Right People, Right Place, Right Time, Right Information, Right Tools

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I vividly remember standing outside our cluster of Quonset huts on a cool night in the spring of 2012 watching planes land and helicopters take off at the sprawling Camp Leatherneck in Southern Afghanistan. Troops and materiel came inbound on C-130s from Kyrgyzstan while Ospreys ferried Marines outbound to the various Forward Operating Bases of the Helmand Province.

It wouldn’t be long before I too would be a passenger on one of those Ospreys heading into the Sangin River Valley. A journey which began by plane in Southern California ended on foot laboring under a ruck filled, not with grenades and ammunition, but toilet paper and hot sauce (a delicacy) on my way to Patrol Base Harper. PB Harper was a small Afghan compound on the banks of the Helmand River and the Northern most position in our battalion’s Area of Operations.

The roads leading to PB Harper were unpaved, winding things which meant they were too narrow for the large armored vehicles Marines used to get around the country. Add to this fact the elevated IED danger in the area which made resupply by helicopter impractical and you had something of a logistical quagmire (hence the rucksack full of toilet paper).

I was always fascinated by the logistics required to get supplies to PB Harper. Taxes were collected by the IRS, those funds somehow made available to the DOD, a Marine somewhere then bought that roll of paper, it got shipped from its point of origin to a Marine stateside who packed it onto a C-130, it ended up in Afghanistan and somehow worked its way through various official channels before ending up on a pallet at a Forward Operating Base before being picked up by a friend of mine, loaded onto his armored vehicle, driven out to a predetermined meeting point, loaded into my empty rucksack where I then wound my way back through the poppy fields of the greater Helmand Province to ensure a small group of Marines on, what felt like, the edge of the world had what they needed to accommodate their morning constitutional.

It was common to hear that it took eight Marines to support every one Infantryman and when you think about the path of our trusty roll of TP you can see why.

Impressed, and somewhat awed, by the complexity of the system required to ensure a small group of Marines had what they needed to do their work on the Afghan frontier I’ve often taken inspiration from these logistics when thinking about building systems and programs in my business career.

Namely, are the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right information, and the right tools?

Right People

I’ve written often in this newsletter about the value of finding the right people to do the job. The easiest way to answer this question is to answer another one. Does this person have the right knowledge, skills, experience, and temperament to be successful?

If the answer is no to any of the above you need to decide whether you can / want to train them or if you’re better off looking for another candidate on the open market.

Right Place

Nothing dooms a team to fail more quickly than putting them in a bad position. The best leaders and best team in the world won’t be successful if you bring them in when there’s only a minute remaining in the fourth quarter and you’re team is down by thirty plus points.

This is important both when crafting teams of your own as well as deciding on which teams you as an individual should join. Turnarounds are far from impossible, but they are incredibly difficult. Be honest with yourself when assessing if you have the skills, or desire, to lead an effort where you are out of position to begin with.

Right Time

If place is the first component of positioning, time is the second. Sometimes you’re too early, sometimes you’re too late. All of the skill and ambition in the world won’t change this fact. Deploying your team when the timing isn’t right is a waste of valuable resources.

I often see this manifest when leaders put their best team members on their biggest problems rather than their biggest opportunities. This is fundamentally a defensive mindset and won’t help you progress. Avoid it.

Right Information

I’ve been on the receiving end of many poor intelligence briefs both in the military and in business. Again, when you don’t equip your team with the right information to get the job done you’re ensuring they fight / work from a bad position.

Most often teams that don’t have the right information are missing it for one of two reasons. First, their leader is being overly optimistic about the chances of success by not realistically assessing the challenges ahead. Second, the leader is holding known information back in an effort to, “keep the team motivated” by overselling the ease of the task.

Both are mistakes, avoid them.

Right Tools

Whether it is toilet paper or the correct CRM, remember the mantra common in the military that, “amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics.” An important part of logistics is ensuring your team has the tools required to get the job done.

Do your homework as a leader to get deep into the tools the individual members of your team use to do their work. Always be able to clearly articulate a wishlist of tools that would help them do that work better. It’s your job to provide them the items on that wishlist.

It’s hard to hang a picture straight without a level, it’s hard to call a customer without a phone system. You get the idea.

Conclusion

Do I have the right people? Are they in the right place? Is it the right time? Have I given them the right information? Do they have the right tools?

Great leaders commit their teams when the probability of success is high. If you can’t answer yes to all of the above questions then your probability of success decreases meaning you haven’t done the full amount of due diligence or preparation you owe your team.

In the real world it can be challenging to answer yes to all five questions but when you can, commit fully and don’t hesitate. See y’all next week.