Ep. 97: Military Command Structure in Business

Podcast Description:

In this episode of Veteran Led, John S. Berry reveals how he applies military command structure to scale his eight-figure law firm. Learn how diverse practice areas enhance firm capabilities and why treating lawyers like “tactical athletes” drives constant improvement.

Podcast Transcript:

Welcome fellow veterans. From the tip of the spear to in the rear with the gear, I went from active-duty Infantry to reserve-component logistician. I’m your host, CEO, entrepreneur, trial lawyer, and Lieutenant Colonel Retired, John Berry. The military lessons that I learned helped me grow an eight-figure business that has maintained consistent annual double-digit growth, landing on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America every year for the past seven years and has allowed me to continue to serve America’s heroes.

Command structure.

My first experience on division staff opened my eyes to the massive capabilities of the military. I was the current operations officer and I reported to the CHOPS, the chief of operations who reported to the G3. During my in-brief, The G3 said, “The toughest part about being on division staff is learning all of the capabilities.” The same is true in a growing civilian organization.

At Berry Law, we have capabilities now that I could not have dreamed of five years ago. We have a data scientist, a corporate trainer, a software engineer. And division staff was somewhat like that, where despite the complexity, the key was the war fighting capabilities and the leadership model remain the same as it was at the battalion level.

So at Berry Law, I run my team like a battalion. I have three company commanders. I have my VA disability appeals commander, my personal injury commander, and my criminal defense commander. My commanders are my best of my best lawyers, and they have platoon leaders that support them. And those platoon leaders are lawyers that are in charge of other lawyers, paralegals and legal assistants.

So my warfighters, who are my legal teams, are supported by a staff similar to a primary battalion staff. So my G1 or S1 is my HR. My G2 is intel in marketing. My G3 is ops and training, G4 logistics and facilities, G6 comms and networks, G8 finance. The staff’s job is to support the warfighter, and that allows us to have three different battle functions.

Now, some firms only do one thing, but our diversity of experience and richness and capabilities helps us perform better. So, for instance, our VA appeals lawyers are mostly working with our PI and criminal appellate lawyers to talk about new due process arguments. Our VA lawyers teach our personal injury lawyers about traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, which are common for veterans but also common in serious injury cases.

Now, look, I don’t need to be the best lawyer in the organization. If that happens, my ego is out of control. And if my ego is out of control, that I will never hire anybody who is better than me. My goal is to hire everybody better than me and help them be great. My model is the same as the great engineering firms, physical therapy centers and accounting firms; they hire the best people that they can and remove the constraints and the time sucks that prevent them from being even better.

My best lawyers desire constant improvement and they get there through getting the reps with difficult cases and regular realistic training. I treat them like championship athletes, and I invest in technologies and tools to help them do their job even better and maintain focus on their mission, which is winning for their clients.

After Action Review:

1. Leadership scales.
2. The more capabilities you add to your team, the more team members can focus on the one thing that they are great at.
3. Hire people who are better than you.

Three things I didn’t learn right away:

1. Egos don’t scale. If you have to be the best in your organization, you are the choke point.
2. The bigger you grow, the more capabilities you need. A division needs more capabilities than a battalion.
3. I believe the only path to greatness was only doing one thing, but only doing one thing doesn’t necessarily make you a specialist or an expert. Results make you a specialist or an expert. And if you can get results in multiple lines of business because you have leaders who are better than you, then you can build those capabilities and you can have multiple lines of business.

Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.