Co-hosts Jan Rutherford and Jim Vaselopulos interview Chris Paton (2 weeks before he had a brain tumor removed - see notes below which are published with Chris’s permission). Chris is the founder and Managing Director of Quirk Solutions, a company that specializes in delivering Business Wargaming to many organizations. Chris was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines and an advisor to the Cabinet and National Security Council on Afghan strategy, and he leverages the wargaming he learned as a tool to pressure test and evaluate business plans before committing resources into action. Listen in to learn more about how you can lead stress testing in your organization to strengthen your plans and execution.   Emails we received from Chris - this is one tough hombre - and hope this inspires you as much as did us...   Feb 7 - Date show was recorded   Feb 24 - date of Chris’s surgery - his comments below right after surgery:   Hi Jan & Jim. All done. Feeling a bit rubbish and just recovering from anaesthetic now, but thanks to your kind thoughts and prayers have come out the other side of surgery ok.   Won't know more re how cancerous/benign it is for 2-3 weeks but already feeling up for the fight.   Whatever it is; It picked on the wrong dude.....   You know me; not about to let this get in the way of what I want to do.   Really hope I smash the ball out of the park for you.   Looking forward to hearing what you come up with as a title. Will cheer up a few days in hospital!   Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I'm out of immediate danger and now turning my energy back against my opponent!   March 9 As it happens, we had some amazing news this morning. The results of the biopsy are back and not only did they get all of the tumour out, but it seems it was totally benign and there's no risk of cancer at all.   Big smiles this side of the pond!   God bless,   Key Takeaways [3:21] In the Royal Marines, Chris co-authored an article on planning in fluid situations. That led to talks and consulting, and he realized he had something important to contribute to the corporate world. He left the military to create a business planning consultancy. At each point of a client strategy, Chris would pressure test it to find gaps and weaknesses. He would also pressure test the options he delivered. [6:24] Chris started to have clients create more of the strategy, with more self-reliance; more responsibility for their own planning. Chris ‘blew on the embers,’ with pressure tests, to add the real value to the planning process. [7:56] Military people go into business, aware that the consequences of getting something wrong are so catastrophic, that they don’t want to engage with it. Because of that, they spend a lot of time preparing to get it right for the actual action. Corporations sometimes just give it a whirl, to see what happens. Military will not do that, because the cost of failure is too great. [11:05] Chris runs sessions three ways. The first is a pure pressure test. The second is to train the people to run their own tests. The third is to train the trainer, to do it independently. The pressure test is oriented around a Blue idea team and a Red critical team. The Red are the people who will be affected by the plan. Blue runs the ideas like game plays against Red team. An umpire facilitates the wargame. [17:38] Matthew Syed, in Black Box Thinking, suggests an evolutionary process of trying and testing, failing, trying, and testing. Chris combines that with technical expertise, to start with a good initial plan. All affected parties are needed. Executives arguing against executives will not find all problems. [19:54] One cause of organizational blind spots is always recruiting people to be a good fit. Over time they end up recruiting very similar people, who see things the same way. Another blind spot is wilful blindness, from fear of the awful consequence of failure. Chris insists organizations draw from their own experiences in solving th