0:22 foreign hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin Bammel and we are here every Tuesday morning at 11 A.M Pacific Time 2 p.m eastern time to talk about how we can take military Doctrine military history the leadership practices of great military leaders and use them to improve
0:58 our businesses and our professional lives so for the last of several weeks we've been talking about Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and specifically how we can apply that to making our businesses operate better so I'm going to go ahead and get right into the presentation for today and you know as a good former military guy I have my PowerPoint ready look at that see it's even got the uh that sort of you know military background there
1:33 um in any event here we are and uh oops I don't see it goes bad and why it went backwards and we everything we do on the way to wow shows uh relates to the three pillars of attainment so we're here in the Pursuits pillar primarily dealing with the finances Realm all right and in previous uh episodes I've dealt with um others other parts of the conduct of war is applied to business so that includes the uh concept of maneuver Warfare orienting on the enemy the
2:09 philosophy of command shaping the action decision making last week we talked about Mission tactics so if you are interested in any of those topics I encourage you to go to our YouTube channel uh youtube.com forward slash at the way to wow and you can see all of our previous episodes not only of this show but of um my other two shows as well so today it automatically Advanced we're going to talk about the idea of commander's intent now in previous episodes we've
2:47 talked about the um inherent chaos that comes on that that happens on the battlefield and I've mentioned this um uh phrase attributed to the German field Marshal Von multi no plan survives first contact with the Enemy and that is as true in the business world as it is in warfighting we cannot predict accurately how people will respond there have been numerous examples of huge
3:25 companies spending Millions upon millions of dollars on on customer research and making decisions that just went you know kabloom when when the uh the product or service was launched so there's there's just no we we cannot know for sure how customers clients suppliers Etc are going to respond to a new business initiative and and so there's there's there is as a result an inherent um chaos that goes on in in the business world and so what we want to do is shape
4:04 our businesses so that they can respond as quickly as possible to the chaos certainly but also to the larger changes in the uh in the economy in the business world how things are done right so right now one of the big things going on is they call it AI it's it's really um large learning um machines or I figure what the exact term is but in any event how we are going to
4:41 use this in our businesses is is a big question and uh my friend Michael and I talk about this uh pretty regularly um both on how it can be used in people's lives and how the people who are building these large language models are going to profit from from them so I've I've used chat GPT a few times I used Bard earlier today and I'm I'm trying to figure out how can I use this tool in my business in order to make myself more productive make my business
5:17 more productive and therefore make my business more profitable if I can't figure that out I won't pay for these services at the point where they start charging for them right now the version of chat GPT I'm using is is free there is a a more advanced version that that is I believe a subscription and Bard is is free at least the version I'm using so as we confront change chaos in our businesses and in the larger business world and economy we need to have an effective way to get our people
5:52 responding to those and this is where commanders intent comes into play so just for a moment going back to Mission tactics last week we said we want tactical decisions made at the lowest leadership level possible okay that's that's the essence of mission tactics so how do we then create an environment in which the the individual executing Mission
6:27 tactics does so in a way that is in line with where the business needs to go and the way we do that is by explaining the commander's intent to that individual okay now in in a you know in a military unit we we talk about commanders so for a a company of soldiers or a company of Marines the the commander of that is probably going to be a captain or
7:02 somebody at that level perhaps say first lieutenant okay in the business world we don't call them commanders we may call them Foreman we may call them supervisor we may call them um manager we may call them vice president right we have different names for leadership in the civilian World um than we do in the military world but in it but the two essentially mean the same thing the commander is the one who has responsibility to oversee a certain
7:37 group of people and and make sure that the work that they're doing is fulfilling that person's commander's intent right so the the ideas is there's there's many there's several echelons of leadership now in the military there's there's a lot so in a army or Marine Corps unit you know the highest level is going to be a general probably like a brigadier general or or maybe a major general a one or a two-star general from there you're going to go down to a kernel you may have a lieutenant colonel or a major
8:13 at the Battalion level and then from there you'll have a captain at the company level and then at the smaller unit level you'll have a first or second lieutenants right so you can see you have several echelons business used to be very much like that especially as how it developed after World War II nowadays the trend is to have as few echelons as possible in order that there's um as as as as free communication between the most senior leadership and the more front-line leadership as possible okay so you may not have you
8:50 know um uh store manager area supervisor regional manager um you know vice president you know you may not have all those layers of leadership anymore in a particular business it it depends on on the business but in any event all of those are commanders in the sense that they have um responsibility for a certain group of people and they they have the responsibility to see to it that the command that their commanders intend their vice presidents uh intent their
9:27 manager's intent is actually met okay so whenever we give people um directions what we want to do is explain to them what is the mission and why okay and the why is the is the crucial part of this because once they know what needs to be done okay the
10:02 tactics that they use will relate directly to the why especially if what they've been directed to do isn't possible at some point down the road okay so um let me give you a a combat example okay excuse me let's say that um the company Commander says to one of his platoons I want you to hold this bridge okay where they're gonna hold the bridge okay why well because if the we want I need
