Archive for the ‘Crisis Leadership’ Category

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres – 22 April 2013

Posted: April 22, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business Continuity, Contingency Planning, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Ethics, Exploiting Change, Geopolitics, Leadership, Leadership Principles, Military Lessons, Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres, Never Fight Fair, Personal Development, Strategy
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
No one can predict the future, much to the chagrin of many economists and financial theorists and their media acolytes, who prefer assumptions of perfect knowledge and decision-making in all circumstances.

Discussion
I’m breaking my deliberate policy of not commenting on political issues this week in order to comment on reactions to the Boston Marathon bombings last Monday. My personal opinion is that the response of government and law enforcement agencies at all levels has been brilliant in the circumstances. However, there are already Monday Morning Quarterbacks saying that the government overreacted by shuttingn down Boston on Friday and part of Saturday. The problem is that the ones responsible for making these decisions can only plan and act based on information available at the time and the factors they felt they needed to consider. Just throwing out there that they overreacted without knowing those things is pure speculation based on specious counterfactuals or a personal hobby horse. If there is something I learned from a 26-year military career and my study of military strategy and history, it is that decisions that can look sub-optimal in hindsight may have been the best at the time given the circumstances of friction, uncertainty, and the fog of war. In this particular case, only a full after-action review will permit the systemic learning to occur. Saying it was an overreaction is nothing but pure hindsight bias.

Tip
The more complex and risky the undertaking, the more likely that friction will wreak havoc. We must compensate by building robustness, resiliency and redundancy into our plans and systems.

From the Vault
A Superb Example of Crisis Leadership in Action

By the way…
My ideas were featured in the March 25th Globe and Mail: A military approach to business.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Contingency Planning, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Ethics, Exploiting Change, Geopolitics, Leadership, Military Lessons, Never Fight Fair
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
Active, covert threats will continue to grow, and companies must be on the lookout for attacks not just from direct business competitors, but also from actual and potential opponent groups.

Example
At the end of 2011, the computer networks of Stratfor, a strategic forecasting consultancy, were hacked. Financial and other confidential client records were stolen. A group that was opposed to Stratfor’s activities was presumably at the origin of this breakin. Stratfor’s systems and operations were compromised for over a month, and the company had to invest considerable sums and effort to get back on track.

Tip
Most of the intelligence that can be generated about threats and opportunities is staring us in the face, if we are open to seeing it. We have to keep an open mind and be on the lookout for significant changes. We have to keep employees apprised of the situation and objectives so they can also be on the lookout for threats and opportunities, and communicate these to management.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

514-453-3993 (toll free 888-453-3993)

richard.martin@alcera.ca

More information about Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles

Richard’s Speaking

Richard’s Blog: Exploiting Change

Richard on Twitter: boldleadership

Richard’s Email: richard.martin@alcera.ca

Richard’s Company Website: www.alcera.ca

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Competitors Aren’t the Only Threats

Posted: May 3, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Contingency Planning, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Ethics, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Catalyst Newsletter, Management, Military Lessons, Risk Management, Strategy
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One of the things that I’ve noticed lately is just how vulnerable many companies (and other organizations) are to non-competitive threats.

I’m not talking about the traditional corporate bogeymen of big government and big labour. I’m talking about environmentalist groups, political action groups, and even lone bloggers launching verbal rockets from the comfort of their homes. Some of these external groups have good points, but many don’t. Their positions are often non-sensical or ill informed, especially when it comes to science-based facts. The ability to propagate disinformation quickly through blogs, online petitions, Twitter, and Facebook contributes greatly to the capabilities of anyone with a message or a cause.

Organizations need to be aware of this phenomenon and to take measures to protect their operations. Here are four cases in point:

•    A meat processing and packing company in the US called BPI came under attack last year by a lone woman in Texas when she started an online petition against using the company’s product in school cafeterias. BPI’s product, a kind of highly processed meat, apparently excites revulsion among some consumers, even though there have never been any cases of contamination or any other form of associated danger. It just appears to be ‘icky,’ to use a thoroughly scientific term. The consequences on BPI have been disastrous. It’s had to close 4 of its 5 production facilities because its clients—the Walmarts, Taco Bells, McDonalds, and others—have abandoned or put severe restrictions on it as a supplier.

