In this episode Alex Case and I explore the topic of people development from the unique perspective of the elite world of the Royal Marines Commandos including:
I think you'll agree that it's a fascinating comparison to make and one which will stimulate ideas that you can adopt in your own environment.
You can contact Alex via email: ac@cordillera-apps.com
This episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR is brought to you by Aquilae.
For details of our forthcoming guests follow us on Instagram @careerviewmirror
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Episode recorded on 20 December 2022
In this episode Alex Case and I explore the topic of people development from the unique perspective of the elite world of the Royal Marines Commandos including:
I think you'll agree that it's a fascinating comparison to make and one which will stimulate ideas that you can adopt in your own environment.
You can contact Alex via email: ac@cordillera-apps.com
This episode of CAREER-VIEW MIRROR is brought to you by Aquilae.
For details of our forthcoming guests follow us on Instagram @careerviewmirror
Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk
Episode recorded on 20 December 2022
I am sitting in lovely Siesta Key Florida.
Sherene Redelinghuys:I'm coming from Bangkok in Thailand
Daniel von Treeck:Prague in the Czech Republic
Osman Abdelmoneim:Cairo in Egypt
Holger Drott:Auckland, New Zealand
Shannon Faulkner:London, England.
Aquilae:Welcome to Career-view Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host, Andy Follows
Andy:Hello, listeners, and welcome to this side mirror episode of Career-view Mirror. If you're a regular listener, thank you. You'll be aware that most of our episodes feature interviews with people in the automotive industry, who kindly share their life and career journeys with us. We celebrate their careers, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. And from time to time we publish these side mirror episodes, which are usually an opportunity for me to share some content with you related to careers, or developing ourselves or people we lead, parent or mentor that I hope you'll find valuable. For example, in a recent episode called What Happens in Vegas, I raised the topic of how sometimes concepts learned in a corporate training environment, don't always get practised in the work environment, why that might be and what managers and individuals might do to mitigate the risk of that. That was episode 93 it's nine minutes long and if you haven't listened to it, you may want to listen to it before you listen to this one. One person who did listen to it was Alex Case. Alex is a regular listener to Career-view Mirror and he messaged me with some feedback from his perspective. I was so fascinated by his experience of working in a culture of continuous learning that I invited him to join me to create this episode. Alex joined the UK Royal Marines in 1991 and retired in 2014 after 23 years of service. During that time he operated in Iraq and Sierra Leone, deployed onboard UK and US ships in the Caribbean, Mediterranean and the UK, undertook cold weather training in Norway, jungle training in the Caribbean, desert training in Iraq and the UAE, and mountain training in Scotland and Norway. He was responsible for training recruits and young officers at the Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, completed two roles as an instructor with the UK army and two with the United States Marine Corps. His last eight years in the Royal Marines were served in the UAE and the US from where he retired in 2014. During his 23 year service, he's undertaken a total of 33 months of residential courses, both general and task specific and seven years as an instructor. Since retiring from the Royal Marines, he's worked for a large US defence contractor, a healthcare startup and the US national oil company in Nigeria. In 2017. He and two longstanding colleagues formed Cordillera Applications Group, which offers diversified consulting services to NATO, NATO nations militaries research agencies in both the US and the UK, along with a number of international banks, corporate entities and foundations. When I thought about Alex's experience, I was sure it'd be interesting to get his thoughts on how they develop people in the Royal Marines. The fact that out of 23 years service he spent almost 10 years either receiving or delivering training makes him the ideal person to have this conversation with. I'm proud to say he's also my brother in law. I've known him since the very earliest days of his military career, and on top of his impressive professional credentials, is a devoted husband and father. I've learned a lot from him over the years. I'm excited to be able to introduce you to Alex in this episode, and I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. Hello, Alex, and welcome. And even though this is not one of our regular Career-view Mirror biography episodes, I am going to say where are you coming to us from today?
Alex Case:Hi, Andy. Thanks for having me. I'm coming to you from Virginia Beach, Virginia in the US.
Andy:I'm so excited to have you Al. Thanks for thanks for joining me, and we have quite a good number of listeners in the US we have about 15% listeners in North America. So you reached out to me as you often do, because you're a really great brother in law and fan of the podcast so you often reach out to me and let me know that you've listened to episodes which I really appreciate your feedback and you got in touch with me recently about a particular episode then, What Happens in Vegas episode, listeners if you haven't listened to that it's a short one. I recommend go and listen to it first for a bit of context, but you listened to that and you had some things that it triggered for you Al and I thought it would be really cool if we had a chat about those. And yeah, let's let's do that, so what happened when you listened to it?
Alex Case:Sure so. So as you say, I do listen to most of them, not all of them. But I have got to 80% of them or something, which I find very interesting. The one about What Happens in Vegas really hit home, because coming from a military background, and these aren't military phrases, but if the situation occurred, similar to the one you described in Vegas as someone who went on a course, and came back, and then just didn't use that information, or that training, what would happen is that you'd take a look at it and work out whether one of three things had occurred. It's either the wrong course for that person to go on, it was the wrong person to go on that course, or it was the wrong timing. So if it's the wrong course, someone somewhere didn't say yes or no to the right course, and someone didn't evaluate why that person was doing that course, was it required for his particular job or this particular skill set. So that could be the wrong course, it could be pitched at the wrong level and therefore, when they came back, they just didn't use the skill set they were taught, there wasn't that a choosing to use didn't choose. Or was the wrong person, meaning you sent the wrong person on the course, because they've come back and they've chosen either not to use that skill they learned on the course because that individual or he, he or she just doesn't require that skill set doesn't use it, and therefore the wrong person was on the course, the course might have been appropriate for the wrong person attended, or it's the wrong timing, ie and I'll expand later about how sometimes we invest in our people, for the immediate output. Sometimes we invest for their future career. And sometimes we invest for them just for the completeness of that person. So it might have been the timing of the course, the person needed the course, but didn't need it there and then, needed it for a future job or future broadening. And that was the thing that came to me for the fact that this all comes down to oversight and management. So all those things can be balanced, mitigated or corrected by whoever the line manager is of that person. So if someone goes on a course, and it's the wrong course, someone approved the course, someone took a look at the request for that course, should have made a decision as to whether it's appropriate, too high, too low, not required. If it was the wrong person that is a straight management function, the wrong person has attended the correct course. And that course train time has been wasted for both the person and for the course place. And then it's the wrong timing, that can be managed, because it might be for a broader reason than their immediate operational output ie as I mentioned, you might need it for a future job or a future time for that particular individual, or that individual needed to go and do something out of the routine cycle that unit was in. So it could have been for different reasons. But they're all management functions. Yes, it comes down to be owned by the individual, but the management oversight should be able to correct most of those.
Andy:Thank you. That's a really interesting sort of way to look at it and to break it down. And we can talk in little bit more detail about the responsibility of the individual. So we talk about the management responsibility to put people on the right course at the right time. And that triggered for me the thoughts of the the importance it is that I can use what I've been given fairly soon after I've been introduced to it, so I can practice it, and it becomes relevant, and I can get good at it. The other thing that when you came back to me with your note, it made me think, Oh, my goodness, of course, the military is a different environment than a corporate environment in many ways. And in one way, is it that the military environment, there's more expectation of continuous learning, does the military environment more closely resemble the classroom that I was talking about, you know, the continuation of your staff in the classroom, you know, you're going there to learn stuff, you know, you're going to have to practice it, you know, you're going to get tested on it. And then you go on to the next level. And when you come out of university, going to corporate that can change. But I was thinking when you come out of school or university and you go into the military, does that expectation of continuous learning? Is it stronger?
Alex Case:Yes, it is. It is stronger. But the tenants of personal development rather than technical or job specific development still apply. So without wanting to get boring about the military, if you join the military, you only ever do one position at a time for no more than two years. So what I mean by that is even a driver in a operational unit will only ever do that job for two years before he or she moves units, moves companies, moves teams, to do perhaps the same function in a different team. So the reason for that is the cultural system requires change all the time. So you don't want to have 800 men all been there for 10 years because you get too comfortable.
Andy:So it doesn't matter what job I'm doing what level I'm at, I will have an expectation. I'll know that this is for two years and then I'm going to move on.
