0:00 Who are you? And where are you going? What do you [Music] want? Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and we're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and the practices of great military leaders in order to distill lessons from those sources that we can apply to our
0:38 business and professional lives. And this show is sponsored by the Beverly Hills Council of the uh Navy League of the United States. And I'll talk a little bit about the Navy League uh during during the break, but I want to jump into today's topic, which is from cannons to code, the battle of PaloAlto. So, if you saw my show on uh March 4th, what just a couple of months ago, I talked about business lessons that we could derive from the battle at the
1:13 Alamo. Uh so this is sort of extending on that if you will. Um, the Battle of PaloAlto really marked the beginning of the Mexican-American War, which itself was the concluding event to about a 12 year period of history with the United States and I'm sorry, about a um 13-year uh period in history uh of of activities between the United States and Mexico over this what became the state of Texas and and
1:49 related disputes. So, uh, the te the Texas Revolution, which lasted from October 1835 to April of 1836, uh, was a fight between Texas settlers, which included many Americans, and the Mexican government in which the Texas settlers sought to become independent from Mexico. And the battle of the Alamo is probably the best known uh battle of of that particular fight along with the battle of San Hasinto uh where um Sam
2:27 Houston Samuel Houston eventually prevailed for the Texans. So the um a after the end of the Texas Revolution, so Texas unlike any other state in the United States was an independent republic all of its own. So I know the California flag says California republic, but California was never a republic in the sense of an independent country. It was uh it was part of Mexico and then it became part of uh the United States. So, Texas was an independent
3:02 country uh between uh 1836 and 1845. And uh in 1845, the United States annexed Texas uh which uh angered the the Mexican government because Mexico still considered Texas part of its territory. So the formal annexation, I mean, while Texas was an independent country, Mexico could uh maintain the illusion that no, this was really, you know, part of of their country. But once it was annexed by the
3:40 United States, that illusion went away. And this was one of the key triggers for the Mexican-American War, uh, which which began in in, uh, uh, early 1846. So, um the the the sort of triggering uh the actual triggering event that started um you know the hot war, if you will, was a dispute over Texas's southern border. So, Mexico said that the border was at the Noasis River and the United States claimed it the border was the Rio
4:16 Grande, which is of course is where the border sits today. And uh this this dispute went back and forth. It it created a a a raising of tensions and eventually led to to open conflict. So uh the connection between the two is is the Alamo was kind of an early flash point over Texas eventually becoming one of the one of the states of the United States. uh and and the battle of PaloAlto which which signaled the
4:54 beginning of of actual military action in in the Mexican-American War became you know started the the sort of ending scenario of this conflict. So, the Battle of PaloAlto took place on May 8, 1846 uh in what is now uh near what is now uh known as Brownsville, Texas. Okay? And and as I've mentioned a couple times already, it was the first major engagement of the Mexican-American War. There were skirmishes in in the disputed area, but this was the first major uh in
5:32 engagement. And uh a as as I mentioned there was this disputed zone between the Noasis River and the Rio Grande River. And so basically uh uh General Zachary Taylor who became known as old rough and ready. If you've if you've ever heard that uh particular name for for a a general that was that was Zachary Taylor. He led US forces into this disputed territory. In response, uh, General Mariano Arista of Mexico