10:41 you to hold this bridge because if the enemy takes this bridge we will lose our entire position and we will have to retreat okay so hold the bridge so that we don't have to retreat because that's the the or in order that we don't have to retreat or in order that our line will remain solid okay that's the commander's intent that's the why part okay notice that the commander did not say how to hold
11:19 that bridge those tactics are going to be at the discretion of the platoon Commander probably a lieutenant first or second something like that okay so when we do the same thing in business or when we when we yeah when we in business give directions we want to do the same thing okay so um let's say we're talking about some kind of um marketing initiative okay I'll give you an example that um my one of my mentors gave me on Friday so he asked me
11:55 how often I'm emailing people on my email list I said once and he said why and I said well I send he said what kind of email is it I said well it's a newsletter and then I also mentioned what my shows are going to be for the week he said so he said what what are you doing in order to make sure that people know that the show is starting what are you doing for people who may have wanted to see your show but they couldn't make it and now that and now the live stream is gone okay so he said you need to be
12:31 sending out more emails to keep people who are interested in your show advised as to what's going on okay so the real directive was keep keep your people advised so they know what's going on why in order to engage them more deeply in your content so you can help them better okay so the commanders intent in this case he's a mentor but a commander in in the sense of he's the one giving me
13:07 direction to help me improve my marketing so the commander's intent is to help more people and help them better okay that's the commander that's that's the why behind all of this in the end that's why it's it's it that's why I do these shows okay so the the um the um the direction then is is use is use email to do that okay now in terms of actually writing the emails and and when to send them and how to send them all of that those tactics are left up to me as
13:43 the sort of you know commander on the ground so to speak okay so how I do that I have to I have to look at specifically what my shows are what my audience is those kind of things and I have to kind of play around with them a little bit to see what works best okay but the main thing to take away is I have a strong why and the strong why is to to be able to help more people okay that's why I'm doing this now
14:18 um as we look at developing a commander's intent we want it to be two we wanted to have two qualities one is that it'd be compelling I'm pointing at my screen and the other is that it be concise okay we wanted to be compelling so that the person will will sort of feel the the urgency of it or the desirability of it okay why this intent is important okay
14:53 can you imagine the commander's intent um well I want you to use email more because um I like email it's like okay well you like email great I mean that that's not very compelling okay on the other hand if he says I want you to use email more because that will allow us to help more people to reach more people with things that can make their life better that's compelling okay and we wanted to be concise so that it's
15:28 easy for people to remember if it's a long rambling commander's intent people just they're not going to remember that I was like wait what give me that again well wait uh okay we there were what five parts to that no that that's that's not good and you know think about it in the context of battle right you know you call your platoon Commander into the company headquarters okay here's what I want you to do and here's why and you know like 30 minutes later wait sir what was that why again it's like and meanwhile the battle is
16:04 going on there's just not time to do that so the Commander's job is to think these through very clearly so that he can convey a short compelling rationale for why he's calling for whatever action he's calling for okay we have the same obligation in business okay whether we're talking about Marketing sales um improving production
16:39 they've got to be compelling and oftentimes these days especially that's going to mean something more than will make more money or will save money now obviously we want our business to be profitable of course and and if we have larger profits then we're able to do more things so we're able to pay our people more or maybe we're able to lower our price so that more people can afford our product or service what whatever it is but the the the numbers are in
17:15 essence how we keep score of how well we're doing in terms of serving our customers and clients and how how well we're able to compensate our people okay so as we think of a commander's intent in the business world I recommend you fashion it around the impact it's going to have on people perhaps partly monetarily but in addition to the financial impact it's
17:51 going to have on people okay so if we're dealing with a supply chain issue okay and and and your your you know task is um I I need you to find a supplier who can reliably deliver you know this this component for our product with you know at a lower price point for the same quality we're getting now okay and the reason is because we want to maintain our price level so that people are not negatively impacted by
18:28 higher prices people are struggling already with higher prices we want to keep our prices down so that so that we can help more people with our product that's far more compelling than well I want to keep our prices down so we can make more money okay and and by the way not that there's anything wrong with making money okay I'm not saying that at all and and and I'm not saying by the way lie to your people so if if you want to keep your costs down to make more money and that's really the motivation then be honest with your people okay and
19:04 and own what it is that you're after okay just recognize that people want to have meaning in their work and so as commanders as Leaders it's part of our job is to help our people understand where the meaning is in their work okay now for some people it's meaningful just to make tons and tons of money but that's not most people okay first of all most people are not making tons and tons of money businesses can't afford to pay everybody a million dollars a year so
19:40 we've got to understand where is the value in our business as it relates to other people and how do the directions we give to our people going to impact our ability to deliver that value that's where the compelling part of a commander's intent comes in and then we have to figure out a way to convey it in a very concise manner Okay so I want to make one more point about commander's intent if you're in a small organization where you're you know
20:16 you're the commander and and and there are other levels of leadership so then as long as people know your intent then they know what the intent is for the business okay in a business where there's multiple layers where you know you may start with a CEO and then you have you know you have a um Executive Vice President senior vice presidents vice president so then from there you have you know two or three other layers okay in order for the CEOs