Alex Case:Absolutely. And that could be moved up could be moved sideways, but you will move location and that breeds constant need to retrain and refocus because although you might be going to do the same job, there will be a variation. And normally it's, it's rare for someone to go sideways more than once. So normally there's a pathway upwards. And that would require you to do either a career course, meaning the system has chosen you by merit to go and do a promotion course or a specialisation course, or they have put you on a course, because you've expressed a want to grow and learn an additional skill, that might not be your main core output, but you've learned an additional skill on a course. And you've come back to use that or be equipped with that extra capability. And that's constant. So if you imagine now joining a company, a corporate entity, the day you join, you're the new boy, doesn't matter what rank management position you're in, you know, that you're the most least experienced person in that organisation having not been there before perhaps ,within two years, you will be the most experienced, barr a few exceptions, unledd someone's been kept on for a particular period, two and a half years, three years, during your two year cycle, every single person in that unit of that team of 650 will have changed over with a cycle through what's called trickle drafting, meaning people trickle through the units over two years, some joining some leaving. And so by the time you get to two years, you're near enough the most experienced or the longest serving person in that corporate entity, for example. So the culture required to be ingrained at the outset, when you join is absolutely critical. Because every unit you join in your career, every team will turn over within two years.
Andy:And you're gonna be the new person every two years, you're going to be the new the new person in a job, or you're going to have a new job to get to grips with. And the other thought I had, so I was going to ask you, you know, what does continuous learning look like in the Royal Marines, for example, and you've answered, it's just, it's there, it's inherent in the system that you're you're fresh into a new job every two years. The other thought I had when I got your message and started thinking about potential comparisons is I don't mind if I get this wrong, and you'll correct me and that's absolutely fine. But I thought hang on a minute, probably a lot of the time you're not in active, you're not in active duty. So you're literally just trying to keep people interested, engaged and developing them to do the job that they know at some point they've been, they've signed up to do. Yep. And so how does is that? How that is that what this is all part of me? How do you keep people interested when they're not actually doing the job that they signed up for?
Alex Case:So that's so first of all, that's the norm. So that's not something's like, Oh, God, we got to keep them busy. That's the norm. So you're either training to operate or you are on operations. So if you take take operations, most recently as being Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, if you are not on one of those operations, the organisation you're in, if you're in a operational unit, and let's call that a sales team, you are you are training and preparing to go and sell or operate. Now that might be for short time, you might be training to go to Norway to train to be competent in Arctic operations. Right. So you'd be doing preparation training, in whichever base you're based in to then go to Norway for three months to train for Arctic operations. The purpose of training in Norway is in case you are called upon to go somewhere cold, arctic like with big mountains to operate as a unit. So you're either training to operate somewhere, or you are operating in that place. Now, that's for the if you imagine that's for the Salesforce for an organisation, so either training to sell, preparing to sell or they're selling. On the longer term cycle, you can't do that, for 23 years, you can't be an operation infantry for 23 yeras, you'd just get get worn out. And also it becomes very samey. So career wise, the normal pattern is in an operational unit in a sales force for two years, and then plucked out and put in a position whereby you perhaps you are training salesman, or you're doing some strategy for how you're going to change the selling, or the technology job to equip the salesman with a better piece of equipment, just like it would be in a large lte's take BMW as an example, you might go and do sales job for five years, slightly longer length of time here, and then go into a headquarters, where you're bringing your sales experience and you're learning corporate stuff. And then that person, then get cycled back into an operational unit, not doing the same job, but going back in at a different level or in a different role. So it could go go back in the same level of rank, but doing a different role. And then that's, that's cycling the humans through a demanding two year job by taking them out of the cycle for two years, and then putting them back in. That's a general rule too, it might be two and four might be four and two. So for the individual, he's not in that unit all the time. And if he is it becomes old hat pretty quickly.
Andy:Well, a few questions that prompts then. So if I've been to Norway, and I've learned Arctic warfare skills. And then I come back and I don't actually go to any mountains or snow for a couple of years, how do I keep up my new skills when I'm no longer in the environment?
Alex Case:Yeah. So if what you do in Norway is basically become qualified, that you've been, you're currently in Arctic operations. And you go through all the safety requirements, and you know, your own limits and how to do various things, it'd be very, very unusual for any unit, it will happen. It has happened. But the plan is that when a unit is notified that they potentially are going to somewhere like Northern Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Bosnia, some are cold and hilly and snowy, they'll have a buildup training periods, they'll know that going sort of well in advance unless the emergency 999 Call and they'll then go and deploy somewhere cold and wet, like Scotland or big mountains. And they will refresh their skills that they learned the previous year or even two years ago, to bring you back up to speed before going. Now, worst case, the 999 call comes, you can't go and practice and rehearse somewhere cold and wet. And you you go straight into somewhere, operationally, that is Arctic and mountainous, you then have a period whereby you have to regain those skills, and they are skills, so they're not something you've lost forever, you just got to sort of regain them. And you will find that unit will operate better and better and better, the longer it stays within that operational environment. And the same would apply for jungle. So if I went into the jungle, now, I'd have to remember some of the skills I learned 20 years ago, I wouldn't remember all of them. But there'd be someone in the unit, your team who's more current than you are. And they'll do a quick refresher training, bring you back up to speed. And those who haven't been around the jungle much before someone will keep an eye on them. So the purpose of training is to learn how to do it differently in the Arctic or mountains or in jungle or in desert, the basic fundamentals are the same. And the time to adapt is just before deployment or in the first few weeks of deployment where someone who's more current is keeping an eye on those that haven't done it for four or five years.
Andy:Let me pick up thanks Al, that's, that's really helpful. And interesting that that skills base, so let me pick up on the leadership topic if I can, which wasn't in the list of questions that I discussed with you, but just come to mind that the skills side is part of it, but you use that term keep an eye on, will take care of. And I've heard more and more recently about how, and again I might get your you'll correct me on the language but how, how perhaps caring the leadership is in the military versus what might be a civilian's perspective of, you know, shouting Sergeant Majors and very, very high levels of discipline and a lack of, you know, lack of tolerance for any kind of deviation from what you're told to do, very hierarchical. And I'm hearing more and more about how No, it's not like that. It's much more caring than you would suspect about looking after people and taking care and, and the hierarchy is only there for really critical situations. But other times you have got latitude. And so how is this leadership taught? How are these leadership behaviours instilled?
Alex Case:So for the leadership, if I give you an example, first, for terms of reality, in the 23 years, I was in the Royal Marine Commandos, I can't recall ever shouting an order at anybody apart from on the drill square, where you're giving movement commands, and you're only shouting so they can hear you. I might raise my voice occasionally, I never shouted in the typical Dad's Army way that you imagine the military to be and everyone adhering to every order. And that's because you have a hierarchy, whereby, if I made a decision and told someone to do something, and it was questioned, I would then explain why I told them to do it, tell them to do it again. And then if they then either didn't or couldn't, then the hierarchical system you just described, the sergeant major is the senior NCO whose job it is to go and explain to the individual why it is he is going to do that, because the system says to do it. And that's an order that you don't need to shout, some people choose to shout. And that's not necessarily within the officer leadership, it's a genuine tool to use when trying to explain to someone or get someone to do something they don't believe they can do or they don't want to do. And those two things are different. So the leadership techniques are slightly different. But the to get away from the archetype. As you mentioned, yes, there's a hierarchy. That's for decision making, and what we call command. I'll touch on that later, which is leadership and management, two things being different. But the system of communicating those orders is rarely, unless it's in a very stressful situation, rarely more than a key words, encouragement, and then giving someone a task to get on with. So if you imagine the most autocratic way of using command is to say tell someone to turn left turn right, stop, march, that's on a drill square and traditionally that's where it comes. In today's modern military for years now, this is not something that's in the last couple of years, but 40 or 50 years since the end of the Cold War, we are attempting to give someone a task, explain why they've been tasked to do that, that could have a unifying purpose. And then let them get on with achieving that task. Rather than tell them to do a very discrete task, then micromanage them, and then coordinate them.
Andy:So it's a much more sorry, I just want to interupt you, it's a much more modern, open minded approach today, I love that unifying purpose, give them a why, and then give them space to do it.