6:07 mobilized his army to intercept the Americans. And on May 8th, the two forces met and clashed on an open plane known as PaloAlto. Um, my my Spanish is not super good, but I think PaloAlto means high plane. Alto certainly means high. I think Paulo means means plain. So um the the US had approximately 2,300 troops. Um Mexico had approximately 3,400 troops. So about 50% more. Um and
6:42 so the US was significantly outnumbered. Nonetheless, the Americans won a decisive victory, and it was uh due to things like superior equipment, training, discipline, and leadership. So, I'm going to look at the key factors that allowed the United States to prevail despite having a significantly smaller force because these are what will lead us to the lessons that we can learn. uh from a business and
7:18 professional standpoint. So one of the most significant differences in the battle was between the art was was with the artillery used by the the two armies. So uh the United States had superior artillery. They employed what what was became to be known as flying artillery. Not that it actually flew, right? because the airplane was not invented until uh let's see 19 1846. So let's see the first flight at Kittyhawk was about 60 years later, right? So it
7:53 didn't literally fly. What it was is they were very light mobile uh guns on horserawn carriages that could be quickly repositioned and fired. So, and and they were they were for the most part six pounder cannons and 12pounder horitz howitzers. So, uh just to just for your your knowledge, a howitzer, I'm sorry, a a cannon is a gun that that fires a fairly flat trajectory at a target that you can pretty much see. So,
8:30 if you've got uh you know forces facing each other and and and you can see the other side's army, you would typically use cannons to to hit them. Uh howitzers have a higher trajectory and were you oftentimes used for bombarding uh targets that cannot be directly seen. So you may know that the enemy is massing forces behind a hill. You can't actually see it directly from where the howitzer is. Maybe you know because you
9:05 sent out some cavalry to reconoid and they came back and they said, "See that hill over there?" Well, that they're they're massing behind that hill. So the howitzer with a high trajectory can lob shells over the hill and hit a you know hit a target behind the hill. So that that's the difference between the two and that's why that's why you see u in in armies they have various types of artillery because you need different types depending on the situation. So again six pounder cannons uh 12pounder
9:40 howitzers the the number of pounds is essentially the weight of the the the shell that could be fired from the cannon. The Mexican army uh used older style smooth boore cannons. Okay, smooth boore meant you could have smooth boore and you could have rifle bores. Rifle bores when they sent the shot out, they would cause it to spin, but this the spinning kept them uh more accurate for a longer distance. That's that's why today when we talk about long guns, we refer to them as rifles because almost all of them have rifled barrels. They
10:16 have these grooves on the inside of the barrel as opposed to what's called a smooth boore, which has a smooth bore. It's smooth inside the barrel. So, the uh uh the Mexican army had four pounder and eight pounder field guns um and some short range howitzers. You can see they're firing smaller projectiles. Uh and and um uh and and also I mean and the and the howitzers were shorter range than the uh than those that the American army had. They
10:51 the Mexican army also had some large caliber bronze pieces, but they were very very heavy, hard to maneuver. Uh and and so in in kind of in total the Mexican artillery was less mobile and shorter shorter effective range than the US US artillery and so that put them at a disadvantage. um as well the training and discipline of in particular the gun crews among the Americans was much better than the training and discipline of the Mexican
11:27 gun crews. And so when the battle was engaged, the American troops stayed at their guns, stayed firing despite, you know, uh ordinance coming back at them. whereas the Mexican troops uh got disorganized. Um some of the troops fled. So there wasn't as much discipline there. Um as as well this this plane, this sort of open terrain uh really uh really uh favored um our artillery um because of the visibility.
