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From Fighter Squadrons to Ninja Warriors: What High Performance Really Looks Like · Commander's Intent

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever frozen in the key moment of making a critical decision?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's in business or in life, it can cost you everything.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Commander's Intent will teach and inspire you how to lead with clarity, courage, and purpose.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your host, retired Air Force Colonel, fighter pilot, and your leadership mentor, Derek Oaks.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Derek Oaks and welcome again to another episode of Commander's Intent.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Rob and I are here to talk to a friend of mine who is a keynote speaker and an author and an owner of multiple businesses in I think it's supply chain and gym and who knows what else, but I'll let Ty introduce himself here in a second.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh Ty Bennett with us, and I'm gonna turn the time over to you, Ty, to just do a quick introduction.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks for having me.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: Good, always good to talk, leadership and high performance.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd love to learn from you too as well with your experience.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so my background is as an entrepreneur.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: I've built and sold a few different businesses in a couple of different industries.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: But over the last 16 years, the main thing that I've been doing is giving speeches and writing books.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think today we're gonna dive into my newest book that actually is just about to come out called Redefining High Performance and hopefully flesh out some of the ideas there.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I love conversations like this that we can dive deeper into things that move the needle.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, great.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and a little bit about my background and Rob's background to kind of set the stage why this interests us so much.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a fighter squadron for many, many years.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was a fighter squadron commander, then a fighter group commander where I had a lot of type A, very high achieving individuals.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you make it to a fighter squadron, chances are in your pilot training class of 20 to 40 students, you're in the top 20%.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go to a fighter squadron, and there's always a fight, you know, there's always a healthy competition of who's the best fighter pilot, who is the best flight lead.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so in my leadership roles, most of the people I worked with, they were high performers, but I still had to get more out of them.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm entrusting them with a multi-million dollar piece of equipment every time they step to the jet, and I'm entrusting them with decisions about life or death.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was really important.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, Rob's very similar, you know, working in special operations, he had individuals that were representing the United States of America in the middle of nowhere, where they're forced to make decisions and then act in a way that didn't embarrass us, that executed the mission and were high performing at every step along the way.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, how do you get that out of people all the time, besides some people naturally being that way?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get high performance out of your entire team?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got to this point?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you want to write a book about high performance?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants high performance.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: What was it that so drew you to this idea?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I like you, you know, ambitious as somebody who likes to achieve and is driven to go after things.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I've done that in multiple areas and speak to a lot of leaders and salespeople.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm around and speaking to a lot of these people who are high performers.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I was curious, the other side of that too is in my personal life, I have five kids, but two of my boys got involved in the sport American Ninja Warrior.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you've seen the show, they were on the show, compete nationally, both nationally ranked, and performing athletically at a very high level.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so a lot of our conversations centered around these principles of high performance.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: How do they take their athletic performance to another level?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm talking to leaders and salespeople about the same kind of things.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so at some point, I started to really like analyze it and say, okay, what are the key drivers?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: What are these things?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that led us down the road to partnering with a research firm and building out and conducting a national research study on high performance.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I think we can all observe things and say, okay, this is what I think that high performance comes down to.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: But I wanted to do some research around it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the insights that came out of it were great.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: They gave me an understanding and not just some of them were confirming, right?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Some were surprising, but ultimately putting some statistics around like these are the drivers, these are the barriers to high performance, these are some of the mindsets that came out of the research.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it helped me to understand it at a more granular level so that we could talk about it in a deeper way and hopefully help people to understand maybe some of those missing pieces that they aren't implementing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's fascinating to me.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had a couple of questions.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, my first question is gonna be what was the most surprising thing you found?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about how some things were you already knew it, some put data behind what you already thought.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: But was there anything really surprising about what you found?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's some interesting statistics that you would just think, like, I mean, that just came out of the research.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Some that are, well, here's one 54% of people, so basically half of working America, said they would actually take less money to work in an organization that helps them to perform better.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: That was surprising to me.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like that you would actually say, okay, you know what?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: My personal growth, my own abilities, and having a team and support and leaders around me that are going to make me better, that's worth more to me than maybe a race, right?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's a driver.