Alex Case:Yeah. And it's and it's that style, that style of leadership is called mission command, you, you give that person that unit or organisation a mission, which has always got a unifying purpose. So I want you to do x and y in order to achieve something. And the reason for that is, and it's and it's the same throughout history, the fog of war means that you'll never have complete clarity on what's going on in front of you. So therefore, if you understand what you've been tasked to do to fit in with a plan, and you also understand where that plan that task for you sits in order to the unifying purpose, you are far more likely to be able to adapt to a changing situation in front of you and understand that, okay, my task has changed but the in order to hasn't changed, we're still trying to achieve a I can adapt to meet my team leaders requirements, which will then hopefully meld into an organisation that can adapt very quickly to a change in environment. So the days of micromanagement, key synchronisation, whereby it's restrictive, have been encouraged to go, there is still some, of course there is synchronisation and coordination. And it's far more here's a task. That's the task, you're doing it because of this. And then the mission commander lets that person run with it. Now, you will know better than most Andy that requires trust. So if you come into an organisation, and you're brand new in that organisation, as every leader is on day one in that new operational unit, they have to trust their subordinates are capable of doing what they've asked them to do. And they've only met them the day before, for example, but they know the system and they know what they've been trained to do before and what they've been through. They need to be able to trust sideways to the people that operating alongside the same team leaders, those team leaders are able to operate at the same level. And they need to trust their boss, their team leader, that he or she knows what they're doing. And that trust comes from the culture that you get when you join and is refilled every time you change units. Because there is such a close, in some cases, bond, some cases belief or culture within the military, within the Navy, within the Royal Marines within the team you've joined in the Royal Marines within that sub team, that you trust everyone until they fail. And you understand everyone, because you've come from a common background, so you know what they can and can't do within a certain variation. And that trust is what bonds mission command together, you can't do mission command, if you don't trust up down or sideways just doesn't happen.
Andy:No, that that makes a lot of sense. So let me just play some of that back to see what I've understood. So in order to be able to give people that freedom and to be able to operate from mission command as you go, here's the mission, then you're free to, to do it. You've obviously got to trust those around you. And you're all part of a system, you're part of a big system that has been people are in that team, if they're at the same level as you, they've been through processes that should weed out and should get them to behave to a certain level and should make them trustworthy, if you like. Absolutely. And similarly, the people above you. So I'm curious, though, because in corporates, you'd get people who are moved around because somebody doesn't want them, they can't get rid of them. They're not actually very good. Maybe they're not trustworthy. So they get rather than someone go through a difficult process of managing them out of the business, they kind of palm them off to another department, somebody else's problem. Does that happen?
Alex Case:It does, it does. You can't avoid that. Because if there's 30 people finishing your course or class or whatever someone's come 30th By definition, if the trust is so that the person is attempting to do their best and their endeavours are honest, then that's different that that's trust is that the person is going to do his best or her best. If there's someone who is not reliable, not trustworthy, not professional enough to function, the system will remove them from their fast track. So the normal path of progression within their rank and their branch, they won't make the next promotion course or they won't be selected to do a certain job that's key to their progress, because their reports and this is another point, their confidential reports as they'd be called in the commercial world. the Annual Report, is very, very comprehensive, and will give factual examples of good, factual examples of bad, and they are factual examples that that person sees before the report is signed off. There's a saying in the military that 80% of your time is taken up by 20% of your people. And I'm sure that it's applicable across any organisation. And the other 80% of people are self motivated and organised and capable and they just they can cope with a system. That 20%, they need, then need managing, and that's, that's not always those that are struggling, that could be those that need pushing further, they need to adjust the system, need to bypass some of the boundaries to get this person to remain interested and useful and fully employed because he or she is so talented, that the system mustn't slow them down. And thats just as applicable as dealing with a person who just can't keep up.
Andy:What I'm thinking is this, this two yearly progression that's inherent in the system seems to be really good for identifying, you know, people who aren't who are struggling, they're falling down the conveyor belt where their, you know, why aren't you progressing, you can't just automatically progress if you're not as good. If you're not trustworthy, if you like. And we talk about managing there's trust, where you're trusting the intent of someone, you know, as you said, they're trying to do a good they're trying to do their best. And then there's trusting their competence, like, do they have the skills? Can they actually do this and managing both situations differently? You mentioned a couple of a couple of situations where where someone might shout. If you're trying to get someone to do something that they don't believe they can do, or that they don't want to do. And I just wanted to go back to that. Because Wow, that is what you are clearly doing, you're growing people constantly and for a while Al, you were responsible for officer training at Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, in Devon, weren't you? So can you just tell us a little bit about that, and how you get people to do what they don't necessarily believe they can do.
Alex Case:So that particular job was taking a group, it's called a batch of about 60 young officers who are selected through the naval selection system, and they start on day one, and they do 54 weeks training, all at to the Commando Training Centre. Those individuals join some at 18, some at 25, 26. Some obviously clearly graduates and done a couple of jobs, some are straight from school. And it's about actually about 1/3. It's gone down recently, but about at the moment I think 20% of the intake is straight from school. So they're 18 year olds, compared to someone who has been perhaps in the navy or in the Marines as a Marine, or in any other job and joines at 26. So by definition, you're dealing with two very different spectrums of motivated young men who want to complete the course. So the first thing is they're motivated, they want to be there, which clearly is the prerequisite
Andy:And they've had to really achieve some things to get there yeah, to get through the door they've had to push themselves.
Alex Case:Yeah. So they've, they've applied through a, a normal interview in a careers office and someone's gone, yes, no, maybe, then they've gone done three days at the Commando Training Centre in what's called a potential officers course, which gives them a sort of short sharp burst of what life is like in, in training or in the Royal Marines. And the instructors are taking a look at the individuals and they're given a lecture, and they've done some physical sort of running around the assault course and things. And they've taken part in a debate and they've had dinner, and based on those, and two or three interviews, and then they're given a mark, and those that meet the mark or the pass mark, go on to another three day selection done by the Royal Navy which is the parent service, whereby their leadership, again, they're debating skills, their general knowledge of the world, their knowledge of the core, and interviewing skills are tested by the Royal Navy, and given a mark by the Royal Navy, and those again that are successful then go on and if the batch require 60, they take the 60 highest scores, and that's blind merit. There's no allocation of how many of you need from this background or this who have been Marines before or graduates or non grad. It's just the top 60 scores. Now. To your point, Andy, yes, that is quite demanding. I tried it twice before I was successful. So I tried the potential offers course and passed it but didn't get a mark high enough to go on to the second board. I tried again two years later, passed the Royal Marine POC, passed the naval what's called AIB but my mark wasn't high enough to get a place in the batch. Went back six years later, passed both and got a mark high enough so
Andy:I didn't know that I didn't know that. So that in itself shows that by the time you did get there, my goodness you wanted if you'd had six years, tried twice, wait six years. has tried a third time by the time you get there, you're pretty keen. But not everybody would have had exactly the same
Alex Case:No, no, absolutely not. There are some that pass journey. it, there are some of the pass with no preparation, because the talented, there are some that pass through purely not giving up. And a point of note, the system works because if I had been given a place at 18, I'd have failed training, I'd have failed on just maturity of character, when then when put in a batch with 60 other people, some of whom are 26 and some of whom are 18. I'm convinced, I would not have passed, I would have tried to but I don't think I had the maturity to endure in some of the environments you get put through. So the system works.
Andy:That's that's good that you see that with hindsight. And so to this point about how do you start to instil some of these leadership behaviours in these young officers when they're coming through training.
