Accidents, Leadership and Oil Slicks

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow and move and the finger-pointing frenzy continues to build. So, what does the oil slick, and the disaster that cost 11 men their lives on the oil rig, have to do with leadership?

We still don’t know what happened on and under the rig. Certain items of information have surfaced: there was a methane bubble that was not controlled, the Blow Out Preventers (BOP) failed to work properly, certain other safety response plans failed, etc. However, we still don’t know what were the root causes of these and other elements of the incident. Several options come to mind: parts failing to operate at less then ‘spec’ (that is, a part that is rated at being able to handle X pounds per square inch (PSI) fails at less then X, or a circuit which is supposed to respond reliably within certain usage parameters nevertheless fails, etc.); there might have been procedural errors by the people on the rig; there might have been shortcuts taken by certain people on the rig in routine maintenance; there might even have been a criminal act, though for the purposes of this article I will assume there was no criminal act, no attempt to deliberately cripple the oil rig.

Apart from the last possibility – a criminal act – it is fair to say that someone did something wrong: made a device improperly, installed a device improperly, maintained a device improperly, monitored a device improperly, responded to the failure of the device improperly. More accurately, and making it more complex, it is likely that the incident is not the result of the failure of a single device or a single person, but of several devices and monitoring procedures, meaning that the sequence of events is going to be a complex inter-relationship of devices, installations, maintenance plans, monitoring plans, training plans, and response plans.

As the world of aviation has taught us, there is no such thing as an ‘accident.’ Deriving its language and methodology from military aviation crash investigations, such organizations as the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) do not use the word accident, they use the word ‘mishap.’ Mishaps don’t just happen, mishaps are the result of mistakes, omissions, and poor decisions. And, and this is the important point, mishaps can be prevented.

Mishaps are prevented when there is a confluence of several things:

- Training – people properly trained in the maintenance and operation of the systems involved, as well as in safety procedures in the event of a mishap. Training must be comprehensive and continual.

- Maintenance – equipment regularly inspected, maintained, repaired and replaced at rates well within the failure margins for each piece of gear and for the entire system. Preventative Maintenance, and corrosion control, must become the cornerstone of long-term, sustained operations.

- Parts Support – Parts support is the obverse of maintenance, making the requisite investment to insure that the right parts are used, and replaced, and refusing to cut corners to save pennies in the near term, when doing so may well cost a fortune in the long term.

- Leadership – Leadership provides the ‘thread’ that ties together training, maintenance and parts support. Sound leadership, with a focus on long-term success, will integrate these three components into the daily fabric of the organization, recognizing that the cost of preventing a mishap is never as large as the mishap.

The fact is that mishap free operations – in any industry – are not the result of ‘good luck’ any more than mishaps are the result of ‘bad luck.’ Leadership that is focused on sustained performance and long-term success will recognize that investing in their people and their equipment is essential to that success. Leadership that focuses on short-term success will often try to ‘squeeze’ both the people and the assets, skimping on such “costly” items as parts, maintenance and training. Eventually, the skimping catches up and they will end up paying more for results of the skimping then they would ever have spent on the maintenance.

Consequence Management, not Risk Management

Central to successful thinking in any type of long-term, mishap free operation is recognizing the difference between Risk Management and Consequence Management. Intellectually, Risk Management focuses on input, on minimizing the probability of given events (parts failure, systems failure, etc.), thereby ostensibly providing safe operations. On the other hand, Consequence Management focuses on the fall-out of such an event and then plans backwards to minimize both the likelihood of such an event occurring as well as constructing plans that will allow minimizing the consequences, the impact, if such an event takes place. Consequence management will also identify those activities that simply are too costly to deal with and should therefore be avoided, replaced with other activities that are more easily managed.

Consequence Management, therefore, if executed properly, allows for addressing a situation so as to maximize long-term benefits while ensuring a plan is in place that will reduce to a manageable level the effects of any mishap.

But Consequence Management, as with the maintenance, training and support programs that constitute the principle elements of any sound mishap prevention effort, requires one overriding element: good leadership. Consequence Management is simply another element of a comprehensive strategic plan, and the right leadership will provide sound Consequence Management because it will develop comprehensive strategic plans.

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is not a failure of the technology of the offshore industry, nor is it a failure in the processes and training available to the workers in the offshore industry, nor is it an indictment of the people on that rig. In the end, the failure of the BOP and the resulting oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a failure of leadership; truly fixing the problem will first require fixing that leadership. The lesson that any company can learn from that failure is that long-term growth requires leadership and planning, and every company, every organization needs to renew its commitment to developing that leadership and those plans today.

Why Does the US Military Produce Exceptional Leaders?

(This is an amended version of an article I posted a couple of weeks ago, but which from which I inadvertently omitted two paragraphs.)

There have been any number of books and articles written over the past several decades about the US military and why it produces so many good leaders. Many wax lyrical about devotion to duty or the patriotic motivations of the people themselves or their exceptional skills or any other number of factors. While I think it is true that many of those characteristics are found in many people in our armed forces, I think most of these theses miss the mark. In fact, I would submit that the leadership skills that are produced in the US military (and in the armed forces of many nations around the world) can be replicated by any organization that commits itself to doing those few things that the armed forces have done regularly.