•    Hydro-Quebec, the massive electric monopoly in Quebec, is planning on installing what they call ‘smart’ meters in homes across the province. These will enable more detailed data gathering and information transmission about consumption patterns so that the utility will be able to increase its efficiency. There are some 15 or 16 applications for this technique at the present time, and probably many more in the future. But some people find the fact that the meters emit radio waves to be a harmful side effect. Never mind that the emissions are so weak that they can only be measured in a lab similar to an anechoic chamber, Hydro-Quebec has to fight off ignorant opponents who don’t know the first thing about basic physics. Let’s hope the project goes through nonetheless.

•    TransCanada Pipelines has to fight against opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from environmental groups in the US. The purpose of the pipeline is to ship oil down from the Alberta oil sands. I’m sure these groups have a lot good points, but the alternative to a new pipeline from Canada is to ship the oil from Venezuela and the Middle East by oil tanker which, once it’s on US soil, still has to travel in a pipeline. Unless the US starts consuming radically less oil—something I don’t think will happen anytime soon—I don’t see how shipping oil from another continent in a combination of oil tankers and old pipelines is safer than in a single brand new pipeline. It’s a question of balancing risks, not eliminating them altogether.

•    Stratfor bills itself as a ‘strategic forecasting’ consultancy, providing geopolitical and military-strategic assessments of the world and regional situations for paying clients around the world. It’s safe to assume that some of these clients are corporations trying to work in dangerous environments and governments seeking independent sources of information. Stratfor’s website and computer servers were hacked late last year, with the theft of competitive and client information such as credit card data and repeated illegitimate email blasts to the company’s client lists. The hacking had all the makings of a deliberate attack to discredit and disrupt Stratfor’s operations and credibility. The company has spent millions getting its operations back on a secure footing.
I’m sure readers have their own experiences or know of other companies and organizations that have had to react to these types of threats. I could have included SNC Lavalin’s dubious connections in Libya, or Talisman Energy’s difficulties in Darfur ten years ago, or even Apple’s Chinese sub-contracting practices.
I write about this phenomenon in my forthcoming book, Brilliant Manoeuvres. It is my contention that many companies need to worry as much, if not more, about nebulous threats from non-commercial entities as they do from traditional business rivals. As we’ve seen from the examples above, the threats can be costly and, in some cases, disastrous.

These types of threats can come from anywhere. Here are some questions to ask in identifying potential threats:

•    Do any of our activities or products, though legal and approved, nonetheless elicit opposition in some way?

•    Has anyone ‘threatened’ to take us down or harm our operations in any way?

•    Is there anything we do that we feel uneasy about making public, even though that activity may be perfectly legal?

•    Can what we do be interpreted in a highly negative light from the standpoint of the environment, politics, or labour practices, whether in North America, Europe, or anywhere else in the world? (Think of the opposition to Apple’s sub-contracting practices with Chinese companies with abusive labour practices.)

There are many other questions that can be asked. The point is that someone somewhere may not like what a company is doing, and can take action quickly to sully the company’s reputation, sometimes with massive effect on its business. I will blog more about this topic in coming weeks, specifically on what to do about it.

© Alcera Consulting Inc. 2012. We encourage the sharing of this information and forwarding of this email with attribution. All other rights reserved.

Consumers Can Vote with their Tweet

Posted: April 18, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Contingency Planning, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Ethics, Exploiting Change, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Risk Management, Strategy
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Remember when the expression was “Consumers vote with their feet”? The meaning was obvious. A company often doesn’t know that it has a problem with consumer satisfaction and confidence until sales have started to drop, and then it’s often very hard to recover from that loss of good will.

Well, now that we live in the age of instant tweeting and blogging, it seems companies can be brought down by rumours spread over social media, online petitions by people who don’t even buy their products, or by a particularly nasty blogger. The mainline media, more concerned about repeating accusations and rumours, than in determining if they prove unfounded, jump into the fray and report tweets and online flamings as news. It’s getting ridiculous.

