Latest / Commander's Intent / How Great Leaders Thrive in Challenging Situations with Theresa Carpenter

Transcript

How Great Leaders Thrive in Challenging Situations with Theresa Carpenter · 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 Oak.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Commander's Intent.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm here with my co-host, Rob Powell, and we have as our special guest today, fellow podcaster, retired Navy commander, Teresa Carpenter.
0:38
SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to have her introduce herself a little bit because I think it'll help us get to where you can understand why we're talking in the first place.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: How do we identify a challenging situation?
0:47
SPEAKER_02: And then how do we lead through and in spite of that situation, how do we thrive and do well in that kind of situation?
0:54
SPEAKER_02: So, Teresa, I'm going to turn over to you for a quick introduction of you, your show, and the topic in general.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you first off so much for having me on Commander's Intent.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm honored to be here.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's a pleasure to talk with the both of you.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed our pre-call as well.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: So my name is Teresa Carpenter.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I am a retired Navy commander, former enlisted.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: I enlisted in the Navy in 1996, originally going air crew that transitioned to being an aircraft electrician's mate on the S3B Fiking aircraft, where I served for 10 years enlisted and then got my commissioning as a surface warfare officer in 2006.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And I spent a year and a half, two years as a SWO.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: I was actually working for the now Admiral Brad Cooper, who is in SEGCCOM kicking butt at the moment.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And I was on the USS Russell, so DDG lifestyle, which was amazing.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And we deployed on a surge deployment 2006, 2007 timeframe.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: And then I transitioned to, that was during my SWO years.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: I got my SWO pin and then transitioned, lat transferred to public affairs.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I always wanted to be some kind of a writer when I was growing up.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: I was always a storyteller, always enjoyed doing poetry or going to the library and researching things.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I still am such a nerd.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: I just found out that the MWR Professional Library is open to retirees and has like 150,000 books that you can get for free on your Kindle.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And here I was buying books all this time.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: So I was very happy to discover that just recently.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: So now I am retired from the Navy after nearly 30 years and multiple deployments and overseas and working with foreign militaries and NATO.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: And I run a podcast called Stories of Service, Ordinary People who do extraordinary work.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: I have nearly 300 episodes.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: And I try now to focus on what I call hidden narratives and speaking truth to power and talking about the things that I am not seeing covered elsewhere, hoping to curculate those issues to a larger audience.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing that.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, in the pre-call, like you mentioned, Robin, I talked about how we got to where we are with this podcast.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: We love solving problems.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the great things about being a military officer is that the situation is never perfect.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: The environment is never perfect.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Your leadership is never perfect.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: And so you always have to figure out how do I solve for X despite all of the chatter and the obstacles in the way.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: And that's not new, that is not unique to the military.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: That is that's life.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: And you see it in politics, you see it if you're running a business, you're gonna see it, you're gonna see it in every single thing you do.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: So how do you do that?
3:39
SPEAKER_02: And so what I wanted to talk about today is how do we lead and how do we thrive in challenging situations?
3:46
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm gonna ask you how with what you've done as a podcaster and the topics that you've discussed, and also in your history as a surface warfare public affairs, and then as I as an aircraft technician in the Navy, what makes you so qualified to talk about leading in challenging situations?
4:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I started as a maintainer figuring out ways to be useful.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: I think that a lot of people don't understand that you may not be good at everything that you're doing with your craft, but you need to find something that you do really, really well and then prove yourself indispensable for that one thing that you do really, really well.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And for me, it was never being the one that could read the schematics out and figure out where the where we were losing power or something along those lines.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that type of problem solving.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: But for me, it was getting really good and really quick at the things that would turn the aircraft around fast on the flight deck.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: And so I became very indispensable as a final checker troubleshooter on the carrier.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: And I was always the one they could count on to know what would go wrong on the fly.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And so that that became sort of my superpower.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: I was also engine turn called, auxiliarly power unit qualified.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I got every single qualification, which made me very indispensable, especially when we had a tech rec come out, who I have now become very good friends with, even to this day.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And we worked together side by side on the some of the hardest discrepancies that none of the maintainers could figure out.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: And I just became indispensable as his assistant.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's what my superpower was as a on the ground level.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: And then when I became a supervisor, which my first supervisory roles were as an E5, but then of course as a SWO, I ran a division service warfare officer.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And then as a PAO, I also managed teams.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think that you just always have to find what I call those silver lines.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: So the military is very dysfunctional.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: We all know that.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: And there is a million ways to say what can go wrong and how some problems are just insurmountable, and the leadership does not have the motivation or the incentive to fix the issues.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: So then you have to look at your whole portfolio of work and say, where can I make an in-road?
5:58
SPEAKER_01: What is the program?
6:01
SPEAKER_01: What is the country?
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Let's say if it's a certain nation that you're working with, what do they want?