Alex Case:So this is one of my bugbears, but that's not why this doesn't work here. What the military do is they train and test at the same time. Okay, so they'll train someone to do something and they'll claim that the testing phase is only at the end when it's objective testing, and that the student can relax and learn in a in a learning environment. Reality is that you're being tested all the time. Because if you're, if you're learning something, no matter how basic it is, and you can't grasp it, or you're a bit slow, or you don't understand it, or you haven't, you're not motivated enough to make it apply, then your instructors are going to note that. So first of all 54 weeks, you know from day one that you're being trained and tested, and you want to pass obviously, to be fair it's the same with every course I've done, there's some will claim education, or some will claim that there's a train phase or test phase, but in effect, you are being assessed because the military assess all the time. So those individuals turn up and what we do what they do now, and it hasn't changed much, having just had a friend of mine son pass out recently, you set an example of how to do things. So as an officer, part of your role is setting example to your men. And you would never ask them to do anything that you wouldn't do. Exactly the same in officer training. Where interestingly the the young officer and under training are being trained by both officers who have been through what they've been through. And interestingly by senior NCOs, senior noncommissioned officers at the rank of sergeant or colour sergeant, who have never been an officer, they've never done that course. But they have certain instructional skills. And in the operational unit, the sales team, where they will first go to in their first job, the senior NCOs have all been the second in command to the officer. And they've done it for 9, 10, 12 years. So they've seen nine officers come through some good, some not so good. And they've risen through the ranks from Marine to Lance Corporal, Corporal to sergeant or colour sergeants. And they've been the second in command of those teams where the officer will go to next. So quite uniquely, you having people who have been through the course done the job 10 years before, run the training. And they have a team of two of those captains. And they have a team of three sergeants, and those sergeants are training and testing the young officer to get to a standard that they know what the standard is, I've seen 9, 10, 12 go through the system. And they're very good judges of character as to whether the person has got it, hasn't got it, might get it - give him time, not going to work, along with the officers who have already done the training before and are running the training. So so that's the system. That's both if you like some would call it 360. As in you're having someone of the junior rank, assessing an officer, but he's only a young officer in training, he doesn't carry commission yet. He does, but technically doesn't. And then you're setting an example of how to do things all the way from how you dress on day one, smartly, how you go and do your physical training, how you do drill, how you shoot a weapon, how you run a class, how you run a classroom, how you go map reading, how you navigate how you choose to make a particular decision, you are showing them how to do it by setting an example. And one of the things I tried to bring in, and it was there before but it was a key theme of mine was show them what good looks like too often in the military. And I've seen it in the commercial world as well. We teach someone something, we teach them the key elements, and then we expect them to be able to sort of with practice, make the thing work and produce that standard. But they haven't actually seen what good really looks like properly. So what what is it they're trying to see? If you take the soccer analogy, you wouldn't teach someone to kick a football and then expect them to play a game of football without seeing what good looks like? What does the Premier League look like? What does the grownups look like on on Match of the Day that's what children are copying when they that's their main thing that that's what good looks like. So if I'm taking a free kick, I know what good looks like I can't achieve it yet. But with time I can. You know what you're aiming for. So if you only give them the very rudimentary basics and expect them to pick it up and build with it, that's quite hard to do if you don't know what you're aiming at what good looks like now some people will say well, you shouldn't give them the what good looks like because they're just going to copy that. And if they just copy it, then surely that will be a pass. But what we teach them is, again, it's like playing soccer, you teach them the skill sets, you put them through certain environments and you test them and challenge them, but every game is different. So every game, yes, you're gonna kick a ball, throw a ball, head a ball, but you're gonna do it differently in game a to game B, and the officer and the NCOs are leaders, team leaders of any team have to adapt their skill sets their resources to meet that situation. So that's what the job is to show them what good looks like and allow them to play with it get better at it fail early, going back to one of the points from the earlier thing. But there's only a certain amount of failure you could have because anything you're doing involves a team of not less than 30. So the the job they're trained to do, has 30 Marines, when they turn up in the operational unit will have 30 Marines. So if you're going to play early, you need to do it in a safe environment, which was a training environment or why you have a simulated environment like a war game whereby there's no impact on other people of getting things wrong early. Because you could get things wrong early in a commander unit when there's 30 people marching up the wrong Hill, carrying a heavy weight in the wrong direction. That's failing early and you're going to feel that big time.
Andy:Yeah, really great examples like how can people know what good looks like if you haven't actually shown, you haven't modelled that behaviour. Let me take a moment to tell you about our sponsor, could you use some additional experience resources so you can work alongside you and your team on a flexible basis to help you achieve your priorities. I started Aquilae in 2016. And since then, we've worked internationally with established automotive OEMs, EV startups, fintechs, and insurance companies to achieve their unique mobility goals. Aquilae team members are highly experienced senior leaders with complementary areas of expertise who've run businesses and divisions internationally in our industry. Because we've all had many years experience of operating in the industry ourselves. We don't just advise our clients on what to do. Instead, we tend to work alongside them delivering their specific projects, we're happy to develop strategy, and we're equally happy to then get involved delivering the plan. Mobility businesses are all about people processes and technology. We leverage our Aquilae Academy for people development, and Aquilae Consulting for those wider business topics. To give you some examples of the sort of work we do through the Aquilae Academy, we work with CEOs and their first line to develop cohesive leadership teams. We create continuous learning environments for leadership development, we develop bespoke programmes to improve the performance of specific teams, and we provide one to one coaching for high performing individuals. To give you some examples of the sort of work we do through Aquilae Consulting. We help create paperless digital end to end customer journeys. For direct to consumer finance and subscription models, we conduct strategic reviews. For example, one client asked us what's the best financial services structure for each market we operate in. We produce feasibility studies for new market entry, we advise on and support regulatory applications. We help design, implement and monitor regulatory compliance procedures. We run tenders and vendor selection projects, we conduct end to end operational reviews to improve effectiveness and efficiency. If you're looking for some help with people or business topics, and you like the idea of having some additional very experienced resources, who can work flexibly alongside you, please get in touch with me for a conversation. You can email me directly at andy@aquilae.co.uk. Okay, let's get back to our episode. I think about the topic of ego, and how there's enough egos in the corporate world, I imagine when people are, it's no different for human beings who are trying to become the best of the best, you know that the advert says 99.9% Need Not Apply so
Alex Case:Terrible advert, terrible advert. It's factually true, but it's factually true, but terrible advert. I mean that figure 99.9 is accurate, because that's the amount of people we need. But you put a fence up straightaway, you say it's so hard. Only .01% can make it that might be factually true. But you want people to go actually that's achievable. Have a go at that I'd rather have 10 volunteers for every place than only have one turn up for one place.
Andy:So that's good, too. Well, it's not good, but it's interesting to hear that so you're gonna have egos though and egos often result in people not treating other people very well because all they're concerned about is their success their individual success. So what are some other ways you get people to behave really well with the people around them and support the people around them so that the the squad succeeds or team succeed?
Alex Case:So yes there's egos, I've got plenty of people in the military with egos. However, question managing that ego, especially in the junior level. So one of the ways of managing that is obviously you've done the pre selections you hope someone with an overt ego issue will not be there but there's still egos. What that what most of the military, and I can only speak for the Royal Marines really, then go through is a series of very basic training regime for the first 13-20 weeks you learn some really basic drills, you're learning what the Marines do in order that you can lead Marines. So you're doing things that are quite basic, quite routine, you need to build up the skill set to going to do them very well and understand what someone's going through when the firing a personal weapon or machine gun or mortar, whatever it is. And therefore, by definition, you're doing some pretty arduous, usually cold and wet, usually tiring serials that will eke out most people's egos pretty quickly. And bear in mind in training, you're doing those with your peers, as you well know on any course the peers know the base tricks, you can hide a certain certain amount from the train team or from the trainers. But your peers, the ones you're doing it with, they know the tricks of who is doing the job properly on time to the way you were taught rather than cut corners, because you can do because there's no threat because it's not real, and those egos will not be popular within that group. That doesn't mean this self selection, but it means if someone's got an ego that's preventing them doing the job, they'll be told they've got an ego it's preventing doing the job,
Andy:Who will tell them that?