The real issue for business though is that competition and threats don’t just come from the traditional sources anymore. It used to be competitors, government, and unions were the big bad enemies. Well, now any environmentalist or concerned parent can start a online thread somewhere and the effects can be devastating for a company, even if there is no evidence the company did anything wrong. All that has to happen is an accusation that ‘maybe’ something is wrong…or it’s products are icky.

This is what has happened to BPI, an American meat packing company, as reported in the April 16th issue of Bloomberg Business Week. The company’s founder Eldon Roth about 30 years ago figured out a way to separate what remained of meat on pieces of beef carcass that had been butchered. The process Roth perfected basically uses centrifuges to separate the meat from the fat, which is then freezed and turned into a kind of ‘pink slime,’ as it is known by detractors, so it can then be added into other ground beef products to raise the meat content. Major clients of BPI have included McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Walmart. To make his product as safe as possible, Roth treated it with an ammonia compound to kill bacteria. This was all approved by the US Department of Agriculture.

Now, BPI is on the verge of shutting down. Why? Because a lone blogger in Texas was concerned about the safety of BPI’s product. Apparently, it wasn’t so much the nature of the product itself, although it IS icky (that’s a technical term by the way). It’s supposedly the fact that it is treated by the ammonia compound, even though that particular process is approved by the USDA, is common in the meat packing industry, and is naturally occurring in beef anyway. BPI’s product isn’t contaminated or carcinogenic. It just happens to be, again, icky, and chemicals are used in its processing.

We could say ‘so what.’ So some company has come under attack for the nature of its product, and it will probably be forced out of business by the rumours that have been spreading on the web. The issue here is that companies can come under attack from quarters they hadn’t even thought of. We’re not talking about other companies, or politicians, or lawyers, or even customers abandoning the company because they no longer like the product. We’re talking about someone in the comfort of their home starting a string of rumours or tenuous accusations that then go viral on the internet and in the band of imitators in the news media.

I write about this phenomenon in my forthcoming book, Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles. Specifically, I write about this in the chapter on applying the logic of military intelligence to business intelligence. We never know who our real enemies can be, and where threats will come from. The solution is to assume that these threats exist and to take them seriously when they do occur, even if they are small. Even better, though, is to become proactive by going on the offensive. If you are sitting in your boardroom wondering what would happen if a blogger or an irate consumer found out something about your production process that could be interpreted in a less than stellar manner, even though you know that you are in the right, then there’s probably a good chance that that will occur at some point.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Success Principle # 8 – Flexibility

Posted: March 14, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Management, Military Lessons, Never Fight Fair, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Risk Management, Strategy
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Flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and needs by changing one’s configuration or role. Military units have to be flexible because commanders and planners can never know for sure ahead of time what the exact requirements of a situation will be. As a result, military units are usually given a main role and mission and secondary roles and missions in case the plans go awry for whatever reason. This builds flexibility into the plans and manoeuvres of the organization.

There are three levels of flexibility. The first is resilience. This is the ability to absorb a change or a shock to the system and to recover in enough time and with sufficient resources to get back on track. We all need resilience because we never can be sure that we won’t be hit in the flank or confront an unforeseen obstacle.

The second level of flexibility is robustness. This is the ability to seek out potential problems ahead of time in order to create backup solutions and contingency plans to be activated ‘just-in-case.’ The practice of giving alternate and backup roles and responsibilities, as described above, in order to cover for others and potential mistakes is a part of achieving robustness.

The third level of flexibility is adaptability. This is the ability to change configuration and even purpose on the fly with the resources at hand, to play defence while reconfiguring, and to seize or re-seize the initiative in order to go back on the offensive.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Success Principle # 4 – Surprise

Posted: March 8, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Contingency Planning, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Never Fight Fair, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy
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Now here is a surprising success principle! How can surprise possibly contribute to success? I will propose three ways. The key thing to realize is that surprise is essential to strategic advantage. Don’t squander it!

First, there is little to no advantage to revealing your intentions ahead of time in any kind of adversarial or competitive situation. Look at how Apple has been consistent in keeping mum about its initiatives and new developments. Secrecy is an obsession at the company, but it has many benefits in terms of surprise, among which: competitors are caught off guard when you spring your new products on them; customers are pleasantly surprised because they don’t necessarily know what to expect in advance.