6:06
SPEAKER_01: And if your team can deliver what they want.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: Like for example, when I was in NATO, Turkea loved publicity and they really, really wanted to bolster their rankings within NATO, which was great.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: And there were ways that we could capitalize on that as soon as I got into that position.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: For example, our operations officer for NATO at the time was a one-star female admiral.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: And so that was like the first story that I did with that nation.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: And it really helped to solidify that relationship.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: And there were constant tensions there between Greece and Turkey.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: And trying to navigate that was definitely challenging.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think that you have to just figure out how to figure out what people want and then genuinely try to beat that need.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: But that's the only way that I have found to be successful in those challenging situations.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: And then also to know who to have boundaries with and to kind of stay clear of because they're not maybe safe or healthy people to put your trust in.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I love that.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: And I was, as you were talking, I was thinking about the time that I spent both serving with NATO and then growing up as a kid in NATO.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: My dad was in the Air Force at the time.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: And like the current conflict or I would say friction that we have with NATO, it often gets painted that NATO is this big, homogeneous, we all love each other family.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: And it is anything but that.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: It is it is actually miraculous that it's held together as well as it has for so many years.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: And that's leading in challenging situations, you know.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: And some will criticize President Trump and his team for how they have spoken to NATO.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna justify or disparage what he has done, but in some ways, he has said certain painful things out loud, and he has said he has been the one who has addressed problems and he has addressed the things that that have always been there and have always existed.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: He's he has just said, we're gonna get after it.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: And it will, I think it will be still to be seen whether or not it gets they get after it in the right way, and it ends up working out to the benefit of the United States and to NATO.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: But that's a very challenging situation to leave, and it has never been easy.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you go back, I was a missionary in Spain, and I remember painted on buildings.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: It was Bases Bueno Otam No, it's get the bases out and get out of NATO.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: And that was painted on the side of apartment buildings, and that was a pretty regular feeling.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: I think that feeling is probably even stronger today.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's very interesting that you were serving in public affairs in NATO at that time and having to manage and kind of step your way through all of that, be the voice of the Navy, I'm sorry, in the United States, but also the voice of NATO.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: It is definitely a challenge, but it's also such an opportunity, too.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, all the different nations, they have their own idiosequencies, ways of working.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes their ways of working don't necessarily jive with someone else's ways of working, but everybody tries their best to make it work.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: And then when there was something that went down that everybody needed to respond to, I think when I was there that we had the issue with the undersea cable accident, Nordstrom, I think was what it was called.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And that that happened while I was there.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: And that was a good example of how the nations sort of just came together to solve and to figure out what could be done.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: We were also part of the response, I think just more from a communications standpoint for the undersea incident with the submarine that the commercial submarine that exploded.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: We there is, and a lot of people don't know about this.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: They don't know there's actually a NATO under undersea aspect to what we did in the maritime domain.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of things that I learned working there.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: That was my last operational command before I retired.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: And I was in charge of an international staff.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: So there were also challenges between nations and what one nation's policies were versus another nation's policies.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, even little things like the French could only stay at certain hotels, but we all had to travel together.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: So we had to all figure out how we were all going to line up together to coordinate this particular media availability or translation issues.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: I've had journalists from all different European nations, some who spoke good English, some who didn't speak any English.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: And so it was definitely challenging to navigate those arenas.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: But I always try my best to see the good in everything and to think in my mind, it's all going to work out.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Even if it's totally doesn't look like it's going to work out, it's all gonna work out.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: I think you almost have to have that because it if you don't have that kind of an attitude, life can get pretty depressing.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: And you get pretty frustrated with that.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: And I see it, you see it in the media, you see it everywhere.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: People assume the worst of somebody who disagrees with them.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: People assume the worst of somebody who that's probably why the divorce rate is so high.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, you assume the worst of even your spouse when it's just a problem to be solved.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: It's something to be to work through.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: We want everybody to agree with us and to do, to want to do things exactly the way we want to do things.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Never mind that maybe we're wrong.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: And as a result, we end up with conflict that doesn't need to be there.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean the challenge isn't gonna be there.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: The challenge is always gonna be there.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: It's it means that we we turn it into a conflict when there's not any conflict.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: And it's an unfortunate thing.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Your time is in the military.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: I I have about 10 years working in the in the commercial world in a number of different capacities.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Rob has a little bit less than that, and there's always a challenging situation.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: But what I found is that in general, the people you're working with, I'm there, they're they're selfish narcissists, there are people with borderline personality disorder, and there are people who are are gonna do what they can to stab you in the back.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: But that's not the majority of people.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: No.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: And so if you assume, and I'm not saying you set yourself up for failure, you set yourself up to get stabbed in the back, but if you assume that people generally want what's best for themselves and for them, those around them, it gives you a different perspective as you step into any work environment, any challenging environment.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's human nature to focus on the worst, and then you have to fight that human nature to focus on those, those, those bad apples or those people that are, like you said, that are not out for the right reasons.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: All you need to do is you know where they are in your organization and you figure out ways to politely maneuver around them.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's all you can really do.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Because you can if you unless you own your own business and you can fire them, which most people can't.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: So then you have to figure out, okay, how do I hold the line with this person?
12:39
SPEAKER_01: How do I establish a boundary?
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And that took me a lot of years to work through, but I'm pretty good at it these days.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And I just try to stay away, stay above the frame and uh stay away.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: And then I have to choose when to respond and when not to, because it's sometimes those people aren't worth it.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: But Teresa, I will say, I think something that you said in your little intro was was really telling.
12:58
SPEAKER_04: I think it's the secret to most of this.
13:00
SPEAKER_04: You know, you said you basically have to treat or or act with people in a sincere and honest way, that you're sincerely looking for a solution.
13:07
SPEAKER_04: And I think that you find in your dealings with people, you're gonna find the people that are sincere and honest, even if they disagree with you, those are the ones you can work with and have disagreements.
13:17
SPEAKER_04: There are others that I've worked with and we all have that are not so sincere and honest.
