The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's 4 Laws of Combat for Project Managers | PPP #51

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

How Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's 4 laws of combat apply to Project Managers

So imagine if you will, you are a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, going through the streets of some far off country fighting some war. There's so many lessons to be learned in your train up when you get there. But then you realize, you know what, we can distill down these four things that are critical to success in combat and then bring those back to the civilian world for success. Now imagine a parallel universe where you're a public safety person or incident management, where you show up in the middle of nowhere after a hurricane or a missing person or a flood. And as many books and classes and scenarios

and checklists as there are to do, you realize there's like four key things that I think we could do to meet success without having anything else with us, any equipment, anything else like that. And you just sell it down to the foundational four. Carry that over to another parallel universe where you're managing projects and you realize, you know what, these four key things are what are going to set us up to kick off this project, plan it, execute it, and then close it for project managers. Well, we're going to set us up to kick off this project, plan it, execute it, and then close it. For project managers, well, we're going to walk through all of these universes here on episode 51,

the four laws of combat, incident, and project management. Hey everybody, thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress podcast. Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress podcast. As I said in the intro and summary, which hopefully brought you all back, I have posted and talked about the four laws of comment before. These are concepts from Jocko Willink, from the extreme ownership mindset. And I've talked about the foundational four that I have distilled down, some of which was guidance I was given from my All-Hazardous Incident Management team,

mentors in public safety. And as a project manager now, how do we meld all these things together? Well, about a year ago in August of last year, 2019, I did that. I crosswalked these things. And so that's what we're going to do today. Talk about, again, just to highlight for all of us, the commonality in streamlining, minimizing, optimizing, whatever kind of ising we want to have here, whether it's we're folks from combat that realize this and realize, oh, this works leadership wise in the civilian world, whether we're incident management folks that realize we don't have to do everything on the

checklist they tell us, or in project management where we realize we need to do kind of these things these four principles these project management foundations i'll call them to help our teams be successful so i'll get references and stuff in the in the show notes or in the in the post that i'll put on people process progress.com but for now let's get into it so again i'm going to cover the four laws of combat, the architects, the writers of these that brought them together, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, part of their Extreme Ownership book series and Echelon Front, the foundational four that I brought together as stuff I distilled from all heads of management, then the project management stuff. And I was like, you know what, how do these all

cross map? And they do. So let's go for the first one so the first law of combat that kind of is the the foundation will say or the anchor for the rest of the comparisons is called cover and move right so go read the book all that kind of stuff extreme ownership you'll learn more about it but the summary i took from this is look out for your people and your team but without being overbearing right right? Have mutual respect. And again, it gets further, but that's a huge thing. And how I think this can apply to our all-hazardous incident management folks that are on those teams or on any incident management team, public safety team, is to help facilitate things, but don't dictate what those SMART objectives are, right? So that's foundational four, quick review, get those SMART objectives, create that org chart, organize resources, and then communicate, right? So those foundational four, quick review, get those smart objectives,

create that org chart, organize resources, and then communicate, right? And there's a fifth one, and that's leader's intent. But when I wrote this, it was a year ago, I hadn't kind of added that last one. But that's what we want to do. We want to, you know, have respect for our folks, but we don't want to be overbearing and tell them that if you're a planning section chief on an incident management team, it's critical to build these relationships and keep the process moving forward and the team together, but not do everything for everyone else. And if you're a project manager, you know, go into that project management universe early in the management process. We need to find that unique need, right?

A project is what is this unique thing we do with a process we need to fix, the workflow to optimize, and it needs to be further defined before time and money are put into it, doesn't it? So, you know, to do this, a diverse group of folks in various levels need to get together and kind of organize to define that unique needs. So for me, the parallel of cover and move, we're looking out for each other and have mutual respect is those smart objectives, which is a very collaborative process that involves different levels that the incident commander plus the planning folks plus any agency administrators and then for a project that business need, it could be someone in the business that realizes I need this and then we as project managers help them to find it. But that's kind of

that first level parallel to me cover and move smart objectives define that unique need. Second thing is keep things simple. That's a great, right? There's KISS, there's all different ways to say that. But you know, from the extreme ownership model, that's plans must be communicated in the simplest way and to all levels. Leaders have to relay why as the team works towards how, right? And so I've talked about that and Simon Sinek, the why is huge. And it's a big thing of ad car change management is why, why are we doing this? So keeping it simple is a way to summarize that up front from, from law to of the laws