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that was an interesting statistic.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: 76% of people said you don't need a college education to be high performing.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: That was just kind of an interesting phenomena throwaway number that was like, yeah, that's probably true in our world today.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, there's degrees are going to be needed for certain, depending on what route you go.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: But one statistic that I found really interesting that created clarity on certain things is when we looked at the barriers to high performance, the number one barrier to high performance that came back, according to the research, was the fear of failure.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I think universally we all face that in some way, shape, or form, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: That shows up for us.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: But here was the statistic that I thought was interesting.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: We asked people how important or like how do you see failure?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is it important to embrace failure?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: And in the research, 76% of the people, 75% of the people said yes, it's very important to embrace failure.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: Then we asked those same people, how often do you do it?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: And that dropped down to 40%.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: And in research, that's what you call a performance gap, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: The difference between what we know we should do and what we actually do.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the easiest way to raise performance is to close that gap.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so there were some things like that, some stats that stood out that went, there's a missing link here, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: There's things that logically we say yes, but emotionally we can't move ourselves to do, like embracing failure the way that we need to to be able to move forward or different things like that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there was a lot of the data that was very fascinating to me.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is really fascinating.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to the first stat that you threw out there.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: 54% of the people will take an environment that pays them less money but allows them to achieve at a higher level.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: We saw that a lot in the military.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: You would have these young airmen, they're literally at the poverty line with three kids at home and a wife who's not working because she's taking care of those three kids and daycare is more expensive.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And yet they're gone six months a year and they're doing very hard jobs, and a lot is asked of them, and yet they love it, and they wouldn't give it up for anything because they love the challenge of being pushed and the challenge of being able to exceed expectations.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of them were kids who didn't graduate from college, they went through their military training and they were given the keys to the kingdom and given a lot of responsibility, and they loved the chance to excel and overachieve.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I saw exactly that over and over.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would even think that number is higher if you give people an example of what that looks like.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think people love that kind of an environment.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you need enough money to go ahead.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: No, I was gonna say one thing that is interesting about the military in particular is there's real clarity on purpose, right?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Underlying to sustain high performance, purpose has to be there.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: We have to have a sense of something bigger than ourselves.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, I would think within the military structure, those numbers would be inflated tremendously because you have a real vision and clarity on what the purpose is and why you're there.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that over and over again.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Kids get into the military and they don't know what their why is.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know what I am doing on this earth in the first place.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of meandering through school.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: They were C students at best.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: They get in and they get into a career film, they go, I actually I'm a member of an important team and I'm doing something that's worthwhile.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they excel well beyond the expectations of all their buddies from high school and even their parents because they have that purpose.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: With those kind of statistics, how has it made you change when you think about leadership?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like what is your you don't have to give me the punchline of the book and reveal everything, but what is your conclusion of how, as leaders, you get the most out of your team and you create an environment where they're gonna excel and gonna be high performing team members.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I think we could take that question in a couple of different directions.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: The way I break down the book based off the research is we have identified five key drivers of high performance.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: We've identified three key barriers to high performance.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then out of the research, there's three mindsets that really came out of it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so to answer this question, I maybe I'm gonna focus on those three mindsets because these are kind of a practice way of being that if leaders can embrace it, what it creates is the best environment for their people.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: So the three mindsets are these: they're confident curiosity, a relaxed intensity, and empathic drive.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I can break those down just a little bit.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: Confident curiosity means that you are confident, you have a sense of confidence to move forward, to take action, but you still remain open, you still remain curious.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: You don't skew too far in the confidence to arrogance to where you have it all figured out and nobody else has an idea that's worth taking, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: And therefore you create openness within your team and you adjust when needed, but you still need that confidence to be moved forward.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: A relaxed intensity is drive with a calmness, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's poise.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: How do you go into battle as a leader and still maintain your decision-making ability?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: How do you not create frantic anxiety within your team when you're dealing under pressure?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then an empathic drive is a leader that's driven for results, but doesn't forget about relationships, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because connection is one of those drivers within an organization that really drives high performance.