The Execution of Meetings, Rest, & Command Posts – Patton’s Standing Orders Series

Is Giving the Order Enough?

Section B, Execution: “In carrying out a mission, the promulgation of the order represents not over 10% of your responsibility. The remaining 90% consists of assuring by means of personal supervision on the ground, by yourself and your staff, proper and vigorous execution.”

This ties back to what Jocko Willink talks about with extreme ownership. If more people in our industry did this, we wouldn’t ever hear: well, I told them. Well, I thought it was happening. Well, I delegated that. Well, I sent an email. We would have people who say, I was asked to get this done, and I’m going to get it done.

I remember a story, and I can’t remember where I heard it, so I’m paraphrasing. A military commander tells a subordinate to deliver a letter to another post. The subordinate says, I’ll do my best. The commander says, I don’t want you to do your best. I want you to deliver this letter. I’ll give it everything I’ve got. I will deliver this or die trying. I don’t want you to die trying. This is a simple order. I want this letter delivered to this outpost. And the subordinate got the message: there will be no circumstances between here and there. This letter will reach its destination. That kind of ownership is amazing.

When project managers become professional email answerers, and their project engineers follow that example, who is doing the executing? You’re probably throwing all of it on your field teams. PMs, supers, project directors, and general superintendents: you are not here to talk. You are not a consultant, a visitor, or a savior figure. You are an executor.

How Should We Run Our Meetings?

Section C, Staff Conferences, says that daily, at the earliest possible moment that the G2 and G3 can get their maps posted, a staff conference is held with the commanding general, the chief of staff, and the heads of the staff sections. Officers who visited the front the day before attend, and statements are brief. The commanding general gives his intentions, and the chief of staff allocates the sectors for the day’s staff inspectors.

I get a lot of pushback on meetings. In a training I said we must have a weekly team meeting to go through the takt plan and procurement log, a weekly time for pull planning, make-ready lookahead planning, and creating a weekly work plan, a time every day to plan the next day with foremen, a time every morning to visit with workers, and a five-to-fifteen-minute office huddle around eight or nine where the project leaders remove roadblocks. Tell me that standing order isn’t similar. See Daily Team Huddles in Construction.

If you do your meetings and huddles right and keep them brief, to the point, and relevant, you can do your job. The general staff is there to remove roadblocks for the men and women fighting in the field. And notice they have their maps posted. They don’t have stuff in their heads. They use visual planning, same as we should with our logistics maps, zone maps, and schedules. Then the super and PM give the direction of the project, the office staff take their assignments on a scrum board, and the assistant supers and field engineers go to their zones to observe the front lines and practice zone control.

Do Your People Rest?

Section D, Rest Periods: “Staff personnel, commissioned and enlisted, who do not rest do not last. All sections must run a duty roster and enforce compliance.” When the need arises, everyone must work all the time, but those emergencies are not frequent. “Unfatigued men last longer and work better at high pressure.”

Isn’t that the same as team balance and health in construction? Taking PTO, having a PTO schedule in team meetings, a coverage schedule, making sure people can take care of their families, go to doctor’s appointments, come in late one day a week, and go home early one or two days a week. If you’re a PM, project director, general superintendent, or superintendent and you allow your team to burn the candle at both ends, you are not doing your duty. Remember what Sun Tzu said in The Art of War: you must maintain that energy.

It’s not good enough to just allow PTO. It is your job to enforce the culture. Put PTO on the team meeting agenda. Have a coverage schedule. Know who’s coming in late, who’s going home early, and who has a doctor’s appointment. And have visual planning and execution systems so people can cover for each other. See The 12 Stages of Burnout, Feat. Kate Schroeder.

Where Is Your Command Post?

Section E, Location of Command Posts: “The farther forward the command posts are located, the less time is wasted in driving to and from the front.” The forward command post should be kept as small and mobile as possible.

I was walking a huge project the other day, and it took at least an hour to get from the field back to the office. The PEs, field engineers, and supers were spending an incredible amount of time going back and forth. I asked, why don’t you set up a command post down here? PEs and field engineers only have about 12 to 14 hours of productive work a week anyway, and we don’t want to lose those hours to travel. On about 60 percent of the projects I’ve walked where there’s an opportunity to move the command post forward, they don’t take it. You can have a miniature field office out in the field and report back to the main trailer for certain meetings and huddles, keeping proximity with the larger team.

So here is the challenge. Pick one order you gave this week and personally check its execution on the ground. Then put PTO and coverage on your next team meeting agenda, and measure how long it takes to get from your office to the work.

Bottom line: The order is 10%, execution is 90%, and brief visual meetings, enforced rest, and a forward command post are how you get it done.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

On we go.

Patton’s Standing Orders series:
Previous: Field Command & Visits to the Front

FAQ

What does Patton’s 10% and 90% execution rule mean in construction?

Giving the order is not over 10% of your responsibility. The other 90% is making sure, by personal supervision on the ground by you and your staff, that it is properly and vigorously executed. No more “I told them” or “I sent an email.”

How do Patton’s staff conferences compare to construction meetings?

Patton held a brief daily staff conference once the maps were posted, with the officers who visited the front reporting what they saw. On a project, that’s the weekly team meeting, pull planning, make-ready and weekly work planning, daily foreman planning, worker huddles, and a five-to-fifteen-minute office huddle to remove roadblocks.

Why should a job site have a forward command post?

The farther forward the command post, the less time is wasted traveling to and from the front. On large sites, a small field office near the work keeps project engineers, field engineers, and supers on value-added work instead of walking back and forth.

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