12:04 Um, and so although the um although the the Mexican army had greater numbers, like I said, almost 50% more than the US Army, uh, because the Americans could bring them under their their guns, under their artillery, and could fire them more rapidly, more effectively, that diminished significantly the the value or the the the advantage of the greater numbers that the Mexican army had. And then finally um the leadership exercised by General Zachary Taylor very calm,
12:41 very effective throughout the battle. Um whereas uh General Arista, he really struggled to adapt to the situation and to keep his his troops in in disciplined battle. uh the kind of the end result of the battle of PaloAlto. It was a major psychological blow to the Mexican forces and it also contributed to Taylor's growing uh national reputation. Um and it eventually uh helped him launch a a a political career and and win the presidency. uh and and
13:18 mentioning again his old rough and ready that that uh you know nickname followed him throughout his his post uh his post-military career um and and and and really you know boosted him as a a figure of national uh political prominence. So what do we take from this then that we can apply to our businesses? Right? This is a battle that lasted one day, right? I many of you probably have, even if you know military
13:53 history and and and military history of the early 19th century, you may have never heard of the Battle of PaloAlto, right? So, uh you know the the and by the way, you can see we're we're coming up in a couple of days on what would be let's see uh 1846. So, 154 74 179th birthday, right, of of the uh battle of PaloAlto. So, how how do we apply lessons from this, you know, this
14:28 event that happened, you know, almost two centuries ago uh to to our businesses. So, I've got I've got, I think, five thoughts on on what we can on what we what lessons we should take from this. So, first of all, um, looking at how artillery was used by the Americans and and how much more effective the American artillery was, one of the things we have to we have to look at is we need to invest in innovation and tools that give
15:03 our team an edge. So the the American military had invested in these these flying artillery, right? This this lighter weight, more easily maneuvered uh cannons and howitzers. Um and and and it's interesting to note that they were lighter weight and more maneuverable despite being larger firing larger projectiles. Right? So you can see there's a significant tech uh technological advancement there that the US army uh of which the US army took
15:40 advantage. But it didn't stop with merely getting better technological tools. So the the artillery men in the United States Army uh were were trained on on the use of this new tool. And you know, it's it's all good and well to have the best technology, but if your if your team doesn't know how to deploy it, doesn't know how to use it effectively, then the technology really doesn't mean anything, right? It's it's all good. It's all good and well to have, you
16:16 know, a fax machine. The reason I I raise that is because I'm dealing with an issue right now and the only way I can communicate with the other party is by conventional mail or a fax machine. Can you imagine? And in in in today's age when everything is done by email, it has to be Can can you guess who I'm communicating with? Yes. Yes. It's the it's the federal government, right? Uh I mean, you know, I know what a fax machine is. I'm old enough to have owned them. But for someone, you know, significantly younger than me, they've
16:51 probably never used may not have ever seen a fax machine because can you imagine handing this to, you know, I I don't have a younger assistant, but if I had a young say, they fax this to, you know, the Treasury Department, they'd be like, "What's a fax?" You know, so unless people are trained in technology, it really is of no value or or at least very very limited value. So what what you know in today obviously the the the big emergence emerging tech technology right now is is AI and and
17:29 automation. So AI, large large language models, other types of a uh artificial intelligence developments and automation and and we you know I when I think when I hear automation I think of mechanical automation but the reality is the automation of online functions is is developing extremely rapidly uh alongside the development of a AI models. So, I I've been using Chat GPT on a daily basis now for several months.
18:07 The increase in productivity that it gives me is is just it's astonishing to me. I I I've just I I've lived through the adoption of fax machines and email and uh mobile telephones and and cellular phones and smartphones. and you know all of these technologies I've never this is AI is the most revolutionary technology that I've encountered in my lifetime
18:42 certainly and being someone who has throughout his professional life worked to be more productive more efficient what AI is allowing me to do is is is really just almost shocking on a certain level. So, I had a couple of things I needed to research last week. I got on AI. I call it my AI assistant chat GPT. Uh and and and plugged it in and and what I thought even with AI was going to take me at
19:18 least a couple of hours ended up taking me less than 30 minutes to do. It was it's it's just the most amazing tool that you can possibly imagine. If you are not using an AI, figuring out how to integrate it into your business or professional practice, you are you are going to get left behind, right? Uh but the key thing is learning how to use it. It's it's all great that AI exists, but if you're not figuring out how to implement it within your business, if you're not helping your team members learn how to use AI
19:56 effectively, it it doesn't matter that it exists. It might as well not exist as far as you're concerned. and and you can have twice as many people, okay, as another company and you're going to lose because the the productivity that AI brings to an individual on your team means that that person can do I don't even know what the multiple is twice as much, three times as much get get twice or three or I don't know 10 times as much done, right?
