In this episode, Brian Marcos and I dug into Mark Miller’s “Chess Not Checkers“.
You can listen to the episode here:
You can find Brian on LinkedIn here, or visit the Smyrna Fire Department website here.
Full Transcript:
Mickey: Chess is not a game of luck and neither is business. When you win, it’s because you made good decisions. A quick quote from “Chess Not Checkers” by Mark Miller. And today with me to discuss it as Brian Marcos. So Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian: to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me here.
Mickey: Yeah, appreciate you being here. So
Brian: here.
Mickey: you’re the one that suggested this book as all our guests do.
I have you choose the book you want to talk about. So tell me, why’d you want to talk about chestnut checkers?
Brian: Checkers? Well, this book has made a huge impact on me personally, uh, in terms of my leadership here in the department. Uh, went through a transition in 2017, um, that was pretty, pretty significant.
It was actually 14 when I was appointed to deputy fire chief for the Smyrna Fire Department. and so just a little bit about myself, I’ve been working for the city of Smyrna Fire Department now for almost 20 years.
Mickey: Nice.
Brian: up through the ranks and was appointed to the deputy fire chief in 2014. And like a lot of transition, you know, what, what got you here [00:01:00] won’t necessarily get you there in terms of your skills and your knowledge and your abilities.
And so I was actually struggling, um, a good bit with the transition. And so for about two years, uh, working through some, some challenges and some, some culture, uh, changes that we were going through uh, stumbled across this book after hearing Mark Miller speak in person at a program I was involved in called Leadership
Mickey: Okay.
Brian: And so, uh, getting to hear his experience and some of the things that he shared, uh, really resonated with me on some of the challenges that he was dealing with in terms of the Chick fil A. Uh, operators and the, and the growth that they were going through. And he had referenced this book, and so that’s what got me, uh, got me to, to look into it and read it.
Mickey: Gotcha. Very cool.
Brian: Very
Mickey: Yeah. In reading the book, he has four main keys and I thought it’d be worth kind of maybe going through those four keys and discussing them a little bit just for, for those that haven’t read the book or those that have to sort of refresh them on it like it did with me as I
Brian: me.
Mickey: reread things and kind of got back into it.
So
Brian: into it
Mickey: I think maybe we’ll go through those a [00:02:00] bit.
Brian: through those
Mickey: The first one he talks about is bet on leadership,
Brian: leadership.
Mickey: leaders, grow organizations. He says, one of his quotes is develop your pieces early for maximum strategic advantage. So again, it’s kind of a play on
Brian: going to
Mickey: chess, developing your pieces early, but also, you know, you
Brian: but
Mickey: With your, with your team, you know, developing those folks.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So betting on leadership is a huge one. And just to kind of quickly reference all four bet on leadership act as one when the heart of your employees and excel at execution. Those were those were the points that were made when I heard Mark speak. And thing with betting on leadership, especially in the fire service that we don’t do a very good job of is like you mentioned, developing the pieces early for. not just their own role and responsibility, but really developing them in such a way that where are you trying to go as an organization? And so if you’re trying to go here, let’s just say this is where you’re trying to go. we’ve got to go really early into developing those pieces and not treating them like, like the book references, [00:03:00] like checkers,
Mickey: Yep.
Brian: the pieces have, know, the same function, they do the same role. And it’s very reactive to the game where with chess, They all play a significant role. Whether you’re a pawn or you’re a king or a queen, they all play a role in the strategy of where you’re trying to go.
Mickey: Yep. And the thing I’m not good at with chess is they mentioned developing pieces early and yeah,
Brian: and
Mickey: in the game of business, I hope I’m pretty good with that. But yeah, in chess, I’ve never figured out how to develop pieces. This just, they do what they do, but yeah, in business, it makes a big difference.
Brian: a big
Mickey: Uh, the second one was act as one.
Brian: as one.
Mickey: Um, one of the quotes from the book, he said, a unified assault is always preferred over a fragmented one. I think that one’s fairly clear, but curious your thoughts, unpacking that a bit.
