The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - 5 Lessons from American Revolutionary Leaders to Build a Project Team of Giants | KEV Talks #28

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

In 5 Lessons from American Revolutionary Leaders to Build a Project Team of Giants | KEV Talks #28 I share 5 lessons I learned from reading Jack Kelly's amazing book, "Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence". More specifically, how these lessons can be implemented by Program and Project Managers to establish their own team of giants to increase program and project success.The 5 lessons:Review lessons learned ahead of timeAccept the messy beginningSet the tone, but allow for free thinkingUnderstand that logistics are criticalManage the mutinies

Are you starting up a program or a project and want to know how to build a team of giants? Well, let's use the book Band of Giants by Jack Kelly, the amateur soldiers who won America's independence, the story of how America was born, as our guide. I'm going to share five key takeaways from Band of Giants, and there are many, many more, but that I think are directly applicable to standing up, getting going and supporting an ongoing program or project. But first, thanks for playing the Kevin Talks podcast. Here, you'll hear industry leading best practices in program, project, and all-hazard incident management with a dash of jujitsu and a smidge of health and wellness. Episodes are sometimes

solar with me, your host, Kevin Pinnell, or with my fantastic guests. And together, we'll learn more about these people, talk through lessons learned and processes so that you and I can make progress together. Please visit capstalkspod.com for more info. And now let's get back to this episode. Everybody, welcome back. Let's build this project team of giants. So a very quick overview of the band of giants book by Jack Kelly. Amazing. I love history. American Revolution history, just awesome. And truly, amateur soldiers want America's independence. When you read through this book, you realize that from aristocrats to backwoods folks, to folks that are regimented to some that are not. And I'll touch on some of that in my lessons

learned, or rather, you know, guidance on how we can use these lessons from our history in America. And other countries can use this too. We're not the only country to fight for our own freedom. But this is the book I'm using for this episode. But just how varied and different and different viewpoints and just the way it's written. Jack Kelly was a journalist.

So he has a flair for and a talent to write well, write entertainingly, and that is readily apparent throughout this book. So let's jump into this one. I checked it out at my library, FYI, but certainly you can buy it or find it there. And again, it's Band of Giants from Jack Kelly. So early in the book, we get to follow George Washington. George Washington, yep, founding father, first president, was in the British Army, as many of our founding fathers were or associated with. That's where we came from, right? And so he was on a mission, the British were fighting the French, and they were going toward Fort Dequesne to try and take it back and fight. And it's an uphill battle, and they're sending waves of people, and they're getting destroyed. They got beaten badly. They lost

tons of people, particularly Virginians. And that's the company that he led. And so very early on, George Washington learned, as we hear throughout history, right, and we hear this again from folks right before in the beginning of World War I, where kind of the pomp and circumstance of war wears off very quickly when you start to see people die around you. And both George Washington's excitement as a young officer wears off very quickly when he hears the thud of a musket ball hit somebody's torso next to him, and he sees hatchets being buried into people's heads, and just super violent. They go into that in a bit in the book, but that's war.

That's the ugliness of war and combat and violence. And there was a similar sentiment again, you know, with kind of this classic, it'll be a grand affair before war one. And, you know, we're on horses and this and that, and then quickly that turned ugly, but let's go back to the revolutionary time. So quickly in the first chapter, we, we quickly learned that George Washington took these lessons to know, I am not going to lead like this. I'm not going to send waves of my people to just die with no good reason, just because. And he learned that from the people that were leading him uphill against people in a better position. And so to me, the first lesson as a program leader

or a project leader is that we need to review lessons from previous projects. So there's lessons learned that are so key to grab near the end or at the end of a project or along the way. We should review those before we start a new endeavor because they can help guide us as we head into this new program setup or this new singular project. So he, again, George Washington applied this throughout his time as leading the Revolutionary Army and then as the president. And in particular, this was just, this is in the first few pages of the book, we quickly realized this. So number one, before you even get started, take a look back at lessons learned from similar

projects or talk to leaders of those programs or projects and just get the scoop from them. The second is, as you can imagine, or if you know the history of America, it wasn't a super well-formed army right off the bat with uniforms and everybody's marching the same and we all have great weapons, not even close. John Stark, one of the folks, and I'm going to mention some folks, not all of them, grabbed 400 men in New Hampshire. And then Benedict Arnold, who ended up, as we know, becoming a traitor, but he was a great leader for America. Without him, we actually wouldn't exist because he won battles and got away when he could when he was still on our side or primarily. But he got militiamen from Connecticut and on and on throughout Virginia and other areas.