20:54 intent to make its way down the chain of command down the chain of leadership okay each person needs to know the commander's intent at least two levels up it's not enough for them to know just their immediate superiors are their immediate supervisors intent they need to know that the intent that that person got from their supervisor so there's an a broader understanding of the intent within the organization
21:31 so it's incumbent on all of us to convey as much of the intent of the organization as we can especially to the front line people okay now here's the rub for those of us who are more Junior and have several layers to report to if we're not getting a commander's intent or it's not clear It's Our obligation to make sure that we understand the commander's intent so if we're told to do something obviously if
22:06 it's just a you know an administrative tattoo that's not that's not really the issue but if we're told um I I need you to um find a source for this part of our of what we're building and maintain our cost structure okay if if they're not told why we need to you know the person receiving that direction should ask okay why is this important any oh um well you know we're concerned that
22:45 our current supplier is having problems and if we're not getting reliable supply of this particular component it will mean we can't deliver our products at all okay so the commander's intent is to diversify um I mean the the directive is to diversify uh Supply sources in order to be able to maintain the productivity of of the
23:20 company oh okay okay so we're not firing the current supplier no it's just we want to make sure we have backups because you know they're they're not able to supply us as much or you know this is confidential but we we're looking to replace this supplier okay but this is not for the supplier to hear okay and and this this gets down to maybe you don't want the supplier the current supplier to know for whatever reason right if the person doesn't know the intent behind the directive then
23:55 that Frontline employee could mention something to the current supplier not knowing that he shouldn't have okay and as as a Frontline employee you don't want to do that right so that's why that's why asking for the commander's intent asking for the why behind the directive you've gotten is so important so the understand the the development and understanding of of commander's intent is is kind of a a two-person function if you will there's the person giving and the person receiving both have to do their best to
24:31 make sure that what's being communicated is clear Okay so um that that's that's the commander saying and it it it may be difficult at first and you know there's a tendency to sort of want to keep things um confidential or things like that um in general that is not a good policy now obviously there are times when certain things have to be kept confidential in which case um you'll develop a commander's intent
25:07 in line with what can be disclosed while holding whatever has to be kept confidential confidential and if there's some point of a directive that that needs to be kept confidential it should just be said so look I need you to do this I'm not able to explain to you why at the moment and and this is not anything to be shared you know with anybody other than me or with anybody other than our team or whatever that is okay but as the regular practice that's not a good idea because it keeps people out of the loop and they can't do as good a job without
25:43 knowing the why behind what it is they're being tasked to accomplish okay so keep that in mind it's it's a skill that you can develop okay and and you know if you're used to just giving directives and sort of moving on just take the extra couple of minutes to to give the person a why now to to communicate it to them probably only takes another minute or two because it should be concise okay where it may take
26:19 you some time to develop the skill is in when you are giving a directive that's significant enough to require a commander's intent really figuring out why am I having why am I giving this this instruction why am I asking someone to do this and this is also a great exercise for us as Leaders because if we're asking people to do things and we don't really have a sense of why we're doing it maybe what we're asking them to do doesn't need to be done okay maybe in the end if we don't understand our why it's because the task is really not
26:57 something to to have time spent on and so developing this uh process of of knowing one's own intent and how it connects to the intent of the person to whom we report will also make sure that we're being most productive in how we work with our people and and and in what we're asking them to do all right so that is today's um lesson on the conduct or Today's Show on the conduct of War applied to business go ahead and uh stop the
27:32 sharing here we go and uh just want to remind you that tomorrow is my show um people making money and my guest is uh Andrew Young he's going to be talking about his new book let me I want to give you the I'm sorry not not Andrew Young Jason Young I'm not sure why I I I uh I I keep thinking it's Andrew but it's anyway my guess is uh Jason Young and his new book is called how to build long-term energy health and
28:09 success as a Ministry leader now you may be thinking to yourself wait a minute I'm not a minister I don't lead a Ministry so that's not relevant for me well the truth of the matter is as commander's intent shows in a way we all have a Ministry in the broadest sense a Ministry is the practice of helping other people succeed and as Leaders that's what we want to do with our people we want to help them succeed
28:44 okay and and if it's in business it's in a for-profit situation if it's a non-profit profit okay so the motive motivation may not be profit it's accomplishing some kind of larger goal all of that is the same but in a way Ministry applies to all of us who are working with people leading people helping people so I encourage you to join me tomorrow to hear what Jason Young says on this subject it's something he's spent a lot of time in and I think you will find he has a lot of terrific insights so that's 12 30 p.m
29:20 Pacific Time 3 30 p.m eastern time with an hour in for Central and mountain and that's people making money one of the way to wow shows every every Wednesday okay and then next week we start again on Monday at 10 A.M Pacific time with trusts and Estates weekly and then we'll be back again seven days from today on Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific time for the next edition of business lessons from the military so I thank you very much for joining me if you have questions or comments please feel it was free to send me an email my
29:55 email address will be in the show notes or drop a comment in any of our social media and and by the way do consider subscribing to the show subscribing to our YouTube channel okay there's a link for doing that in the show notes as well I'd love to have you as a subscriber and that way you'll always be notified when a new show is going on so thanks again for joining me signing off Marie you are my bell all the best folks hope to see you tomorrow