Second, there is no advantage to revealing too much to others about your plans or decisions ahead of time. This is because, strategically, anything can happen. It’s better to surprise the market and competitors than to have to retract at the last minute or recant after the fact. As with Apple, surprise also generates a lot of free publicity for the company.

Third, surprise and secrecy contribute to freedom of action and freedom of manoeuvre in a strategic (i.e. adversarial) situation. If you signal your intentions ahead of time, your opponents can prepare directly for them or create better contingency plans to ‘head you off at the pass.’ Freedom of action is critical to seizing and maintaining the initiative, and these in turn are critical to maintaining an offensive spirit.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Success Principle # 3 – Offensive Action

Posted: March 7, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Management, Military Lessons, Never Fight Fair, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy, Uncategorized
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Nobody ever won a war by staying on the defensive. When you’re on the defensive, you willingly or unwillingly cede the advantage and the initiative to your opponent. In war this is the enemy, but in business, it can the competition or other stakeholders that don’t have the same objectives as you do and who are willing to interfere with your ability to achieve your aims, sometimes with great vigour and aggressiveness.

Sometimes you do have to cede ground and go on the defensive temporarily. This can be to rest, recover and regroup, or just to gain a temporary position from which to continue your advance.

There are four key points to seize and maintain the initiative so you can maintain offensive action:

  • Know what your objective is.
  • Manoeuvre from a position of strength against your opponent’s weaknesses.
  • Build on successes by preparing for breakthroughs and pouring forces into the breech when you have one.
  • Be relentless in pursuing the opposition and in pressing your advantage.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Success Principle # 2 – Maintain morale

Posted: March 6, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management, Military Lessons, Personal Development, Uncategorized
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This is very similar to one of the principles of military leadership, because it is so fundamental to any kind of undertaking. Morale is the willingness to persevere and fight in the face of obstacles, opposition, resistance, and even temporary defeat. You haven’t truly lost until you admit defeat. Therefore, morale is faith that you and your side will ultimately prevail.

Persistance, determination, faith, prevail. These are all words that are just as applicable in business or anything other undertaking as they are in war and conflict. Nothing ever works the first time you try it, or if it does, it’s often a fluke. Assumptions prove unfounded; estimations can be grossly incorrect; people in the company resist the new way of doing things; competitors imitate your initiative and fight back with their own approaches. You need strong morale, perseverance, and an unshakeable faith that you will ultimately prevail.

Many people only see the ‘overnight’ successes of a Facebook or other tech wonders. What most people fail to appreciate is all the work and consistent effort that went into that success. They see the tip of the iceberg that is the project or business being brought to successful fruition, but they don’t see the 95% of the iceberg that was all the work and sweat in the face of discouragement, opposition, mistakes, and just plain friction that had to be overcome. They see the rewards but they don’t see the morale that was needed to achieve them.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Leadership Principle # 10 – Keep your followers informed of the mission, the changing situation, and the overall picture

Posted: March 3, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Principles, Management, Military Lessons, Personal Development
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This is the final installment in my series on the applicability of military leadership principles to organizational and business leadership.

There is nothing worse than a group of people who are kept in the dark about what is happening and why it’s happening. Contrary to mushrooms, people do not grow well in the dark. Everyone in an organization must be fully informed of the mission and vision, and the plan to achieve them. If the situation changes, they need to know what’s changed and why, at least what is relevant to them and to their responsibilities and tasks.

In the military this is known as situational awareness. When everyone knows what is happening and why, they can adjust their own analysis, plans, actions to support the organization’s objectives and achieve the mission despite the evolving situation. Often in companies and other organizations, employees, managers and sometimes even key executives don’t the full picture because the senior leadership is hoarding information.