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's not about lowering standards, it's actually about raising connection.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: But for type A leaders, who most people fall into that realm, it's often that we go after results and sometimes the relationships get pushed to the side.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's finding a balance in those things.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Those three mindsets and balances, I think for me, is something that I'm constantly trying to look at in terms of how I'm leading, how I'm showing up, because I'm trying to create the best environment for my people, for my team to be able to perform at the highest level, too.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to touch on one of those.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do you say it?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The confidence with calmness.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did I say that yet?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, relaxed, uh, relaxed intensity or confident curiosity.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, relaxed intensity.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, either way.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Confident curiosity.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in what one of Tom Clancy's books, Zach Ryan is being described and by another character in the book, and they said he's a cool man in a storm.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I love that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Am I a cool man in a storm?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm uh standing in front of the team, do they feel a hurriedness about me?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do they feel anxiety when they're watching me speak?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or do I inspire confidence and do I inspire relaxation while still driving with a purpose?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a hard thing to do.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's a hard characteristic, I think, to develop.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I agree.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there's practices that can help get you there.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think some people are going to be a little bit more natural at it than others, but I think that there are some skills that you can apply to be able to manage that better as a leader.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I hope so.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not a skill that many people have, and yet it's I agree with you, it is very needed.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: When you were talking about the relaxed intensity and the confident curiosity, I agree wholeheartedly that one anecdote that I have.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: But when I went to Air Command of Staff College, which is kind of our mid-level leadership school, they had a template for how they think that the most high performing groups look which flight they think is going to be high performing.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget my flight commander on day one.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: She went home and told her husband, because man, I think I have a dead last flight.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: She thought we were all duds because we were supposed to set goals.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And our goal for the entire group we all connect with was don't suck and don't be the weakest link.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she thought, Oh my goodness, these guys don't care.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when all was said and done, six or eight weeks later, at the end of the school, we were the number one flight in the school by so many points.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: We'd got to take them to zero on the last graded exam and still worn.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And part of that was because we were so relaxed, we were confident in our own abilities, and everybody just said, take care of your own stuff, make it happen.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it was amazing how much we got done and how well the whole team performed just by taking care of their own business.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I also was amazed by how misunderstood we were by the leadership of that school when we won the Chief of Staff Trophy and we're in our flight room and we're celebrating.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: The squadron commander comes in afterwards, and we were not the typical, we were not marching formation and hooting and all, and we weren't demonstratively showing that we were this super confident, tight-knit group.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: We just were, and we all understood that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: And when he walked into our room, he kind of got mad at us almost and kind of yelled as like, you know, something this is gonna mean something to you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he walked out left and flight commander says, Hey guys, he just doesn't understand you.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't understand how you're able to be so high performing without looking like the template they created.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you, what you just described, Ty, was exactly the way we were as a unit.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: We were not describable by the way the Air Force measured its performance.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: I love the example, but it brings up two points in my mind.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: One is I think that as leaders, we often have a template of this is how it has to be.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we need to allow for that space for people to have some individuality and yet hold standards, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: There's measurement that there's metrics that we're trying to get to.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Number two, the other piece is what our research has found is the old standards of this is how you perform higher.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: You just work harder, you gut it out, like is leading to burnout.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's leading to other things that are not sustainable.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so finding a little bit better way forward, a more sustainable approach is important too.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, thanks.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a follow-on question.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're a leader, you have you're trying to develop this hyperforms team.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You just talked about three characteristics that help you with a hyperforms team.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is something that you can do that will most damage the performance of your team?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So something that you want to avoid.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's an interesting question and a great question.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's probably a long list that we could come up with of what leaders could do.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that I see most often is that a leader believes they have to be the end-all be-all.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: They have to have all the answers that they have to present with total clarity and confidence.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: And what it gets to is arrogance.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: There's no curiosity, there's no openness.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so learning to check your ego at the door and be more authentic and have some curiosity in the way that you lead, allowing your people to participate as partners and not just subordinates.