20:33 And and yet the fact of the matter is uh we don't need to let let's just say for the sake of argument that um it doubles somebody's productivity, right? So let's and let's say that employee was making $80,000 a year and now by using by using chat GPT instead of having two people at $80,000 a year, you can have one person, but you're not going to be paying them $160,000 a year. you're going to be paying them maybe a hundred or $110,000 a year. That's a that's a a big advance in income for the individual, but it's
21:08 also a tremendous cost savings for your organization. That's the kind of productivity that a tool like AI is going to bring to your business. That's why it's so crucial that you be engaging with it. Now, uh, there are there are there certainly are trainings out there. I know I went to one last week. I thought it was very good now because I've been working with AI now with at least with chat GPT, which is the one that happened to be the one that they featured in the training. A lot of what
21:44 they told me I already knew, but I picked up some some some tips to make to, you know, to be more efficient uh in my use of or not more efficient, more effective in my use of chat. GPT and so uh you know that the the the training which was 45 minutes long 50 minutes I think maybe at the most I know I know it was less than an hour was was well worth it and it was free right uh there are companies this one happened to be done by I think it was Optima AI I think was the name of the company you know they're they were they were doing these free
22:21 sort of introductory webinars in order to introduce people to what they do and you can say, "Oh, it's just a come on to sell me stuff." Okay, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I will say I haven't seen any follow-up emails saying, you know, buy our services. Uh, but but nonetheless, there was a there was a a great deal of value there that they were giving for their 45 minutes or 50 minutes. and and you know for for people who are not engaging using chat GPT or or some sort of large language model it was a I think
22:56 a terrific way to introduce people to it and encourage them to start using it. So the first lesson from the battle of PaloAlto is leverage technological advantage but leverage it by staying a breast of technological development and making sure that your team is trained to use it. Okay. So, I'm going to take a break here and as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, tell you about the Beverly Hills Council and and more broadly about
23:32 the Navy League of the United States, our our sponsor for Business Lessons from the Military. So, the Navy League of the United States is a nonprofit organization that seeks to bring together, excuse me, military people and our fellow uh citizens, civilians, uh to to do three things. One, and and and these are the three parts of their mission. One is support support the sea services. So the sea services include the United States Marine Corps, the United States Navy, the United States
24:07 Coast Guard, and the United States Merchant Marine. And as you can see, all four of those branches uh deal with uh being on the water on the ocean specifically, right? Hence the name sea services. So support the sea services, educate people about how the sea services impact national security and national defense. And finally advocate for improvement in the sea services both for the people involved and as well as uh improvement in in equipment,
24:42 technology, etc. So here in the Beverly Hills Council, we're a local arm, if you will, of the Navy League of the United States. Our terri territory covers most of the greater Los Angeles area. And so we pursue the mission of support, educate, and advocate here in Los Angeles. So if you are interested in learning more about the Navy League of the United States, you can go to navyleague.org. That link will be in the show notes and I encourage you to take a look at the website there. And if you want to join us in our work so you can become a
25:18 member, it's it's very easy right there on the website. Just takes a couple of minutes. And if you're in the greater Los Angeles area, I'd really love it if you would consider designating the Beverly Hills Council as your home council. And that way you will get you will be informed about the the various events uh that we're doing. So, I know later this month we're having a a meet and greet during Fleet Week here in Los Angeles, uh, which begins, I believe, on May 23rd and lasts until May 26, I believe it is. And we've got some
25:53 educational events coming up and and other opportunities to to get involved. So, again, uh, navy.org, we're the Beverly Hills Council, and I I I thank the Beverly Hills Council for sponsoring today's show. Okay. So, now this is Business Lessons from the Military. We're here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, and we're talking about the Battle of PaloAlto, which was the uh the first um largecale military conflict in the
26:28 Mexican-American War. It took place on on PaloAlto, the plains area between the Noesis River and the Rio Grande uh on the on the disputed area between the United States and Mexico in southern on the southern Texas border. So I was I just mentioned that one of the lessons we can learn from this battle is to leverage technological advantage. But that's not that's not the only lesson we can learn. The next one is preparation and training trump numbers. So to