Alex Case:Well the peers are first ones because the peers that your peers when you're, I'll give you an example is very basic example. It's a very basic function. When one of the serials we do in trainings, we make the young officers manually dig a what's called a fire trench. So if you think old school soldier in a trench peering over the top waiting for someone to come at them, it's about five feet deep, it's two feet wide, it has various bits inside it. Physically digging that with a spade takes about 36 hours to build one for group, a team of four. The army have plant what's called engineering tractors. Okay, very sensibly tractor comes in scooped it out, you can do in about six hours, you still build the thing for six out. When we do our defence exercise, we should only only really use a trench when you're in defence, we make the Royal Marines officers, and the recruits dig that trench by hand complete in 36 hours or less. Because you need to know how hard it is when you tell someone to go and prepare a trench. And therefore you need to go through it. Now you could say I can teach, I can just show me it takes a long time, it's 36 hours, I will never forget what it is like to dig that trench. Nor will my peers I was with that day. And nor will anyone who had an ego, who didn't think they had to get in a trench having not slept for 24 hours and dig properly, it's dark, it's wet, you could stand there and not give your full weight into that spade because you're absolutely exhausted. But actually, if you don't do it, then the next person is not going to do it. And you'll be there for 48 hours. So a really simple example. And there's plenty of them of how your peers will know first, if you're not functioning, doesn't matter, it's because of an ego or not. Your trading team after a while will see enough of you to know how you're performing. And if you've got an ego and it causes a problem, they will tell you and going back to your point and the one of your Side Mirrors about continual review. It's it's done some times in a half hour coffee interview with your annual report. And there's a few words in there but hasn't been discussed, you will be told in training every day, two days, whether your effort is enough your capability enough if you're meeting the mark or not, because you've only got it sounds a long time, it's not that long, 54 weeks to train and assess all these individuals. When you leave training, or leave the classroom if you like and go into operational unit, you'll be assessed and told either way, whether you're doing well, indifferently poorly by either your direct line manager, your team, boss, by your peers, sometimes by your subordinates. So your troop sergeant, your second in command, the senior NCO similar to the ones taking you through training, he will come to you and quite frankly, say sir, that's not good enough, what you just done is not good enough. It's not good enough for the men you're leading, you need to up your game in this and this. And in exactly the same way. As you know, he'll he might come in two days later and say sir, that was that was really good. That was really well run lesson plan or physical training period or an exercise where we training or actual operations. And he'll say that was really good. And that's from a man who's been in 10, 12, 15 years compared to you, you're in year two day one in that unit.
Andy:So that person might be some subordinate, but there'd be a lot of respect from the officer from the young officer to that individual because they know full well, this guy seen a lot more I seen a few rotations of people like me,
Alex Case:He, he's seen nine or ten of me, and he's seen good and he's seen bad. And you hope that their relationship is very close anyway. And you hope that they both have the ability just in the same way as the officer will say to the sergeant. And I've seen plenty of examples whereby the young officer had been in the unit for a week. And he's not impressed by the way the senior NCO or junior NCO is behaving. And you have to have a word and say that's not the standard. I expect. That's the someone who's been in the unit, you know, been the in the Royal Marines 9, 10, 12 years, but that's his role. Yeah, make sure it's not just you know, it's not just a mark. It's evidence based and you might have consulted somewhere else about it. But his responsibility is to make sure that everyone's performing to the highest standards.
Andy:There's a lot in there, Albert like that it's not just a remark, it's evidence based, he might have consulted someone else. Because you can imagine that, you know, people are human, after that you might get a bit complacent after nine or 10 observations of this and, or something happens outside, you know, you're having difficulty at home or wait, you know, something gets in your head, and you're just not the guy that you were. Oh, there's so much that, I'm so glad we're doing this, there's so much interesting stuff that it's throwing up the peer accountability, I'd be interested in what my listeners think about this, but I'm not used to seeing in a corporate setting, peers calling each other out, holding each other accountable, it's much more left is the boss gonna do something about this or not.
Alex Case:So we need to differentiate here between the peers when they're going through training. So if you're on a 54 week course, and you get to know everyone really well, and therefore your peers are very open about someone who's not meeting the mark or not trying to meet the mark, when you go into a, let's call it the Salesforce, the first operational unit, and your peers are, which is another in that unit 12, 13 of you, and next rank up was another four or five of you. If the performance of your peer, whether it's in your bigger team, or why the team is not up to the standard, which you've learned is the norm in that unit. So he's cutting corners, or he's just not doing some things not motivated. As a Royal Marines officer, you don't want that to happen, because you're a Royal Marines officer. And he he will be risking tarnishing the reputation of the other Royal Marine officers and everyone associate the Royal Marine officers the way that individuals behaving and so, you know, a word of encouragement or a word of disparagement, to say that's not the way we do it. That's not the standard we have. And if that doesn't work very quickly, his line manager will be aware that he's cutting corners, he'll find out slower than his peers. And he will correct it by informal encouragement.
Andy:So one officer will say to another officer, the same level, that's not good enough. And they will have the the motivation, if you like that the courage for one of a better word to do that, because they know what's been instilled in that the brand values of the Royal Marines are being threatened if you like. And so that will give them what they need to have a difficult conversation, basically,
Alex Case:and if it didn't feel comfortable having that difficult conversation, because of a clash of personalities, it just gets referred to the chain of command. And that becomes formalised then. But you have a culture of high standards, there's a certain ethos in the Royal Marines, and you don't want that ethos to be diminished by someone doing something that's not not the way you've been taught to do it now, yet there's you can adapt things, what you've been taught, if you're cutting corners, you're doing things that are unsafe, or are exposing someone to risk which can be done, then, you know, it's everyone's responsibility to step in regardless of rank.
Andy:That culture, then has I mean, it's not surprising, what you're saying is you don't even have to explain it. Of course, it's Yeah, hundreds of years of tradition, legacy, incredible stories, people behaving in impeccable, exemplary way, builds up this desire to want to be part of it, and then to behave accordingly. So that all makes sense. I think I've derailed us a bit from from one of my questions, which was still this idea of getting people to do things they don't believe they can do. So you must have had recruits during the those 54 weeks. And that's a big investment. So the Royal Marines have invested a lot of money in putting someone through that course. And you've got someone there who, you know, they can do it, and they don't think they can does there are particular things you can talk about that?
Alex Case:Yeah, sure. So I'll just clarify. So I've I've trained recruits, as you refer to I've trained young officers, the two are different that training is similar, but the 54 weeks is for the young officer, so the recruits do 32 weeks they'll pass out as Marines, the officers pass as second lieutenant. And so yeah, so the there's two key areas where individuals fail in training. And when I say fail, when I was running training, we only dismissed as in removed from training, I think to individuals in two years. That's out of 120 candidates, right 35% of the starters failed, didn't finish training, only formally removed two by the process. And the reason being is the people who we would have had to remove through failure, removed themselves because they would recognise something when they're given it everything they could, they still couldn't pass test a they would they would resign and then walk away. The two we had to remove from training, you know, it probably reflects on the character they couldn't see the fact that they they just couldn't pass this test and it got to the point where you go through a system it's it's very thorough, there's oversight, I'm removed from it eventually, next person is removed from it and eventually become someone three, four levels up who's had the evidence and has seen and he's had a chance to correct it, he'd be marked by someone else. It's not a personality. So that's failing to achieve something. And then the other weak area where somewhere is this nebulous thing called leadership. So how do you measure leadership? How do you test it? How do you tick that someone is a leader, it's actually very difficult. But what the military do, and the Royal Marines do is they through the need to train someone in tactical operations. So attack defence, delayed things on the ground, you'll actually use those tactical evolutions as vehicles to allow different members of the batch trying to go through training, to be the leader at certain times and test their leadership tactically in front of a group of might be their peers, but 30 of the group, they will eventually leave a lead 30 strong. And they show leadership by they do they do three things, you plan something, you communicate that plan, and you execute the plan. That's the three steps, it doesn't matter what where you are, what you're doing hot, cold, you're you're planning all the time, whether that's tactically because enemy out there, or because you're in barracks, and you're doing training, you're planning something, you're then going to communicate it to your subordinates and your team, and infact, you're going to sell your plan. This is what we're going to do, you've been tasked to do this. This is how we're going to do it. And this is why it's going to work. And there's a set way of doing it, and they have to learn how to do it. And then you execute. And I said before, you know, the plan will always change. You never get clarity, fog of war. Therefore you have to execute by adapting that plan. And that plan is just your starting point. And going back to the soccer analogy, or a football analogy, the manager gives you the plan, you go out on the field, that doesn't work because Joe can't tackle that Winger. So you change Joe for Bob and Bob comes in, he tackles the wingman. The captain's adapting that plan on the field, he hasn't gone back to the coach to ask for direction because the coach has given him freedom to adapt the plan if required on those two things. So one leadership and two passing certain tests. And let's take the ultimate test for us. One of the four commando tests is four objective tests that are physical that come towards the end of training, every single Royal Marine does them every single Royal Marine has to pass them. The fourth test, the hardest test, the most people will be aware of is a 30 miler, it's called the 30 miler, it's 30 miles long, you carry about 40 pounds it's across rough ground, and you do it in a certain amount of time. And if you don't, you fail. And I've seen recruiting officers fail by seven seconds. It's taken, it's taken seven hours. And they've done it in seven hours and seven seconds, and they've failed. And there's no one that said, aw he actually tried really hard he's a good guy, you can pass it's a fail. And he'll come back the next day. And he'll try it again. So he's done 30 miles and that day, and 30 miles the next day. Now that individual doesn't need much motivating to go back on that second day. Because he's just put in at that point nine months of arduous training. And this is his final test that's presume let's say he's past the three on the previous three days. And if those finished that day, those that gotten into seven hours, all got the Green Beret, and they've gone on to that commando training, and they've gone on to carry on future training that the individual went back. And the next day passed with 15 minutes to spare. The individual you can you can encourage him, you can speak to him, all we had to do with him was make it absolutely clear that if you can do it in seven hours and seven seconds, there is no question that you can do it in seven hours, it's not seven hours, 59 minutes go cut an hour off. It's seven hours and seven seconds with that example, the individual mentally had accepted that he wasn't saying I can't do this, I can't do this. Well, when we're going to find seven seconds from you can find it in the first 10 minutes. But you now personally have to go back and rest and recuperate and when you go back out the next day, and you'll have your peers with you helping you. So you do that test in a group of four or five men. And you can't let anyone go unless at 20 and pull them out. Okay, so that's that team has to pass, the rest of that team did pass because the individual could not speed up on the last mile. And that wasn't the team's fault. But you'll have peers go with you to help you because you do it in a team. But you're the only person being tested. And that individual passed the test because he he motivated himself how he did it. I don't know because 3030 miles in one day, 30 Miles next day is pretty hard going and he individually motivated himself. The environment he was put in by the train team wasn't you failed your crap. Tomorrow you might pass let's wait and see. It wasn't that was bad luck, Mr. So and so. Good effort to get there and seven hours, seven seconds. We will now do everything we can to allow you to get you to pass tomorrow by giving you food and rest and we will organise the next 30 miler and they'll be four peers with you. And you can do this and then it's up to him.
