Archive for September 2020

“Plans are Nothing, Planning is Everything” Going along with our Plan, Prepare, and Execute theme, this statement by Eisenhower is a slap in the face of reality. Having a plan is respectable, but it doesn’t produce results. SEALs might plan to go after a high-valued bomb maker, but that doesn’t mean they understand and can…

22 September 2020 PLAN YOUR DIVE, DIVE YOUR PLAN! Last week we talked about Plan, Prepare and Execute. So, this week lets discuss a common issue of why the execution stage doesn’t always go off so well. Most assume SEALs are master divers. We are not. We know enough to be dangerous because we typically…

BURN THE SHIPS! During the invasion of the Aztec Empire in the early ‘1600s, Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando Cortez attacked the 600-year-old empire with a handful of soldiers from Spain.  The Aztecs had never been defeated and were more than prepared to bring the fight to Cortez and his men.  Completely outnumbered and outgunned, many…

GET OFF THE X! General Patton once said, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a great plan next week”. We make decisions all day every day. Most are simple: What do I want for lunch, where should I park, should I hide this body in my deep freezer…? But some decisions are…

Start With Agreements, Then Move On to Differences: This weeks tip stems from some training we’re doing with clients on the topic of negotiation. I’ve done more than a fair bit of negotiating in my lifetime; discussing terms with tribal sheikhs who can point us towards huge caches of explosives, determining what it’s going to…