27:05 refresh your memory, uh the United States Army had uh approximately 2,300 troops. The Mexican army had about 3,400 troops. They had a 50% Mexican army had a 50% advantage over the US Army. and and yet the the US Army won a decisive victory in this battle. So, how is it that the superior numbers didn't play out the way they you know so often did during wars in in a you know the the
27:41 16th well from the from the 19th century and before really numbers oftentimes were the decisive factor right so the US army employed a great deal of skill uh preparation and efficiency in training ing their army uh so that they would be more disciplined and they could outperform the Mexican army. So I mentioned earlier in the show that the effectiveness of the artillery men in particular gave the United gave the United States Army a big advantage that
28:19 that made the the fact that they had uh better more mobile larger board uh cannons and and howitzers made that come come to u uh what what is the word I'm looking It it made it effective to have the better artillery. It's all good and well to have better guns, but you but if you're not firing them effectively or you're firing them maybe half as often as as your opponent, so it it's probably not going to make any difference. So So the fact of the matter was um although they had half as many people um they they
28:57 were firing much many more shells, larger shells. they were able to move the guns around and so they really didn't need to have the numbers that they had in order to lay down effective artillery bargages. Okay. So you can you can see a a connection here to what to the technological advantage. Uh what I was just talking about with respect to uh using AI large language models is knowing how to use these things and use them
29:32 effectively and and increasing the productivity of our team members. That's what brings to fruition the any technical technological advantage that we may have. And so we can have a a a small well-prepared team and it can outperform a larger organization but that that is disorganized. Okay. So we really want to prioritize training and professional development among you know with our team
30:08 members. Okay. So, it's all good and well to to look at process optimization and those kinds of things to make us more productive, but those are going to come from team members who have an opportunity to learn and have an opportunity to implement new technology and really work with it, make some mistakes without getting clobbered, right? um and or make some mistakes certainly uh you know in a situation where there isn't a lot at stake uh and and so you know if there's a a big uh
30:47 extremely important presentation coming up right the the stakes are higher so you don't want to be practicing a lot of new things then what you want to do is is prepare in advance with some lower stakes uh situations maybe even do some some u evolutions where maybe there's not a real client. You're just you're you're doing it as a mock client to give the team an opportunity to see what they can produce and really stretch their horizons, right? And if they if the the
31:23 whole thing, you know, doesn't come together the way you want it to, well, in the end it doesn't matter. But at least it gives your team an opportunity to see what can we really do, where are our weak spots, where do we need to fill in with additional training and and identify that so they can go on to greater growth. That's part of the of what is part of military training in general that that we can adopt into our our businesses and professional practice practices. Okay, so that's lesson number two. Lesson number three, terrain and context matter. Okay,
32:00 so we we need to understand our and adapt to the operating environment. So, uh, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show when I was relating the history of the battle, Palo Alto, the high plane, right? It was a a flat, that's what a plane is, a flat battlefield. And so the fact that the US artillery men were so effective was multiplied by the fact that they were fighting in the kind of terrain where milit where artillery could be particularly effective. So if
32:35 they had been fighting in a forest where having cannons and howitzers wouldn't be nearly as effective because the trees would block their effectiveness, right? So the United States would not have had uh anything like the advantage they had at the Battle of PaloAlto, but they had this open plane. And so they uh Zachary Taylor, General Zachary Taylor tailored his battle plan to the terrain that on on which the battle was fought. and and um you know the Mexican uh the Mexican army had a big cavalry contingent uh
33:13 which now if it had been fought in a forest cavalry contingent might have been more effective because you can cavalry can run through trees and be very effective mounted on horses with their with their swords with their pistols. Okay. But cavalry is much less effective in an open plane where they're subject to being hit by artillery. And so the swiftness of cavalry, the uh the agility of cavalry is is undermined by being in this open plane where they can basically be bombarded.