Andy:So I can understand that scenario Al, that maybe all of us have had some sort of experience where we've done something that surprised us. And once we've done it once our beliefs system changes about what we're able to do, you know, so I can understand him thinking, Oh, my goodness, I can do it in seven hours, seven minutes. I can do it seven seconds, I sorry, I can do it in under seven minutes, although I wouldn't be thinking here, but I might tomorrow I'm going to ache in the morning. So that's a really good example of someone believing so how do you manufacture it? So that was part of the system, he, he went through it, he failed by seven seconds, but he realised I was so close. Surely I can do this. So then you supported him to have another go? I'm not sure if there are other examples.
Alex Case:So yeah, so very simple example. There's a thing called the the assault course. And you have to do the assault course, it's one of the it's one of the again one of the commander test. And it's not really a it's a physical challenge, right. But it's actually a mental challenge, because for about three and a half, four minutes, you're going through an assault course where there's a technique to every single obstacle, and you could be the fittest man in the world. But if you didn't, if you couldn't repeat those techniques until it's sliding down ropes underneath ropes and going back on top of ropes. So that technique is that test is actually testing someone, can they perform task drills have been taught under extreme time and physical pressure. So you, they're stressed, because they want to pass. It's not a question of running as fast as they can, they got to do certain techniques on the obstacle course to actually get around the obstacles. And physically, they got to work really hard so that they're mentally and physically under pressure, which is exactly the place you want to get these guys to because that's what they'll do for real. And so it's a it's a true test, even though it's only four minutes long. And we had two individuals who technically physically were as fit as anyone else. Okay, but technically, they couldn't master certain skills under pressure on the assault course, it's called the Tarzan assault course. And so their times were beyond the past mark, because they physically doing something very slowly climbing over a rope net, or jumping off a rope net or swinging a rope. And so they couldn't complete the physical task, as it's meant to be done that skill set under time and physical pressure. And so what we did was we put them into a separate class, as in a separate area where we were training, and we had instructors, the physical instructors go back over the technique that they weren't managing. And all they did was technique for X number of days. So by doing that, you're removing, and they learned the skill better, because they'd be not shortcutting. But the technique wasn't good enough before. And they were then overcoming those technical obstacles, when you've shown them that can overcome technical obstacle and done it under physical pressure. So they'd be doing a full session, so they'd be blowing. And then they're doing these isolated skills. And then you just go back and say, Okay, Mr. So and so if you can do this in isolation, give me a reason why he couldn't do it on this on this course. And then you build them up to doing it as part of the pressurised test. And they realised that they can do it under pressure, because they've just done it under pressure for the previous 2, 3, 5, 6 days. And you can prove that skill set the technical skill, to the point where they can do it under pressure, physical and mental. And they both passed that test. That's giving that individual additional training, and perhaps slowing down the technique, perhaps they haven't picked it up when it's been done under been taught as a mass number and you expect it, you've done it in slow time, but they haven't quite picked up the skill, as well, exactly the same way as in exactly the same way as shooting a weapon to shoot a rifle, it's a skill. If you just keep repeating the same test time and time again, they're going to keep failing the same test time time again. And there's now a it wasn't always the case. There's now a culture of if someone's failing a test that's fine that the reason why it's not because he's an idiot, but might be but it's a skill. shooting a rifle is a skill. And so you then break down the skill. The instructors are very, very good at picking out the reason why failing, go back reteach get the standard backup again, then put them back into testing environment and make sure they can pass a test that's not treating someone differently. It's training the aspects that that person is not gifted enough to be able to do first first on.
Andy:Brilliant answer, Al. I really like that so you've got an overall task which is the Tarzan assaults course needs to be done in a certain time frame, someone's repeatedly failing it who's otherwise a fit healthy capable individual. So let's break it down find out where their weak point in this is take them to one side, get them to work on that isolate that particular skill that's causing them the problem add a bit of pressure so they they get to experience doing it eventually with some pressure and then in doing so their confidence is going to go they're going to believe I can do this bit now I have got this skill now and then say right now go back to the big picture exercise. I love it. Find out, break it down, take it down a level of detail, what is causing this problem and it can you imagine you could work that in a say someone's not good at sales for example. They're they're great at getting appointments. They're great at Getting into the appointment. They're great at chatting to the receptionist, and they're great at opening the conversation. But then there's a, there's a five minute bit where they lose the they forget to ask the right questions or Okay, that's where he's falling down. So,
Alex Case:and interestingly, I'm quite good. Keep going back to the sales team approach. The difference here is how often did you as a team manager, see those individuals perform those tasks that they're weak at? You might see it once or twice or three times, or we might seen three or four sales pitches, but only one where they struggle with a particular aspect. There is no one who's performing in the military who is not doing it in public. I mean, they're literally doing it in close proximity to each other, your weaknesses, and your strengths are open to be seen by everybody all the time. Which is a good a good thing. Because you can correct weaknesses. For the individual. It's slightly awkward sometimes, but there is no hiding there. Absolutely no hiding everything you do is done with each other. In fact, it comes comes down to the buddy buddy system whereby you never do anything individually, you always do the pair. And two pairs work together as a four and two fours become a section and it's always with someone else.
Andy:Yeah, brilliant. I'm loving this conversation AI, absolutely fascinating. I think I love making this, you know, hearing you explain what the world is like what the military world is like, and the way things are done. And then thinking, Well, how could that be relevant to a corporate environment? How could we get peers holding each other accountable? More? How could we have buddies? How could we get people doing their job out in the open more so that however uncomfortable, it might be an awkward, they get the opportunity of a buddy saying, actually the way you did that, I noticed that we kind of lost the prospects attention at that point. And if you did this, that might better say, all that is fascinating. I did want though, there's so much talk in the corporate environment about how everything's changing how pace of change at the moment is faster than it's ever been. And it's accelerating, and there's so much disruption, and we're all having to find new ways to do things. And COVID came along and everybody was already talking about digitalization, for example, but then they really had to get behind it because no customers were coming in, what's the equivalent for elite forces and what changes and this isn't necessarily a, I'm not sure if this is relevant, particularly. But I just find it absolutely fascinating when we have these conversations over a beer. I'm absolutely enthralled by your understanding of what's going on and the complete sort of different challenges that you're exposed to. So what sort of things are elite forces having to learn and adapt as the world changes?
