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Life and Leadership Lessons From a Top Gun Instructor, With Captain George Dom · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:08
Speaker 1: Captain George dom Well very much.
0:14
Speaker 2: Now you are the You're actually the second American military
0:19
Speaker 2: person that I've had on this podcast, and the first
0:22
Speaker 2: was Colonel Lee Ellis Lately Ellis and I know your Navy,
0:27
Speaker 2: his Army, and he spent five and a half years
0:30
Speaker 2: in the Hanowi Hilton prison camp. Yeah so, and that
0:35
Speaker 2: that was a fascinating conversation.
0:38
Speaker 3: Now you are a.
0:39
Speaker 1: Naive all aviator or an next native a aviator.
0:42
Speaker 2: Like myself, but you had a rather more distinguished and
0:45
Speaker 2: exciting career than my poultry eight years. And tell us
0:51
Speaker 2: what so before we get into your career highlights, what
0:55
Speaker 2: what inspired you.
0:56
Speaker 1: To pursue your career in.
0:58
Speaker 2: Native all aviation and and was it was the aviation
1:01
Speaker 2: that you joined them for?
1:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct. You know, I grew up I'm going
1:06
Speaker 3: to date myself here, but I grew up during the
1:08
Speaker 3: Vietnam War, and so when I graduated from high school,
1:14
Speaker 3: very few people in my friend group were interested in
1:18
Speaker 3: going into the military. But my father had served in
1:21
Speaker 3: World War Two and in the Navy. And while he
1:24
Speaker 3: never made it a big deal in terms of pushing
1:27
Speaker 3: I was the youngest of three boys, I knew it
1:31
Speaker 3: was important to him that one of us had a
1:34
Speaker 3: military experience, whether it was just for a couple of
1:37
Speaker 3: years or a career, but just something. So so I
1:42
Speaker 3: signed up to apply for the Navy ROTC program. And
1:47
Speaker 3: this is a program where you can go to one
1:49
Speaker 3: of many different civilian colleges and when you graduate, you
1:54
Speaker 3: become commissioned and go off to serve whatever. And and
2:00
Speaker 3: so I did that, and that's what that's what got
2:04
Speaker 3: me interested in the Navy. And then in the summertime
2:06
Speaker 3: they give you opportunities to see what you could go into.
2:09
Speaker 3: So I spent a week on a submarine, a couple
2:11
Speaker 3: of weeks on a destroyer, a couple of weeks with
2:15
Speaker 3: the Marine Corps, and then a couple of weeks where
2:18
Speaker 3: I got to do some flying. When I got a
2:20
Speaker 3: backseat flight in a THA FORO Skyhawk jet, that that
2:25
Speaker 3: really hooked me. And so after I graduated, I went
2:28
Speaker 3: off to I'm off the flight school, and twenty six
2:32
Speaker 3: years later, I'm walking out of the Pentagon saying that
2:36
Speaker 3: was pretty cool time.
2:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome.
2:40
Speaker 2: And I tell you what, I bet you the week
2:42
Speaker 2: in the submarine. Didn't want you to join submarine.
2:46
Speaker 3: Was a little claustrophobic.
2:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are very specialist individuals, aren't they.
2:53
Speaker 1: Environers?
2:54
Speaker 3: And there's no you need characters.
3:00
Speaker 2: Yours like you had a pretty distinguished career ending up
3:04
Speaker 2: as as Navy captain, and and anybody who knows army
3:08
Speaker 2: it's very very different.
3:09
Speaker 1: What's what's the what's the equivalent crank in the army?
3:12
Speaker 2: I forget I've been out so long, colonel, yeah, so,
3:15
Speaker 2: and you know you've been commander on of of flight
3:19
Speaker 2: squadrons on aircraft carriers, which the Americans do aircraft carriers
3:24
Speaker 2: a lot better.
3:24
Speaker 1: Than the British.
3:26
Speaker 2: And you you also ran the Blue Angels, which is
3:31
Speaker 2: anybody from the UK the Red Arrows, I think it's
3:34
Speaker 2: the equivalent, right so, which just must have been amazing.
3:38
Speaker 2: And then you're an instructor at top Gun. So give
3:43
Speaker 2: us a couple of highlights from from those different areas.
3:47
Speaker 2: You know, your time on the carrier, your time and the.
3:49
Speaker 1: Brillions and the time on top.