What are those few things?

1) Clear goal (mission) - Each of the services is provided an abundance of organizational clarity because the overarching goals are clear and, for the most part, fixed. When someone joins the Marines, they are going to defend the nation; they take an oath to in fact do just that. Everything that is done after that is tied directly to that overarching goal. Why do you keep the mess hall clean? To feed the troops so that they can be healthy and ready to respond to orders – in the defense of the nation. As the tasks increase in complexity this clarity allows the leadership to sort through a great deal of ambiguity quickly, and focus any organization, and the people within it, on the appropriate task. Additionally, it provides a foundation for which communication down through the ranks, a commonly held intellectual and emotional position shared by all that can be used to tie together any number of specific tasks, providing a clear and unbroken string that reaches from the very bottom of the organization to the very top.

a. Also to be considered is that the overarching goal, which acts as the glue that keeps so much together, is one that provides true self-actualization. Young soldiers and sailors may join for some adventure (or even just for a job) but they also have the real – and massive – benefit of being regarded both by their peers at home and themselves as doing something that is much bigger than simply their own lives. In the strictest sense they are self-actualizing while within the military. This not only helps everyone perform at the 'top of their game,' it also makes it easier for the leadership to extract higher performance from these people.

2) Opportunity to Lead - People in the military get a great many opportunities to lead (they can also avoid it if they want; people reading military resumes who have no military experience should make sure they have someone they trust who understands what is being said). From day one you are being placed in charge of people and tasks. You are not only given many opportunities to lead, you are given many opportunities to fail. This isn't said in a negative way; you will usually find that for the first few years in the military you will routinely be given tasks that exceed your capabilities. Your leadership will see how much you are capable of and will then routinely step in before things go 'terribly wrong.' In this way you not only learn quickly, you learn while continually expanding your capabilities. You also learn that 99% of all leadership requires team building, that you can't 'do it' alone and you can't even 'lead' alone, that having a well integrated team around you and above you that you plug into is as important as producing your own well integrated team. The result is a great deal more leadership experience in any given time frame then you will encounter in most other positions.

3) The Gunnery Sergeant (or Gunny or GYSGT) - For the first few jobs that an officer has in the military, as a division officer and as a junior department head, or as a platoon leader and then as a company commander, the real day-to-day running of the organization is not in your hands. Instead, the guy who really is 'in-charge' is the senior enlisted, the 'Chief' or the 'Gunny' or the 'First Sergeant.' Well beyond any soppy, nostalgic paean to senior NCOs (non-commissioned officers), the fact is that the Chief (Gunny, etc.) is there to teach 2nd Lt Jones how to lead. He does that both by leading the division/platoon and teaching by example, and by engaging in day-to-day mentoring of the young officer. This continues up through, at a minimum, the command of the company. In fact, in any number of larger units the senior NCO in the command acts as the right hand and trusted advisor of the commander. Seasoned battalion commanders and SEAL team commanders (who will have 15 years of experience in the military) rarely act without at least consulting closely with their most senior NCO. What makes this leadership construct particularly effective is that the lieutenant who is the titular senior to the NCO (but who had better listen when the NCO tells him something) is not competing with the NCO for either promotion or position. The NCO is interested in making the unit work and perform at its best, as is the lieutenant, both can be recognized for their performance, and it benefits both when the other succeeds. Further, the lieutenant, who enters the relationship with little to no leadership experience, will be recognized for being squared away when he listens to his nominal subordinate and 'does what he is told.' This built in 'humility school' helps to build leaders who place unit above self-aggrandizement and leads to improved unit performance.

4) Planning and Exercises – The military at every level produces plans – formal and informal; those plans are regularly reviewed by the next echelon, the plans are modified, and then the plans are exercised. Not only is there an opportunity to learn from those around you as you watch them plan, you will be given a good deal of guidance to make certain that your planning has addressed each major issue. Planning will also include detailed discussions on how to execute the plan itself. Further, once the plan is completed, the military engages in exercises. In fact, the military has a seemingly infinite array of exercises, including daily training plans (two aircraft in the same squadron practicing particular types of engagements or weapons deliveries, for example), unit level exercises (perhaps platoon or company sized maneuvers on the base training ranges), all the way up to theater level war games that involve sophisticated computer modeling, senior decision-maker gaming and discussions, and the movements of literally tens of thousands of personnel, hundreds of aircraft, and dozens of ships. The military plans, they analyze and critique the plans, and then they practice the plans.

5) Debriefs - The military loves to debrief. Every decision is reviewed; every action is deconstructed and reconstructed, and then discussed in detail. The bigger the exercise, the more effort is placed on this debriefing process. Debriefing is professional – that is, impersonal and analytic – but painful, whether you are a new F-15 pilot or a seasoned veteran with 25 years of service. Army division commanders (major generals in command of 12 – 15,000 personnel) routinely take a brigade or more of troops onto maneuvers against an 'OpFor' (Opposing Force) and get pushed around and get lots of troops 'killed' the first time they run through the training range. Then there is a detailed debrief, plans are adjusted and they are taught how to tighten up their plan and fight and win. Not only does it save soldiers lives when they reach the real combat zone, it makes every leader in that division – from Division Commander down to the Corporal who is leading a fire team - a better leader by forcing them to review their decisions and forcing them to determine why one course of action worked and another didn't, AND to understand which decisions worked and why and which decisions didn't work, and why not; this is true even when you 'win.' It is enlightening to learn that the decision you made had no positive impact on the success of your team even when you won. The first time someone experiences a debrief like this it can be eye-opening, but the results in improved decision-making and improved leadership are even more eye-opening.

