When you put aside rank, when you get over whatever your obstacle is to debriefs, untold benefits will begin flowing into the company. Can you imagine Neil Armstrong coming back from the first moon walk and not being debriefed? If I went to visit a competitor’s data center, don’t you think someone from my company would want to talk to me? There is an enormous cache of valuable data, lessons learned, and a way to accelerate learning experiences ready to be discovered and passed along. This is why the Air Force holds debriefs in such high regard. This is why fighter pilots do it as a mission team, and, I can tell you for certain, why each and every pilot in a quiet moment in the day, mentally debriefs him- or herself about the smaller missions in their lives.
Once you’re ready to debrief, the agenda is easy—a seven-step process. You can remember it by the acronym STEALTH.
CHAPTER 15
The STEALTH Debrief
Accelerating experience is the key to winning.
At Afterburner we combined our experiences as fighter pilots with our experiences as businessmen and businesswomen to distill the debrief process we used in fighter aviation down to a simple, seven-step business application called STEALTH. After creating STEALTH, we refined it based on our experiences using it with the hundreds of corporations we’ve trained. Today, STEALTH is one of the most valuable tools you can take to the office or apply to any of your missions in life.
Let’s set the stage. The goal of an effective debrief is to generate valuable lessons learned, then to institutionalize those lessons learned into a core of best business practices. Once that is done, the lessons learned are transferred throughout the company. What does this accomplish? (1) Learning is accelerated, which is a process. (2) Experience is increased, which is an asset. These two combine to improve future execution, which, as we know, affects the bottom line. Imagine that a valuable lesson learned in your Miami office is transferred almost instantly to your Seattle office. Now, imagine that it’s not. That’s the power of the debrief. It identifies problems (or opportunities) and accelerates the spread of the resulting solutions.
What are good times to debrief? You can debrief at the end of a shift, the end of a fiscal quarter, after a major sales call, after each game, after the release of a new product, after the gain of an important new piece of business (or in the wake of a loss), after the close of the store, after the change of inventory—in all of those natural moments that define the end of a cycle in your particular business.
S: SET TIME/LOCATION/PREPARATION
Whatever your cycle, the best time to debrief is when information is still fresh. Fighter pilots go into their debrief exactly forty-five minutes after they land. They get out of their jets, do their housekeeping, then arrive at the debriefing with their onboard radar and Heads-Up Display (HUD) tapes cued and their notes ready; they close the door and have a formal debrief for a precisely defined period of time.
As you prepare for your debrief, set the time and tell people what to bring. Disseminate key information to everyone so that all the participants have a clear expectation of the objectives, the process, and what they need to have in hand. Critical information required:
Time. Set the date and start and end times. Start on time. End on time. Because STEALTH is a seven-step process, have a start/stop time for each step.
Location. Set the location. You must have an environment that will enhance open communication as well as limit distractions. It doesn’t hurt to have a room designated for debriefs. In fighter aviation, there’s just one room used for debriefs, and we know it. When they walk in, they’re debriefing.
Participants. Define participants—the exact shift, department, or project team. No excess personnel allowed—only the people involved in the project—but no MIAs. We want all of the people on the team to debrief together.
Roles. Clearly define everyone’s roles:
Leader. This is not necessarily the senior person on the team but rather the mission leader. Why? This is the same person who led the brief. This is the person who’s ultimately held responsible for the outcome of the mission. The debrief leader is the mission leader.
Timekeeper. This person keeps the team on the proposed timeline throughout each step of STEALTH.
Scribe. You’ll be using whiteboards, so you want someone with legible handwriting to put data on the whiteboards as you progress through the debrief.
Data input person. After the debrief, this person will collect, analyze, finalize, and disseminate the debrief data.
Future steps. Everyone is accountable, but who does what? Here is a detailed list of follow-up courses of action:
Objectives. Define objectives—what objective or objectives are you debriefing, and what future actions are desired? Most of the time you are debriefing with the aim of finding ways to do things better, or, if you did them brilliantly, passing the good stuff along to others—transferring lessons learned and changing future plans and/or strategy.
Let everyone know what they need to bring to the debrief. For example, if you are analyzing market share objectives, marketing may have to generate some analytical numbers.
Prep. Prepare the room. Have a bank of whiteboards ready. Ensure that the room is clean and that it fosters a professional working environment. (See accompanying figure.)
Always start on time. Even without all the participants. (Don’t penalize the people who are on time; on the other hand, never allow the power of the debrief to shift to the late people.)
Always end on time. Never allow the debrief to degrade into an endless postmortem. Unless the issue has particular vibrancy, when the stop time comes, stop.