3:52
Speaker 3: And during my career I had the opportunity to deploy
3:56
Speaker 3: nine times on the aircraft carrier around the world, got
4:01
Speaker 3: to of course see some very interesting places and participated
4:06
Speaker 3: in combat actions against Libya and of course against Iraq
4:12
Speaker 3: during desert storm and also in the Adriatic in Kosovo
4:18
Speaker 3: against the Serbs and so forth. So it was a
4:21
Speaker 3: very exciting opportunity. But the neat part about living in
4:27
Speaker 3: of course, the flying off the carrier is just very
4:30
Speaker 3: exciting and on a beautiful day or even at nighttime,
4:34
Speaker 3: if you have a good horizon and a steady deck.
4:40
Speaker 3: Don't tell anybody this, but we would pay money to
4:42
Speaker 3: do it. We call it the sport of Kings and
4:44
Speaker 3: it's just fabulous sport. And we grade every landing in
4:50
Speaker 3: order to channel that type a personalities to try to
4:54
Speaker 3: do it. Landed perfectly on the carrier and that then
4:58
Speaker 3: enhances our safefty level. Right. So, but then it you know,
5:04
Speaker 3: in bad weather, nighttime, there's something wrong with the carrier,
5:08
Speaker 3: there's something wrong with the airplane and the decks moving.
5:12
Speaker 3: That's when you really really earn your pay. But the
5:16
Speaker 3: highlight for that experience for me was being on a
5:21
Speaker 3: ship of literally five thousand people that come from all
5:26
Speaker 3: walks of life in our country, all economic backgrounds, all religions, ethnicities,
5:34
Speaker 3: and we come together under a common mission and shared sacrifice,
5:40
Speaker 3: and it's really just a wonderful experience to be a
5:46
Speaker 3: part of that. The morale is great, and so that
5:50
Speaker 3: was my big takeaway from that experience. Top Gun was
5:55
Speaker 3: interesting in that, again I'm going to date myself, but
5:59
Speaker 3: I checked in as a young bachelor lieutenant to become
6:05
Speaker 3: a top Gun instructor in San Diego a month after
6:08
Speaker 3: the first movie came out.
6:10
Speaker 1: Uh oh, my goodness.
6:13
Speaker 3: Serious pretty good for lieutenant dom there where I had
6:18
Speaker 3: to come to work to rest up from. But but
6:22
Speaker 3: that was a wonderful experience because that that whole organization
6:29
Speaker 3: is driven to find out how good can you get
6:34
Speaker 3: in the in the airplane and how well can you
6:37
Speaker 3: teach the students that come through in order for them
6:41
Speaker 3: to take take it back to their squadrons and teach
6:45
Speaker 3: them the latest and greatest tactics and standard operating procedures
6:50
Speaker 3: and what the what the threat is up to and
6:53
Speaker 3: so forth. And the idea is we train the trainers,
6:56
Speaker 3: they go back to their squadrons, and then they raise
6:59
Speaker 3: the level of because you know, interestingly, the Top Gun
7:03
Speaker 3: got started during the Vietnam War and there was a
7:08
Speaker 3: real challenge because historically, you know, we had enjoyed about
7:15
Speaker 3: a ten to one ratio in air to air combat
7:19
Speaker 3: during World War Two and during Korea and in Vietnam,
7:24
Speaker 3: the ratio came down to like two to three to one,
7:28
Speaker 3: and that just wasn't acceptable, right, And so they did
7:31
Speaker 3: a big study to find out why aren't we performing better?
7:35
Speaker 3: And some of it was technical, some of it was logistics,
7:39
Speaker 3: some of the missiles and so forth were getting damaged
7:42
Speaker 3: in shipment out to the Pacific, But a lot of
7:45
Speaker 3: it was training. We had gotten away from training against
7:50
Speaker 3: what our typical adversary was going to be. We were
7:54
Speaker 3: fighting against each other in similar performing airplanes, right, And
7:59
Speaker 3: so they started the school to teach how do you
8:03
Speaker 3: maximize your airplanes's capabilities versus the Vietnamese aircraft they were
8:09
Speaker 3: flying Soviet Meg FIFTEENSG seventeens and so forth megs and
8:14
Speaker 3: so after the bombing halt and the first graduates from
8:18
Speaker 3: the school went back out and taught to their squadron mates.
8:23
Speaker 3: Over time, the Navy shootdown ratio went up to thirteen
8:27
Speaker 3: to one, whereas the Air Force that did not implement
8:33
Speaker 3: a training program at the time like that, they stayed.
