One of my favorite books in the last decade is “Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War,” by Robert Coram. Col. John Boyd, who is recognized as the individual who changed the face of modern warfare, was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot whose military strategy theories have been highly influential in not only the military, but also in sports, business, and litigation.
Among many other accomplishments, Boyd was the anonymous architect of the Shock and Awe military strategy used by the United States in Operation Desert Storm. He also created the first military advanced air-to-air combat tactics school for the U.S. Air Force, which were later copied by the U.S. Navy for the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor (SFTI) program, popularly known as Top Gun.
The reason I took to this book is its simple, sage advice that posits if you want to understand what needs to be done in any situation, you just need to understand what the front-line troops are experiencing to figure out quickly what must be done to succeed. The deeper your understanding of this, the more expertise and impact you will have.
According to Coram’s book, Boyd was very critical, dismissive, and almost offended by most, if not all, of the top military brass and prestigious “expert” institutions, such as the Pentagon and the higher offices of the U.S. Air Force high offices. He was at odds with the overwhelming majority of the experts and highest-ranking people in the military, and used his experience as a fighter pilot and time with front-line troops to create revolutionary battle strategies and tactics that have been adopted globally by all modern militaries. He created fighter and attack jets that were custom built around his principles and heavy front-line needs. He created the A-10 Warthog, which was ridiculed and dismissed as a “Frankenstein,” worthless, and a joke of a project by most of the top military brass and committees. Despite that, the A-10 Warthog is still in operation today and is considered one of the most valuable, life-saving, troop protecting, tactically superior aviation combat weapons in the military.
When I think about how Boyd persevered in the face of “experts,” many of whom derided his contributions, I often think about how many of us in high-tech businesses rely so heavily on expert advice from analysts and business reviewers when we are the front-line troops. While these organizations collect, organize, and communicate large volumes of data in terms of trends and statistics that are insightful and certainly beneficial to know, almost none of the analysts, advisors, or experts have ever actually served on the front line.
Many times when I hear presentations by the industry leading prognosticators, I find myself fighting off a temporary fit of pique, in which I want to stand up and recreate the Jack Nicholson scene in “A Few Good Men.” Instead of talking about a Code Red, I want to say, “Have you ever served on a forward line? Do you know what it is like to carry a quota? Have you ever sat in front of a CIO, CEO, or CFO and had to answer ‘Why should I buy your solution?!’ You live by the grace of my existence and the valiant effort my company makes every day bringing technology solutions to the real world. Without me, you do not exist! You would rather sit in the bleachers and comment on what you see from the fifth deck luxury box!”
Of course, I never say this, but if you sit in the gallery of one of these presentations, you can almost hear the muttering remarks from other sales people, “Apparently Ms. Analyst here has never sat with my customer Mike Gilran or Jessica Roles.” Or “Dude, if I floated that to my hospital customers, they would kick me out.” Or, “Does he know that manufacturing companies would never do anything like that?”
My point is this almost all of you reading this blog serve on a front line. I believe you have insight, wisdom, and experience that the most elite academics will never match. You have experienced the real world in your area of focus on a daily basis on your front line. You have taken prolific fire from a forward position. You have had the conversations, sat with your customers, worked projects end to end. You have followed up with your customers in an ongoing cadence, learning and understanding their individual businesses. You understand many of their competitor’s businesses, as well. You have absorbed and understand the interworking of an industry and the subtle differences and sub-categories of those industries.
On top of that, you have survived, thrived, and earned a living. You have been exposed to your customers’ end customers. You have experienced the changes, evolution, struggles, joys, victories, and defeats with your customers. Many times, you have felt what they feel, and agonized over the times you may have let them down and learned what you need to do better the next time. Day after day, year after year, you live this. No spreadsheet-Big Data-Technology-Expert Analyst-Business Consultant can match this type of experience.
So, I ask you these questions. Are you taking time to consider the type of expert you may be? Are you giving yourself the credit you deserve? Have you ever taken the time to inventory what is really needed on the front line for your customers? Do you trust yourself enough to allow yourself to get to the next level? Col. Boyd was not an Ivy League college grad. He was the son of a very humble, financially challenged family. Nevertheless, his front-line experience made him an expert. He changed the entire military, because he trusted what he knew to be true no matter what the “experts” said.
Think about what you know to be true about your front-line experience. Maybe you are the expert you should consult about your next step in business.