T: TONE (NAMELESS, RANKLESS, OPEN COMMUNICATION; LEAD BY EXAMPLE)
It is absolutely critical that the debrief leader establishes a tone conducive to open communication. How do you do that? It’s not about soft lighting or throw pillows. In the Air Force, as I walked into a debrief with my fellow pilots, we literally ripped the Velcro name tags off our flight suits and the ranks off our shoulders. That set the tone. We literally threw it all away as we entered the room and got down to business. That may seem sophomoric to you, but more than anything else that we did to set the tone, this symbolic act did it—we were there for a nameless, rankless debrief and we were open for good, productive, and sometimes tough, open communication.
Here’s how you set the tone:
Nameless. It really is nameless. With the exception of the leader, who starts the debrief with a list of his or her own mistakes (see more below), we used the third person during the debrief. Let’s say that Gundawg, my wingman, was the second jet in the formation and he screwed up an alignment. In the debrief, I’d say, “Number Two was outside of the one-mile trail formation we briefed. Two needs to cross-check his position better.” Gundawg, or George, or whatever his name or call sign is, is now reduced to the third person—he’s just Number Two. That’s powerful. It’s impersonal. It’s factual. No need to ruffle feathers. I never say, “Gundawg, you were outside the one-mile trail; you need to keep up with the rest of us.” That’s too personal, too direct; that’s guaranteed to put Gundawg on the defensive, maybe put him on the other side of the table. No. Instead, I say it in the third person: “Number Two was outside the one-mile trail. Number Two, try to add a cross-check on your position.”
Third person? It’s invaluable. It is totally rankless. It opens communication. It bridges awkward situations. Often, a mission leader is a junior officer. In such situations, everyone is a senior officer. Number Two? A senior officer. But how much easier is it to highlight an error when you are not directly speaking to or about the person? Nameless. Rankless. It’s not who’s right, it’s what’s right.
Rankless. It really is rankless. Turn the debrief around. What’s the overall objective? Name a few things. To improve? To accomplish the objective? To stay alive? To earn a huge Christmas bonus? What do any of those objectives have to do with your position in the company? Not a thing. You may be a vice president but if you gloss over y
our mistakes, you’re just another smoking hole in the ground, so take your rank off your shoulder. Get with the team. For the duration of the debrief, we are equals. No one pulls rank during the debrief. Pilots help each other in the air; they help each other on the ground. I don’t care what your rank is when you’re saving my life. That’s the power of rankless. It builds teams. It leads to success.
No fear of reprimand for highlighting our own errors or someone else’s errors. However, maintain dignity and tact.
Debriefs are based on facts, not opinions.
This is a process, not a competition. The goal is to improve future execution within our organization, not to make ourselves look good.
Only one person talks at a time.
An easel will be set aside for the “parking lot rule.” If a useful item comes up but it’s outside the scope of the debrief, then we post it on an easel set aside for precisely this purpose. Those issues can be addressed elsewhere after the debrief—in the “parking lot.”
How to Start
Just as the largely symbolic act of removing our name tags contributed to the tone, so too did our body language and the words we used in the opening minutes. The debrief leader was key. The leader reaffirmed the tone by standing in the center of the room and criticizing his or her mistakes first, in the first person. If I were the mission leader, I might have said, “I executed an unbriefed maneuver that caused our flight to get separated over the target area. I lost my focus.” This is called inside outside criticism. Notice that I started in the first person. This is the only time we ever violate the third-person rule, but as you can readily appreciate, to be personal at the opening—to be direct and no-kidding—cuts through the tension like a hot knife through butter. Criticize first yourself (inside) and then go to your team for criticism (outside). Then revert to the third person.
Now wait for responses. Feedback is critical to a debrief but the first time you ask for feedback, be wary: The first person you call on may not really be open. They might make a soft compliment or a general point that is not particularly valuable to the debrief process. This is a great opportunity for you to push him or her—get them to throw that dagger right into your chest. Allow this phase to go on long enough to set the tone for all participants. Watch them closely; you will know when they are ready to proceed. The goal here is to establish the tone by taking the first dagger (and maybe even the worst dagger, if that’s how the mission went). This is about opening the lines of communication. When you’ve done it, move on.
Inside/Outside
Starting inside reaffirms the importance of rankless debriefs. Imagine a newly hired member of your company. They’re probably intimidated by the seniority of the debrief leader. They know this person controls hiring and firing and may even sign their paychecks. The new hire watches carefully. They’re trying to read your body language, your tone. If you do it right, if you put out the right signals, if you communicate that you accept criticism and that you’re open to critical communication, they’ll get the message that a debrief is truly rankless, that an honest debrief is more important than anything else. That triggers a transformation. Suddenly, this newbie, this new hire, feels like a member of a team. They sense their value. They remember they were hired because they had skills. And guess what—so do you. Imagine that! You hired someone because they had skills. Ben Rothelsberger was a rookie in 2004, but when he was forced into the game and faced ten-year veterans he led the grizzled linemen of the Pittsburgh Steelers to twelve consecutive wins. Guess what? He was drafted because he had talent. But he wasn’t the senior man on that field. He was a rookie. A rookie! Rankless is powerful. It gets people up to speed and pushes them to start carrying their own load. Can you see it in action? Can you see how it goes both ways and works on so many levels?