6) Training ('schools' commands) - Everybody in the military trains and trains hard. They also train smart. With few exceptions every warfare specialty sends their best back to be an instructor. The guys who are teaching tactics to new F-15 and F-22 pilots are the pilots who have already completed several operational tours and are judged to be the cream of the crop. Instead of remaining in operational units the crème de la crème are sent to be instructors. In most cases the process of selecting officers for promotion has been developed to the point that it requires that anyone who wants to get promoted must spend time in the schools commands at some time in his career. This forces the best people back for at least one tour as a trainer some time in their careers. In short, the services invest in training, investing time not only in making junior officers better, but also at every step along the way demanding continual training and education as you are promoted. This is the 'simple' recognition that you need to invest in training and education if you want to make people the best they can be.

7) Education – The services also insist on and invest in education. Attendance at staff colleges and service war colleges, and have an advanced degree are now virtually required of nearly every senior officer. (Some few officers will reach the rank of colonel without these things, but that is a rare event, and definitely the exception, not the rule). Professional growth through study and earning a masters degree in a field of study directly related to your particular specialty is recognized as necessary to maintain high performance.

8) Communication – From the first day that you are placed in charge of anyone, you are required to communicate. The military has both a requirement to communicate and a process to support it. In most units (of any size) there is a daily muster in which the platoon leader or division officer stands in front of the troops and tells them what is going on today. This accomplishes a host of things: it demonstrates to one and all that the “Lieutenant” is in charge, that is, responsible; there is no dodging. The morning muster also establishes what is going on: ‘here are the special tasks for the day, and the people who need to execute those tasks are X, Y and Z,’ while providing the leader the daily opportunity to both communicate what the overall organization is doing, and, more importantly, how today’s tasks connect to the overall organization and long-term goal; and finally, getting up in front of the troops gives the new leader the opportunity to develop as a communicator.

It is worth noting that many other countries have similar processes and produce exceptional leadership; in fact, I would suggest that in some cases they produce officers as good or better then the US. I would single out the British and Australian forces for producing consistently excellent officers, but have also met many exceptional Japanese, Republic of Korea, Chilean and New Zealand officers and senior NCOs. I would suggest that our advantage over these officers rests more with differences in funding for new systems and technologies, as well as more money and time available for training and exercises results.

So, what does this mean if you are running a business, even a small business?

First, Make sure you have a real goal, one that is essentially fixed, a long-term goal that you can use to pull everything together. Take the time to understand how that goal connects to every task in the organization. I have been in some great organizations where the night watchman understands – and can explain – his role and how it connects to the overarching strategic goal. Work towards that standard.

Second, as you advance, take advantage of all the leadership experience you can get your hands on, and encourage your people to do the same. When you are in charge, give everyone opportunities to make decisions and to lead.

Third, find a mentor, or two or three, pick them based on leadership experience. Talk with them frequently and give them the details, make sure they understand what is going on so that they can provide real input. Insist on painful honesty, they aren't there to make you feel better. If you ask for advice, listen. If you ask the question: 'What would you do?' pay attention to the answer. If you want to do something else, you should be able to explain, in a logical manner, why you have chosen to do that something else rather than what your mentor suggested.

Fourth, Learn how to plan, then practice it – it's another art. Start small and then grow. There are any number of books on strategic planning that can help (many aren't very good, but they are better then nothing). Read several, and compare what they are saying. If you have the time and money, take a class in planning. Construct some plans with your staff or partners and then pull them apart. Play 'what if' and see how the plan responds to various developments, then adjust the plan and do it again.

Fifth, keep track of decisions and learn how to debrief. When you make a decision, right down a few notes, to include why you made the decision you made, and what information led to that specific decision. Write down some alternate decisions that were considered and rejected. Note why you rejected those decisions. After the decision plays out, revisit the decision-making process, to include both the decisions that were considered and rejected and the one that was selected. Try to determine as accurately as possible within your time and budget constraints what happened and why, and what role your decisions had in the outcome – if any.

Sixth, invest in training. This will be a major expense for many small businesses, one they can hardly afford. But as much as is possible, consider it. Balance making your business bigger with making it better.

Seventh, invest in education. This will be even more difficult for most businesses. Certainly for certain very large businesses they might be willing to do this, but most medium and small sized businesses will find this difficult if not impossible. If that is the case, at least give careful thought to particular educational standards you would like to have in your company and hire to that standard.

Eight, take the opportunity to communicate. Whether it is by walking around and talking at the coffee pot or holding daily or weekly meetings or whatever other means you choose, make certain not only that you and your leaders and managers are talking to their people, make certain that they do it regularly and frequently. Don’t let your ‘leaders’ hide in their offices, make them talk to their people. Not only will it ‘get the word out’ and produce a more tightly integrated organization, it will also serve to hone your junior leaders.