13:22
SPEAKER_04: And like you said, you kind of set the boundaries up and figure out how to work your way around them.
13:25
SPEAKER_04: But I think that's really the key.
13:27
SPEAKER_04: That the folks that I really enjoyed, I went to a couple schools uh in the Air Force.
13:32
SPEAKER_04: They brought a lot of us together and gave us some really challenging topics and things to discuss.
13:37
SPEAKER_04: And we didn't agree.
13:38
SPEAKER_04: You know, there are 42 people in our class.
13:40
SPEAKER_04: We have 42 different opinions, but we all walked away as friends because we recognized that we were there to try to help make ourselves and our organizations better.
13:48
SPEAKER_04: And I really think that's the secret sauce, if you will, to getting cohesive, coherent organizations is you don't all have to think the same way, but you kind of have to have the same, the same commitment to authenticity and sincerity and genuinely being trying to find the right answers and admit when you go, yeah, I was looking at that wrong.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I've certainly made a ton of mistakes in my career and I've been pretty forthright and honest about them and I'm willing to talk about them.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: And I really do welcome disagreement because people who are disagreeing but doing so from a place of authenticity and a place of just genuine curiosity, those people make us better.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: And those people challenge our thinking, even in the political realm.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: I've gone from probably aligning more for a left of center, then I was a little right of center now back to just trying to be as apolitical as possible because I realize that it doesn't matter.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Like it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: There's people who are nefarious on either side.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's just best to stay away from all of it and to insulate yourself from it and to try your best to just tackle things issue by issue.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: I find that to be the best approach instead of aligning yourself with a particular side.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: So that that's been a journey for me and an evolution in my understanding of how the world works.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: You said so many things there that I wanted to touch on.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: I'll see if I can remember them all.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: The first one, you said you talked about not everybody's owns a small business and can fire the people they worked for.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: I've owned some small businesses, I've worked in small businesses, and what I've found is that firing is not always the answer.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: In fact, firing is seldom firing is seldom the answer because the chances are you're going to hire somebody else that has the same but different problems, the same but different challenges, and you're stuck, so you're still stuck with that problem.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: And that leads me to a question.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: My dad once said to me, your first reaction should never be to fire somebody because you haven't solved the problem.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: Then you're focusing on the person, not the problem, not the vision, the desired end state.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: And so how do I meet the vision?
15:51
SPEAKER_02: How do I get to that commander's intent and desire, despite the challenges that are all around any of us, regardless of your situation?
16:00
SPEAKER_02: How does your well, if you had a simple statement to make, how do I get to my vision regardless of my challenges that applies across the board, what would that be?
16:10
SPEAKER_01: You remove their barriers to implementation.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times when people are trying to achieve a objective, a commander's intent, they don't understand that throughout their organization, their people are being pulled in all kinds of other extraneous directions that have absolutely nothing to do with commander's intent.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of your time as a leader, I think, is spent deconflicting what the actual direction and the priorities for that particular team ought to be.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: Because when you have members of your team that are constantly being pulled into special committees or organizations or going all over the organization and doing other things that are not commander's intent, it's your job as the leader to align that vision to what those priorities are for your boss, and then also to translate them into the why.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: How is this going to make our organization more lethal?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: How is this going to make our organization run better?
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Do we really need this particular, this particular capability?
17:14
SPEAKER_01: One example comes to mind, and I found out later that my the guy that relieved me actually got rid of the position, which I'm so happy he did.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm regretting that I wasn't able to do this, but we had an in-house graphic designer.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: The base had graphic design services.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: And this in-house graphic designer just got bogged down with like, make me a retirement brochure, make me a program for this particular conference.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: And we had to really spell out for the organization what our capabilities were and then what could be outsourced to the base.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: And I later found out we were in the process of hiring another graphic designer.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: I later found out that my guy who relieved me just got rid of the position altogether.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, good, because this was something that was just tying up all of our time.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Graphic design and video to give you a little bit of PR behind the scenes, they're the two hardest things to do because everybody and their brother has an opinion about it.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, a story, you can go back and forth with a few edits here and there.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: A picture, it is what it is.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: You got the picture.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: But graphic design and video editing, everybody thinks that they've got an opinion on those two things.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: And so you have to decide as a leader what are those time sumps that are not going to pay off?
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And how do you streamline those efficiencies to deliver the best bang for your buck?
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And where are you really going to leverage the most reach or exposure for a particular issue?
18:40
SPEAKER_01: So I know I'm speaking in public relations terms, but that's just what I found to be successful.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: I really love that.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And I think I agree with you 100%.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: I tell a story a lot of times as a pilot, I'm not that smart of a person.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the A10, we had three radios.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes all three radios are squawking at me.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: And the only thing I could do to be successful was turn off one or two of those radios.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: And those people are still talking to me.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: They didn't know I was completely not listening because I needed to clear my mind and I needed to focus on what's most important.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: So I'd ask myself, who do I really need to talk to right now?
19:13
SPEAKER_02: And everybody else, you can get in line, and I'm not going to listen to you right now.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: And I would focus on it, and some best people get mad at me.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And I do that in my life sometimes.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: And my wife will tell you sometimes I do it at the wrong time.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: But I just say, I'm not that smart.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: I have to ask myself, what am I really trying to do here?
19:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I have to focus on.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: Everything else gets set aside.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: And you said it as a leader.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Removing barriers for your team, for the people that are working for you, is so critical so they don't get bogged down and they're not chasing squirrels that you've given them or that you have allowed to enter into their realm.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: And that's so important, whether it's filtering emails or just being very clear on this is what I want you to focus on and not allow them to do it.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: I saw that in the Pentagon.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: The number of committees, as a young major, the number of committees and teams that I sat on for these really important things that all they did was really suck me away from my job was Astro Ampa.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: And I was just, I was a nobody major.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: And I know that a lot of other a lot of other people in my office had the exact same thing where they were pulled away to do things that really did not help them meet their particular mission as it needed to.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: And some of them were important and some of them were just necessary distraction or necessary tasks, but they weren't our primary mission.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: And you just had to uh ask yourself, do I really need me to do this?
20:31
SPEAKER_02: And so I as a person, I would say if my boss isn't gonna filter and shield me from it, I always decide how many brain bites I'm gonna apply to it, how much of a good, honest effort am I gonna put towards this?
20:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's not really the best way to do it because then you're just pencil whipping something.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: You're saying, yeah, it's important, you know, I'm gonna get this done, but you're really not getting it done to the level that somebody thinks it should be done.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: You're just kind of paying it lip service so that you can move on and go to your next meeting.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that that's one of the biggest problems in upper management in the white-collar world is the fact that there are not standards applied towards meetings and how meetings are run, what are the time limit of that meeting.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: There, like no one's had training in that stuff.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Nobody seems to know how to properly lead a meeting.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: I do not think that a commander looking at 50 slides and asking a zillion back and forth questions about 50 slides that really only apply to the person that they're asking that question for and taking up everyone's time with that particular PowerPoint briefing is an effective use of our time.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: But the military has perfected that, that approach.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: You're right.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: So I don't really miss that in retirement.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: I miss sitting at endless meetings all day and really having my team have to do all the work because we are just bogged down in meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And again, PowerPoint after PowerPoint after PowerPoint after PowerPoint.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, Until business practices advance beyond that point, uh, I think we'll still be doing that as our ways of working.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's just sometimes relevance.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to have a justification and a reason to exist.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: So we do a meeting, but I try to keep my meetings very short and to the point because I think that people want to just do the work and not be bogged down sitting in endless meetings.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: And so I just kind of look at it like the people that would run those meetings in that way and would waste everyone's time in that fashion, I don't see them as being very strong leaders.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that was also what drove me to retire, is that I started to see that there just was a lack of leadership within the military at the highest levels.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: I didn't respect the flag officers the way I respected Admiral Brad Cooper or Admiral Joe Cahill or some of these early surface warfare officer leaders that I had, I wasn't seeing anymore.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: And so when I saw that there wasn't someone that I was aspiring to be like, that was really eye-opening for me when I didn't respect the people I was working for anymore.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: And so that was sort of led to my decision to back away or to, I guess, quote unquote, not play the game.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And it was sort of a mutual decision.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: I stopped playing the game and they knew I wasn't playing the game anymore.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't get the opportunities or the duty assignments that I would have gotten had I played the game better.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't want to play this game anymore because it was conflicting with my own value system and what I stood for.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's when you knew.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Like you just know, like, okay, it's time to walk away because I'm not aligned with the quote unquote party line of where they want my career to go.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And so that was the decision that was made.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: But it was, I think it was on good terms and it was mutually beneficial for both sides.
23:50
SPEAKER_04: No, I was gonna say it's funny, Teresa, because I found myself in that same, but you talk about no leadership in the military.
23:55
SPEAKER_04: My last two assignments at the White House, the Pentagon on the Joint Staff, I saw some leadership on the joint staff.
24:00
SPEAKER_04: I saw zero when I was at the White House, and it was one of those deals where you talk about the meetings.
24:05
SPEAKER_04: That was my entire job was planning meetings, having meetings, and writing up the after action of the meetings.
24:11
SPEAKER_04: That was my entire job.
24:12
SPEAKER_04: I didn't do anything but do meetings.
24:14
SPEAKER_04: And my same thing when I got to the Pentagon, you know, there were things I could do there.
24:17
SPEAKER_04: We got some things accomplished, but I found myself on almost a weekly basis going to the same meetings, meeting with the same people, having the same conversations.
24:26
SPEAKER_04: And because I was not at a decision maker level in the Pentagon, those conversations generally went something like, hey, here's our position.
24:33
SPEAKER_04: Yep, here's our position.
24:34
SPEAKER_04: We don't agree.
24:35
SPEAKER_04: Well, let's take it to our principals and get it figured out.
24:37
SPEAKER_04: No, we're not ready to take it to the principals yet.
24:39
SPEAKER_04: And we did that for over a year, having those same conversations.
24:42
SPEAKER_04: And I just found, like to your point, I found myself saying, I can't do this anymore.
24:47
SPEAKER_04: It's the reason when I left the military, I got as far away from the military as I could and sweat and flew airplanes because I was sick and tired of having those conversations.
24:55
SPEAKER_04: And I think it did personify this idea that the that we didn't have leaders that were willing to go do things.
25:01
SPEAKER_04: And I don't think it's always the fault of the the top level leaders, because I will say the bosses that I worked for, generally speaking, in all these situations, were pretty decent.
25:09
SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of times we or those bosses maybe didn't empower their people enough to be able to help kick those decisions up the level when they needed to be there.
25:18
SPEAKER_04: They were afraid to bring them because they'd gotten negative feedback from that boss or other bosses before.