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think that that would be the thing that comes to mind first.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a great way of looking at it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Rob and I were talking this morning, a little bit before the show, about micromanagement.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes micromanagement feels like the responsible thing.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're paying more attention to your team, you're paying more attention to the task.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, in flying analogies, you grip the stick a little bit harder than you need to.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: You over control it and you actually make the problem worse instead of taking a step back.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And another example of that is sometimes as a leader, you feel like you always have to share your opinion.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you just need to shut up.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you need to let the team share their own opinions and come up with their own answers.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like I remember as an early leader, I've thought, well, I got to stop talking first because if I talk first, nobody else is going to talk.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, I realize that sometimes I need to not talk at all, other than say, good job, that sounds great.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because once they I give an idea, they're like, Well, that's really what the boss wants.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let's change everything we just did and go in his direction.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Good insights.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So micromanagement.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Micromanagement would be my answer.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Micromanagement, which is a lack of trust, is one of the things that I think it kills high performance more than anything.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to change the topic a little bit, but still stay on high performance.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have these Ninja Warrior gyms, and you have two sons who participate in Ninja Warrior.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's fascinating.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think back to when I was a kid and I watched some of the things they do.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't think I could have ever done that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I know I could have if I had applied myself and I had tried.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that leads me to the question, which is why do we sell ourselves short?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we put personal limits on what we're really capable of?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't know psychologically why we do that.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: But an interesting thing that came out of the research for me is that when you looked at all of the barriers to high performance that statistically showed up in the research, every one of them were self-inflicted.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: So here's what showed up in the research.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: We had fear of failure, right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's something we put on ourselves and we let fear take over and we don't move forward.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: We had taking criticism personally, right?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of receiving feedback, being open, being curious, trying to get better, we get defensive, it shuts us down.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: Comparison showed up in the research, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: We compare ourselves to others.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like these are all self-inflicted things.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know, we do that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think in many ways we're our own worst enemy in that regard.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, there is an element of how do we learn how to push past the barriers and the limits we're putting on ourselves.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I you know I have a question.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting, though, when you talk about it, you talk about statistics, because I've seen similar things in the units that I've been involved in.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the units I was involved in were hand-selected people that were picked for a reason and they had all the attributes that we had asked them to have.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: The biggest question I had when I stood up a brand new unit in New Mexico, and I didn't get to pick the people I had, and I had kind of a snorkel board of folks, and I almost kind of mirrored the statistics that you're talking about because I probably had 60 to 65, maybe 70% of my unit that wanted to be elite and wanted to be part of the solution and had that you know curiosity and confidence and all the other things, but I had 40% of my unit that just didn't.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so my struggle and the question I would ask is how do I take that 40% cut if I've got them in my organization?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: How do I help them become part of that elite team?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or is the answer merely just to cut them off and build your elite team with people who have the right attributes?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I think the answer could be either.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: It depends on the situation, right?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think that sometimes there is space where you do need to let somebody go, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: They're not a good fit for what you're trying to accomplish or or what you're doing.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: But I also think that as a leader, I believe in growth.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: I believe that people can change, that people have that potential in them.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think as a leader, what our job is, is to create the environment or the right factors for the people to thrive in the best way.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: So interestingly, one of the drivers of high performance is motivation.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: But when we talk about motivation, we're talking about intrinsic motivation, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: It can't be extrinsic, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: The carrot and the stick just based off of incentives because that's not sustainable.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: But the biggest research study ever done on motivation is called the self-determination theory.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was done by two researchers years ago.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: And what they determine is that there's three criteria or three characteristics that build intrinsic motivation.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: So they break down to autonomy, giving people the ownership, some sense of choice, some ability to feel like they have a say or a level of ownership in what they're doing.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: Competency, which is not just skill, but skill combined with experience and confidence so that they can implement that skill, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: If we feel like we know what we're doing and we can do it well, that we can win, that's motivating.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then third is connectedness.