Brian: that a bit. Uh, harder than people might think it is to, to kind of create a culture where it’s not an eye or me situation, but it’s kind of a, we us, you know, the challenges are our challenges. They’re not just the leadership or administrative. And administration’s challenges. And to [00:04:00] kind of take on that attitude from a front line individual all the way to the chief of an organization or the CEO of an organization, uh, it takes some deliberate intentional, you know, um, conversations and professional development to kind of instill that. And so, when you think about acting is 1, just a real quick example. You know, we have three different shifts, five different divisions within our department. And so it’s very easy to silo off if you’re not, if you’re not careful, um, and to create, um, kind of these subcultures, uh, that take on a life of their own.
And if you’re not careful, uh, you’ll, you’ll have a lot of different leadership philosophies and approaches to the work, which makes it difficult to kind of move in one direction. So acting is one. really ties everyone back together in such a way that you’re all pulling on the rope the same way.
Mickey: Gotcha. I love that. It’s a great way to say it. Uh, the next one he has is win the heart of kind of a longer quote from that when he said in the book, he said, quote,
Brian: he said,
Mickey: when people are given the [00:05:00] opportunity to do what they do best, you engage much more than their hands.
Brian: their
Mickey: When you allow people to contribute their unique gifts and ask them to work from a place of personal strength,
Brian: strength.
Mickey: much more than get work done.
You honor them and their contributions. Um, another quote he had was help people find and fulfill their dreams. So it’s, what does winning the heart mean
Brian: mean? My place of leadership? Well, I think you can’t really get to know someone unless you know their heart. And so again, when you’re when you’re working through challenges and in where you have somebody to the left and right of you that you’re trying to really do some important work you know where they’re coming from or the experiences that they’ve had or the things that they enjoy. provides a lot of guidance in how you either coach them or how you task them. And by task them, I mean your, their talents, abilities, skills, knowledge, you know, how do you put them in, in the place to have the most success, but also do what they do best. You know, at the end of [00:06:00] the day, that’s where people find motivation and they find purposes when they’re kind of aligned with those things that they do best. And I don’t think you can do that well as a leader leading people when you don’t know the heart of your organization
Mickey: Gotcha. I like, I hadn’t heard that task, um, acronym either before. You remember where that came from? I like that.
Brian: so I believe I got it from the speed of trust and they pulled it from a Gallup poll that I think said that About only 20 percent of people in an organization feel that they’re actually being tasked correctly under that acronym So, you know for me You When I think about building trust and winning the heart of your employees, really want to put them in a position where they’re hitting doubles and triples as much as possible, you know, to use a sports analogy. Um, you want them feeling like they’re having some consistent success in what their contributions are. because today’s, today’s workforce, looking necessarily to be in charge of anybody as much [00:07:00] as they’re looking to have their contributions if you will, in the organization, that that’s where we sustain, um, employee morale and engagement.
Mickey: Yep. Yeah. A lot of times. Yes. Not about the work people do, but it’s how much that work is used and appreciated. If you do
Brian: If
Mickey: a lot of work and it gets thrown away, you, yeah, your, your value feels very low. It
Brian: low.
Mickey: makes it tough. Um, the fourth one here, and I think it’s last for reason it’s Excel at execution. If you consistently make the right moves at the right time, you win.
Brian: you
Mickey: And he also said the right moves involved intentionally deploying the right resources at the right time for maximum effort. So the same kind of thing, but
Brian: of
Mickey: about timing, when to deploy these resources, your people that you built up through
Brian: up
Mickey: kind of the previous steps to Excel at execution. So what do you take out of that one?
Brian: out of that one? Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, you’ve got to get results. Um, you’ve got to get results. You’ve got to, I think that’s when the proof’s in the pudding, if you will, for leadership and for impact. You know, if you see the results of your work and you’re making the right moves and you’re putting the right people in position, you’re winning the heart of your [00:08:00] employees. You’re taking the right chances, so to speak, betting on leadership. you know, you’re making the right hires. If all those things are happening in the, in those sequences, you’re ends up happening is you excel at execution. Um, it doesn’t mean that you’re not adaptable and that some circumstances might put you back on your heels, but you’ve got a mature organization that can kind of take that hit if you will, pivot and then still continue to make progress because you got the bench.
The bench is deep, if you will, to make those adjustments.
Mickey: Gotcha. Well said.