So we have this kind of ragtag, as we say, or amateur soldiers, as Jack Kelly mentions them, pulling together to say, wait a minute, you know, this oversight from the British and of course, you know, we all know about taxes or this violence or the way they're treating our people starts to creep in, especially in the Northeast, right in the Boston area and New York and, you know, in Connecticut, New Hampshire, as we say, so they start saying that this can't, this can't stand, we've had enough, and they start building up. And it leads to right, you know, the predicament we're in, which is what that chapter is called, which means we got to do something about it. So to me, the second lesson that we can use as program and project managers

is to accept the messy beginning, right? When we're handed, we can do an intake process, we can scope things out however long before, you know, the actual project kicks off, we can have a nice charter. But when the reality sets in that we're going to pull people together and resources and have to do this, it's going to be messy. And that's okay, we may not exactly know what resources we need. So that's where as a program manager, trusting your project managers or helping guide them or as a project manager, reaching out to your application managers, your resource managers to say,

here's this project. I think based on my experience that we should have these types of folks. What do you think? And have them tell you, right? So set up a meeting, have the resource managers of the different areas you think you need or even other ones. Maybe managers of the different areas you think you need,

or even other ones. Maybe invite all the managers for groups if you can, depending on the size of your organization. But who own the resources, so to speak, that can say, yep, you can have this person for this amount of time or that, and ask them and help them make it less messy. So you right size the resources for the right amount of people and time and that'll change, right? Because even though you get it really, maybe good at the beginning, it might change and go, Oh, wait, we needed this other type of engineer or this other type of expert. So accept the messiness at the beginning of a program or a project, because it's all a guess

until you start doing it. And just like, you know, there were companies that were well-dressed in what are the red, white, and blue kind of standard Continental Army uniforms. And then there were militia who grabbed the shotgun from over the fireplace and were barefoot or backwards riflemen. It was all a mix of people. And so, again, that's how America was founded. So who's to say our projects should show up perfect at the beginning in our teams? We're going to have people from different technical expertise, different ethical backgrounds, like all that kind of stuff. And it's going to be messy.

And that's cool. So figure out if you're the program manager of a team of project managers or a project manager of a team of subject matter experts, how do I get all these folks to work together and all these different avenues and just have good conversations to pull them together? The third thing is that this has to do with project tools and techniques. And this is to set the tone, but allow for free thinking. So leaders intent from George Washington and from other key leaders, Nathaniel Green, and Henry Knox, and we'll touch on him in a bit of high level leaders in the Continental Army,

they set the tone, right? We all knew that if we were, you know, part of this band of giants, as Jack Kelly talks about or writes about, our purpose was independence to stop this, you know, oppression from Britain, the abuse that they were putting on our people, the taxes, all the stuff that maybe you've heard of. And that was the overall intent, right? To stand up for ourselves and that ultimately to make our own country through, you know, kind of whatever means, and you learn about the diversity of the way we fought

some stand up walking toward each other, old school, ridiculous way of fighting. Some we're going to hide in the woods and shoot at you when you walk by the movie, the Patriot. I thought of that. If you haven't seen that with Mel Gibson, he seems like he came from kind of the fighters with tomahawks and the backcountry fighters and learning that way, kind of the swamp fox, and they touch on all these kind of things of not doing the traditional stand up. So so we have to set the tone, but allow for free thinking. And that happened throughout

not just the book, but throughout the army where the tone was, we'll have discipline, we're going to fight, we need to stand and fight. But we didn't say you have to wear this uniform, you have to fight this way, and you have to use these resources, and you have to go down this road. So make sure that your leader's intent is clear that the task, purpose, and end state for your team, for your team of project managers, or your project team knows the overall task is this thing. We're going to put this new software in. The purpose is to make us more efficient with whatever is. And the end state is that it's going to meet the end user's needs and we'll adapt the technology to it. Not that we'll make the end user, user technology. And I'm talking about that because

