We have but one photograph in our bedroom. It’s a still photo - black and white – of Winston Churchill and Dwight David Eisenhower.

Eisenhower is in full uniform and Churchill looks just as he always looks --- frumpy. The two men are obviously walking briskly, surrounded by assorted military types. It looks to me as if Winston is doing all the talking.

I love this photo. I saw it at a gallery in Hawaii and knew that I had to have it even though it cost $500.00. (They told me it was one-of-a-kind.) It is authenticated.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve stared at that picture. When it was taken, the fate of the world hung in the hands of these two men. (I guess you can say that Joe Stalin and Adolf Hitler might argue this point --- but Churchill and Eisenhower were certainly the architects of the ultimate Allied victory.)

I’ve read much about these two gentlemen. Churchill came from British royalty and had a domineering mother. One might also call him “street smart.”

Eisenhower, on the other hand, was a sodbuster from Abilene, Kansas. And while he attended West Point (and did very well), he never lost the common touch. To his men, he was just a regular guy.

Churchill was a talker and Ike a listener. Their most profound differences were in how they strategized; for there is no doubt that while Eisenhower was all about the details, Churchill was first and foremost a broad-strokes kind of thinker.

As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Churchill had no “bosses.” In fact, it’s amazing to me how much power he wrested from the British system of government during World War II. If Churchill wanted it, it was to be.

Eisenhower on the other hand had many bosses. Too many, in fact. Ike was the ultimate consensus-builder because there was no other way for him to effectively manage as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Ike had to answer to all of the allies; his own president and defense chiefs; and, of course, his egocentric generals --- every one of whom wanted headlines and glory.

Sometimes fate puts great people into circumstances like these. No one could have possibly manipulated things such that the two top people, in terms of saving the world, would come together at exactly the “right” time, but it happened.

But it was Ike’s fanatical attention to detail that caused me to consider writing this particular column. I found myself staring at the picture and wondering, “What’s more important: having a terrific strategic plan (Churchill), or executing that plan flawlessly, right down to the last detail?”

For example, men died on the Normandy beaches long before D-Day itself. Dwight Eisenhower was responsible for these deaths. What were these men doing there? They were testing the firmness of the soil, to see if it could hold up when the heavy allied tanks began arriving on D-Day. They had to know this detailed information.

Some came back, some didn’t.

But it was Churchill who contributed to some of the more brilliant strategies employed by the allies during the whole of the war, including D-Day. For example, he suggested building an entire “fake” army, headed up by the most feared American general (in the eyes of the Germans), George S. Patton. This army was made of cardboard, but to a German reconnaissance plane, it looked like steel.

Details.

Regular readers of this column know that we are striving here at Pittsburgh Business Radio (PBR) to build a product that will not only capture a significant portion of the smartest and most successful listeners in western Pennsylvania, but that also can become the basis of a national network of terrestrial broadcast stations carrying that same content.

We opened our doors in September of 2008, and promptly lost over $1.3 million dollars before generating even our first dime in revenue. These were tough times, but I knew we had a great product, if only from the thousands of e-mails, texts, letters, and phone calls we received from our listener base. Having built a number of companies in my life, I knew that PBR was a great product. I also knew that, and when you have a great product, you just keep punching away and eventually the customers will show up.

And they did. Sometime next week we will close our 80th sponsor.

From day one, I have personally refused to “run” this business. I’ve been running businesses since I was in college, really, and I just don’t want to do it anymore. I just don’t need or want the time investment (especially) --- at this stage of my life my most important time investment is in my children and in my family.

But, and even though the company is growing from a revenue standpoint, I could see that we were still making too many mistakes and that many of those mistakes were simply due to a lack of attention to detail.

Enter Brian McMahon. Brian is an ex-Duquesne student of mine and one of the most detail-oriented people I have ever known. He showed up at PBR in May, and the place has not been the same since.

Little things. Things like signs greeting our show guests as they get off the elevator. Things like regular sanitization of headsets and microphones between guests.

And copious notes and instructions to sponsors and guests, letting them know exactly and precisely “what happens next,” and why it is important.

Details, details, details.

So, how does one “get” to the details? Perhaps the best way is to conduct a process analysis of the entire business.

Working closely with another young Duquesne graduate, the young Mr. McMahon mapped every process in PBR. Every single individual in the company showed Brian and his cohort exactly how they spent their days performing their required duties. Consequently, we almost immediately began to get a handle on our costs and our capacities --- two things that always come out of a process analysis.

Once we had a handle on these two outputs, we could begin to “stress test” our infrastructure. In other words, what are we capable of doing? Where is our breaking point, measured in terms of throughput capacity?

For once you know the limits of your infrastructure, so also you know when and how it might crash and burn.

(I first employed this technique at a start-up called, JDW. In essence, we sold just one customer and worked closely with that customer for almost 18 months, testing out every aspect of our system. This yielded valuable information and insight --- giving us a means by which we could discover the weak points in our overall infrastructure. Once discovered, appropriate measures were taken.)

So, let us review “Morris’ formula for a smooth-running business”:

• Step 1 – Define Your Niche – It all starts with “owning” your niche. If you’re in a competitive business, you’re not an entrepreneur; you’re a small business person. And as such, you are doomed to a lifetime of competition with others.

  Don’t even go there. It ain’t worth it.




• Step 2 – Define Your Product Concept – This is your differentiated product or service. This is your deliverable. This is the value-add your customers get from your organization.

  Again, your Product Concept must be unique and completely differentiated from any competitive offering.




• Step 3 – Define Your Processes – We’ve already talked about this. Once you define your Product Concept, you must next define exactly how you’re going to design, build, distribute and service that PC. These are all processes and each should be developed by its “owner.”

  Thus, and here at PBR, John Poister, our head of programming, defines such things as how our shows “flow,” and how our newscasts are formulated. He is the “maker” of the deliverables called “news” and the actual talk shows themselves.

  Remember, it’s all about inputs, processes, and outputs. All process flow breaks down this way.



• Step 4 – Stress Test Your Infrastructure/Determine Your Capacities. This is self-explanatory.



• Step 5 – Determine “Player Types” – This is where you use scientific instruments such as the Predictive Index (PI). The PI will tell you “who goes where,” and their capacities. No rocket science here --- if you work with someone (as we do in the case of Dan Courser of Predictive Synergistic Systems), you can build a company where the exact right people are managing or coordinating or whatever the case.

  Your goal is this: a.) put your optimists in “sell it” type activities or processes; b.) put your realists in “make it” type activities or processes; c.) and, put your pessimists in “count it” type activities or processes.

  It’s that simple. And the PI will make it very easy to do this.

  Remember, there are really only three major activities in any business: “making stuff,” “selling stuff,” and “counting stuff” (and also remember you are allowed just one “counter” --- at least until you get to about $2 million in sales).




• Final Step – Finally, take the visionary company founder and give him or her the biggest, baddest, realist/pessimist sidekick you can find. Don’t worry, they will, and in time, find that they absolutely need one another.

  (Note: But you must make absolutely sure that they respect each other. It’s one thing to put a “break pedal” person with a “gas pedal” person, but if they don’t respect one another, it’s all for naught. There must be significant mutual respect in this relationship.)

Do all this and, as Brook Benton said in his 1962 song, “You Gotta a Hit Record.”