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: So as a leader, I would work on those three things of okay, and I'm a big fan from a leadership perspective of having real conversations with real people, right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: When there's a struggle to sit down and go, hey, maybe we're seeing this differently.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: Help me understand where you're coming from.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because from my perspective, this is what I'm experiencing, and this is where my struggle is.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: Let's sit down and figure this out.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about Rob's earlier example about the square commander who came in and said, someday you guys will think this is important.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes we try to superimpose our view of success on other people.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: We try to make them fit a specific mold.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And in an organization, there needs to be a little bit of that, but we can't do it while disregarding what they see as success.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen this over and over where I had somebody on my team, they were hyper focused on doing well, but not necessarily doing well the way the organization wanted, you know, made it look, or their definition of a successful career was very different.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like in the Air Force, it's kind of an Up or out system.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You continue to get promoted and move up the chain, or you're out.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And while that works in some ways, it doesn't work in any ways.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you want people who are fantastic fighter pots, but want nothing to do with the rest of the Air Force.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they just want to do their job technically well.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I use fighter pot because that's my own background, but there are a lot of other skill sets where somebody just wants to show up for work and be with their team and execute well and then go home.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just one example where the paradigm of the individual of what success looks like for them doesn't match necessarily the paradigm of the rest of the world and in particular the organization.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: So understanding what they see as success, so you can get the most out of them and they contribute to the team while they're also self-actualizing, I think is a key element of getting high performance out of people.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I agree.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: And finding that intersection, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: How do we make it aligned to the point that it can so that they are contributing overall to the team and the overall goals, but have a sense of autonomy in that for sure.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I've often drawn it up kind of as a vendor diagram of overlapping circles of, you know, what is your vision?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: What is their vision?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: What are the other teammates' visions?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the real success comes in that shared vision, that shared area where we're all going same day, same way, even if it's for different reasons.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where you can get the real success out of your team.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: But trying to find what's their definition of success and high performance is and use that for the team is going to be part of the key.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tyle, you know, what inspires you to write the book and what inspired you to come up with this current keynote?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can re-answer that and then kind of tell us about your upcoming book.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think it's so important for the audience?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think if you're listening to this, you're probably the kind of person who wants to be better, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, why do you hop on and listen to a podcast like this and try and learn from you know great experience and wisdom?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so, if that's the case, for me, that's the kind of person I want to be.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm striving to be.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think that this book and the research is going to give some really cool insights to hear some things you probably already know and are doing well, but some skills that maybe can go along with it to take that to another level.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then here's some insights that maybe you've never thought about that the research brought out that are interesting.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: The cool part that way I wrote this book that's unique is I actually start the book with a fable.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a short story inside of it, and I end the book with a different fable.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: And then in the middle, you have about 20 chapters of content of all the research that we have done and flushed out.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: But I I'm a big believer in storytelling.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: You can kind of see over my shoulder, I wrote a book called The Power of Storytelling.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's fun to see those, the principles play out that way.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it'll be entertaining.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: It'll be fun.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the book itself actually launches in May.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I think as this is becoming live, you can go to Amazon and find it as pre-order and it'll be on Audible.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: You could go to my website at hybennett.com and grab it there as well.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I I hope you'll check it out.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: I hope you'll enjoy it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm proud of the research that we've done and the way this has come together.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's gonna help people to uh take their performance to another level.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I will definitely be buying myself a copy of the book.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the things you've said today have really piqued my interest.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think your ideas are aligned with my ideas, but I think you also have something to teach me and things that I'm gonna be able to pull out of that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate it and I look forward to the book.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Rob, do you have any last questions you want to ask?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Or well, I was just trying to think through, you know, I really liked what you said, you know, about getting to know the people and having that cleared conversation.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that that's something that people are really, really horrible at, generally speaking.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: I had a boss that we actually had on a podcast earlier.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had a boss who was really good at it.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: When he gave me feedback that maybe I wasn't used to hearing, but because of his example, I was able to take that into my own command and have very pointed conversations with people.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: I used to have a policy that we had a rack and stack where I had a list of numbers of all my captains from one to 75.