The Mission
In 1991, during the Gulf War, a mid-level SEAL officer pushed forward a unique plan that had the potential to significantly affect the direction of the war. According to this plan, SEALs would infiltrate behind enemy lines and begin an assault aimed at diverting Iraqi military units from the front. Such a commando strike would involve the risk of losing commandos in the assault force. After all, any enemy units encountered during the raid would outnumber the commandos. At the same time, if the operation succeeded, the main U.S. conventional force would have fewer enemy defensive units to face during the main offensive push.
During the actual operation, a small team of SEALs traveled up the enemy coastline in rubber boats and landed on the Iraqi-held beach. Once ashore, they detonated several explosive haversacks and fired their rifles inland. Despite the small size of the commando group, a large enough number of gunshots were fired and enough explosives were detonated to convince the Iraqis that they were under attack from a Marine amphibious landing. Consequently, the Iraqi military leadership shifted two divisions away from the front in order to protect its flank. In effect, the small SEAL team—a handful of commandos—caused thousands of enemy troops to move away from their defensive positions and out of the way of oncoming American forces. The advancing conventional U.S. force thus faced thousands fewer enemy troops during its drive toward Kuwait.
Why was the mission a success? Good fortune and the weather played a part, of course, as they always do. But ultimately, the mission succeeded because people had made a series of complementary, goal-oriented decisions.
Three decades earlier, someone had made the decision to create an organization that could conduct unconventional warfare. Then, a year before the mission was conducted, someone had trained a platoon in the skills needed for this type of mission. Two months before the mission, someone had made the decision that such a mission could strategically influence the war. Twenty-four hours before the SEALs landed on the beach, someone had made the decision to task that particular platoon with the mission.
Sometime during the 24 hours before the mission was launched, probably immediately after he had been tasked with it, the platoon commander confirmed that he could successfully conduct the mission. The operation succeeded because a number of people made independent but interconnected decisions to establish, reinforce, and achieve specific objectives.
In doing so, the SEAL organization repeatedly made decisions that ultimately gave the commandos an edge. This is the core of commando and unconventional operations—setting up an unfair fight where you’ll have a distinct advantage over the enemy. In this case, the United States chose the target. The United States dictated the time, place, and type of assault. The United States decided what forces would be risked and what weapons and equipment would be used. At every opportunity, the SEAL organization made a decision, ahead of time, on every significant variable that would affect the commandos’ mission. In doing so, the SEALs chose the most advantageous conditions possible and greatly increased their chances for success. If they hadn’t done this, they would have risked getting into a fair fight.
Do you think this is the way things happen in the business world? That companies spend their time planning their operations and their moves well in advance? That they look for ways to avoid a fair fight? Think again. Venture capitalists use the phrase hockey stick profits. It refers to that graph that a lot of people walk in with that shows a slow growth of business and then, WHAM, exponential growth like the business end of a hockey stick. And when you talk to them, it’s a sure thing. It’s all indicative of one of three things: (a) the person making the presentation has discovered the next Microsoft, (b) the person hasn’t grasped the realities of business, or (c) the person thinks everyone else in the room is an idiot.
The answer most often is b—the person hasn’t done the homework. The unfortunate thing is, the problem’s not that the hockey stickers aren’t bright people. It’s not that they don’t know their industry. And it’s not that the technology isn’t available to help them. The problem is usually that they haven’t spent the time to identify and understand everything that’s required if the project is to succeed and every nightmare scenario that could arise.
In addition to having a good general concept of what their product can provide and which consumers they will target, entrepreneurs need to lay down concrete goals and milestones. Why do I assume that they haven’t? Because if they had, their revenue and profit lines probably wouldn’t look like hockey sticks. Or their list of “what-ifs” would be a mile long.
When SEAL platoons plan a mission, their flowcharts look like upside-down family trees: The mission starts out as a strong, solid trunk, and then quickly begins to split and branch out with every contingency. You’re going to parachute into enemy territory? What happens if the inbound plane comes under fire? What happens if someone breaks a foot upon landing? What happens if you come into contact with an enemy soldier while you’re moving toward your target? The splitting tree branches continue all the way to the end of the mission: What happens if your extraction helicopter doesn’t show up?
And these are just the contingencies that the SEAL platoon can think of. Others will come up. The Take-Away Here you go: We’re launching a new Web portal to sell books over the Internet. Our portal will be significantly different from the millions of other portals in existence. We’ll attract visitors at the same rate that the Internet initially grew. And our sale of books and banner advertisements will grow just as fast. We’ll be rich by next Thursday.
What do you think? Do you want in? What do you think? Setting a realistic goal for your team is the first step toward reaching a goal that is meaningful. If your expectations are absurd, you won’t hit your target. If they’re too low, your accomplishments won’t mean anything. A realistic goal not only helps you define potential hurdles, but also helps you define how your team should be organized and who should be on it. If SEALs are going to parachute in during a mission, one of them should be a qualified jumpmaster.
If there’s a significant chance that they’ll come in contact with the enemy while on the ground, they should include heavy gunners. If they’ll meet a native guide, one of them should be a linguist. The alternative to planning is to simply grab whatever equipment is within arm’s reach, run out the door, and hope you have the right transport, people, and weapons to get to and win the firefight.
In business, the consequences are similar. Developing a team without a thorough plan pretty much means that you’re not concerned about any obstacles that might arise and you’re not concerned about hiring the right people. Going ahead without a plan means that you won’t foresee a little competition to that online bookstore of yours from the likes of Amazon.com and BarnesandNobles.com. And it means you’ll have to fire that idiot who trashed his computer by using his CD tray for a cup holder.
Because each year things like this happen. People open new restaurants right in between two existing and established restaurants with the same theme, and companies overspend on top-of-the-line equipment that will be out of date before their people learn how to use them. And then they don’t understand why their volume is a third of what they forecast, or why their expenses far exceed their revenues.