Applying principles of warfare to modern legal practice - Part Two: The concentration of force.
In the previous article, I reflected that modern business management and leadership often borrows, directly or indirectly, from military strategy and doctrine. The twenty-first century lawyer (or mediator) - be it sole trader, employee or partner is, by necessity, a business person. Often, lawyers are slow to adapt to successful business modelling - so what can we learn from implementing the “10 Principles of Warfare” to our practice?
But first! Who am I? I’m a Gold Coast based Barrister and Mediator, a MBA graduate and Australian Defence Force veteran, having served for seven years in the ADF. Having set up my own practice now over 12 months ago (and survived to tell the story!) I intimately understand the challenges and stresses of entering the legal profession as a sole trader and starting your own business.
The previous article. In my last article, I spoke about the first principle of war - the selection and maintenance of the aim. This article is a follow-on to that article, so if you haven’t first had a look at that, this may not make a terrible bunch of sense!
Disclaimer. This article in no way is written with a view to glorify or promote military conquest, particularly in what seems like an increasingly divisive world. However, if readers might be searching for motivation, effective planning considerations or learning how to effect decisive action in their life or legal practice, few models are more effective than those utilised by the world’s military forces.
So - you’ve selected an ‘aim’ - what’s next?
I’m glad you asked! An aim is pointless unless you have the ability to realise its fruition through the appropriate planning and allocation of resources - the concentration of force.
As a sole trader, resources include your time, efforts and attention. In practices or partnerships, the consideration turns to allocation of firm assets and personnel. Irrespective of which model, the considerations require an intimate understanding of yourself and your team, such as:
What is the desired end-state (refer to selection of the aim)?
Between there and now, how might that be divided into specific, measurable, attainable, relevance and time focused steps or phases?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of my team as a collective?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals in that team, and how might the compliment or be best counter-balanced?
If those strengths and weaknesses are to be complimented or counter-balanced, how do I plan to ensure each member knows their ‘left and right of arc’? (or, said less militarily, their freedoms and constraints)
Realisng success, and reorganising. One consideration which is deserving of its own paragraph is what, in the military, would be called the “limit of exploitation”. Its meaning is best described:
Imagine, if you will, the soldiers you commanded successfully attacked a position on a hill. The enemy were driven off, and you have achieved your mission. However, inspired by their success, and due to a failure of effective control of resources, no-one was around to corral the troops - they kept chasing the enemy, becoming increasingly disorganised. The enemy, having planned what to do if they lost the first battle, had ensured their resources knew where to re-organise and counter-attack. Your troops, impervious to the threat, confident and pressing have pursued and exploited the ground too far! Disorganised and without leadership, disaster looms!
History is littered with examples of failures by leaders to exercise effective control following an initial success. How many fortunes have been ruined by ego? How many deals have been lost through overzealousness? (and for the lawyers in the room, how many litigations should have ceased on a reasonable calderbank offer?)
Critically - if you understand your aim, ensure that not only its maintenance is communicated and understood by your team - communicate too what its successful fruition means, and instead of seeking to exploit the win, re-organise, re-distribute resources and re-plan for the next goal. Avoid what could be a well planned and set ambush.
Understanding yourself and your team:
In military context, if commanders do not know their troops, they cannot expect the greatest result; and, while possibly achieving goals through perseverance or ‘pot-luck’, the cost may be too great.
Whilst in legal practice, it is hoped and it is unlikely you will be dealing with physical casualties, any action you take towards achieving your goal will in some way create mental casualties – tiredness, stress and exhaustion – all precursors of internal conflict. If you do not have your finger on the pulse of yourself and your people, such casualties may become fatal to your goal.
How do we learn introspection? We learn from our experiences - often those which physically and mentally challenge us. There is no greater teacher than discomfort. But it is not enough to rest upon past experiences as a means of understanding your continued evolution and adaptation to an ever-changing world.
You can spend a lifetime seeking to understand yourself, or you can embark upon conscious decisions which challenge your perceptions of yourself and your abilities. Experiential challenges teach us that we have three zones: the comfort, the learning and the panic zone.
The comfort zone is secure, unchallenging, stable, safe and easy.
The learning zone is where we challenge ourselves, experiencing feelings of exhilaration, controlled risk, excitement and alive!
The panic zone is where we feel fear, tense, exhausted and stressed.
We exist in the comfort zone, but should seek to enter the learning zone as often as possible. Constant exposure to the learning zone will expand our comfort zone (think of learning to ride a bike - a terrifying task which ultimately became an extension of ourselves - for most, anyway!). The result is your set of skills and competencies that once seemed distant, become trusted and faithful abilities.
The panic zone, however, should not be ignored. Indeed, we should flirt with from time to time in this zone, doing an activity so extraordinary that that we dance between the lines of panic and learning.
Someone who understands themselves, or their team, understands where these zones intersect. They will move between comfort and learning, but not so much as to exhaust themselves and their team. They will understand where the panic zone is and inject challenges without abusing the mandate of their moral and ethical leadership.
Team-building exercises are possibly the most overlooked but rewarding means through which leaders can uncover the otherwise hidden parts of their individual team members personalities and abilities. There are a plethora of organisations that offer such activities.
Concentrating your force:
Assuming you understand yourself, or your team and their abilities; and, you have provided guidance towards realising your limitations; you must now commence planning directed at breaking in to your goal:
Where or who will you target?
Who will be the team member that brokers a particular deal, stage or phase of your plan?
Who makes the approach to your opposition of your aim?
Who is the face of the deal; and, most importantly, who is in support?
When and how will we realise success either incrementally or as a whole?
Once realised - how and when do we realise the need to re-organise and re-plan?
All of these considerations are most easily answered with a comprehensive understanding of your employees. Remember, the importance of not only rewarding the face of the success; but so too every supporting asset. All persons who had a role to play deserve ownership of its success.
In summation, when discussing the concentration of force and its role in planning, we consider that leaders must know their limitations and have an intimate understanding of the composition of their team.
In the next article of this series we will look at the third principle of war: Cooperation.