25:23
SPEAKER_04: So I think oh, flashback to what you said earlier, you know, how a leader and a boss is supposed to be able to clear it, clear the deadwood and help your people be able to do what they want, clear those barriers.
25:33
SPEAKER_04: I don't think every leader understands that and is able to communicate that well to their well, and I think that saying no takes courage.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I think that when you tell your higher ups that your people are oversaturated and will not do a particular thing, or when you go into another directorate, let's say that N3 or Foreshop or one of these other J codes, and you're like, no, I'm sorry.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: My people are tied up doing the commander's conference and they don't have time to do your passion project over here.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Of course, you have to say it in a nice way, and you have to come up with self-help options and other ways of being diplomatic about it.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: But I think that it's saying no doesn't make you very popular.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: And so some people don't want to say no to things.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that also is tough.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: But I've always been kind of scrappy and I've always kind of liked conflict to a certain extent.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: I find it exciting to try to challenge my, I don't know, I find it kind of entertaining.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: I know it's bad, but I I just I think it's part of what makes life sort of spicy, and I don't mind it to a certain degree.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Some people take it personally, and I never did.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And so that's the hard part about it, is that I even have Pat today on my LinkedIn, I had a past podcast guest question organ donation.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Turns out his daughter is a recipient of an organ donation, and so it's a really sensitive issue for him.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, he's very passionate about people being able to donate their organs.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, how do I explain that in a way that doesn't offend him or his choice, but how do I do that in a way that doesn't discredit what he is feeling?
27:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's also an art to it.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate the challenge of being able to do that.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: I actually really love that line of thinking.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: We Rob and I have talked about this a while.
27:20
SPEAKER_02: We both went to the Air Force Academy.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: I loved my breakfast conversations.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: I I had, we called ourselves the Breakfast Club, and we were a group of cadets that all disagreed with each other on most everything.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: And I loved our discussions and that that healthy combat of ideas.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: But when you're in a leadership role, that healthy discussion and healthy disagreement is really important.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: In the fighter pilot world, we talk about winning the debrief.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, you finish your flight and you want to win the debrief, whatever that looks like.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: And that means that number one, you're gonna fly better than them and you're going to execute better than them, but also you're going to explain it in such a way that everybody knows that you flew better than them and executed better than them.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, but there's some value to it.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: As a leader, there's nothing better.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: My dad was a general officer, and he used to say, I thirsted for the truth.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: I loved it when people told me that I was wrong or when people gave me feedback because sometimes I wasn't sure what the right answer was, and I needed to know, and sometimes I made the wrong decision.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: So I needed that kind of feedback instead of everybody saying yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full, I needed them to give me some input.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: There's there's a lot of health in that level of friction, but you have to do it with an eye towards accomplishing what it is that you want to accomplish.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: I completely agree with you.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: I think that if we don't try to find people who disagree with us and we don't find people who give us that alternative point of view, we truly we don't get better.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: We don't improve on the processes that we have in an organization, and we don't really understand what all the challenges are that we're gonna be up, we're gonna be facing in a particular situation.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that's been something that has certainly helped me as I've navigated certain challenges.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, I think that you're just like you said, in your family life, any kind of situation, you're gonna have challenges.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna certainly not gonna just be limited to a working situation.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have these challenges in your family life, you're gonna have them everywhere you go, every kind of situation.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: That's right, no, but go ahead.
29:33
SPEAKER_04: I was gonna say, Teresa, just as a comment, I laughed when you said that you enjoy conflict.
29:39
SPEAKER_04: I laughed because my wife accuses me of enjoying conflict and quite a bit.
29:43
SPEAKER_04: And what I that this is the thought that came to my mind, I grew up as a wrestler.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: My dad was a high school wrestling coach, and I grew up wrestling, and I love wrestling and MMA and that kind of stuff.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: And I'll never forget my son when he was small.
29:55
SPEAKER_04: We were watching some MMA and the guys were punching each other, and you know, one guy starts bleeding.
29:59
SPEAKER_04: My son, he's probably four or five, and he's like, Dad, you know, that guy's bleeding.
30:03
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, it's okay.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: And he's like, Well, but the other guy hit him.
30:06
SPEAKER_04: I said, It's okay.
30:07
SPEAKER_04: They agreed to it, it's all right.
30:09
SPEAKER_04: I mean, because we tell our kids all the time, don't fight, don't fight, don't fight.
30:12
SPEAKER_04: And yet here I am watching this MMA.
30:14
SPEAKER_04: And what I realized the difference was is they agreed to it.
30:17
SPEAKER_04: And so I think to have these healthy conversations, you have to have that culture and you have to have the agreement amongst all parties that we're gonna have these differences of opinion, those conversations.
30:27
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's kind of where like your podcast sits in the in that ecosystem is I want to provide a little bit of that.
30:35
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna give you something that you didn't know, or I'm gonna give you something, a story that's I find interesting, and it starts that conversation.
30:42
SPEAKER_04: It's a little bit of that, like that irritant, but I look at it like the irritant of sand in the clam or the oyster that's gonna make the pearl, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_04: It's how do I take that and mold that and put that into that environment to allow it to become the pearl rather than just being an irritant to everybody.
30:58
SPEAKER_04: Or again, back to my old analogy, I realize my wife doesn't like MMA, so I'm not gonna try and do MMA.