8:36
Speaker 3: My understanding is pretty much, you know, three to one
8:39
Speaker 3: or so for the duration. But they now have their
8:42
Speaker 3: version of it at Nellis Air Force Base and have
8:46
Speaker 3: enjoyed the results of that really great training. So that
8:51
Speaker 3: was sort of my top gun experience and I can
8:55
Speaker 3: tell you talk to you more about it. And certainly
8:58
Speaker 3: we realized the movie was going to be a documentary.
9:02
Speaker 3: But I but I think the flying scenes I think
9:08
Speaker 3: represent very well what the dynamic nature of air to
9:12
Speaker 3: air combat is all about. I mean, you've got airplanes
9:15
Speaker 3: that are swirling all around, You're you're pulling six seven g's,
9:20
Speaker 3: so your body is you know, just imagine being seven
9:23
Speaker 3: times heavier, your head being seven times heavier, and you're
9:26
Speaker 3: looking around trying to keep track of everybody that's out
9:30
Speaker 3: there and so forth. It's really but but in the move,
9:35
Speaker 3: the big difference in the movie is there's no award
9:40
Speaker 3: given in the class for individual performance because the emphasis
9:46
Speaker 3: is on teamwork and the students working together to develop,
9:51
Speaker 3: you know, good plans and then go out and execute
9:54
Speaker 3: those plans with discipline in order to fight and survive.
9:58
Speaker 3: And so that's the key difference between uh, Tom Cruise,
10:03
Speaker 3: Maverick and Iceman competing for the trophy. You know, it's
10:06
Speaker 3: not that's not how it is.
10:08
Speaker 2: So yeah, made for TV and The interesting thing about
10:14
Speaker 2: particularly flying in fast jets is.
10:18
Speaker 1: The speed that you're breeding would have to work out.
10:21
Speaker 2: So you know, I was a helicopter navigator and that
10:23
Speaker 2: was mental enough. But you know, we're flying around at
10:27
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty knots and you guys are going
10:31
Speaker 2: way faster, and as you said, there's there's like there's there's.
10:34
Speaker 1: Aircraft all around you. It's like that that.
10:37
Speaker 2: Speed of of of processing in the Brian has just
10:42
Speaker 2: got to.
10:43
Speaker 3: The speed and the and you're and you're trying to
10:46
Speaker 3: you're you're operating in three dimensions. And uh, and some
10:50
Speaker 3: of the guys I flew with, I mean, they were
10:52
Speaker 3: unbelievable in being able to, you know, to deal in
10:57
Speaker 3: that environment. Frankly, I had to work pretty hard at
11:00
Speaker 3: it to keep up. But yeah, that's and so you
11:05
Speaker 3: have to keep things simple, right. You have to distill
11:07
Speaker 3: down a complex plan and have very specific things that
11:13
Speaker 3: you can trip wires if you will, in the mission
11:17
Speaker 3: so that you know what to do when and you
11:19
Speaker 3: don't overly complicate it, so that you can execute in
11:24
Speaker 3: what what we call when your brain starts running on
11:27
Speaker 3: what we call stem power, right where everything's got your
11:31
Speaker 3: the sheoting's going on, the missiles are coming up, and
11:34
Speaker 3: you just have to execute right. So you've got to
11:37
Speaker 3: keep it simple and and you've got to train really
11:41
Speaker 3: realistically with repetition so that it becomes something that's very
11:47
Speaker 3: you can just respond react in the moment correctly.
11:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look at it would have been the same
11:55
Speaker 2: with your flying training as my flying training, where they
11:58
Speaker 2: do you know, you do a simulator flight and the
12:02
Speaker 2: instructor can throw curveballs at you, and then you go
12:05
Speaker 2: up and you do that flight in the er, which
12:08
Speaker 2: odds in a whole heap of complexities, but it's the grided,
12:13
Speaker 2: increasing graded exposure through the training and that repetition.
12:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. In the top gun class, you start
12:21
Speaker 3: out fighting one versus one dog fighting, and then after
12:26
Speaker 3: a series of those, then you go two verses two,
12:30
Speaker 3: and you do a series of those, and then it
12:33
Speaker 3: becomes two verses. You don't know how many are going
12:36
Speaker 3: to be out there, three, four or five, and then
12:39
Speaker 3: you put four jets together what we call a division,
12:42
Speaker 3: and now you go four versus unknown, and so, yeah,
12:47
Speaker 3: you're exactly right. You ramp up the complexity, you also
12:51
Speaker 3: ramp up what the threat is. Simulating so we would
12:54
Speaker 3: start out with a very pretty basic threat North Korea
12:58
Speaker 3: or something like that, and then as the scenarios went on,
13:02
Speaker 3: the threat would become more and more capable until we
13:06
Speaker 3: got to the end of the program and the class
13:08
Speaker 3: had to do a graduation strike. And it was pretty exciting, I.
