Lessons on success from the military

What can you learn from the principles of an armyman in the Kenyan military? Byron Adera (pictured), a former squadron and operations commander in the elite Special Forces unit of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) shares.

1. Have centeredness

Centeredness is the quality of being absolutely focused on your game. It points to how you carry out the mission. You need very focused and meticulous planning, preparation and then delivery of what is expected of you. Taking for example some of the special operations that are carried out by the finest soldiers at the Special Forces, anything below 100 per cent success rate is not admissible. This comes down to serious preparation and focus. This is not just on the mission itself but also on what we call the action zone. You look at it with forethought, with thoroughness and with planning and with a state of moderate vigilance to foresee what could go wrong and address it before you actually carry out the mission.

In the contemporary world, if all of us were as professional and centered after identifying what their purpose was, the byproduct would be that every one of us would feel a lot more empowered to do more in their respective fields of expertise. And if you can do what you do for a living with great centeredness, what would stop you from being the best in your field?

2. Have a T-shaped mindset

Vertical part of the T= someone who is really knowledgeable in their area of expertise. They have done everything in their capacity to be the finest in their trade. If they were taken anywhere in the profession, they would take to it like a fish to water.

The horizontal part of the T = You do not just know about your area of expertise, but you are able to co-operate with people with other skillsets that are important to their trade. That means having an idea of how other areas work. It begets adaptability.

The army will train you in many areas, including being a cook. That means every single person in the army is someone that can survive behind enemy lines for long. If duty dictates that you be on your own somewhere as a lone soldier, you would survive. In the army, one day you can be the person who is fighting deep behind enemy lines, the next day, you are the person making coffee and on the following one, discussing the financial markets.

How adaptable are you in your industry? Do you know everything or at least the basic aspects of your work?

3. Lead yourself by continually learning

You have to be able to lead yourself. It encompasses a lot of learning. Constantly hone your skills. Do not stop at the point where you have qualified and have the expertise. It does not stop at that, or anywhere. It goes all the way to the limit of learning, which is never, because learning never stops. Things change, conventional wisdom changes, knowledge changes. People will recommend things just because it worked for them back then, and that was probably sheer luck. Learning is an integral part of leading. In the forces we say that when you fail, fail forward. This is learning out of what you go through, so you pick the lessons to live better tomorrow, to guarantee success.

4. Have moral courage

The focus for soldiers is not even on physical courage, because that is a requirement for you to be a soldier. So the most important part is the moral courage. That is the ability to do the right thing even if sets you up for ridicule or will be something very unpopular. Those people will one day come around to knowing that you actually did the right thing, and for their benefit as well.

Stand up for something, or you will fall for anything. Always stick to your moral values and be a person of integrity. A man is only as good as his word. And actions.

5. Develop mental toughness and discipline

In the military, physical fitness is a necessity, and the missions themselves demand it. No one will tell you that you need to wake up and work out or run. You know that a mission can come up at any time, like going into Mt Elgon or Somalia, and your physical stamina will need to be on point. The result of pushing yourself to your limits physically is that you develop mental toughness. It gets you to a point where you have a lot of confidence in yourself and develop a strong personality.

Mental toughness will carry you through difficult situations. It will help you dig in, weather the bad times and enjoy the good. Mental toughness is a pre-requisite for survival and everything you want to achieve in life. If you just settle into a comfort zone, which, sadly most people are in, living paycheck to paycheck, it will not be beneficial in the long run for the person you want to be. You will never live a life of satisfaction if you do not have the mental toughness to wake up on a chilly morning and do a morning run to just be in good health. You may be fine now, but It is going to catch up with you eventually. It is suspended poor health, suspended lifestyle diseases.

6. Speak up. It may be the best thing you ever do

Mental toughness sometimes requires you to say NO to even direct commands. In the Special Forces we call it the ‘Chinese parliament’. This is where all of us are able to talk very freely with complete disregard to rank, formality and say, “I am going to be part of this mission and I am not going to lose my life, get shot on the first step through the door just because the commander gave us that plan to achieve entry. If I think that is dangerous, I am going to tell the commander that the plan is fraught with loads of risk, probably because I have read from intelligence reports that could have rigged the entry points and one of those entry points that everybody is thinking of is the main door and auxiliary doors. So why not parachute in instead and punch a hole through the ceiling? Why not rappel and punch holes through the high windows to guarantee entry? If you fail to do that and are instead cower and have the Big Boss mentality, under the illusion that the commander knows it all, you may die alongside the same commander or he might live to eulogise you because you did not have the mental toughness to question things.

7. Be open-minded

In the army, however much you have been trained and have expertise in a certain area, rigidity would only beget death for you as an individual. Maybe sometimes not clinical death, but death in the pursuit of your vision and your dream. Blind focus will generate lower results, because it trains you to become overly rigid in your ways of attaining things. It kills creativity. You can have conditions that were primed to deliver success any day, but if those conditions change, you have to be the person who is able to have a shift in mindset, to look for other ways that will still get you to the dream. Creativity is vital for growth and development because things, people, time and circumstances change.