In this blog post, let’s talk about the second advantage when you use a corporation to conduct business in the Philippines. In the last post, I discussed how corporations protect you from liability. Now, let’s discuss how commands are issued. It actually reminds me of a story of the first time I played Airsoft.
In the game scenario, there was a hill located in Antipolo, and there was a tower at the top of that hill. The game leader said that my team’s mission was to climb our way towards the top and seize the tower. The objective for the game is that if any of my team members get to touch the tower without being shot, we win.
It sounds simple, right? It seemed that way to us. There were 4 of us on our team while there were 4 people in the other team. We separated our 4 man team into 2 pairs. I got paired with my good buddy, Atty. Ramon.
Next, we had to hatch a plan. But we thought the scenario was too simple for complex strategy. We ended up with, “Let’s trust that each person will do their best to climb up. Let’s just move in pairs. We’ll see each other at the top. Go team!” I hesitated, “Do we need to coordinate?” The rest of the team decided to keep things simple and just to have fun. We reassured ourselves by saying, “No need to coordinate, we’ll do well!”
“Mask down!”
Once the starting signal was given, we moved silently out of our starting positions. Therefore, Atty. Ramon and I decided to crawl sideways along a stream at the bottom of the hill to avoid detection. From there, we will flank the tower from the left side.
Since he was the more experienced player, Atty. Ramon took the point and I followed him. While I was forcing my way thru some bushes, I heard a few zings and suddenly realized that the trees around us were being shot! My heartbeat started racing.
The voice inside my head shouted, “We’re being shot!” The adrenaline pounded in my ears as I crept low and hoped for the best.
The next few seconds felt like hours. A few seconds later, Atty. Ramon puts up his hand shouts, “Hit!”
I panicked. “Oh my god! My buddy has been hit! I’m screwed!”
Total game time until my buddy was hit: 2 minutes. I froze in my place hoping that whoever shot Atty. Ramon didn’t see me yet. After about 2 minutes not moving and doing my best not to rustle any leaves, I slowly climbed my way out the bushes towards the top of the hill.
After I moved about 5 meters, I felt a sharp sting on my arm. I was shot. And that ended my first airsoft game. Total playing time, 4 minutes. (Haha!)
Lessons Learned from being slaughtered
When we did our debrief at the end of the mission, the other team was telling us how visible our path was from the top of the tower. They said, “We were lucky that the other fireteam was not shooting at us. We had a clear line of sight to scout you out and shoot you.”
That phrase struck a chord in me. Especially relevant was the lesson that if we had been coordinating with the other Fire Team, then we could have seized the objective! We could have stood a chance if we had been placed in functions which made the most of our talents. If we had devised a unified strategy, we would still be alive.
In retrospect, the best way to go up the hill was to employ the fire and cover tactic. One fire team showers the tower with bullets and while the enemy has their head down, the other fire team crawls closer.
Then the team that is closer then lays down covering fire to allow the previous team to crawl closer. We do this until we are close enough to win. If we did this, we could have lasted more than 4 minutes (haha!).
The same goes for business because if you are able to coordinate your efforts before sending out your troops, the chances of winning and hitting your targets increases exponentially.
The corporate central command
Therefore, this is where the corporate setup excels: corporations are engineered for central command. The individual business units or teams cannot act on their own because, in corporations, all strategy and plans originate from the board of directors. You cannot move without getting powers from the top brass. This results in a…
Single battleplan.
First of all, all the direction, authority and commands in a Corporation emanate from 1 source: the board of directors. All the other departments, officers, and staff of the corporation derive their game plan from the board.
Consequently, there is no confusion on what orders to follow. It is probable that the board can come up with a central strategy and all the personnel are duty-bound to follow it to the letter. As a result of this single plan, all units are forced to have…
Coordination among the ranks.
Since all the personnel have been considered and fit into the right positions, the troops can rally around a unified strategy which everyone supports. The risk that there would be rogue units (like ours) operating independently and trying to make the best of the situation but armed only with awareness of their own situation would be minimized or eliminated. They failed to take into account the objectives and the activities of the rest of the team.
Therefore, everything we do will be in relation to the efforts of the other units. Since the general plan is made from the top and is coordinated among the entire team, there’s a good chance that the bosses put the…
Right people in the right situations.
Same with a battlefield, if the distance between you and the enemy is pretty far off, you deploy snipers. Supposing that you need to clear rooms in a building, you send in a fire or assault team. In addition, the board also has the responsibility to size up their people, their capabilities, and their strengths and matches them up to missions where they will have the most effect.
In summary, that’s the advantage of having a central command. All the assets are taken into consideration and deployed for maximum effect.
Engineered to move as one
Corporations, if run the right way, have these inherent advantages within their DNA. If utilized the right way, companies have a better chance of succeeding in their mission if the players take advantage of how power and authority flows within the organization. This then results in operational efficiency. Hope you liked this article, and tune in for the next one where we use kids toys to explain corporate ownership.