Don’t be afraid to let the light in and to keep everyone in the loop. You have little to lose and everything to gain, as your people will then have the information and knowledge to adjust to the new situation. This can only make their contributions more relevant, timely, and powerful. That is what empowerment is all about.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

How to Accelerate Results

Posted: March 1, 2012 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Crisis Leadership, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Catalyst Newsletter, Management, Military Lessons, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy
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During the Falklands War in 1982, British paratroopers were fighting to capture an Argentine position near the settlement of Goose Green. At one point, a small Argentine force that was dug in held up an entire British battalion’s advance. The British commander, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert ‘H’ Jones, decided he had to do something quickly to break the impasse. He rallied a group of soldiers and NCOs around him, and led a charge directly on the Argentine position. This so surprised the Argentine defenders that they quickly surrendered. Jones was killed during the action and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour. Leading a platoon attack is not normally in a battalion commander’s job description, but his timely decision to personally lead an assault against the Argentines was the right thing to do, at the right time, with the right effects. Jones’s action accelerated results and allowed the British paratroopers to win the day.

There is an unwritten principle in military strategy that says an imperfect action now is often better than a perfect action carried out too late. Battlefield conditions can change quickly. The enemy detects the opportunity he’s given you and closes the breach, or your momentary advantages have dissipated. This is exactly the situation that Lieutenant Colonel Jones faced at Goose Green. He took a quick decision, led an improvised, and therefore very imperfect attack, but exploited an opportunity in the process.

I’ve written a lot over the years about the necessity of judicious planning and consideration of options before acting. However, this does not obviate the requirement to act promptly and with vigour when an opportunity presents itself, or when the time is right. When you’re bogged down in process and details, and the results you’re hoping for are not coming quickly enough and in enough volume, you need to act to shake things up.

Here are some areas to consider and techniques to implement to accelerate results, to shake things up and act with vigour quickly and opportunely even though conditions are not perfect.

•Stop doing what is not essential or vacuous and focus on essentials.
•What is the main effort? Where should you and your team be putting energy and resources?
•What obstacles or resistance are holding up your results or your improvement?
•Just like that paratroop commander, what actions can you take that will surprise resistors or competitors and put them on the defensive, while simultaneously giving you the initiative?
•Strategically, what is the main effort to achieve your overarching business objectives?
•Operationally, what processes and systems that, if changed, will have a major positive impact on how your company functions and that can provide a major tactical boost to your people?
•Tactically, what are the major tasks or areas you have to focus on in the next 24-48 hours to break the logjam so you can win that big contract, reach that major prospect, complete that project that’s been draining you and your team of its energy and vigour?
•Are you a satisficer or a maximizer? A satisficer is someone who is willing and able to act with resolve when they’re 60 to 80 per cent ready. A maximizer is someone who feels compelled to wait for perfect plans and conditions before acting. Obviously, to break a logjam and accelerate results in the manner I’m describing requires acting like a satisficer. If you’re a maximizer, you need to change your mindset, at least temporarily, and take action quickly.
•Focus on results, not process. What is working and what isn’t? What should you stop and what should you continue?
•Take resources away from underperforming areas and reassign them temporarily or permanently to higher performing areas, where there will be a better bang for the buck.
•Assign your best managers and executives to the areas of biggest payoff. This is counterintuitive to most people, because they feel compelled to put the best people on the biggest problems. You have to take your stars and give them responsibility for the initiatives and business units with the highest ROI and potential. You can assign your problem areas to your middling performers, because they often have good analytical and deliberative abilities, and this is what you need to work on problems. Big payoffs, however, require leadership, decisiveness, and risk-taking, and that is where your best performers should be working.

The aim here isn’t to get rid of judicious consideration of options, detailed planning, and rational analysis, but rather to look at ways of accelerating results when you get bogged down. There are many reasons why you can get bogged down: consistently poor results leading to low morale; internal or external resistance to your plans; lack of resolve and leadership to see things through difficulties and obstacles; outright opposition from competitors and opponents; or simply because the initiative got off to the wrong start.

The idea is to give a jolt and a boost to yourself and your organization by focusing on results, not process, by getting back to basics and acting quickly with the resources you have rather than waiting for perfection. If you’re a satisficer and can live with ambiguity and imperfection, you’re already half way there. If you’re a maximizer, you have to temporarily get out of your comfort zone and take action now even though you don’t think you’re fully ready. In the final analysis, accelerating results is about acting and adjusting to get results, not planning and dithering to achieve perfection.

© 2012 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

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