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna tell a guy if he wanted to come in and know where he was on my Rackenstack, I would tell him.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then we can have that conversation about why that guy was number 75 or why that guy was number 10 or whenever it was.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I found that it generally speaking, I don't know if it's a US culture thing or a human culture thing, we do not like to give people what we would consider maybe negative or bad criticism or critique or advice.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: How do you help a leader that may be struggling with that have those real sincere conversations with one of their subordinates that may not be living up to the standard?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a great question.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: There's actually a whole chapter in the book on feedback because one of the barriers is taking criticism personally, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: We all struggle to both give and receive feedback.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so I look at it from both directions, but it also comes into play.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: The biggest reason that leaders hesitate to do that is because of the fear of failure, because we fear the repercussions.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: We don't want it to cause an issue, cause a rift.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's not going to be received well.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: They're not going to like me, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: There's some fear that comes up in that.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: So, one, there is an element of like having a little bit of courage and pulling the band-aid off to be able to just be willing to try it and do it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there's some skills in learning how to do it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: So lead with belief in that person.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: The only reason you would be giving feedback is because you actually have belief that their potential is greater than this behavior.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: But also specifically giving that feedback to behavior, not identity.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: You're not a bad person, but I noticed that when you do this skill, this is not working.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about that in particular.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: How do we make that better?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: And even just the clarifying opening that question of are open to some feedback.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: I've observed something I want to share that I think can help you, right?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: So some of those, there's some little nuances and skills that can be learned, but I also think what really holds us back is fear.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so being willing to step through that fear a little bit.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's perfect, man.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that's a skill that everybody needs on both sides, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: To take the critique, but also to be able to give honest feedback and honest critique.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think if we got to that point, more teams would rise to that elite level than not.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: I like what you said earlier, Ty, about that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a personal criticism, it is feedback of behavior, it's feedback of results.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as you, I think as a leader, that makes it a lot easier.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: It makes it less personal, is if you focus on, well, what was the objective?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: What were we trying to do?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: What was your job description?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And how are you doing in relation to that job description?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to criticize them personally.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: You want to provide feedback to help them be better at that particular behavior so that they can become a more high-performing individual.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I like what you said, Ty, about how you're you wouldn't be giving feedback somebody you didn't think had higher potential than what they were showing.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say that I think that's the key.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: The key is that people need to know that you care about them and that you really are trying to get them to be the best, whatever it is, you know, best pilot, best leader, best salesman.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's a key.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Once I understood the critique I was receiving was because my boss thought I could be better.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And once I learned how to give that to other people, I think it was received in the right way.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think that really is the key, is that and it comes back to a thing that Derek's talked about over and over.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's really about trust.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: How do you create trust between a leader and a follower so that you will trust the words that they give you one way or the other?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I think that was the key, is knowing that you're really doing it because you see them or you see them as well, or more potential.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: So cool.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the conversation.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: This has been fun.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I appreciate it also.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned something, and like I said, I'm excited to read the book.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't gone to Amazon to look for his book, go ahead and pre-buy the book or go to his website and buy his book to learn about becoming a high performance leader and a high performance team player or team member.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you will all enjoy it and you'll appreciate it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ty is a great storyteller.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: He knows what he's talking about.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's led a lot of businesses and done very well with him because he practiced what he preaches.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any other questions about Ty's show and Ty's speaking and his writing, then you can reach out directly to him or go to AskDerknow.com and I will connect the two of you.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about the show, if there is anything that you want uh us to talk about, then please go to the show, go to that website, and we'll have a direct conversation.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us for another episode of Commander's Intent, and together we'll continue to become better decision makers for better results.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it for today's episode of Commander's Intent Podcast.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Head on over to Apple Podcasts iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will be entered in a grand prize drawing to win a$25,000 private, exclusive leadership coaching package with Derek Oakes himself.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: So head on over to Commanders Intent Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Derek's Leadership Guide and join us on the next episode.