33:50 And so there was a a lack of recognition uh on the part of the Mexican army. um that that this this would be a factor the that terrain would be a factor in a major factor in the battle and so they they came prepared to fight the wrong battle basically. So in business we need to understand the market landscape. So what are the factors uh to which we we need to which we need to be looking. So,
34:25 uh, a a friend of mine, actually a Navy colleague of mine, uh, called me yesterday and he's looking at a business opportunity. It happens to be an e-commerce venture, right? And, um, the he had gotten a a write up on it from the person who's selling it and he asked me to look it over. So, I was reading it earlier this morning and one of the things it pointed out was that uh that uh um bricks and mortars retail uh has been declining for years at the
35:02 expense of ecommerce. Right? So, I'm looking at that. I'm saying to myself, well, that's true except for the last few years when uh traditional retailers have been looking again at their bricks and mortar footprints. They've been changing them and developing them to make them more efficient and to work in better concert with ecommerce. And so the last few years we've retailers have been actually increasing store counts. In some cases they've even been
35:38 increasing store sizes. Right? So, and and interestingly enough, as I continued to read the presentation, I got a few pages farther down and he actually showed the statistics where bricks and mortars retailers are increasing their store numbers starting in 2021. So, there was a a a conflict in what he was saying. and and and so this is uh you know the reason I I raise this issue is it it creates doubt in my mind as to whether
36:13 the person selling this business really understands what's going on in retail uh or you know they misused uh you know chat GPP or chat GPT or some other AI to sort of write this presentation in a way that would look you know feel and look engaging. but really isn't well thought out relative to the the the business that's being promoted. So, I think we, you know, we need to look, you know, we need to look beyond the sort of fluff that so
36:49 often is out there today and really dig deep into what's going on in the marketplace. Now, we're in kind of turbulent times here with with what's happening with with tariffs and the market was was was up and down and up and down. Now it's back up. Then it went down on uh yesterday. So we're we're in kind of turbulent times. And so it's even more important that we dig below the surface and to to understand what's going on in the marketplace and not accept surface analysis or be impacted by a a a
37:28 political perspective that we may have that causes us to misread what's going on in the marketplace. So, we need to look candidly at the terrain. We need to look candidly at the marketplace, at at what's going on economically, and not be um not mislead ourselves uh like the Mexican army did in saying, "Well, we have this very strong cavalry, so we're going to win." and and you know totally mis misreading the battle environment
38:03 and having their cavalry uh you know not not only not be an advantage but in some ways be a disadvantage because they're they they got bombarded right so we need to we need to look at what is happening in the marketplace and build our strengths to that rather than trying to mold the marketplace based on what what we think our strengths are. That that second strategy is not going to work. Okay? And that that's why again you know keeping our people trained and
38:39 innovating is crucial to success these days. Okay, that's number three. Number four, leadership and morale not only are important, they are force multipliers. Okay. Now, coming out of the military, I I I saw where this this was the case, um I I early on in my military career, I had a situation where I was encouraging one of my sailors to take a leadership course and he he felt that he wasn't ready. My perception was he was clearly
39:15 ready. he he the the leadership course not only would be good for him, but it would be a huge boost to his career. Uh and and he was just dead set he didn't want to go. And you know, we we we talked it out one afternoon and I I ended up saying to him, "Okay, if you really don't want to go, you don't have to go." And interestingly enough that boosted his morale in a way that going to this course was would not
39:50 have done. So you know I I I think in the end he felt that I had listened to him. I had heard what he had to say and that fundamentally I was on his side when it came to development of his career and plotting his professional growth. Okay. So leadership it doesn't mean necessarily convincing people to do what you think is best. Sometimes it means that but often times it means listening to what your team members have to say,
40:26 taking that input in and then making a decision that takes all of that into account. And that was something that General Zachary Taylor was able to do. So be because he listened to his adviserss uh he knew you know he knew kind of to a certain extent the the sort of common soldier and kind of understood their plight. uh all that was taken into account and I think that was one of the reasons why he was so bullish on making sure his people were well trained and