31:04
SPEAKER_04: You know, like that's just not the way to solve conflict with my wife, is to battle it out.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think that it isn't a healthy relationship unless there is some conflict, I guess is what my ultimate summation is.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have a friend or a partner or anyone who doesn't challenge my way of thinking.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't want it to be this adversarial relationship where we're constantly duking it out, but I want that healthy tension there to be challenged on my ideas.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: I could have easily married probably somebody who would agree with everything I say, and that would have been no fun.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And I would have not been as happy as I am today.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's the best way to get by in life is to find people in around you who challenge your ways of thinking.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: And you have your friends for everything.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: You have your friends that you laugh with, you have your friends that challenge you, you have your business people who support you, who you mentor you, or who you mentor.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important to have all those kinds of people in your life because they make you the most well-rounded type of person.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: And there's a real art to disagreement, you know, and we're we're kind of on a tangent, we're really not.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: There's a real artistic.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: I tell a story about this son lieutenant, and so it's a mini-generation above him in terms of supervision, and he said he had an idea, and I said, That's a stupid idea.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: And I remember thinking afterwards, I should have never said that.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: And I remember feeling bad about having said that.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: I ended up going to another assignment shortly thereafter, and I ran into him almost 15 years later, and I apologized to him.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: I said, Hey, I I shut you down once, and that's not the way you want to disagree with somebody.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: You want to disagree with them where there is an opportunity for debate, an opportunity for discussion.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: That's a stupid idea where because if you shut somebody down, there's no conflict.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: You've actually just removed the conflict, you've removed the chance for that comment of ideas.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: You certainly have.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: And you're not going to get the best ideas out there.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to know if there was a better way of doing something.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: There's so many options that are not available to you when you don't invite conflict and you don't invite healthy disagreement.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I've lost friends because of my show.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: I have, or they were maybe not friends to begin with.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I have definitely paid somewhat of a price for having the kinds of shows that I do, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I think that I was made this way, and all I can do is continue to operate in the space that I've been given by God and by a virtue of who I am.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: So that's how I conduct my life.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And so far it has worked out pretty well.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
33:33
SPEAKER_02: This is kind of an anecdote to that.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: I've seen on LinkedIn, you know, do you have X number of followers or any other medium that you use, social media.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: And I know that I may have said something correctly when my followers dip.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: When the number of followers dips, I'm like, I think I said something I needed to say.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: I said something, you know, because when people are living in the echo chamber and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually not what you want.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, no, there's nothing wrong with cheering and being excited about hearing ideas that you agree with, and kind of affirmation that you're thinking they're wrong.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: But every once in a while you need somebody to say something that jolches makes you say, hmm, that's not the way I looked at it.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: And if you immediately call them stupid and immediately walk away from those ideas, then you're putting yourself at risk of being perpetually wrong.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: You're putting yourself at risk of actually learning the wrong lessons from it and shying away from those challenging conversations that need to happen on a regular basis.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: It's been so enjoyable talking to the both of you.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I had a question, and this little discussion here, I think, is a good lead to it.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: And that is what do you do when you realize that you are the problem?
34:41
SPEAKER_02: You're the one causing that challenging situation.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: How is the best way to handle that as a as a leader, or when you're not the leader, how do you shift gears and go, hmm, I'm the problem.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: I need to get rid of that problem, or I need to change being the problem.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: You have to own it.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: I think that's some of the problem that we're seeing, especially in the political realm, is that there's no sense of accountability, accountability, or ownership.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: And I believe part of that is because we're in such a litigus society that if someone does own something, then the next thing they know, they're facing maybe a civil lawsuit or something like that.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: So there's too much of a threat to their livelihood or their reputation to own something.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: I have found when I owned my mistakes, everybody could move on.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: And that was really instrumental.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: I made a lot of mistakes as a carrier public affairs officer.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: I raised my voice too much.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: I allowed myself to get too frustrated.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: My tone wasn't always as even as it could have been.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And I learned a lot from that experience that I couldn't take my frustrations in public.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: If I was frustrated about something, I had to go and be frustrated alone or with a trusted mentor or something along those lines, because unfortunately, that can be weaponized and that can be used against you.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: And so I had to really learn not to let those frustrations boil over into something that was visible to my team, but instead to resolve the issue by talking to a trusted mentor and by figuring out a way to solve the problem away from the team and then come back to the team when I was in a better spot.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's probably the best way.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: And I was very transparent about that, even during the period that situation erupted, to own what had happened and to just be better from that point forward.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's that is the key as a leader is that you have to own your mistakes.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: And when you own your mistakes, people and you're sincere about it, not just I'm pretending to apologize because that's the thing I have to do.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: People can tell when the apology is not sincere and they can tell when you're faking it.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: And so I have found when I owned my mistakes, even as I was leaving the Navy, I owned my mistakes.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: I forgot a disclaimer at this confirmation press conference for Pete Hageseth.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: And I owned that I forgot that disclaimer and got written up for it.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: But that write-up was really instrumental for me deciding to retire from the Navy as soon as I did, because I realized that this was getting so political to the point where I knew that my personal beliefs were going to conflict with a particular administration, whether it be the Democrats or the Republicans.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: And so at that point, I knew it was time to move on.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: But I also acknowledged the fact that I made a mistake.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: I was a public affairs officer.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: I should have known better not to not use a disclaimer.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: Of course I'm going to use a disclaimer.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: I disclaimed all throughout the season leading up to the confirmation.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: And then I just got nervous at the press conference and forgot.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: But I owned that.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's the thing is that you just have to own your mistakes.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a special skill to be able to do that because it's not about allowing your enemies to see blood in the water.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: It's about showing true leadership.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: I look at raising my kids, and we didn't talk about whether or not you have kids.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: Rob and I both have kids, and the number of mistakes I made and continue to make as a parent, I mean, I I could fill journals with the mistakes that I've made.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: I need to, my kids need to know that I'm fallible, but they still need to know that I'm their dad.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: And they still need to know that, you know, in certain situations that I hold a particular role for them.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: They become more and more my peers as now they're all adults, but I'm still their dad.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: And I'm still their father.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: And there needs to be a level of respect to really have der the relationship proper.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: And how so how do you manage that?