13:17
Speaker 2: Can imagine, and I think the training protocols developed and
13:22
Speaker 2: the ones that I experienced, the ones that you experienced,
13:24
Speaker 2: it's really best class training for anything. Really, you know,
13:30
Speaker 2: that whole created exposure, increasing to overload, and then I
13:37
Speaker 2: remember feeling a flight and they take you back a
13:39
Speaker 2: notch and then re establish your confidence. You'd be assigned
13:44
Speaker 2: in the you added again, and then things just get
13:46
Speaker 2: faster and busier and faster than that busier.
13:48
Speaker 3: The critical element of that learning process. There's a lot
13:54
Speaker 3: that goes into it, of course, but the critical element
13:57
Speaker 3: to it is something that is sacred in naval aviation.
14:02
Speaker 3: And I'm sure I'm sure the same, Yes, I guess,
14:05
Speaker 3: of course exactly. And you know, coming into the womb
14:11
Speaker 3: and figuratively taking off the rank and going into the
14:14
Speaker 3: room and being willing to figure out okay, because nobody
14:19
Speaker 3: has the complete picture of what happened out there, so
14:22
Speaker 3: together you figure out and first of all, you just
14:25
Speaker 3: want to objectively get out there what happened. And then
14:30
Speaker 3: based on that, then okay, why did it happen? And
14:34
Speaker 3: then what can we do to reinforce the things that
14:37
Speaker 3: went well and also to correct the things that could
14:42
Speaker 3: be done better? And you know, we had little tricks
14:46
Speaker 3: that we did, you know, for example, to try to
14:48
Speaker 3: defuse some of the ego in the debrief, we would
14:52
Speaker 3: we would talk in the third person. It would it
14:55
Speaker 3: wasn't you and me, it was the blue fighter and
14:59
Speaker 3: the red fight. And we would and we would get
15:02
Speaker 3: a little bit of cognitive distance from it to try
15:05
Speaker 3: to keep the ego out of it so the student
15:09
Speaker 3: was more likely to absorb and take on mistakes and
15:14
Speaker 3: so forth if we if we did that, and then
15:19
Speaker 3: we always tried to at the end, we really tried to.
15:23
Speaker 3: You know, we would call it goods and others and
15:27
Speaker 3: we would make a wed make a list as a
15:30
Speaker 3: wrap up for the debriefs, because again we wanted to
15:33
Speaker 3: make sure we recognized what went well, uh, but also
15:37
Speaker 3: point out, okay, now what do we need to do
15:41
Speaker 3: tomorrow in order to continue to raise our game? And uh,
15:47
Speaker 3: and it's and it's really very cool once you embrace it. However,
15:51
Speaker 3: as I work with corporations and companies and business teams,
15:57
Speaker 3: they seem to struggle with all of that.
16:02
Speaker 1: One hundred percent percent.
16:03
Speaker 2: And and you know, and because I really wanted to
16:06
Speaker 2: to co deep on this one, because I worked with
16:08
Speaker 2: a lot of businesses as well, and I often tell
16:12
Speaker 2: a story that that this was the thing that really
16:15
Speaker 2: made the power of a debrief sink in for me.
16:19
Speaker 2: And we were all young, young instructors going through advanced
16:22
Speaker 2: flying training pilots and observers or navigators. And one of
16:28
Speaker 2: the instructors who was a retired pilot doing instructing NIGHTE.
16:33
Speaker 2: Hennel was his name, and he was so experienced, he'd
16:36
Speaker 2: been flying since the sixties. And he sat as don
16:39
Speaker 2: and he told us one day about when he first
16:42
Speaker 2: got his wings.
16:43
Speaker 1: And he went on the aircraft carrier.
16:45
Speaker 2: They sealed from Portsmouth and they sealed to the far
16:48
Speaker 2: East and he said, by the time they got there,
16:52
Speaker 2: I think it was three months later, half of all
16:55
Speaker 2: the crew.
16:55
Speaker 1: On board were dead.