Alex Case:So the biggest change we've we've come across is, and there's no kind of phrase for it, but we've gone from being static to being dynamic. So we look back to the 50s 60s 70s, the military's task was to prevent the Russians crossing the plains of Germany fact. Then there's a Northern Ireland thing, static, predictable. Those two environments consumed British military, for right reasons, post Second World War. And then you jump forward and go, Okay, so you then had the end of the Cold War, and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which meant within a space of a few years, big static operations ceased, or the requirement for them ceased. And then all of a sudden, you had a changing environment, whereby people will recall things like in the space of a few years, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, popped up, whereby these weren't big scale, they weren't predictable. They weren't known. There were things that popped up, the threat is dealt with went back down again, next one popped up. Dealt with it. And what the requirement came to the military that we're no longer in the plains of Germany and Northern Ireland, we're now dealing with unexpected threats. We can't therefore, by definition, can't predict the next one, you can do some, you can do some scanning, but you can't you don't know what it is. So we now need to be prepared for lots of small events, and not one big one in Germany. And then things like Iraq and Afghanistan, they got pretty big, but they've gone back down again, clearly. And there's other ones that will pop up all the time. So the general culture became one of joint which means all three services working to a common plan, which everyone assumed is a norm, but pre Falklands wasn't. The Falklands really forced people to realise that there is a better way of doing things, both in planning execution, and the culture within the military. Partly because we got lot smaller because these fixed threats are gone. And therefore when you're small, you have to be more agile and mobile and dynamic. But regardless of scale, there was also a need to be more dynamic and mobile, because we had to deal with quick pop up threats, prepare a force to go and deal with that. deal with the threat And then revert back and be ready for the next one. And so we're seeing a lot more of what we call forward presence. So the Royal Navy have always had forward presence, their ships are always out there, this safest place for ships in the harbour. But the ships aren't designed to be in harbours, right, designed to be out in the high seas. Traditionally, we now have gotten to a point where we're putting forces onboard no ships rather than fly them out if required, because you can then react far quicker. So if your your capability is sat in the Gulf, or in the med or the Indian Ocean, wherever it is, you've got the option to deal with this popup threat really, really quickly. That's demanding because there's people onboard ship or deployed somewhere far more than they used to be. But the general culture touching on the mission command thing is whereby the days of big division sat on the German plane with great detail synchronisation plans, including air and all the rest of the services, they are far more likely now to be a small discreet package force setup for particular tasks dispatched or already in the area, coordinated with assets to give them this force multiplier effect, whereby you have, whether it be aircraft or listening devices, whatever it is, and then discreetly deal with that task. Hopefully, it doesn't get too big, and then stepped back and go on to the next task. That requires a culture of dynamism, flexibility, mission command being told what to achieve, and why not how to do it. That's the biggest change. And that started before before my time. But it's something that didn't exist in the 70s and 80s, where we're big scale station meaning forces.
Andy:So thank you Al. And what that makes me think in terms of corporate world is there is a requirement for more agility for people to be more dynamic for people to collaborate with especially in the digital space, with different within an ecosystem where there are different technology providers offering best in class solutions to a particular problem, and you have to put them all together. And what happens in large, mature corporate organisations is some challenge to alter the the speed at which they move and their ability to be this agile, do you see any parallel of that in the military, or have they managed to overcome that sort of legacy kind of way of doing things and
Alex Case:they haven't overcome the legacy, the thing that's slowest to change in the military is not the person, it's the equipment. Commerce would be shocked how long it takes to change equipment in the military, because the procurement cycle, approval cycle competition cycle, and then eventually production cycle is very, very slow, for good reason trying to make the most for each pound we spend from tax tax pounds, but very, very slow, cumbersome procurement system. Some changes have been made recently to try and bypass some of those legacy processes, where the value or the requirements is exceptional, as in a small value or the requirements exceptional to bypass slow, but there was still a very, very slow system to provide the equipment, what has been done is the ability to recruit the right people train the right people with the right culture and perspective is definitely changed for the better. And so you're getting people who can see, I suggest a wider picture doesn't mean that the people in the 80s and 70s couldn't, but they weren't given the opportunities it needed to they needed people in vehicles and aircraft in Germany. And that's what the output was. So we are getting there, the way things are done, the way it's taught in the military is called doctrine. It's not a negative term, even though some people use the word doctrine the wrong way. It's an established proven way of doing something in the military, rather than teach that and say, that's the way you do it. It's these are the fundamentals, they've been learned over many years of history, and blood, this is a good way of doing it. And these are things not to do how you adapt that to that plan. Your ability to be flexible and apply were acquired and adapt to that particular challenge you got is the key going on. After producing the same template, we're after using that template in a dynamic way with some resources, in particular intelligence or information fees that you would never have got the low level for the same technology reasons that you described, whereby you can inform a very small team now of some very discrete bits of information. And they can have an effect that they can never have before. Because of their ability to reach whether it be with direct fire or indirect fire or communications, they can have an effect that teams years ago couldn't have. So there is adaptation, the equipment, sometimes drags behind the people.
Andy:I think some people listening to that from my industry will be thinking about the legacy platforms. They have the legacy back office systems that they've had for a few years on a massive multimillion pound projects to change and you have to go through all the hierarchy so there'll be some resonance there. So thanks for sharing that Al. I wanted to give you an opportunity just to share what you're doing now and say a little bit about what your organisation does, so that if there is any commercial relevance or any anyone listens in and they're interested they can reach out to you?
Alex Case:Yeah, thanks. So I retired in 2014, I have a couple of jobs in the US one with a large defence contractor and one with a small healthcare startup. And then in 2017, we formed Cordillera Applications Group, which is a diversified consulting company that primarily keeps the lights on by providing consulting services to the military. So we have business with NATO, four or five nations from NATO, both here in the US in the UK, in Europe. And one of our two of our main outputs of them is concept of elements, how to do something differently. How do you write a concept that can do something differently. And then Wargaming, which the word itself makes some people think of sort of games of war Wargaming is scenario based decision making, that's all it is. So you simulate an environment or a problem or a set of tasks, and you get a group of people to come up with a plan, and execute that plan. And you can use a model or analysis tool to judge how well or how badly they've done that. But you're providing people with a safe environment, to do something differently, and get good at doing it. Okay, by Wargaming. Those clients keep the lights on, the ones that we are using more and more is commercial organisations who are doing scenarios based decision making. Don't call it Wargaming, whereby they can put whatever team they choose to put into a planning situation, come up with a plan to solve a problem, and then work through that problem in a safe training environments to either test their solution, or train together, sometimes both. And that's becoming really important, because that's done almost cost free, there's no there's no impact on your sales force, your operations, your actual entity, you're isolating people in an environment and giving them a problem. It has to be done realistically has to be done with some clarity. But they can sit and test or train in that environment, making decisions based on a scenario that's connected or disconnected to their current role. So we're currently doing that in the UK, Europe, US and Central America.
Andy:Wow. So a commercial organisation could come to you and say, we want to do some development work with our people, we want to get them working on some decision making together, here's we'll, you'll help them write a brief or they'll come up with a problem they think is a good one, you help them write a brief, and then you'll create a, an exercise for them, and run that for them and monitor them and report and
Alex Case:yep, so we've currently got three banks, we're doing that for a couple of foundations and a charity we're doing that for. And that is, and the idea is it's there's no preparation on behalf of the company. And there's no after work either. So they turn up on it could be an hour could be four days. But that staff turn up and there's no preparation until after work. And they are isolated for that period, from their normal day work depending on how they're gonna do it. And someone external is providing them with an opportunity to analyse, plan and make decisions.
Andy:Right, very good. One thing we haven't talked about Al which comes up a lot in my interviews with corporate guests is networking and how important it is and how it's helped them. And does that how does that work for you? Oh, how does it work in the military? Is it the same?
