April 1975, the last Marine was lifted off the Saigon embassy roof which ended our campaign in Viet Nam. It would be another sixteen years before we would stumble into victory…
For the next fourteen years we trained for a European invasion from the USSR. We patrolled borders and watched Soviet Block soldiers watch us. After a while the training became mundane, boring… a lot of check the block on score sheets and move back to the motor pool to waste time working on our tanks and tracks with the promise of parts availability so we could someday have complete operational platoon vehicles. There were always field problems and play battles in terrain we all were to familiar with and the only ones receiving any training, was the fresh soldiers just out of Boot Camp and soon, they too were bored with the monotonous training. Many of our soldiers decided after their first enlistment, they had had enough… the limited training they had received was not what they expected… so they left. Many said they were leaving because they couldn’t cut it… they left because they were not given what they were promised.
After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved, our mission changed… exactly what was our mission? The threat in Europe was diminished, we have a mission in Korea but it too was on the decline and turning more responsibility to the ROK Army… So we trained… for what or who…Our mission had changed.
How many brokers and managers bring on new people with fresh ideas and dreams; with a promise of training? They go through training at the local Board of Realtors and return to your office with fresh energy and a willingness to succeed and the training they receive goes like this; go through the expired listings and call the owners… or go through the company expired files and ask them to list again? Let’s go over our contract with you…Here is the company policy, read this…
How many times you have matched new people with a top producer to show the new recruits the ropes, who relieved you from the responsibility of training the new recruit; did they actually train them?
How many times did you watch those same people leave after six or nine months…you told yourself they got out of the business, because they couldn’t cut it.
August 2nd, 1990. Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and we all bypassed it as something that happens over there; where the heck is Kuwait and who cares? The strongest standing army in the Middle East just invaded another country, I’m active duty Army and all I could do is watch and think; is this going to be the start of the next war? Training at that time had not changed much… a lot of going through the motions… check the block… gunnery and weapons qualifications and the same old boring training. We watched the tensions building in the Middle East and the threats to Saddam Hussein from the UN and on November 3rd, 1990, word from the Commander of the Big Red One, our Division was being deployed to defend Saudi Arabia… we were going to war. Over the next two months, our training got serious… it was no longer check the box. Every detail of our mission was being covered, it was time to get serious… it was going to be our lives that we were about to put on the line.
How many of you know someone who is going through the motions of working or training. How many people are sitting back and watching the happenings around them and not giving a second thought of what might be waiting for them around the next corner. How many people do you know who are waiting till the last minute to get serious and expect everything to fall into place without the real knowledge or experience and expect someone else to carry their load? If I were to exchange your position and place you in a military position with those same people; would you feel comfortable going to war with them? I do want to remind the brokers and managers; it is your responsibility to insure that your agents are trained and are continually training. But with that being said; it is the responsibility of every agent to insure they are trained and have the ability to accomplish their mission with your customers and their success or failure is a reflection of the training they have received. The life of your business is being put on the line everyday…are you taking it serious?
I had a set a goal for myself and Saddam Hussein had set the gears in motion so my goal could be obtained. My goal was to go to war. I needed to challenge myself, I wanted to know how I would react but it was not just me… I had a crew of three other lives that I would be riding with me and five other Bradley crews, (my brothers in arms). Our mission was reconnaissance, I was assigned to the fourth Cavalry; we were Cavalry Scouts. We were the eyes and ears of the First Infantry Division and the Division Commander notified us that as soon as we put boots on the ground in Saudi, thing were going to change. Our roll in the combat scheme was about to change. On New Years Eve, I kissed my wife good-bye, boarded a bus and headed to the airfield where we boarded a 747 for our journey to war. We landed in Saudi New Years Day, 1991 and two days later we found out what the change of mission was… We were getting brand new Bradley fighting vehicles with added armor. We were also going to have three M1 tanks assigned to each platoon. We were excited… the tankers… not so much. We spent the next several days training on our new equipment and doing services to insure our equipment was ready for battle. We uploaded our ammo, hand grenades, explosives, chemical gear and cross loading our equipment from our old Bradley’s and the waiting game would begin. Where were our radios? A headquarters officer advised us, the radios were waiting for us at forward operations… we wouldn’t need them for transport. Sounded good to us… So after ten days of training, getting our equipment ready and meeting our new tanker brothers, we were ready to leave our cramped living conditions in Kobar towers and head to the field. As several of us NCO’s were walking back from chow and entering our sleeping quarters, I was confronted by my platoon sergeant and asked to step inside his quarters, there was a problem. My gunner was having second thoughts about his roll in combat… He was not sure he could pull the trigger. I was furious! I had a nineteen year old observer who had joined the Army to fund his college education, my driver was a married twenty-one year old new father and he too had joined the Army to fund his college education and now my gunner with fifteen years in the Army doesn’t think he can pull the trigger. With all the training and our job description, just what did he think he was supposed to be doing… My thoughts shifted to my crew, my sister tracks and our platoon was short handed. I needed someone who could not only do their job, but in my absence, take charge, be the leader… for the first time in the months preparing for action… I was scared. The CO, the adjutant, platoon leader and my platoon Sergeant stood by as I had some of my gunner for desert. I was asked to step out of the room and shortly afterward my CO asked me if I wanted to head up to the front with my driver to give some security for forward operations, they would work things out when the rest of the squadron got up there and he would see about getting me another gunner… We would be leaving at midnight… when I informed my driver… his lips tightened, he just shook in acknowledgement… our first mission and I was concerned.
How often have you received new equipment and have office training on the operation of the equipment or paid someone from your office to receive special training only to come back to your office and they can’t pull the trigger.
So what do you do if you had invested time, money, and effort, so when the time comes, your agents and staff didn’t feel like they could pull the trigger and your business depended upon them? Replace them, with whom? You don’t have time to hire just anyone… what do you do? The Army has the correct answer; you train them. You as a manager have too much on your plate to be effective as both the manager and the producer. If there is a lack of confidence in your team, it may not be their fault; it may be in the fault of the manager for not conducting proper training or establish tough standards or maybe it’s the lack of confidence your people have in the management. The problem with my track was the leadership had only been in place less than ninety days. We had been through gunnery and simulators together. I didn’t believe for a second that it was all my gunners’ lack of confidence in himself, (although I initially did); it happened to be his lack of confidence in me.
Do your agents have confidence in your leadership? Are they confident when they head to the field, they will be successful in their mission? Can they rely on your experience, will they receive guidance when things get tough and are you confident in yourself that when tough decisions have to be made, you will make the best decision? The real estate business isn’t much different from combat, (except for that getting shot at thing), where good communications are often lacking and having the right information at the right time would assist us in making the right decisions at the right time.
As the members of the other crews, my driver and I boarded the bus that would take us to our forward operations base, I questioned myself. I had the lives of three other people who would depend on me in making the right decision. As the bus pulled into the darkness, there wasn’t much talking… mostly silence. It would be a twenty hour bus ride before we met our forward contact and the information he had, put the lives of every soldier on the bus at risk.
To be continued…
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