Granted, this is no easy thing to accomplish within the confines of corporate culture. But think about it—if we can make it work within the rigid structure of the military, where rank and seniority are everything, then it can work anywhere. The key is you—the example must come from the top. Failure to start at the top will invariably lead to a failed debrief. To the thousands of senior executives I’ve talked to over the years, I say this—this is your leadership challenge.
One more thing: Something I said earlier bears repeating. In fighter aviation, experienced pilots want their new wingmen to feel comfortable giving senior and junior pilots directive communication in the air. What is this? Directive communication is sharp and to the point and has nothing to do with being polite and respecting rank. It’s more like this: “Missile on your tail; break left! “ It save lives. But how do you get a newbie to speak up when there’s no missile on your tail but there is nonetheless a problem? A good way to start is the nameless, rankless debrief. Get the new people to speak up. They may save your mission or your life.
E: EXECUTION VERSUS OBJECTIVES
Now that you’ve got the team talking, move quickly to the fundamental part of the debrief. How well did you execute based on what you said you were going to do? That’s it. How well did you do? In this part of the debrief, focus on the results rather than the objectives.
First, start with these questions: “Did everybody understand the mission objective or objectives that we are debriefing? Was it clear in everybody’s mind? Was it measurable? Was it achievable and obtainable? And, more importantly, did it support the overall Future Picture of this company?” These were the questions asked at the end of the mission briefing. Back then, the response was a roomful of head nods. But now it’s different; the mission has just been flown. So ask again. If there’s another roomful of nodding heads, great; the mission planning was well done and the objective was valid. No one has the right to use the brief itself as an excuse for a mission error. But, if there’s disagreement and a bunch of confused looks, you have to open the floor to a discussion of the brief and/or the mission objective. If that happens, it is largely going to be about you. You will learn a lot about yourself as a leader, not always pleasantly, but that’s what it’s all about—improving. Reevaluate how you should change your brief or your objectives with the idea of getting your team to better focus execution against your desired strategy.
Next, go to the facts of the mission. Did the pilots hit the bridge—yes or no? If not, why not? Maybe the first bomb created a smoke field that blew over the target, obscuring it so that the second pilot couldn’t see the object he was tasked to hit. All said and done, when the last jet departed the target area, the bridge was still standing. So what do fighter pilots do? In the debrief, they peel off the layers of the mission and identify facts. A missed target. A smoke field. Wind from the east. Obscured fields of vision. Bombs not on target. See it? If they debrief, maybe the next time out they’ll hit the downwind span of the bridge first and the upwind span second, and the third jet will have a visual confirmation that the bridge dropped.
“Okay, Murph,” a CEO might say, “do we debrief good results, or only bad results?” The answer is: You debrief all results. If Company X had a quarterly sales goal of $10 million and they achieved just $9 million, then the debrief will focus on the $9 million and try to understand why the revenues fell short. You’re not focusing on the $1 million gap; that’s obvious. You debrief the results—$9 million and you debrief the whole thing. Why did we fall short? Where were sales good? Where were sales bad? What have we learned?
The same holds true for exceeding a goal. If this company achieved $11 million in sales against a $10 million objective, they must debrief that success as well. Why was the objective so easily attained? Is the company about to break into a new level? Which product did best? Maybe this company was Apple Computers and they expected sales to come from computers, but debriefed and noticed that sales of the iPod were exceeding expectations. They debriefed so they had every reason to react: Put money behind the iPod and expect it to pay off. Do you see why you debrief success, too?
As we share our lessons learned throughout the company we improve f
uture execution by precluding execution errors and by sharing execution successes. Both types of lessons learned have the same impact on the organization.
Finally, debriefs can be quite technical in nature. During fighter pilot debriefs, execution is reconstructed with the aid of video cameras and digital data from sensors on the practice targets. This technical feedback helps pilots determine exactly how they executed versus their objectives. You may have to reconstruct the elements of the execution to determine a mission’s success or failure. What data needs to be part of your debrief?
ANALYZE EXECUTION
Now, let’s analyze the data. You were able to draw out from the team what the facts were. You probably had a vigorous discussion. The results are now displayed in a linear fashion left to right on large whiteboards or easels. You’ve given each success or error its own whiteboard. Now, one by one, list the probable causes. What are the root causes?
Causation
The hardest part of a debrief is the art of determining a cause. A good place to start is this: What is a legitimate cause? A cause is always a how—and the “how” is always an active human error. Let’s say that during this mission the squadron lost an F-15. How? It ran out of fuel. How? The active human error was that the pilot did not monitor his fuel state and did not abort the mission at the bingo (empty) fuel mark. That was the human error.
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