of combat. So on all hazardous management teams, the application is before teams jump into the tactics of, I'm going to need 10 firefighters and two engines and this and that, um, we need to just draw a basic work chart. We need to do draw a basic work chart. We need to do lines and boxes. We need to think about who do we need just very simply before we get into the real specific equipment needs and people needs and where they need to go and make an effective picture of the resources that we believe we need to pull together to accomplish those objectives

that we did when we were covering moving and when we were defining that project. And so for project management in that universe, before waterfall agile or whatever other methodology we're going to use is applied, we have to know why, right? Why are we going to do this? What's that unique need? Why is it important that we adopt it? What's the awareness if we're going with ad car, right? The business case should pretty simply but directly say, here's a new thing we need, here's why we need it, here's the efficiency it's gonna make better, improve, or what needs to be fixed, right? Or what optimized thing.

And so, again, when we're aligning across these, when we're already covered and moving, we have objectives, we define that unique need and project management, now the second law of combat, we need to keep it simple, and to me, for all hazardous management, keeping it simple is draw an org chart, right? We're not in that big 215 worksheet wall chart that we'll get into later that has a lot more detail. Just draw an org chart on a piece of paper on the whiteboard. For project management, make a business case, right? We're going to shore up that unique need that we defined. We're going to make a

business case. We're going to pull a little bit more to it, but not crazy, right? We're not getting into the weeds of project planning at this point. It's still pretty early. The third law of combat that's going to kick off this parallel comparison is prioritize and execute. Makes total sense, doesn't it? And, you know, from their perspective, Jocko and Leif talk about companies and leaders and teams. They don't have infinite resources, right? So we have to prioritize. What are we going to hit first? What's the biggest problem?

And then work through it in the list, right? And that just makes sense. We don't have all the time and money we need. Scope, we don't want to go all over the place because it will take a long time. So it's a great summarization for them. The other thing they add from prioritize and execute is this happens, the organization's able to be adaptable

for when new priorities come to light, right? So if we have a list of things we've prioritized already, we know if something else comes in and we grade it the same way where it's going to fall in that list, and then we can adjust the people and time and the money. Very similar for all hazards incident management. Difference here is we're not in combat. We are maybe in a field somewhere looking for somebody. We're in a school as a headquarters after a tornado. But let's go to the operations section chiefs here. So we need to realize that this form has limited space, this wall chart, this ICS 215 operational

planning worksheet by design limits or should the amount of people and stuff we want in any one group or division or something like that. And so that is how a form and a process helps us drive an all-hazard incident management, how we prioritize and what we do or don't execute on. Not a coincidence, right? So just before during the tactics meeting, there's a great opportunity to prioritize and execute, just like the law of combat, on emerging or missed trouble spots for pre-planned events or no-notice incidents. So, op chiefs, think about not just the huge picture of what's everything I need to do, but what's the thing I need to do first. Think about triage style. Got to stop the bleed, got to get them out of there, got to get them to the hospital,

and apply that to sandbagging areas or evacuating people from exposure from a chemical leak or something like that. So prioritize and execute kind of applies one for one from a law of combat to all hazardous incident management because it's very public safety, military kind of focused is what's the first thing we need to do to save the most lives or the most property or the environment.

Now in project management, we're going to save money and time and resources. So as we prioritize and execute in a combat zone or in the business, we look at what are the resources and the stuff we need first and then plan to those at OpsChief as project managers. If we've chartered the project, it's successful most of the time because that helps us set up who's doing what, what's our org chart. It's designed to provide parts of the business case, objectives, and prioritize outcomes, right? So the priority is built into that mechanism. So the third thing for project management is get that charter going, right? to be super in depth, but it's going to help capture a lot of the prioritization and a lot of the execution that we should be focused on, even before we can really build out the details

of it. So there'll be high level, they'll be relatively simple, but they'll also provide a clear picture right to the direction the project should be headed. And then the detailed planning we'll get into later is where we get into that perfect is the enemy of good, right? So if you have a really good plan, you've prioritized, you're pretty sure you're putting the right resources and time and effort into it, go with it. And we're going to get to other stuff and details of how to do things on the way. But if we prioritize and execute, make a decision and go, then we're good to go. This fourth thing, this fourth law of combat is decentralized command. This is something you'll hear again, if you're a Jocko podcast fan like I am, you'll hear this a lot, decentralized command. This is something you'll hear again, if you're a Jocko podcast fan, like I am, you'll hear this a lot, decentralized command. And for all hazardous management,

this to me, ties to communication, right? Because you can't hover over people just like if you've decentralized as a planning section chief. So I didn't hover over my people unless I saw a problem I had to correct, which then in the end was my problem, right? No bad teams, only bad leaders. So to me, this is communication horizontally, which means with your peers and across the team and vertically up to leadership and down to folks that work to you. And as a project manager, it's pretty similar to, right? Enable the project team. So you've decentralized command in this combat focus, right? Law of combat. As an incident management person, you're focused on communications, the planning section chief,

I'll speak from that aspect. And as a project manager, you're going to enable the project team, which means you're going to clear obstacles and things. But kind of more specific quote for the decentralized command, everyone on the team is a leader. The official team leader can't really own everything.