One final thought: the question of motivations is perhaps the most difficult question to ever answer. It is a subject that often comes up in combat zones, or more accurately, after you have left the combat zone and are looking 'back' at it. Young Marine PFCs* have often amazed me because they are, in fact, so motivated. They join the Marines ready to slay dragons. It is rarely as simple as young men filled with 'piss and vinegar' who want to prove they are tough, though there is obviously some of that, and that is the most visible facet of it. Instead, you bump into them by the score in any Army or Marine company, 20 year olds who are truly determined to change the world, and who believe they have both the skills and the opportunity to do so. They are operating at the very top of Maslow's hierarchy. It is a testimony to the skill of their drill instructors that the gung ho spirit that led these young men to enlist has been nurtured and fed and focused so that they get to their first unit and they are coiled steel, ready to spring.

That level of motivation reveals itself years later, when veterans will look back on their enlistment with a great deal of nostalgia, and why not: it is often true that never in the remainder of their lives will they ever operate at the very pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy. They may have spent a solid year completely self-actualized, whereas most people will rarely spend more than a few weeks at a time at that level of motivation. No wonder they do incredible things in the military!

At the same time, this level of motivation makes leadership that much easier. Placed in charge of a 40 young, tough, well trained and very motivated Marines, and given a squared-away Gunnery Sergeant, the average Marine 2nd Lieutenant will often find his job a good deal easier than he might have expected. It may well be that motivating an 18 year-old kid to make every cheeseburger the same way, each time, day-after-day, is as difficult, as challenging a leadership problem as getting another 18 year-old kid to conduct a patrol through the streets of a small but violent town on the other side of the world. The 2nd Lieutenant's organization – the Marines – provides him with the training and skills and support and guidance to do his job. The question is whether your organization is providing your "2nd Lieutenant" with the equivalent training, skills, support and guidance?

* Private First Class

Out in Front

Over the past year a number of celebrities have come under a great deal of scrutiny for repeated indiscretions. At the same time, there are some who probably feel that it isn’t fair when we – the public – both crave the most detailed knowledge of the daily activities of celebrities and then act shocked, even repulsed at times, when we learn that they have acted in some glaringly inappropriate way.

Welcome to one of the costs of being ‘out in front.’

Harry Truman was fond of using simple statements to make major points. One he was particularly fond of was ‘if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.’ And the ‘bright lights’ of public scrutiny can certainly substitute for the heat of a kitchen.

This is why it is both amusing and disingenuous when actors or athletes, politicians or CEOs, and their followers and fans, whine and complain about news coverage and paparazzi and cable TV shows that spend hours discussing their latest faux pas.

This is as much a necessary part of their position as any other. I suppose that in a dictatorship one might think that the leaders could survive without public coverage (and very real, if sub rosa, scrutiny). Interestingly, 6000 years of history shows just the opposite: every leader since Gilgamesh and Ozymandias has been concerned about his public image. Consider how much time the dictators of the 20th century spent on crafting their images (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.)

Being a Hollywood star or a professional athlete or a politician or a CEO means that people will look at you – a lot. Athletes might argue that their job is to perform on the field, not be role models, but that is sophistry. Athletes have been public role models, for good or ill, at least since the days of Plato – nearly 2500 years ago. And actors and actresses make their living because people want to watch them.

Of course, leading requires being out in front and that means scrutiny. It also means that in most cases you will be held to different standards then others. In the cases of those who can meaningfully impact our lives: politicians, senior bureaucrats, senior businessmen and the like - they should be held to higher standards. Further, to ensure that those entrusted with power to affect our futures – politicians and leading businessmen – continue to act for our own well-being and security, they must be held to a higher standard. We should keep them under close scrutiny, because it is our lives they are meddling with on a daily basis. And in the cases of those in public office, those being paid with money raised by taxes, we have the complete right to pry into their behavior to ensure they will not damage our lives.

In the case of those appointed by stockholders to run a company, those ‘paying the piper’ certainly have the right to ‘call the tune’ (and you can argue that they have a social responsibility to do so). Holding the leadership to different, and higher, standards is both appropriate and necessary. Occasionally, those standards will be to their – the leaders - benefit. At other times, they will not. Politicians and athletes and actors and actresses, CEOs and bank presidents (and even those people who are celebrities without reason) may not like that simple truth. And for them, there is one option; as President Truman would have said: ‘get out of the kitchen.’

Tiffany's and the Service Sector

I was recently reminded that, despite what line of business you think you are in, you are also, perhaps predominantly, in the service sector. Everyone is – in one way or another - in the service sector, because everyone is in the business of taking care of their customers. I suppose there might be a true monopoly someplace on the planet that really and truly doesn’t and doesn’t need to care what anyone thinks about them. If so, they are a state run business in a dictatorship. But they certainly are keeping the dictator happy. And eventually the people will have enough and they – and the dictator – will be gone.

I was reminded about all this because I had cause to deal with a company that simply could not seem to get on the same page as their customer. The size of the deal should be irrelevant, though in this particular case the issue concerned transferring several tens of millions of dollars of raw material, and the potential for a long-term contract. Yet the company in question seemed to keep miss-stepping and ignoring the customer.

