How I used my military experience to grow my business

There are plenty of businesses that think they run a military-like operation, but for construction services firm Point Project Management, military experience plays a big part in how founders Brendan Bilston and Michael Snare operate the company.

Bilston and Snare wanted to create an environment they felt reflected their experience in the military, with a high emphasis on integrity, discipline and responsibility. To do so, they ended up hiring many of their former military colleagues.

With revenue of over $15 million and dozens of staff and offices across the country, Bilston says the company places a high emphasis on military-like precision to get things done.

How has the business performed over the past year?

Our business has continued to grow quite rapidly. This time last year we had 28 full-time staff, and the largest project was worth about $33 million. Now, we have 56 staff, we have a program of work valued at over half a billion, and domestically we have projects worth well over the $100 million market. The business has grown in personnel, we are operating on the Gold Coast and the presence in Sydney has grown and is a growth market for the business. The business has doubled both in personnel, turnover and size.

We’re trying to work ourselves to a point where Michael and I aren’t essential to the running and delivery of projects.

How did the military influence in your business come about?

Both Michael and I are ex-army officers. Michael was my senior at ADFA overseeing my initial training. And we can joke about military training and the seniority there, and how that ranking structure exists, but we had a good relationship.

We parted ways for awhile and followed different paths, but then met up together in 2003 and agreed to start up a few years after that.

So what happened when you met up again?

We went and did a variety of different things during that time, but we had that common bond with the military training. And it’s been important to us, the backbone of the people we have become, and the traits we found there are the culture we wanted to bring to our business and our clients.

It wasn’t a conscious decision we made to just say “let’s hire military employees”. But we knew so many people in or had left the military, and it was about bringing in that sort of culture of sophisticated training.

What is it about military training that you think applies to your business?

It’s extremely important for us to create that type of environment in our business. We knew they had been educated, had been trained in a management sense and knew they could handle themselves in that sort of management domain with authority.

We look for all these traits, and that’s not to say we don’t find them in the private sector, but those qualities we could immediately identify in those people.

The military puts a large emphasis on responsibility. Is that important in your business as well?

I think when you’re in the military, you’re thrown into situations much quicker and at a much younger age. As a young lieutenant, you’re allocated something like 30 to 40 soldiers that you’re responsible for. You are responsible for equipment and assets and you are charged with the responsibility to deliver outcomes. In the private sector, you might take years to get to that level of responsibility. So that teaches you to accelerate your thinking, be accountable for cost equipment and to make decisions. We use that same style in our business.

There are some people who may think because you borrow elements form the military, you have a focus on discipline. How do you address that?

We don’t run things as a hierarchy or have elements of military discipline in that sense. We are able to choose things to use in our culture based on the military, and Michael and I have made very clear statements about what we like and don’t like from the military, private and public sectors.

One thing that is extremely important is the treatment of our staff, which we believe comes from the military. We want to provide flexible working conditions, our staff are all mature adults and know how to come in and do their job. If they have sick kids, they can bring those kids to work or they can work from home.

We also do a staff activity once a month, but it’s done on our time, not on their own personal time. We believe that this helps to create a sense of culture within the staff.

What other elements of military strategy do you use?

One of the key things we focus on is integrity in business. We are entirely open with our clients with regards to cost, or the way we’re going to approach a particular topic. Again, that’s not to say other companies don’t do that at all, but we make a clear and explicit statement we will be honest and upfront about what we’re doing.

We were brought up with process, structure, and systems. We have produced our own culture with process, structure and systems that are put in place for a reason.

What advice would you give to businesses wanting to use these types of strategies?

I think there are a few things businesses can take away. If you’re going to set standards and ask people to do things, then you need to be prepared to do them yourself. If you have a process, follow those systems, and lead by example.

We are fundamentally adamant about taking care of our staff and our corporate culture. It’s not about strict military protocol, but about things like leading by example and providing a high level of training, which is important. Training is about structure and process. If you provide someone with ongoing training, then they’ll be able to move forward and develop themselves.