Brian: Well
Mickey: kind of leads into one of the main areas I pulled out of this book was about assigning outcomes. Um, I really liked the way he approached this. He said, the quote for the book, he said, I’m not talking about just assigning tasks.
Brian: tasks.
Mickey: you’ll continue to do that as needed, but I’m talking about assigning outcomes.
When people know the outcome you want or need and you don’t know how to,
Brian: don’t know how to,
Mickey: and you don’t tell them how to get it done, their responsibility meter comes alive.
Brian: alive.
Mickey: me of, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the personal MBA, but it talks about the idea of commander’s intent, which you probably have heard of, um, on the [00:09:00] battlefield where you not only tell people what you want to do, you tell them why you want them to do it so they can shift gears if needed versus
Brian: versus.
Mickey: say, Hey, take this hill and they can’t take the hill.
They’re like, well, I can’t take it. I don’t know what to do. But if you say, here’s why we’re trying to do it. They can think of other,
Brian: of
Mickey: other ways to do it.
Brian: ways to
Mickey: Um, I saw a silly example of this not long ago when I was at the sub shop.
Brian: sup
Mickey: A woman came back into Jersey Mike and said, Hey, you made my sandwich incorrectly.
Um, and she said, I need you to remake this sandwich. You made it incorrectly. It wasn’t supposed to have cheese on it. My son’s allergic to cheese.
Brian: to
Mickey: And because she said why it was made incorrectly, the guy making the sandwich said, Actually, the bread you chose has cheese on it too.
Brian: on it,
Mickey: So as a result, let’s, let’s choose different bread and get it fixed.
You know, so sorry we made a mistake,
Brian: made a
Mickey: but if she had just said, Hey, you made this wrong, it wasn’t supposed to have cheese. He was at sure and fixed it
Brian: and
Mickey: and still gotten the son allergic, you know,
Brian: You know, it would
Mickey: spike that allergy,
Brian: allergy.
Mickey: giving the why behind her request, it was again, silly example, but the why made sure that he was able to act appropriately.
And I think that goes, I mean, little things like that to bigger things in,
Brian: things
Mickey: in armies and yeah, all over the place. Have you seen that in your role where, where commander’s intent kind of plays [00:10:00] in? Yeah.
Brian: kind of plays it? Absolutely. In fact, it’s so much so that back to acting as one Um, one of the forms of communication that we’ve taken on when we deal with projects with our organization is we’ll communicate what’s called a SWCC Here’s the situation Here’s what’s going on. Here’s my intentions. Here are my concerns and here’s how I’d like it communicated so when you use that acronym in terms of of communicating a project that you’d like to have executed. It’s, it’s just interesting to me, the dynamics of letting people know what your concerns are and what your intentions are. And when you share those, those parts to the, the effort, ends up happening is a lot of the time, the folks will rally around those concerns. They’ll find solutions for those concerns. And once they understand your intentions, then they can navigate the ambiguity that sometimes is within a project because they know what the intent, ultimate intent is.
So. I think anytime you can share as much as possible on the intent also don’t [00:11:00] be afraid as a leader to share the concerns that you have with the project or with whatever you’re trying to get resolved. Um, when those two things are laid out there, I think one is it speeds up trust because they recognize your concerns and then they know that you trust them to get those solutions in play.
Yeah, they can come down
Mickey: to in
Brian: to
Mickey: dichotomy of leadership. If you read that book from Jocko Willink, fantastic book, but he talks about
Brian: he
Mickey: decentralized command and basically get empowering your team to
Brian: team
Mickey: to make decisions, which could be tough. I mean, that’s something we’ve struggled with over the years.
Brian: over the
Mickey: Our team is always wanting to not make a mistake. And so they come to us with every question. We say, No, no, it’s okay. If you make a mistake, it happens. But I want you to here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Go for it.
Brian: Go
Mickey: And even like in the spending money, we say, Hey, if you need to spend a couple hundred bucks,
Brian: couple
Mickey: Go spend it.
If you think it’s the right decision, it’s the right decision. If it’s not, we’ll discuss and fix it for next time. But that empowerment makes things move so much more quickly can help
Brian: can
Mickey: clients or, you know, the people you serve
Brian: you
Mickey: and frankly can take some pressure off the leadership to, to not have to be responding to every little situation that comes up.