I compare this to a company that I have had the pleasure dealing with a few times over the course of my life: Tiffany’s. First, let me be clear, I am not a big customer; I have spent just a tiny amount in their store. But the fact is that each time I have bought something, and each time I have either visited a store or called them on the phone I have been treated like I was royalty. And the rules they follow can be applied anywhere (and should probably be applied everywhere).

First, everyone is polite to a fault. No matter what happens, no one raises his voice, no one gets short with a customer, no one gets upset. If there are problems, and certainly there must be, they deal with it out of sight and earshot of the customer. The personnel selection and training must be very good, not only to pick the right people, but also to train them and keep them motivated to maintain a positive attitude.

Second, everyone is knowledgeable. When you ask a question, you get an answer and it is right. Having run a number of fairly large organizations I can attest to how hard that is; that requires training and constant attention to detail by the middle managers. It is worth noting that I have never met anyone at Tiffany’s who is not bright and well informed.

Third, there is a real focus on you. This translates into real people on the phone, and once you get someone (which is nearly immediate, whether you are in a store or calling), you have to go quite a ways for them to turn you over to someone else; once you have a ‘rep,’ that rep is yours. This prevents you from having to tell your ‘story’ over and over again. Tell the salesman or saleswoman what you are looking for once and they have it. And then that person takes care of YOU.

I am sure there are folks who are reading this who will say “Yeah, but you paid for all that service.” Well, yes I did. And I also got exactly what I wanted each time I dealt with them. And I came away feeling great and thoroughly enjoyed spending my money. The real point is that I will gladly go back to Tiffany’s to buy things for my wife. In fact, I will probably go out of my way to deal with them, because I know I will get just what I want, when I want it. I paid a nice price for the jewelry I bought my wife, but they earned it, and they have earned my ‘loyalty’ as a customer. I don’t pretend to be like the Tsar, wealthy enough to have a ‘jeweler,’ but with Tiffany’s I can almost fantasize that I am so wealthy. Every company, every organization should be trying to make their customers feel that way, whether they are buying a used car, a load of sand or a fleet of airplanes: the feeling that ‘there is no one else on the whole planet that I would prefer to deal with.’ I encourage you to walk into a Tiffany’s and look around – you’ll learn a great deal about how you should function, no matter what you do.

Why Does the US Military Produce Good Leaders? *

* And what does it mean for your organization?

There have been any number of books and articles written over the past several decades about the US military and why it produces so many good leaders. Many wax lyrical about devotion to duty or the patriotic motivations of the people themselves or their exceptional skills or any other number of factors. While I think it is true that many of those characteristics are found in many people in our armed forces, I think most of these theses miss the mark. In fact, I would submit that the leadership skills that are produced in the US military (and in the armed forces of many nations around the world) can be replicated by any organization that commits itself to doing those few things that the armed forces have done regularly.

What are those few things?

1) Clear goal (mission) - Each of the services is provided an abundance of organizational clarity because the overarching goals are clear and, for the most part, fixed. When someone joins the Marines, they are going to defend the nation; they take an oath to in fact do just that. Everything that is done after that is tied directly to that overarching goal. Why do you keep the mess hall clean? To feed the troops so that they can be healthy and ready to respond to orders – in the defense of the nation. As the tasks increase in complexity this clarity allows the leadership to sort through a great deal of ambiguity quickly, and focus any organization, and the people within it, on the appropriate task. Additionally, it provides a foundation for which communication down through the ranks, a commonly held intellectual and emotional position shared by all that can be used to tie together any number of specific tasks, providing a clear and unbroken string that reaches from the very bottom of the organization to the very top.

a. Also to be considered is that the overarching goal, which acts as the glue that keeps so much together, is one that provides true self-actualization. Young soldiers and sailors may join for some adventure (or even just for a job) but they also have the real – and massive – benefit of being regarded both by their peers at home and themselves as doing something that is much bigger than simply their own lives. In the strictest sense they are self-actualizing while within the military. This not only helps everyone perform at the ‘top of their game,’ it also makes it easier for the leadership to extract higher performance from these people.

2) Opportunity to Lead - People in the military get a great many opportunities to lead (they can also avoid it if they want; people reading military resumes who have no military experience should make sure they have someone they trust who understands what is being said). From day one you are being placed in charge of people and tasks. You are not only given many opportunities to lead, you are given many opportunities to fail. This isn’t said in a negative way; you will usually find that for the first few years in the military you will routinely be given tasks that exceed your capabilities. Your leadership will see how much you are capable of and will then routinely step in before things go ‘terribly wrong.’ In this way you not only learn quickly, you learn while continually expanding your capabilities. You also learn that 99% of all leadership requires team building, that you can’t ‘do it’ alone and you can’t even ‘lead’ alone, that having a well integrated team around you and above you that you plug into is as important as producing your own well integrated team. The result is a great deal more leadership experience in any given time frame then you will encounter in most other positions.

