love the podcast part of the question oh thank you right on
any suggestions for leading command staff to understanding the ground level troops in a mission
okay so for for those of you that are not in the military command staff that's sort of for
the business world that would be like corporate headquarters you know the corporate headquarters
you've got the command staff and so it happens in both situations where you end up with
with the command staff or the corporate headquarters that kind of loses track of
what what they're actually there for the ground level mission the troops that are on the ground
and this is a a tough question but it's also kind of a simple one so i go back to trying
to constantly remind people what the mission is what are they trying to do and i had a the
admiral when i was the admiral's aide i worked for the admiral great guy and one of the things
i've probably talked about this before but one of the best things that he did was because he's he's
so detached from the seal platoons like there's layer upon layer upon layer in between him and
then and actually believe it or not the job of the admiral that's in charge of the seal teams this is
going to sound strange to everybody the job of the admiral that's in charge of the seal teams is to
get equipment and gear and training for the seal teams now and for like the next 10 years because
that's the way the budgetary process works and the in the pentagon and there's so so don't think of
when you think i know you you want to think of the seal admiral as the war fighter that's going
forward the guy that's actually in charge the senior seal now there you could be in a special
operation but there's other place you could be but the guy that's in charge of the seals of of
naval special warfare command that's what it's called naval special warfare command the admiral
that's in charge of that which puts him in charge of all the seals that guy his main his his job
is to train and equip seals train and equip not take them into battle but train and equip and so
you end up with this whole organization where the purpose of the organization is to train and equip
but the organization is huge and even that command organization gets very big and so what they start
doing is they start losing focus that 10 levels below them out somewhere overseas is a is an
eight-man squad and a zodiac off the coast of some nation doing a reconnaissance it's very they
don't even think about they haven't thought about that for years and so they lose track
and it happens in the corporate world as well where the the head shed that's they're dealing
with stuff too right they're dealing with legal problems they're dealing with compliance problems
they're dealing with financial problems they lose track of the fact that there's a guy on the front
line that's trying to fix a car or replace an air conditioner you know that's the way it is so you
lose the vision of that you lose track of that so what was great about this admiral that i work for
is in these big meetings where they would be talking about you know hundreds of millions of
dollars of expenditures over the next 12 years and various training commands and all this stuff
huge and he would always you know he would always say how does this impact a seal platoon overseas
how does this how does this help a seal a soldier go out and shoot a bad guy in the face
that's what he would ask and that gives snaps everybody snaps everybody back into reality of
what they're get it connects exactly what this question is um suggestions for leading command
staff to understanding the ground level troops you've got to ask that question in the business
side i've seen the same thing you know the guys totally lose track of it so you end up
you got to ask the question hey everything that you're talking about this this compliance thing
this regulatory thing and this new software that you're talking about let me ask you a question
how is this going to help one of our frontline sales people close a deal that's the question
that's the whole reason that we're here the whole reason that this big staff
is here the whole reason we have this building the whole reason we have this base is so that a seal
overseas can close with and destroy the enemy or so or if we're a big corporation so that
this repair man can make it to a house and fix an electrical problem
in a short period of time efficiently and effectively that's what we're all here for so
i think that's what you have to do you have to keep reminding them of what's going on down on
the front lines what the mission is what the men are doing what issues are out there another thing
you could take is you want to take these people with you or you want to get anecdotal information
that's i know it's cheap it's cheap to do this but you go out and you gather anecdotal information
that you can bring back to headquarters and say hey you know what i know we're all doing a good
job here let me tell you the troops on the ground need this cold weather gear right now they don't
have it here's a here's a message i just got from a guy overseas they're up in northern iraq
we thought it was going to be warm guess what it's 32 degrees there's snow on the ground these guys
aren't prepared for we need to get them to scare okay so you're using anecdotal information to
to paint the picture of what's going on in the front lines same thing with you know if you're
a corporate guy and you want to make sure people stay engaged go out on a call with
that electrician that's visiting a house on a on a where there's been a break or blown and the guys
working through the the payment system that you devised that you thought was so smart it doesn't
get connection while you're out in the field and now he can't run a credit card yeah you want to
come back and tell them to head shed that yeah so those are some of the things another thing
that you can do is you ask those questions all the time and maybe you just come up with some
kind of a mantra that you repeat all the time and that you sign your emails with that says you know
we're here to support we're here to support the front line guys we're here for the front line
you know or ask yourself the question does this help the front line every decision that we make
we got to ask ourselves does this help our front line does this help our frontline personnel um
and i think that's what you got to do now one thing that you got to be ready for on this
you got to be ready for someone to say they don't understand the big picture
this is what you got to be ready for because i've heard this wait who's going to say that
corporate okay you go to the corporate and say look you know we got guys on the front
lines we need to get them this gear they go look they don't understand the big picture
uh we can't afford that right now we didn't look okay i hear what you're saying
but be ready for it it's an excuse it's an excuse and you got to be ready for it
and the way that you get ready for it i've talked about this a million times
the way you get ready for is you have ammunition you have ammunition you gotta have your ducks
in a row if you're gonna raise your hand and say hey here's what's going on the front lines
here's here's a problem that they have you can't but you can't just back down when they say hey
they don't know what's going on they don't get it they don't get the bill that's a big thing they
say in the military they don't get the big picture i would hear that threat and i'd say you know what
actually we do get the big picture we're living the big picture you don't get the big picture
here's the big picture i got frontline troopers that need cold weather gear or they're going to
freeze and not be able to operate you know the picture doesn't get any bigger than that
now you can't course come across like that and what you have to do is you have to look
at it systematically and over a long term and say this is about plan and i've got a
plan for the long term of how we're gonna get these guys this cold weather gear in the future
but right now we've got a little fix that's gonna cover these guys that are in the field right now
you gotta come armed with ammunition so that you can you can refute this common call that gets made
which is they don't understand the big picture out in the field so don't worry about them no the only
reason we're here is for those guys in the field so let's remember them i think that's pretty good