Read SWAT Team Principles Part 1
This is my second installment of better business practices based on my learnings from a day with a local SWAT team, but before I get into the topic, I have a confession of sorts.
When I think about the day of shooting, running drills, and being with those great guys, I can’t stop smiling. I’ve contracted a serious, though hopefully not fatal, condition I call “Chronic Grinitis”. I smile so much that my cheeks hurt and the cheek muscles have grown rock hard. I’ve thought about Botox injections but I don’t think the needle will penetrate the muscles. I’m starting to look like the Joker of Batman fame, without the lipstick. But I digress. Even though the experience for me was a once-in-a-lifetime day of fun, for the guys whose lives depend on proper execution and coordination, the day was deadly serious, and they managed to enjoy themselves along the way.
In business when times get rough, and it seems to get rough nearly every quarter, training seems to be the first thing to face the chopping block. In fact, I hesitated to put training on the title of this post fearing that no one would read it. Let’s face it, training to most is boring, ineffective, and not a priority. We sometimes give training some focus, but the old saying, “You put your money where your heart is”, applies across the board, and when I looked back at all the companies I have had exposure to, I find the commitment to training lacking. During the breaks during the day with the SWAT team, I asked the guys about how often they train because it seemed to me that this training they do really matters. A mistake could cost one or more lives. They told me that they need to train more than they do, but it costs a lot of money to suit up an 18 man team and spend a day at the training site. Ammunition alone was several thousand dollars. There’s the smile again… my cheeks are starting to hurt… Training for the SWAT team is likely more critical than for most of us but no less important. Let me explain.
In business, how a company works is as or more important than what the company produces. In today’s world, our actions and decisions cascade into countless ripple effects and without the whole team working seamlessly, mistakes will happen, customers will be unhappy, and opportunities will be lost. Is there anything more important to your business than happy customers? The leader of the SWAT team explained how they train on every little motion as they move through the drills. They always stand square to the threat because that’s where their body armor is strongest. If their position is not correct as they move, they stand the risk of a “Lucky Shot” by the bad guy. After that conversation, I noticed more and more the art and discipline these guys exhibited while doing some pretty difficult drills. How much time are we wasting because our sales force are filling out orders differently? How much extra work are we experiencing because our ERP users don’t use the system as best designed? How much scrap are we experiencing because of process losses due to operator error? I can go on, but the cost to global companies is staggering. While training is not the only solution, it is the one investment, if done properly, will insure that we don’t get hit by the “Lucky Shot”. So here are 3 points I want to stress:
I hope this post helped you to rethink how you can retool your training to be more strategic and meaningful in your business.
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