3) The Gunnery Sergeant (or Gunny or GYSGT) - For the first few jobs that an officer has in the military, as a division officer and as a junior department head, or as a platoon leader and then as a company commander, the real day-to-day running of the organization is not in your hands. Instead, the guy who really is ‘in-charge’ is the senior enlisted, the ‘Chief’ or the ‘Gunny’ or the ‘First Sergeant.’ Well beyond any soppy, nostalgic paean to senior NCOs (non-commissioned officers), the fact is that the Chief (Gunny, etc.) is there to teach 2nd Lt Jones how to lead. He does that both by leading the division/platoon and teaching by example, and by engaging in day-to-day mentoring of the young officer. This continues up through, at a minimum, the command of the company. In fact, in any number of larger units the senior NCO in the command acts as the right hand and trusted advisor of the commander. Seasoned battalion commanders and SEAL team commanders (who will have 15 years of experience in the military) rarely act without at least consulting closely with their most senior NCO. What makes this leadership construct particularly effective is that the lieutenant who is the titular senior to the NCO (but who had better listen when the NCO tells him something) is not competing with the NCO for either promotion or position. The NCO is interested in making the unit work and perform at its best, as is the lieutenant, both can be recognized for their performance, and it benefits both when the other succeeds. Further, the lieutenant, who enters the relationship with little to no leadership experience, will be recognized for being squared away when he listens to his nominal subordinate and ‘does what he is told.’ This built in ‘humility school’ helps to build leaders who place unit above self-aggrandizement and leads to improved unit performance.

4) Planning and Exercises – The military at every level produces plans – formal and informal; those plans are regularly reviewed by the next echelon, the plans are modified, and then the plans are exercised. Not only is there an opportunity to learn from those around you as you watch them plan, you will be given a good deal of guidance to make certain that your planning has addressed each major issue. Planning will also include detailed discussions on how to execute the plan itself. Further, once the plan is completed, the military engages in exercises. In fact, the military has a seemingly infinite array of exercises, including daily training plans (two aircraft in the same squadron practicing particular types of engagements or weapons deliveries, for example), unit level exercises (perhaps platoon or company sized maneuvers on the base training ranges), all the way up to theater level war games that involve sophisticated computer modeling, senior decision-maker gaming and discussions, and the movements of literally tens of thousands of personnel, hundreds of aircraft, and dozens of ships. The military plans, they analyze and critique the plans, and then they practice the plans.

5) Debriefs - The military loves to debrief. Every decision is reviewed; every action is deconstructed and reconstructed, and then discussed in detail. The bigger the exercise, the more effort is placed on this debriefing process. Debriefing is professional – that is, impersonal and analytic – but painful, whether you are a new F-15 pilot or a seasoned veteran with 25 years of service. Army division commanders (major generals in command of 12 – 15,000 personnel) routinely take a brigade or more of troops onto maneuvers against an ‘OpFor’ (Opposing Force) and get pushed around and get lots of troops ‘killed’ the first time they run through the training range. Then there is a detailed debrief, plans are adjusted and they are taught how to tighten up their plan and fight and win. Not only does it save soldiers lives when they reach the real combat zone, it makes every leader in that division – from Division Commander down to the Corporal who is leading a fire team - a better leader by forcing them to review their decisions and forcing them to determine why one course of action worked and another didn’t, AND to understand which decisions worked and why and which decisions didn’t work, and why not; this is true even when you ‘win.’ It is enlightening to learn that the decision you made had no positive impact on the success of your team even when you won. The first time someone experiences a debrief like this it can be eye-opening, but the results in improved decision-making and improved leadership are even more eye-opening.

6) Training (‘schools’ commands) - Everybody in the military trains and trains hard. They also train smart. With few exceptions every warfare specialty sends their best back to be an instructor. The guys who are teaching tactics to new F-15 and F-22 pilots are the pilots who have already completed several operational tours and are judged to be the cream of the crop. Instead of remaining in operational units the crème de la crème are sent to be instructors. In most cases the process of selecting officers for promotion has been developed to the point that it requires that anyone who wants to get promoted must spend time in the schools commands at some time in his career. This forces the best people back for at least one tour as a trainer some time in their careers. In short, the services invest in training, investing time not only in making junior officers better, but also at every step along the way demanding continual training and education as you are promoted. This is the ‘simple’ recognition that you need to invest in training and education if you want to make people the best they can be.

7) Education – The services also insist on and invest in education. Attendance at staff colleges and service war colleges, and have an advanced degree are now virtually required of nearly every senior officer. (Some few officers will reach the rank of colonel without these things, but that is a rare event, and definitely the exception, not the rule). Professional growth through study and earning a masters degree in a field of study directly related to your particular specialty is recognized as necessary to maintain high performance.

It is worth noting that many other countries have similar processes and produce exceptional leadership; in fact, I would suggest that in some cases they produce officers as good or better then the US. I would single out the British and Australian forces for producing consistently excellent officers, but have also met many exceptional Japanese, Republic of Korea, Chilean and New Zealand officers and senior NCOs. I would suggest that our advantage over these officers rests more differences in funding for new systems and technologies, as well as more money and time available for training and exercises results.

So, what does this mean if you are running a business, even a small business?

First, Make sure you have a real goal, one that is essentially fixed, a long-term goal that you can use to pull everything together. Take the time to understand how that goal connects to every task in the organization. I have been in some great organizations where the night watchman understands – and can explain – his role and how it connects to the overarching strategic goal. Work towards that standard.

