in any situation. It could be in some kind of employment situation. It could be how things will play out. If there was a a loss of a large client and now the business maybe has to be downsized,
51:09 how is leadership going to handle that? How are they going to talk with employees? How how are they going to handle you know the the message? Um and and then how might the company you know recover from such a thing. So this gives the leadership team maybe it's the seauite maybe it's you know more midlevel managers it gives them a kind of a reall life opportunity to practice something when the stakes aren't actually there um but you know could be at some time in the future and in that way handle the the the the real you know
51:46 the real life situation better because they've had an opportunity to practice. So, so those are those are various ways that I think you can apply wargaming to your business and potentially come up with uh a a better launch, a better response, better decisionmaking. All of those can be built in to how you would do a particular war game. Uh I I I would say that in general you don't want to try and do multiple things that make it so complex that you're not really able to effectively test you know any
52:21 any particular issue. Um, so better to do like with a military war gaming, maybe better to do iterations and maybe each iteration focuses on another aspect or a different aspect, I should say, of of your team, of your situation. And so with with that isolation, you can you can give your team members the best opportunity to gain experience when you know the stakes are not really on the table yet. Um and therefore perform better when they are. So uh that that's
52:59 that's my show for today. Uh and um I as always would be curious to hear your thoughts about it. Uh so all the links to social media will be in the uh show notes when once once the show is over and it posts on YouTube. So I invite you to comment uh positive or negative and uh and and would would love to hear from you. So thank you so much for joining me today especially my live viewers. Uh, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Wednesday is my show, uh, people making
53:35 money. And trying to remember my topic. Let's see. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, um, I'm going to be talking about, uh, navigating the emotional fallout from having to fire someone. So, uh, you know, it can be very difficult. It can be difficult to get fired. It can be difficult to do the firing. I know the, uh, only time in my career, um, I was fired. Um,
54:11 the fact of the matter was I was trying to get the person to fire me. Um, and he finally did. And I when he when he told me I was fired, I just sat there quietly because in my head I'm going, "Finally, you got the message." Um, and he started crying. You know, he was very upset that, you know, we weren't going to be working together, I guess, for whatever the next 10 years. I I I I think unfortunately for him, he I he I was around the age of his children and and and his children were not going to join his business. And I think somehow he got it into his mind
54:48 that um I was like a son to him and and so therefore you know I was going to be with the in the business for you know decades to come. Um but you know the fact of the matter is he was not paying me anything close to uh what I thought he should and so uh what what I angled for was to get fired and and and then collect unemployment while I started my own company. though. But in any event, we're going to talk about the emotional fallout from uh the firing of an employee. Okay? And then next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. uh is my show at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my
55:23 show Trust and Estates Weekly. Uh and then uh one week from today um I'll be back for the next edition of Business Lessons from the Military. So, thanks again for joining me, wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and signing off as I always do. Marie Darling, you are my bell.