Book Review: The Mission, the Men, and Me by Pete Blaber

I recently finished a great management book, disguised as a historical book about Delta Operators. The book is titled “The Mission, the Men, and Me, Lessons from a former Delta Force Commander” by Pete Blaber, published in 2008 by The Berkley Publishing Group. (It's available from many online sources) The book illustrates and explains some Guiding Lessons that would be helpful to a manager in any business as they move through their daily work life. I enjoyed this book. It is a quick read and very informative, not only for the management ideas, but for the historical information shared in the illustrations. I highly recommend it.   

There are six “Guiding Lessons” that Mr. Blaber illustrates each with real life scenarios in the book. They are:

• Don’t get treed by a Chihuahua – Make your decisions based on context. Keep the reality of the situation in mind as you make decisions. Do not overreact, under-react or do not do anything. 
• Imagine the Unimaginable, Humor your Imagination – On one of their missions, they were working on a diversion to help them pull off their mission. Someone suggested a gorilla suit. The side that usually wins the battle is the one that can out-smart and out-imagine their enemy. Our imagination is what drives us on the road to success. As other have written, “Thinking outside the box”.
• When in Doubt, Develop the situation – In any situation, use common sense. Developing the situation is how we get to the result we want. How do we get to the result?  Work backwards from the result to see the path you'll have to take to get there.  We discover new possibilities and find different strategies when we encounter a unique situation. 
• Always Listen to the Guy on the Ground – Your team and clients are experiencing the mission first hand.  They know what is happening in the environment around them in real time. They see everything in 3D and color.  You can have the best research and data available, but we all know that reports do not tell you everything. Make your best decisions by listening to those people that are “on the ground” and frame that information in their context. 
• It’s not Reality Unless its Shared – No matter how smart we are, we make bad decisions if we don’t have all of the most current information. Share the information you have with your team. While it might not seem important to you, it may be valuable to someone on your team that can put it into the context of what they are experiencing. Communicating and sharing, both up and downstream with your team, insures that everybody is aware of the situation and they are on the same page. 
• The Mission, the Men and Me – Known as the 3Ms. Consider all three of these components when making decisions. The Mission (project, business plan, etc.) is the goal we are working towards and should always be on top. Next, consider the Men (your team). As a leader, we need to keep their welfare high on our priorities and show them our courage to lead. We can do this by listening to what they have to say about reaching the goal (Listen to the person on the ground!). They are the ones performing the mission, let them have input into how they think they should perform it. The last M is Me. Put your personal issues aside while you are making decisions. Do not worry about how this will affect your career or you personally. Remember the Mission and how your Men will successfully complete it. Help them make it by organizing your thoughts towards the Mission Goal.  

I recently deployed to assist with a utilities restoration project as I was reading this book. Because these Guiding Lessons were fresh in my mind, I used these lessons to make better decisions that did help the project move along and get the utilities restored to the homeowners quicker. As a management guide, I strongly recommend this book. It is a quick read and very interesting, using real-life experiences to illustrate how the lessons really do work.