Second, as you advance, take advantage of all the leadership experience you can get your hands on, and encourage your people to do the same. When you are in charge, give everyone opportunities to make decisions and to lead.

Third, find a mentor, or two or three, pick them based on leadership experience. Talk with them frequently and give them the details, make sure they understand what is going on so that they can provide real input. Insist on painful honesty, they aren’t there to make you feel better. If you ask for advice, listen. If you ask the question: ‘What would you do?’ pay attention to the answer. If you want to do something else, you should be able to explain, in a logical manner, why you have chosen to do that something else rather than what your mentor suggested.

Fourth, Learn how to plan, then practice it – it’s another art. Start small and then grow. There are any number of books on strategic planning that can help (many aren’t very good, but they are better then nothing). Read several, and compare what they are saying. If you have the time and money, take a class in planning. Construct some plans with your staff or partners and then pull them apart. Play ‘what if’ and see how the plan responds to various developments, then adjust the plan and do it again.

Fifth, keep track of decisions and learn how to debrief. When you make a decision, right down a few notes, to include why you made the decision you made, and what information led to that specific decision. Write down some alternate decisions that were considered and rejected. Note why you rejected those decisions. After the decision plays out, revisit the decision-making process, to include both the decisions that were considered and rejected and the one that was selected. Try to determine as accurately as possible within your time and budget constraints what happened and why, and what role your decisions had in the outcome – if any.

Sixth, invest in training. This will be a major expense for many small businesses, one they can hardly afford. But as much as is possible, consider it. Balance making your business bigger with making it better.

Seventh, invest in education. This will be even more difficult for most businesses. Certainly for certain very large businesses they might be willing to do this, but most medium and small sized businesses will find this difficult if not impossible. If that is the case, at least give careful thought to particular educational standards you would like to have in your company and hire to that standard.

One final thought: the question of motivations is perhaps the most difficult question to ever answer. It is a subject that often comes up in combat zones, or more accurately, after you have left the combat zone and are looking ‘back’ at it. Young Marine PFCs** have often amazed me because they are, in fact, so motivated. They join the Marines ready to slay dragons. It is rarely as simple as young men filled with ‘piss and vinegar’ who want to prove they are tough, though there is obviously some of that, and that is the most visible facet of it. Instead, you bump into them by the score in any Army or Marine company, 20 year olds who are truly determined to change the world, and who believe they have both the skills and the opportunity to do so. They are operating at the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy. It is a testimony to the skill of their drill instructors that the gung ho spirit that led these young men to enlist has been nurtured and fed and focused so that they get to their first unit and they are coiled steel, ready to spring.

That level of motivation reveals itself years later, when veterans will look back on their enlistment with a great deal of nostalgia, and why not: it is often true that never in the remainder of their lives will they ever operate at the very pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy. They may have spent a solid year completely self-actualized, whereas most people will rarely spend more than a few weeks at a time at that level of motivation. No wonder they do incredible things in the military!

At the same time, this level of motivation makes leadership that much easier. Placed in charge of a 40 young, tough, well trained and very motivated Marines, and given a squared-away Gunnery Sergeant, the average Marine 2nd Lieutenant will often find his job a good deal easier than he might have expected. It may well be that motivating a 18 year-old kid to make every cheeseburger the same way, each time, is as difficult, as challenging a leadership problem as getting another 18 year-old kid to conduct a patrol through the streets of a small but violent town on the other side of the world. The 2nd Lieutenant’s organization – the Marines – provides him with the training and skills and support and guidance to do his job. The question is whether your organization is providing your “2nd Lieutenant” with the equivalent training, skills, support and guidance?

** Private First Class

First Time - Part 23: Recognizing Poor Leaders

You have just been promoted. Congratulations. You now have a half dozen folks who work for you and each has 8 or 10 or more folks who work for them. The folks who work for you used to be your peers. No longer; you are now leading leaders.

So, how do you recognize the bad leader among them?

This is perhaps the most difficult thing you will do. It is difficult, subtle and time consuming. Begin by reconciling yourself to the fact that it means passing judgment on people who are your friends. Remember: you are not judging their morals, their intellect or even their ability to do most jobs; you are only judging their ability to lead. That may not help a great deal, but it is necessary that you remind yourself – and them when the time comes – that your job is to recognize and rate their leadership skill.

Recognizing leadership skills, and identifying effective and poor leaders is not intuitively obvious. It does not reduce to easy tests. Most organizations, even those noted for producing great leaders, routinely make mistakes in this regard. Poor leaders get promoted again and again. They wind up at the top of great organizations. Finding poor leaders is difficult. But it can be done.

How do you recognize a poor leader who works for you?

The problem is that poor leaders often perform well, advancing the organization and equally often advance some people – usually their favorites. Good leaders do the same things: they advance the organization toward the overarching goal, and they advance their people. The distinction is this: good leaders make everyone better, and better off, and they ID the people who will make up the next generation of leaders for the organization, setting up the organization for future success.

Poor leaders on the other hand leave ‘wreckage’ in their wake: often an organization that has been bled dry, people who have been used, poor morale, and a host of other problems, many of which only come to light once they have been promoted and moved on to other jobs.