If, if you have that empowerment and the empowerment comes [00:12:00] from trust and kind of works its way back up the,
Brian: back
Mickey: the four pieces we talked about to, to build that trust in the end.
Brian: that trust. Well, I think I think any leader that is either running an organization or as a part of a big team recognizes you only have so much bandwidth and so many resources available to you. And so if you really want to go far, you have to go together. If you want to go fast, go by
Mickey: Yep.
Brian: But if you want to go far, go together. And so the only way to really accomplish anything significant in my opinion, is that you gotta you gotta build the team out in such a way Basketball is one of my favorite sports.
And so when I think about the teams that make it to the finals of an NBA championship, it’s usually the teams that have a deep bench. Um, a good example of this is the San Antonio Spurs. They’re a small market franchise that really don’t have the resources like an LA or a New York or, you know, the East coast, West coast kind of, uh, uh, market, but they’re able to have success because they have built in excellence into their process. And they recruit for for people and not necessarily just the five star [00:13:00] player. They build a deep bench and that’s why you always see them in contention for for a championship is because they’ve taken that model of developing a strong culture and making sure that the bench is deep because players get hurt. you know, things happen, it’s just natural, especially when you’re competing, whether that’s in the business field or in the athletic world, you got to make sure your bench is deep and that everybody knows the assignment above and below
Mickey: Yeah. Yeah. Well said.
Brian: Yeah,
Mickey: So I’m a Michigan football fan and this is a good year for us, of course. But what was interesting, I was reading is most teams that Alabama and Georgia like they both had, I think, 18 five stars recruits on their team. Michigan had to. And so to your point, it’s not about how many five stars you have.
So building, getting him going the right direction and having that super deep bench. I mean, the two five star recruits, but they’re probably gonna have the most players ever taken in a single NFL draft
Brian: draft.
Mickey: they’ve built that deep with with so many people. And
Brian: so many
Mickey: It worked out well for him. Now I’m a little concerned as a Michigan fan that they’re going to have everyone taken to the draft and there’s really no one left this year, but it was a good year last year, at least.
So that was, that was fun.
Brian: That was
Mickey: Um,[00:14:00]
Brian: Um.
Mickey: as we’re wrapping things up here, what else have we not hit from the book that really stood out to you? You wanted to, any other lessons you want to share from it?
Brian: from it? No, I mean, I think, um, I think the winning the heart piece, it’s interesting. You know, we sometimes think that you have to be this emotional. We are emotional creatures, you know, in a lot of ways. But the reality is you can, as a leader, build results. Or, excuse me, build processes into results. more effective in this area as far as winning the heart. And I just want to give one small example. So for me, I lean towards being results oriented. I’m not, I’m not, um, kind of on the relational side. I lean more results. And so because I know that about myself, you know, one of the things that our leadership team will do is they’ll do something called a scouting report. And they will actually keep an eye out for people that are doing things that kind of relate to our values as an organization, and they’ll make some detailed notes about it. And so when we meet as a command staff, I’m very much aware of that picture of what the people are doing in the organization. And so when I run into them or I [00:15:00] see them, I can have a very good quality interaction with them on the things that they’re doing and doing well. And so it really amplifies that interaction in terms of winning the heart. Um, and, or, you know, write them a handwritten note, send it to their house. And so I think in terms of winning the heart, um, you find yourself, if your audience ever finds themselves where it’s like, Oh man, you know, how do you win the heart?
I mean, that’s not my thing. certainly a process you can build in that will create. Um, the desired outcome that you’re looking for as far as connect connection with people, um, in the right way. So that’s just something I wanted to highlight there.
Mickey: I like that. So roughly how many people are we talking about that are like under your command that could come up in that kind of conversation?
Brian: Yeah, so, so there’s 87 people in our department and I’ve got a command staff or a leadership team of nine
Mickey: Okay. Gotcha.
Brian: nine people will kind of keep an eye out and in report. know, out in an ops meeting. And the reality is, is like when you think [00:16:00] of high performers in the organization, they’re not really looking for you to shake their hand and say, Hey, you’re a great guy.