38:38
SPEAKER_02: How do you take ownership of it?
38:40
SPEAKER_02: I think is a key skill.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: How do I take ownership of it without groveling?
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And how do I take ownership?
38:46
SPEAKER_01: That's such a balance.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: How do I take ownership without being unable to lead going forward?
38:55
SPEAKER_02: I made these mistakes, so I can't be your father anymore.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: I I made these mistakes as a commander, as a public affairs officer, so clearly I am not fit to lead.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: And that's not the case at all.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: It's actually by taking ownership, you're showing a greater propensity, a greater ability to lead, but doing it in the right way is a key skill.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Derek, you're really touching on something there because every time you own something or you apologize, there's that level of vulnerability and exposure that you feel.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: And then it causes you to question yourself.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: And I've had that happen over and over and over again when I've admitted mistakes, where you just go through this period of mourning and introspection where you're like, gosh, am I even qualified to be in this position?
39:37
SPEAKER_01: Can I even still continue to lead?
39:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's just where you have to dust yourself off and say, what I just did is I modeled for my people the same behavior that I want to see from them.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's the way I've always tried my best to explain when I get something wrong.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And I don't stop getting challenged.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: I definitely think that as a retiree and having more control of my time and having the lifestyle that I get to, I'm so privileged and blessed to have now has changed things.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: But I still continue to make mistakes and try to figure out what's the best way to approach a particular issue.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's just a balance there between admitting where you went wrong, but then don't beat yourself up over it.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: And I still to this day sometimes struggle with that because I grew up in a very dysfunctional family where my brother blamed everybody for everything and then I turned everything inward.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And so I have to be very careful when I'm in that place of admitting the mistake, that I don't just beat myself up over the mistake and I just continue to move on and do better.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it doesn't always work, but internally what I say is I made a mistake.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: So what's your point?
40:51
SPEAKER_02: And really, you know, when somebody tries to browbeat you and tries to tear you down and tries to make you feel like you shouldn't be sitting in the seat that you're sitting in, I think that's I made a mistake, I'm ready to move on.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Are you a big enough person to then allow us all to move on?
41:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think you have to be able to do that.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: And have to you and you have to train your team to be willing to move on from people's mistakes.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: I've seen it overall leaders.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: Somebody will make a mistake as a lieutenant, and that mistake falls in for the next 15 years.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, give it a rest.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: Give it a rest.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: He made a mistake when he was young, young and or she made a mistake when they were young and stupid, and not seasoned.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: It's not them anymore.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: You had you had the desire, but not the capability.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: Now they have more capability.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: And so are you gonna say something, Rob?
41:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I got two things real quick.
41:38
SPEAKER_04: First is yeah, I watched this in aviation, actually in civilian aviation, I had a guy almost kill me on takeoff because he was still worried about a mistake he made in the shocks.
41:46
SPEAKER_04: And it was a small mistake, it was something really minor.
41:49
SPEAKER_04: And but it was eating him alive.
41:51
SPEAKER_04: And when we got takeoff clearance, we go to takeoff, and as we rotate, things are not looking right and we're kind of going the wrong direction.
41:57
SPEAKER_04: I ended up taking the airplane and getting this climbing out.
42:00
SPEAKER_04: We were all good.
42:01
SPEAKER_04: And then afterwards, I kind of stopped, got the autopilot on, and said, Hey dude, get your head back in the game.
42:06
SPEAKER_04: You know, that mistake was not a big deal, but you're making it a big deal because you're allowing it to continue to hurt your performance.
42:12
SPEAKER_04: So that's you know, that's the kind of thing.
42:14
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so who's the chief of staff in the Air Force?
42:16
SPEAKER_04: And I don't know right now, I don't really track that too much, but I can tell you one thing that the chief staff of the Air Force is a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot, because they have been forever and ever.
42:26
SPEAKER_04: And it's not because it's a bomber or fighter pilot mafia, it's because the business of the Air Force is breaking things and killing stuff in wartime.
42:33
SPEAKER_04: And whether we like to say it that way or not, it is that's what their business is.
42:36
SPEAKER_04: And the Air Force is successful, I think, because their CEO, their chief of staff, knows their business at a district level, has done it from the time they were a young officer all the way up.
42:47
SPEAKER_04: And so Derek and I invest money.
42:49
SPEAKER_04: I've done it, I was an economic major in college.
42:51
SPEAKER_04: And so one of the things I look for is if a business gets a new CEO and the CEO is a finance officer or something that is not in the core business of their business, you know, Disney takes a CFO and makes them their CEO.
43:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's a great point.
43:04
SPEAKER_04: I immediately start shorting the stock because they're going to fail, because they're focused on the wrong things.
43:09
SPEAKER_04: They're not focused on the core business.
43:11
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's one of the strengths that the military has in that they everyone when they move their way up, we may not like the politics.