41:03 highly disciplined because he knew that the pain of training and discipline in the end would would save lives would make them more effective on the battlefield. You know, in in a typical engagement where the enemy or where the opponent has a 50% numerical advantage, the smaller force could pretty reliably predict that they're going to be, if not literally wiped out, pretty well destroyed and taken captive. And yet, that didn't happen with Zachary Taylor's troops. So, they were able to not only hold their
41:39 own, but prevail. Uh and and the flip side was leadership in the Mexican army. Uh especially during the the high pressure situations that developed at the heat of the battle. Uh they they just they didn't have the cohesion and and clarity that was necessary to uh to s to be successful in the battle. The reality is when they saw that they were outclassed in artillery, it would have made sense for them to retreat back
42:15 across the Rio Grande with with with such a small force and and and with a I'm sorry, with a the Mexican army with a cavalry force that could have rapidly retreated. Okay. they could have potentially um gotten away to fight another day and not lose not lose the kind of decisive battle that the battle of PaloAlto ended up being. Their artillery could have covered a retreat uh and and and they could have in essence lived to fight another day. uh
42:50 and and despite the greater mobility of of the US artillery in that kind of action where the enemy is moving rapidly away from you that artillery would not have the the American advantage and artillery would not have been as effective. Okay? But there wasn't the flexibility of command and the clarity of what the problems were on the part of the Mexican army's leadership to enable them to do that. And so they essentially stood and fought um and ended up losing uh very very badly.
43:26 So in business say leadership needs to be clear. It needs to be confident and it needs to have as its goal to build a unified team and a culture where viewpoints and ideas can be expressed uh without fear of uh being belittled or uh without fear of being ignored. Okay. All of that stifles creativity in our team and we want to do the reverse. We want to create a culture where people are
44:04 free to express ideas and and continue to do so and feel like even if their ideas are not implemented, they were given due consideration and and and so it's to their to their advantage and the team's advantage to continue to develop uh and and and put forth new ideas for for the for the the organization to more successfully meet its goals and objectives. Okay, so that that today is is the goal of leadership. Now, uh I'
44:40 I've talked about this before, this idea of servant leadership. Not a big proponent of of that. Uh I I think leadership needs to set the example. It needs to uh set the plan and and and implement it. But that doesn't mean that uh our team members should be treated harshly badly. It doesn't mean that our team members should be ignored quite to the contrary. They should our team members should be treated well. They should be treated with decency and respect and they should be encouraged to take as active a role as possible and to grow
45:16 within the organization. Okay. And and and so u that's another lesson that we can learn from the battle of of PaloAlto. And then finally the last point I want to make is uh number five flexibility and mobility are not just tactical assets they are strategic assets and and so it's you know companies invest a lot of time and money in developing long-term plans that they hope will ensure their success. Um, but then once
45:53 they have those plans, a lot of times they're put on the shelf and and and and that's kind of the end of it. And that is not a good way to look at strategy. So, uh, you know, the mobility of the US artillery allowed for fast repositioning and and adaptability on the battlefield. That wasn't just a tactical issue. that became part of the strategy that the American army continued to develop increasing the mobility of its forces. So in prior times the only highly mobile
46:30 force was cavalry because they were horsemounted. Okay. And the foot soldiers and the artillery were not mobile at all. So with the adoption of flying artillery, other parts of the army became much more mobile than they were before. And if we if we continue to follow this forward, so by the time we get to World War II, both thei both the uh the German army with its blitz cre uh a combined force of rapidly advancing um
47:07 motorized infantry, cavalry, which be basically became tanks and aircraft became this this almost unbeatable force. against uh an opponent that was not nearly as mobile. And and you can see the same thing developing in the United States Army this time at the around this same time. Um George General George Patton being one of the biggest um proponents of of this kind of warfare. You can see starting in in the 1840s