Thanks for working for us. They want to know details. You know, they want to know that, you know, that the, the impact and the contribution that they’re giving. So that also is a force multiplier because I can speak in great, I can speak in detail to the work that they’re doing versus just, uh, Kind of a political handshake and a kissing the baby kind
Mickey: Right.
Brian: about it, you know, so
Mickey: That’s awesome. Yeah, especially for a team that size. Yeah, we’re a team of nine.
Brian: of
Mickey: Our leadership team is four, so we’re basically an order of magnitude smaller, but we do the same thing every week. We go through, here’s our five core values. Here’s the nine of us on the team. What have we seen people, you know, exemplify that?
And then we call them out specifically for it. You know, next time I talk to them, Hey, I know that you went above and beyond to help this client or to do whatever. And yeah, it’s a lot easier. I think in our case, we can, we can go through literally every person to see what they did, but.
Brian: Yeah,
Mickey: It’s the same kind of idea where, yeah, you can put intention behind it.
Cause that’s the kind of thing I’m not good at naturally either. I’m more analytical. And so forcing me to slow down, actually look at that and then to reach out specifically and thank them [00:17:00] specifically for what they did is fantastic. So
Brian: So
Mickey: great call.
Brian: great call
Mickey: So I think the last little quote we’ll kind of end on here,
Brian: on
Mickey: um, is about focusing on the right things.
He said, well, you don’t have time to do your job. That’s a good indication. You’re playing the wrong game.
Brian: game
Mickey: so that’s something I’ve struggled with as our team has grown. I’ve gone from being a developer to being a leader. You know, it’s.
Brian: you know, it’s
Mickey: what game am I even playing and figuring out the right game to play is easier said than done sometimes, but these kind of books and these kind of conversations certainly help with that.
Brian: help with that.
Yeah. And with that, that’s true. And I, I think it’s so interesting that I got a chance to hear Carol Tomei, who’s now the CEO of UPS one time. And I remember asking her a question when she was speaking to us. I said, how are you? She’s responsible for 3 percent of the GDP in goods out there. And so she has a bad day, the whole country has a
Mickey: Right.
Brian: And so I’m sitting there looking at her going, how are you so present right now with us? And she said, Brian, she said, I scheduled to my priorities
Mickey: Mm
Brian: my priorities right now is to be here with you for 15 minutes. And when I leave, I’ll have another priority [00:18:00] that I’m focused on because I schedule everything to my calendar.
That’s important to me. I don’t allow my calendar to be attacked. And so I’ve taken on that attitude years and years ago. what’s been great about that is that you are able to be fully present. Um, if you manage your time and you stay in kind of that quadrant two space,
Mickey: Mm hmm.
Brian: the important non urgent
Mickey: Yeah, the Eisenhower Matrix, yeah.
Brian: Yeah, it’s, it’s just fantastic. And so I agree if, if you find yourself constantly reacting, then, uh, then, then there’s probably some areas for, for better time management and maybe some Delegation that needs to happen and building out that team for
Mickey: Yeah, I notice that when I go out to lunch or coffee with people, the,
Brian: with
Mickey: the higher up they are in their organization, the more focused they tend to be, even though they have more responsibilities. It’s the, the ones further down and the ones that are checking their phone and they’re worried and, you know, sorry, I gotta look again and see what’s going on.
Brian: but the
Mickey: a few leaders that are over big companies and they’re fully present and it was astounded me the first few times. So I realized just, yeah, again, what you just said so eloquently is
Brian: eloquently is
Mickey: were able to make that happen. So
Brian: [00:19:00] Yeah.
Mickey: a fantastic way to end it. I think Brian,
Brian: Brian,
Mickey: if folks want to learn more about you or follow what you do, where can they, where can they track you down?
Brian: you down? Yeah, so I kind of keep it simple. So LinkedIn is, is where I tend to put a lot of my information out. And of course I work for the city of Smyrna fire department.
And so they can check out our website, um, and see all the things that we got going on. Like us on Facebook, as far as the department goes, uh, we’ve got constant activities information going on out there, but it’s been a pleasure. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you a little bit about chestnut
Mickey: Yeah, this was great. Yeah. We’ll put those links in the show notes for people that want to find you. And yeah, thanks for your time. This was great.
Brian: Yep.
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