I work in healthcare IT and IT in general is what I've done a lot. Or if, you know, I go back to my public safety kind of program management days, you know, it's going to be for the line firefighter. That's, you know, the task is to develop or find the best piece of equipment for this firefighter to extricate. That means get people out of vehicles or other areas. The purpose is to save lives and reduce work for the firefighter. And the end state is that we will have met the firefighters needs, we will have made the public more safe, and we will, if possible, save money at the same time, right? So you can loop all that in there. And then let your teams figure out how to do that. Right? So you're not over their shoulder the whole time. So I'm not saying like, you know, if we're defeating an army like George Washington,

okay, we need to defeat the British, we need to defend these areas, we need to do this. I'm not saying and I exactly want you to do this on this spot of land and set up your cannons over here and do this. No, that's why I had leaders that he delegated. Now, when I say set the tone, at times he did, he did have to say that, no, no, you have to hold this area, even though we disagree. I'm going to have to overrule you on this one. And and that's it. But there's a balance there, right? You can't use your leadership capital. And you can't use your influence or your title just all the time, because you want to, you need to use it to help shore up others and remove obstacles more than

you use it kind of as a punitive or redirection kind of thing. So setting the tone. So we are reviewing lessons learned before we even get started. So we can maybe try and avoid mistakes, build on strengths, or take advantage of some opportunities we previously identified. We're going to accept that it's going to be messy at the beginning, just like it was messy starting this country. We're going to set the tone, but we're going to allow for free thinking, right? So here's generally the tools and techniques that have worked for me in the past, what do you all think and then talk it over with your team. And the fourth thing, and that's logistics are critical, right? Logistics win wars, logistics,

help projects go better. And logistics, in general, right is the people, the places or facilities, the stuff that we need. So part of that logistics is that what we talked about earlier is that messy beginning of getting resources. that to move equipment across a large swath of land from just west or so of Boston, even further actually into Canada, back to Boston area in Massachusetts, which he did, just imagine a whole caravan of cannons and people and food and horses up over the mountains in the winter, that he has to work with the people there. So if you're going to use those resources, I touched on it, you have to work and have a good relationship with the resource managers. If you have budget to buy things, you're going to have

to work with vendors well to get good deals and negotiate the best way to ship things and get lead times and work with your leaders on a best process to approve payments and bring those, you know, all the equipment where you need it, a place to stage it. So you're going to have to figure all that stuff out, but it all starts with working with people. You know, in these days, as of May 2023, there are delays, right, in the supply chain. And so you have to account for that kind of stuff, just like there were delays in supplies and moving, you know, folks, some barefoot in the winter and equipment and feeding horses in addition to men and just not trudging through people's territory and messing up their

crops, like all these things that Henry Knox had to think of. And he did. And then also taking advantage of it. So he also knew his environment. So he knew if it's warm, and it's rainy and muddy, it's going to be worse and take way longer to pull this super heavy cannon through and these horses and the men through than if it's freezing cold. And now we can use sleds or go across the ice and save time, which is a risk. But that's risk management. So even in logistics, or especially in logistics, there's risk management, is it worth spending a little more to get this device faster? Or do we spend less and wait a little bit longer? Can we accept that risk? Can we use this facility that doesn't quite have everything? Or do we spend less and wait a little bit longer? Can we accept that risk? Can we use this facility that doesn't quite have everything? Or do we need this other facility for

staging because we can put more apparatus, you got to just think about all those kind of things. But logistics are critical, right? It's a key thing. A couple very well known and successful military leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte said the amateurs discuss tactics, the professionals discuss logistics. Omar Bradley from World War Two, a general, said amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. So you get it. Logistics is what keeps your army moving. Logistics is what keeps your teams resourced, what your budget going, keeps you on schedule, right, within scope, hopefully. So logistics, those are key.

So, again, we've read lessons learned. We've accepted the messy beginning. We've set the tone, but we're allowing for that free thinking, right, and being dynamic as a team. And then we're understanding that logistics are key to the success of any program or project. And the last for this episode of these five, and again, I could do, gosh, a series on this book related to program project management, incident management, is to manage the mutinies. And literally during the revolution, leaders of the Continental Army and the militias associated with it that were fighting against Britain and with our French teammates there, like Lafayette, had to manage mutiny. There was mutiny because pay was low, right?