43:19
SPEAKER_04: I didn't like the politics when I got up to the 05 either, but there is a vetting process that every one of those officers goes through as they work their way up.
43:27
SPEAKER_04: The same goes for the senior enlisted.
43:28
SPEAKER_04: And I think that there's an important lesson to be learned that if you want a successful company, you probably need to have somebody who knows the business from you know from the top to the bottom running it, not somebody who comes from the outside as a hired guy.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great point and doesn't stray from what that company stands for and the things that they stand on.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really important in all aspects to look at that.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: Like I I constantly go through my old podcast and I just did it yesterday, and I look at see what what are the least popular shows.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: And then with the least popular shows, what is Is the unifying, or what are some of the trends in those least popular shows?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: And then I go to my, then I say to myself, okay, am I serving what my audience wants?
44:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's a balance between what I think I would like to push and what I think are things that need to be discussed, but I also am very mindful of the things that that don't land and don't do well in a particular medium.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: So I think you're absolutely correct.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: You have to be aware of both of those things.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you kind of as a parting shot, you've already given us a lot of good advice, a lot of good things to think about here.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: What is so what is your advice for a leader, meaning a leader who finds himself or herself in that challenging situation?
44:42
SPEAKER_02: Because every single leader is going to, I don't care what you do, how big your organization is, you're going to find yourself in that challenging situation.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: So what would be, if you could have one statement that you would make, what would it be?
44:53
SPEAKER_01: I would say don't stop looking for options to fix it.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: So if one way doesn't fix it, find another way.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: If removing the barriers doesn't fix it, then see if there are interpersonal challenges within the team that's causing the friction or the mission to not be meet.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: Is it because the commander's intent wasn't crystal clear?
45:19
SPEAKER_01: There can be 12 reasons why a particular problem is occurring within your organization.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's on you to problem solve until you figure out what works.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just recently, even with my show, I realized that I was getting really bogged down with online disagreements about issues and arguing with people in the comments.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: And a part of this was because I was becoming very partisan.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And I realized that I wasn't seeing the big picture of how the world works.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: And it took a book that I just read recently called We Are the Bad Guys and my grad school program, which teaches about campaigns and politics, for me to understand that I was perpetuating some of this unnecessary time sump.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: And it was taking me away from doing other things that I think were probably a better use of my time and more productive.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: So I think that you just always have to be open to the fact that you never ever know all the answers.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: You are never going to be always right on everything.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: And you must always keep an open mind that you're open to growth, innovation, and a different way of thinking.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: I think that's great advice.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: I think it's I don't care what your opinion is, I don't care what realm you work in.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: I think that's great advice.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: And it goes back to what we talked about earlier.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: We're too quick to pick sides.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: We're to select a side and argue from that side.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: And in doing so, we shut out good ideas and we limit our ability to really digest and go through good ideas.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: To me, it's always start with the end in mind, then that commander's intent, what is that desired end state?
47:01
SPEAKER_02: And am I getting to that desired end state?
47:03
SPEAKER_02: And instead of focusing on what somebody else's how looks like, focusing on what it is we're trying to do in the end.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: And there are still gonna be disagreements.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: There's still you still may come to the same exact conclusions, but your ability to understand other people's conclusions and other people's ideas are not gonna be nearly as successful if you uh are always picking a side and shutting out that other side, shutting out the opposing team, if you will.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: So stay open.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: But if you're a Redskin fan, you're still gonna hate the Cowboys.
47:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's that goes without if you're a Cowboy fan, I guess it's the commanders now, but there always be the Redskins to me.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: That's what I grew up with.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Teresa, I've loved this conversation, and I look forward to doing it again at some point.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: I think there are plenty of topics.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: I think we've kind of scratched the surface on things that we can talk about, but I love your insight.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: I think you have a very unique opinion as a public affairs officer, where you're always you were always worried about the perception of the argument, perception of the decisions, and you're worried about the actual making the right decision.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: I think that's a very unique perspective that very few people have.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: Everybody gets into their own little corner and they're making the right decision.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: They're making the right decision and screw everybody else and what they think of it.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you have to take a step back and say, Am I really actually furthering my cause by being so dogmatic about my ideas and my how?
48:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Derek and Rob.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: I love the conversation as well.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: All right.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, if any of you have questions about Teresa and her show, you can reach out to me at astericnow.com or go ahead and give a plug for your show against for the name for anyone who missed it at the beginning, Teresa.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: It's called Stories of Service or SOS for short.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And you can find me wherever you've listened to podcasts and on my YouTube channel under the live tab.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: My shows are always recorded live.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't do any edits, nothing.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: I want people to see the full version.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't like cuts myself when I watch an interview, even if I know they've probably cut out some stuff I don't need to hear.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: It's just a preference of my own.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: So that is how I do the show.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: And I've done almost 300 episodes and very proud of what has been built over the years.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: I started it in 2021.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: So it'll be five years this next month.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: And that's awesome.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: That's quite a run.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: And I look forward to listening to more of your shows.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: And again, if you have any questions, reach out at astertnow.com about this show or any other shows.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: If you have any suggestions for future shows, future guests, and I'd love to hear them.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: And I encourage you to follow, subscribe, and together we'll become better decision makers for better results.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's it for today's episode of Commander's Intend Podcast.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: Head on over to Apple Podcasts, iTunes, or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show.
49:56
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.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: So head on over to Commanders Inten Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Derek's Leadership Guide and join us on the next episode.