A healthy balance, right, is detachment. So you've got to detach a little bit and give up control and not let your ego get in the way. So all hazards, talk about that, communicate, communicate, communicate. How to ask for help, let it be known. Hey, if you're stuck on resources or you don't know a decision, sure, come to get me. But other than that, I'm going to leave you to it

because I, as a planning section chief, am looking at the whole process. You, resource unit leader, are focused on making sure we got accountability, which is huge. We know where our people are. And after all that aspect, the boots on the ground are there to get the job done because of their skill set, right? They're not there to have us hover over them. And for project managers, we've got that charter in place. Now we're going to get more into the detailed planning, but we don't really make it happen. We are the experts on our team do. So you have to be decentralized. You can't be in every single meeting.

If it's like a workshop and an ad hoc, and there's two meetings at the same time, and you're trying to jump back and forth, it's just not efficient. And it also doesn't relate to your team that you trust them. Right. And this is where I think a project manager's ability to facilitate discussion and build relationships is huge and pays dividends. So by decentralizing command,

project manager can show the team they trust them. But we're never too far away, so kind of trust but verify is a good thing too that I like to follow. But again, you're decentralizing and that's huge. So I, kind of being a process nerd and a fan of, you know, Jocko Willink and the extreme ownership and being a project manager that came through the universe of incident management and public safety thought this was

pretty neat. And again, other experts will say the same thing. You know, none of us thought of all these on our own. They came from other people we learned from. We, in turn, can learn from each other via things like this podcast, via email, LinkedIn, reach out, peopleprocessprogress.com. But those four laws of combat, again, highly recommend the Extreme Ownership and the other books and services maybe from Echelon Front. So the four laws of combat in a row are cover and move, keep things simple, prioritize and execute, and decentralize command.

The parallel to those for all hazards in my mind, right, incident management, whether it's a planned event or you show up and you're helping after a big city fire or a missing person or a hurricane or a big huge event is get those smart objectives, get an org chart together, just a basic one, figure out what resources you need and organize them and order them and communicate up and down the chain of command, horizontally across the org. And as a project manager, some of the foundational things that I think can really

shore up a project for success are define the unique need, write a project's definition as it's unique and potentially is a certain number of hours or whatever, but it has to be something new, otherwise it's just an add-on enhancement. Create the business case, right, help put together, here's why we need it, here's what it's gonna solve, here's how much it's gonna cost. Get that charter once the project's approved,

that's gonna add a little bit more, a high-level timeline, an org chart, and some other stuff, and then enable the project team, right? You pull the team together based on the expertise that you as a project manager either did know that you needed, so you asked for it, or you ask the resource managers and they help you fill it out, right? So whether you're following or learn of or know of the laws of combat, whether you're on an incident management team, or whether you're project managing, the real summary of each of these all together to me is talk to each other, work together, ask for help, trust your people, build those relationships, and make decisions. If we stumble on any of those things, it's going to ripple effect all the other ones. So I've appreciated this. I think it's been a fun exercise. I hope you all have enjoyed it. Some shorter episodes lately, we'll get back to

kind of longer form interviews, or maybe some more reviews of processes and some historical stuff. But I've enjoyed kind of going back to earlier posts that I've made. I hope you all have. Again, you can read this one at pupilprocessprogress.com. The post is similar to the name of this episode. It's called Four Laws of Combat for Incident and Project Managers. Thank you all so much for all your time, for reaching out, for listening to the show. Hope you all are doing well out there.

It's a long time. We're getting all this breaking news, new outbreaks, civil unrest. The politics is getting heavier, closer to the election. So let's all of us think about how we can together use good process, trust each other, have good communication, and enable each other to make decisions that won't be perfect, but that we as humans and we for me, because I'm in America, as Americans, can make these decisions and have these discussions together. Thank you so much. Stay safe. Wash those hands, of course, and Godspeed.