Alex Case:So networking slightly different that the term networking is not a healthy thing within within the military, per se? Because it's it's outside of the chain of command, you're in a team, your team's in a team, your team seems in a team and that's that's your team? So networking sometimes would be why why are you going to someone outside of our team that our team and that team could be the biggest team is three and a half, six and a half thousand men but you wouldn't go to a different team and ask about something because that's your team. So it's viewed slightly unprofessional unteamlike to be networking to other organisations. However, your network is absolutely critical. So my network I have built up by well, when I was serving 23 year service in diverse organisations to towards the United States Marine Corps a tour in the Middle East operate the Middle East, served in two out of the three units in the Royal Marines, trained recruits trained officers. And if I needed to find someone in an organisation, I could my network was broad enough and deep enough to probably find someone that knew somebody in an organisation to ask some advice now, professionally, that'd be seeking advice about something whether it's the job I'm in how to do some who to speak to about something, or going back to the point about self. So the example might be that for my continuous self development, I want to know how to get job X after this job. And in a real life example, I needed on very short notice I needed a job in the NATO headquarters in Norfolk, before I retired for one year, because there'd been a stall on my green card. within 24 hours, I had phoned, the three critical people that made the decision on who was allocated to the job vacancy, which I knew existed, I needed for one year, those three people, one was a Royal Marine in the embassy, who I worked with previously, we knew each other, we trusted each other personally. One was the person who is the career manager for Royal Marines. Now, obviously, you should know him anyway. But he happened to be a very good friend of mine. And we had trust in that relationship. And they both said, I fully endorse, you're going to fill that one year job because actually, you need it. And I trust you that it'd be one year you won't then try and extend it to two or three, but the British National liaison representative has the over arching decision as to who will fill and whether someone will fill a one year position because imagine the expense of someone saying we're going to bring someone from the UK to fill a job for one year doesn't make any sense. That's why jobs are three years in NATO. I happened to be in the country. I said, Okay, so my job is to convince him who is it? And they said, it's Gary so and so. So okay. So I phoned up Gary so and so I said, Gary, it's Alex Case. He went, wow, we haven't spoken in 12 years. How are you? Gary? I'm fine. We were at staff college together, we sat next to each other for about 12 weeks of a one year course. I said, Gary, I'm your one year fill for this job. And I've got approval from the other two individuals already. He said, Alex, if you come, it's only one year, I can't extend you should what most people try and do. One year fill, that's all I need. He said done. You can tell the other two, it's done. Within 24 hours purely from my network and my network of not just knowing who it was, but be able to phone them and say it's very unusual, but I can fill your one year gap. All three had said yes, you can do that. And they've accepted the financial supposed and risk of putting someone in a position in America for one year. But because I assured them that I wasn't going to try and bend the rules. They all three said yep. That's great.
Andy:Fantastic example.
Alex Case:I hadn't actively sought any of those three individuals out during my career, I hadn't thought that's a person I need to know. Which is, I think, the way some people think of networking being a bit slimy and a bit underhanded. I need to get to know him. And it's a bit like sort of trying to be the teacher's pet, right? And ask the teacher can go and speak to headmaster, it happened to my network by had existing from my time, and, you know, it's me, so they knew me, that's what gave me the position to leverage my network to try and get a one year fill when no one wants to do one year fills.
Andy:So it's not about it's not about singling individuals out who you think you can be good for your career and approaching them and trying to get something out of them just for you. It's about over time, building up a network of people who they have a good experience of you this trust, you mentioned trust in those relationships in each one. And it could be any good because you're on a course together, or whatever reason. And one of my guests, Matthew Boguradzki he had a philosophy that he was, he'd achieved what he achieved, because of reputation, network, and luck. And that's, you know, you are lucky that those people happen to be in those jobs. And that was a one year opportunity gap. But then it was your reputation. And the fact that you knew those people, the network that allowed you to make that happen in 24 hours and save the day, as it were
Alex Case:And go home and tell my very understanding wife that I'd solved the problem that I'd only briefed about about 10 minutes before. So that's the person that drives my constant learning and professional expansion. And then just going on from that, that that same network I then carried forward when I left the military, both my network here in the US and my network in the UK, has carried on since I've left because my network again is broad enough and deep enough that when I needed help with A, B or C, I either knew someone who could help me or someone who knew someone who could help me. And I will say we all know it. If you want to build your network, ask someone if you could have 15 minutes with coffee to ask them about how they did something and who doesn't want to talk about themselves for 15 minutes over coffee. I mean it's fact trying to explain that to my military colleagues when when they're in the process of leaving that you can email phone LinkedIn somebody that you've known, you don't know that well perhaps Well, I consider you a valuable part of my network. Wonderful might be couple of ranks up but you've had contact with and they may well know you or of you and you say look, Bob, you did that job. I want to go and do a job similar I just bend your ear 50 minutes. Any Royal Marine any military person, most Brits, I know will talk about sales 50 minutes and coffee will last an hour, hour and a quarter. So rather than saying, I'm trying to expand my network I like to meet to exchange ideas about something key, you're actually asking them to just tell you how they did something because you're considering it, or you might come across it or you're going through a similar job. And who's not going to want to talk about themselves. I've just done it for an hour and three quarters. example. Thank you very much. Is there anything I haven't asked you now that you think based on your thoughts on what happened in Vegas, or anything else do you think would have been relevant to Yeah, what happened in Vegas, the podcast, not when we went, which very tame. Because we went with our families. I think I think we've covered I think we've covered most of it. We touched on fail early, clearly, one of my moments on listen to on your guest talk about failing early is you have to fail early in the right environment. And we've touched on that for the military is slightly different, because there's certain things you can or can't do. If you can create an environment, whether it's simulated or real, whereby that failure teaches valuable lessons, I completely endorse that. But it has to be the right environment, I have seen people encouraged to fail, they failed. The impacts gone second, third order effects beyond anything, anyone thought, and actually hasn't done any good at all, because the environment they were failing in was exposed to third and fourth parties.
Andy:Was that a commercial, environmental or military environment?
Alex Case:Both. I've seen it on both. In the military environment, there was a a safety issue that wasn't recognised, but there was no one hurt in a commercial environment. It was it was it was trying a new sales pitch for a product with a hospital and the sales pitch failed early. And the reputation of the organisation we were working for us to have a slight hit because in the network were in the hot topic was the fact that this sales pitch product wasn't successful. And the danger is in a closed community. Word gets around pretty quickly. And that failure wasn't beneficial.
Andy:Really interesting. You don't often hear a lot of encouragement to be a lot more quick and dirty. And what's the word they use at Tesla, one of the values there was a scrappy you hear, a lot of encouragement to fail fast, fail early, you don't hear a lot of in but that qualifying statement of make sure you do that in the right environment. Otherwise, that little lesson that you're proud to have learned could have actually got some collateral damage that you were anticipating really helpful, not the usual message Al. So thank you for sharing that. I'm sitting here I've had a wonderful conversation with my brother in law, not dissimilar to us in the pub. Really. We have fascinating chats over beer sometimes, I'm conscious that my listeners might be thinking, Well, why didn't you ask him that? Why didn't you ask him that? I'd like to know this. And I appreciate that. I've only asked you things that are mentioned commented on observed things that came to my mind and appreciate I might have missed a lot of things that listeners would like to hear. So sorry, if that's the case, you can reach out to to me or to Al if you if there's something particularly curious about and if you'd like to engage Cordillera Applications to run some decision making workshop for you. I'm sure they'd be interested to talk to you about that as well. So with that, I'm just gonna say thank you very much again Al absolutely brilliant, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
Alex Case:Thank you very much, Andy. I will now have this image in my head whenever I now listen to a podcast.
Andy:Yeah, and I know what it looks like. Cheerio.
Alex Case:Thanks, And.
Andy:You been listening to Career-view Mirror with me, Andy Follows. In this episode, Alex and I have explored the topic of people development from the unique perspective of the elite world of the Royal Marines Commandos. I hope you found some helpful points to reflect on and more importantly, maybe act on in your own environment. You can contact Alex via email, and we'll put a link in the show notes to this episode. If you enjoy listening to Career-view Mirror, please could you do me a favour and click the Follow button in the app that you use to listen to your podcasts. This helps our podcast grow so that we can continue to share the wealth of experience that our guests have amassed during their career so far. Thanks for listening.
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