The War of Business

When most people think about war, they think of it in the classic black-and-white movie paradigm: “The waging of armed conflict against an enemy.” The classic symmetric conflict whereas one force meets with another on a field of battle and fights one another to submission. Whereas the stakes in this sort of combat are high, so are the stakes in business. In this enterprise, however, the definition of warfare becomes less violent in nature: “An active struggle between competing entities.”

“In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.”
—Karl von Clauswitz, Prussian General

Why not look upon one’s business interests as if they were a war? The scope of war is one such that there are the binary conditions of success or defeat. While there isn’t loss of life, there is a competitive spirit amongst entities on the battlefield and gains and losses to be realized in accordance with the various dynamics on the battlefield.

For some reason, I’ve always had some military sense about me. Although my father works for a telephone cooperative by day and a farmer-rancher at all other times; my brother a coal-mining plant operator several hours a week and a farmer-rancher at all other times; my mother also works in the fold, having worked a variety of other jobs throughout her life. Few others served in the military in my family since my great-great grandfather Mathias Hetland, having served as an enlisted man in the Spanish American War. Regardless of this lack of military involvement, I would always (in the back of my mind) assign military ranks to those in jobs around me, commensurate with their role in that job: My father, The General or Adimiral; my mother, the same. My brother, raising to the rank of a die-hard sergeant able to “just make things work.” I looked at myself as a junior enlisted troop, working his way up through the hierarchy and into the commissioned officer ranks.

Several years later I would find myself working with Cingular Wireless (now part of the new AT&T) as a receivables management agent in a call center environment. I was quick to place the label of “infantry—“the lightly-armed foot soldiers who make up the largest portion of an army onto my other colleagues “on the floor” as standard-issue call center representatives who were taking collections calls. This occupation was dreadful. I quickly learned that, while many people that call into collections of a wireless phone call center may be like you and I, there are enough that fit a pattern of behavior that most grandmothers would find deplorable. I determined that I would rise beyond the thankless existence on the phones and do something more.

I promptly learned of a separate team in the call center that performed duties over and above the remainder of the call center. The “Resolutions Support Desk,” affectionately known as “Rez” by the inhabitants there, was more than just the stock infantry of the call center: They were the elite “special forces” of the call center: “Special Forces or special operations forces, is a term used to describe relatively small military units raised and trained for reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and special operations. These exclusive units rely on stealth, speed, self reliance and close teamwork, and highly specialized equipment.” Resolutions was a the size of a single team which supported itself and the remaining 250-300 call center agents and, at times, agents at other call centers. Although they could take standard calls that the rank-and-file representative would take, they stood out as subject matter experts and, therefore, about half their time was spent offering advice on policies, procedures, systems, and other technical issues to representatives. The rest of their time on the phones was spent as supervisors de-escalating calls from customers who were otherwise dissatisfied with the service that they were getting. In order to do so, they were trained and experienced in how to read people and, as a result, how to de-escalate them. Resolutions Support Consultants could work in teams of any skill level, size, or purpose, as well as by themselves. The tools that they used were those that the other call center agents used, along with specialized access and other specific programs—all of which they needed to be subject matter experts.

I would become the quickest customer service/receivables management agent to be promoted from “the floor” into the Resolutions Department. What happened for after I got there is a different story for a different time.

Just as different job roles can be associated with different roles in a military environment, a chief executive standing in a board room employs resources just as a general on a battlefield would; instructing his or her commanders on their vision and overseeing the operation from the perspective of the top officer of the organization from beginning to end.

In the end, it is not too difficult to fathom the war that business can be.