The Continental Congress didn't have a lot of money. The country didn't exist really. So folks, you know, I mentioned barefoot soldiers. There were folks that were barefoot for almost the entire war, which was years and years, which is just, one, it's astounding. But there were harsh conditions, no pay,

you know, folks not seeing their families. And so they would leave or talk about really treasonous stuff. Like we're going to march back up to Philadelphia and tell the Congress to pay us, or we're just going to leave and abandon. And so leaders of the different groups of the different, you know, battalions and companies and armies had to put in some pretty harsh stuff. Now this is the extreme in a military time, but you know, people were executed, right? They were hanged or shot, and then other folks arrested, and then the rest of the group said, oh gosh, we should probably not

mutiny. Now, that's obviously not going to happen when you're dealing with your program or project teams, but there are times when it gets rough, when folks are grumbling, when maybe people aren't giving each other respect, when they're pushing back on things that you want to do. And so this is where that setting the tone but allowing for free thinking bumps up against just outright kind of mutiny or disrespect or things like that. And so the general principles of talking to each other like adults, of being nice to each other, of accepting, hey, let me get my ego out of the way. And is there something different I can do as a leader, let me accept this idea, and then mull it around and let somebody's, you know,

plan go forward as is, without having to be the one that that does that. But sometimes you do have to get in and say, you know what, no, we have to do more in this area, we have to document more, we have to, I don't know, escalate, some folks don't want to escalate. And I've talked about how escalation is not a four letter word. Some folks don't want to ask for help because they view it as a failure or an incompetency or something, or maybe they just don't want your help. But sometimes if you're leading, you have to step in and say, you know what, this is an area that when this has happened to me, again, it's experience kind of less opinion where I have found when I've been in this situation, our leaders really want this to happen or that to happen, or this has been helpful,

or that's been helpful. And sometimes you just have to say, No, we have to we have to do this, we have to escalate, we have to ask for help, we have to reach out to somebody else, or that there has to be more or less of something. And you just have to judge that. But you have to manage it, you can't just let it go. Because when you let it go, you lose money, you lose time, you lose trust. And that all happened right in the Revolutionary War, the longer that those leaders would have let mutinous talk treasonous talk happen, it would have eroded throughout the army. And who knows what would have happened, right with America.

So the same thing can happen in your program and project teams. If you let folks continue to talk to each other and it's different when folks are joking, but when people keep cutting each other off and they're getting frustrated, I've had times a few times in meetings where I've had to say, Hey, stop, don't talk to each other like that. Please let's, you know, use respect, all that stuff. And it seems silly, but it's important to do that to let everyone know we're on the same page. We're on the same team. We're not going to put up with that in the meeting or with each other anytime. And then if it's, even if it's, you know, a one-on-one or just your internal team, you just, there's some, you know, some things and it's tough, right? We're working remote, we're hybrid, we're in the office or whatever, or maybe you're in that messy middle part of a project or program and, you know,

throughout you just you just have to manage the mutinies with respect with with humbleness, without your ego in the way and then hopefully helping kind of others navigate their egos if possible. So these are my five things that I you know, think are helpful and know have worked for me in my experience is to review lessons learned and don't forget them, to accept the messy beginning of any program or project, to set the tone but allow for free thinking, that logistics are critical to the success of any program or project, and that we have to manage the mutinies that are going to pop up every now and then. I really hope that you all pop up on Amazon or to your library

and read Band of Giants by Jack Kelly. It's a very well written book, even if you're not like a history person that reads like a movie. And I'm a movie lover. I mentioned the Patriot. I mentioned, you know, there's other Revolutionary War focused movies. That one kind of matches in my head along with the story. But there's much more in this book. Names I've certainly heard of, some I hadn't heard of, or the extent of how they affected the future of this country. You all can affect the future of your company, of your business, of your country, right? By, I think, using some of these principles I talked about, those foundational five, too, making sure that we've provided leaders intent, that we have those solid, smart objectives, that we have a functional organizational structure, that we're coordinating resources and that we're communicating that that makes all the difference that I found when I've

done that it has not only saved us money and time, but it's actually saved lives right when I've used it in the public safety realm. So thank you all so much for being here on the KevTalks podcast. I appreciate you listening and sharing the show. Leave a review if you'd like. That would be helpful on Apple or Spotify in particular. But really sharing the show and sharing not just my opinion, but the episodes with guests is great. It's a free resource folks can listen to and it will continue to be free. So again, KevTalksPod.com. I mentioned that in the intro, but that's the hub of where all the information is. You can get discount on Jocko fuel products like krill oil and protein and stuff. And I'm ambassador for them. So you can

get 10% if you use the code KevTalks. So as we sign off together, try and build your own band of giants in your program or project teams or your firehouse or the police precinct or the incident management team or whatever structure you're part of and wherever you are in the world. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, have that combined plan. So everybody is coordinated and on the same page. Sometimes literally stay in form with facts, not just fear or rumors and get involved so you can make a difference in your organization, in your community, and in the world. Stay safe, everybody. Wash those hands. Godspeed, y'all.