47:46 uh you know this this this strategic trend to ever greater mobility of the United States Army that culminated in World War II with the the kind of strategy where essentially at least from Patton's perspective the army never stopped. It kept moving forward. Stopping was was not allowed because it allowed time because by stopping you gave the enemy time to regroup, refit, rearm, and then you just had to end you ended up um you know going against an even stronger force when you started up
48:21 again or worse having to retake ground because you got pushed back by an enemy that was allowed to refit. So in uh business and I was having this conversation with somebody yesterday, a friend at the same friend I mentioned a few minutes ago who's looking at this business. No, I take it back. It was a different friend in business today. Uh the part of our strategy needs to be a constant examining of technological changes that that need to be adapted. uh into our
48:58 businesses as effectively as possible. That's ongoing. We can't look at it anymore of, oh, okay, well, oh, we got this new thing called a fax machine. Okay, so I guess I'll get a fax machine and and and now documents can be sent more quickly than putting them in an envelope and mailing them or sending them by a messenger. That that's okay. I mean it was a big change in terms of the speed at which uh documents could be conveyed but beyond that it it it wasn't it wasn't um an idiomatic shift in how business
49:33 was done. Now change comes so frequently and and in some ways so rapidly. We need to make flexibility a part of our strategic plan for our businesses. And and and that can be difficult to do because amidst serving our clients, our customers, um you know, manufacturing our products, distributing our products, whatever it is that we do, uh we need to be making time for our team members, for our people to improve their skills. so
50:11 that they're ready to take on these these new technologies, these new challenges in the in the business and economic world so that our organizations can stay not just productive but really can stay on top. And so that as I mentioned in in in the last uh item that is something on which the US Army embarked and you and and you know a a a sort of longitudinal study if you will of the development of the United States Army over the century from 1846 to
50:49 1945 shows just how effective it was. Now that's not to say that the progress was linear. It certainly was not. There were fits and starts. There were mistakes and that's how it will be in business as well. We have to accept that our progress is not going to be linear. But that's why we need to make the examination and adoption of new strategies, new technologies, new ideas, a consistent and strategic aspect of our businesses. Okay? because the more we do
51:24 that, the the the the more efficient we can be in figuring these things out. And so although we may settle, we may I'm sorry, we may suffer some setbacks from time to time, uh those setbacks won't put us out of the game. So those those are my uh thoughts on lessons we can learn from the battle of PaloAlto. I'll mention them again real quickly. So leverage technological advantage. Uh preparation and training trump numbers. Uh terrain and context matter. Leadership and morale are force multipliers. And flexibility is a
52:02 strategic asset. Okay. So uh I I'm I'm this information will all will be in the show notes. So you if you need a little bit of a refresher after watching this episode, it'll be there for you. And uh I want to thank you for joining me today, especially my online viewers. Always good to see you. And let's see, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday is my show, People Making Money, and my topic is invest with caution, a grounded guide
52:37 for volatile markets. So, I mentioned this earlier in the episode, the the kind of uh economic turmoil u that that we're experiencing these these uh last few weeks. What do we do? So, I'm I'm going to give you some thoughts on how to successfully uh navigate the investment environment um and and and and be u maybe a little calmer, sleep a little better in the face of the turmoil. And then on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time is my
53:13 every other week show, Jiggers's Place. We're gonna have a cocktail and we're gonna talk about the concept of duty. So, uh, this is uh, you can probably see right here, you can see the little edge of my, uh, boy scout uniform. Um, I have it in a a shadow box here. So, uh, the boy scout uh, promises um, let's see. On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. What is duty today? What what what duty do we have to
53:48 our country, our our locality, our family, ourselves, to God? What what is that all about? Um and I I I think it's a a much overlooked idea. And so, uh we're going to have a grog, right? The n the Navy's cocktail, I guess we could call it. and and and being a Navy man myself, I I when I think of duty, I think of my time in the Navy, although I've always been one to to do my best to understand and perform my duty. So, we're going to have a grog. You'll learn what that is, and we'll have we'll have a a chat about duty. This that's
54:24 Thursday at 5:00 PM Pacific time. Meet me at Jiggers's place. So, I thank you very much for joining me today and uh wish you a wonderful rest of the day. signing off. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.