But, trying to ‘measure’ if someone who works for you is doing a good job leading is not as simple as it might seem; there are few leaders who are talented in recognizing both exceptional leaders and poor leaders. Looking down is hard. (And looking up is almost as hard, but that is not the subject of today’s discussion. Suffice it so say that followers are often poor judges of the leadership capability of an individual. A good case study, well removed in time, is General George McClellan; his men worshipped him, and he had many valuable qualities, but he was a terrible commander in combat, a fact Lincoln recognized early. History is full of generals and presidents and prime ministers and kings who were loved but, were – overall – ineffective, even terrible leaders. Further, there are people who were (and are) great leaders, but the initial reception from the followers was negative. Only over time were they accepted by the followers).

So, the first hurdle to clear is that the leader is advancing the organization and moving forward towards the organization’s goal. Again, this isn’t intuitively obvious to the outside. If ‘Joe’ was placed in charge of a department that was a complete mess, it may take quite a while to fix, and it may ‘get worse’ for quite some time as ‘Joe’ goes about fixing it. So, the first thing in such a situation is to make sure there is an accurate assessment of the state of the department. Make certain you know what ‘Joe’ is going to do to fix the organization and you have some way to measure progress. If the organization was a complete mess when Joe arrived, is he making the expected progress in fixing the mess? Is there a clear plan, even when that clear plan calls for drastic and painful steps? Is ‘Joe’ taking those drastic steps and making them work?

If ‘Joe’ was put in charge of a failing division and told to fix it, and one year later it is still losing money but not as badly, the real question is what was the forecast? If you fully expected that 2 years would be required to turn the division around, then you need to measure ‘Joe’ against those expectations, and against any other economic downturn. If ‘Joe’ is keeping up with expectations and the plan, then his performance in that regard is fine, even if it is from an accounting perspective the worst in the organization. If you are given command of the worst ship in the fleet and you start to turn it around, it may still be the worst unit in the fleet a year later, but now it is on its way to being fixed, and your performance may be a mark of the best leadership available.

Conversely, even a poor leader, placed on top of a first-rate department, with a staff full of your best people, will likely shine for quite some time. So, you should also have an accurate assessment of the conditions of that department when the new leader took charge and if the performance doesn’t measure up – even though the department may remain far ahead of all the others – then you must consider that ‘poor’ performance when rating the leadership.

Understanding the condition and expected performance of each division within your organization is, therefore, essential for rating the leadership skills of each of your department heads. If someone is put in charge of the department with the most experienced team, with the latest tools and the most resources, they are probably going to do better then someone with an inexperienced team that has old tools and fewer resources. The only way to compensate for these differences is to develop an assessment of each department’s capabilities and a forecast of performance over the next 6, 12 and 18 months (or longer).

While this is happening, you also need to know whether the people are being taken care of, is ‘Joe’ advancing the people? Note, the people may not necessarily be happy; in fact, they may be very upset as ‘Joe’ introduces a series of changes to fix the organization, which may well include letting some people go and moving others. How well has this been communicated to them? Is ‘Joe’ keeping everyone informed? Do they understand the issues? Are they ‘getting onboard?’

Good leaders build teams and build long-term solutions that lead to achieving long-term goals. Is the team getting stronger? Are the people on the team improving? Are they moving toward Excellence? Is the team more tightly integrated behind the department’s and the parent organization’s goals? Are the good people being promoted and inspired and motivated, is retention on par with the rest of the organization, is morale improving along with productivity?

Accordingly, an accurate record of the people in each department is also a must, who they are, levels of experience, education and training, productivity, etc.

But, how do you learn all the above?

Some of this you can glean from the numbers, some of this you will only learn by walking the production floor or the motor pool, by walking around and talking to the ‘troops’ when they are having coffee or a pizza. The essentials however, rest on two key footings: the anticipated performance of the department versus its actual performance; and the morale, productivity, cohesion and growth of the people. Learning this requires that you not only use your own intellectual and analytic skills, but that you spend considerable time out of your office among the people who work for you, understanding the issues and the atmosphere within your entire organization.

So, now that you have identified a poor leader, what do you do?

First, remember what was said earlier: just because someone is not a good leader doesn’t mean they aren’t a good person; this should not be an ad hominem attack. But, if someone is a poor leader you owe it to everyone in the specific department, as well as to the entire organization, that they be moved from that post as soon as practical. The first mistake was in the assessment and selection process that put ‘Joe’ in that position in the first place, and the best thing for all concerned is to move ‘Joe’ out.

At the same time, select a replacement. Except in the rare case of extreme problems – criminal negligence or true incompetence – an immediate firing without a replacement can cause a great deal of turmoil in any organization and should be avoided if possible. Move as quickly as possible, but take enough time to make a reasonable selection, and name a replacement and change the leadership.

Second, communicate! Tell the folks in the department and tell the folks in your organization what you did and why. No matter what you do the word will get out, but it will usually get out without all the facts. Have an ‘all hands’ meeting or a ‘town hall’ and make sure everyone knows what happened and why and let them see that You made the decision, not some faceless ‘them,’ and they will know why you did it, rather then guessing and making up stories.