16:58
Speaker 2: Because he said, flying helicopters off ships is inherently dangerous
17:05
Speaker 2: and that was just jaw dropping, and he said, that's
17:09
Speaker 2: where that culture of debrief came in so strongly.
17:13
Speaker 1: And it's not not just about learning from your mistakes,
17:17
Speaker 1: but learning from others.
17:18
Speaker 2: And I'm sure it would be the same in the
17:20
Speaker 2: American military that as an aircraft captain you had to
17:25
Speaker 2: read all of the aircraft incidents that had happened and
17:31
Speaker 2: sign that you had read them before you were allowed
17:34
Speaker 2: to take your aircraft out. And that culture of learning
17:38
Speaker 2: from others' mistakes and the willingness like anytime there's an incident,
17:44
Speaker 2: there is that dissection of what happened and you know
17:47
Speaker 2: whether it was part of our engineering or whatever it was.
17:49
Speaker 2: And it's not to fingerpoint, it's so that people can
17:53
Speaker 2: learn from others mistakes because with our crew often you
17:58
Speaker 2: can't wait to learn from your own mistakes, right And
18:00
Speaker 2: and and I think it's a critic on so many businesses,
18:04
Speaker 2: don't do you have seen it? George be at these
18:06
Speaker 2: conferences and they're up there and they're talking about best
18:09
Speaker 2: practice and all that, and I'm like, who's start talking
18:11
Speaker 2: about the big fuck ups?
18:13
Speaker 1: Right, so that people can learn from that. What's your
18:17
Speaker 1: what's your take on this?
18:19
Speaker 3: A couple thoughts. One is you know, not only did
18:22
Speaker 3: we take time to investigate and debrief mishaps and so forth.
18:30
Speaker 3: But we would also do the same thing for near missus.
18:33
Speaker 3: We didn't we didn't want to be where well we
18:37
Speaker 3: leoked out on that one and then forget about it.
18:40
Speaker 2: Uh.
18:40
Speaker 3: We would have we would assume, Okay, we just had
18:42
Speaker 3: a midair out there. Now, let's go back and figure
18:45
Speaker 3: out what what happened, you know, even though it wasn't.
18:48
Speaker 3: Thankfully we didn't have to pay the ultimate price for it. Uh.
18:53
Speaker 3: And and I'll share with you a story from when
18:55
Speaker 3: I was with the Blue Angels, because I was the
18:59
Speaker 3: leader of the of the Blue Angels. And interestingly enough,
19:03
Speaker 3: you don't start as a wingman, at least in our
19:07
Speaker 3: organization and then come up to be the leader. You
19:10
Speaker 3: come in as the leader. So I had much more
19:15
Speaker 3: experience than my wingmen did because they were much junior
19:19
Speaker 3: to me in rank. But I didn't have any Blue
19:22
Speaker 3: Angel experience, which requires a level of consistent, very precise
19:30
Speaker 3: flying that you know, I'd never been asked to do before. Right,
19:34
Speaker 3: So my first couple of weeks were really something. And
19:42
Speaker 3: I just remember being in a debrief at the end
19:45
Speaker 3: of my first week, and one of the things that
19:50
Speaker 3: we do in the debrief is I'm expected to share
19:55
Speaker 3: what significant mistakes I'm aware of that I made, because
19:59
Speaker 3: what that is that gives my wingmen an idea of
20:02
Speaker 3: to what degree am I aware of our own performance?
20:06
Speaker 3: Because because if I'm making a mistake and I don't
20:08
Speaker 3: I don't recognize it, we got a problem. If I'm
20:11
Speaker 3: making a mistake and I'm not willing to admit it,
20:14
Speaker 3: we got another problem because you're not going to trust
20:18
Speaker 3: somebody who's not willing to be vulnerable to be transparent.
20:21
Speaker 1: Right.
20:22
Speaker 3: So, anyway, we're sitting at the end of that. It's
20:25
Speaker 3: been a long week. We've been flying two and three
20:27
Speaker 3: times a day. I'm trying to not only fly precisely,
20:32
Speaker 3: but with the Blue Angels, we fly so close together
20:36
Speaker 3: that I have to talk while I'm flying because I
20:39
Speaker 3: don't move either hand without first telling my wingman a
20:44
Speaker 3: command of preparation and then execution. Right, So I'm trying
20:48
Speaker 3: to talk and fly, and anyway, at the end of
20:52
Speaker 3: the first week, I'm I'm worn out right, and we're
20:55
Speaker 3: in the debrief and my bucket is so full. I
21:01
Speaker 3: remember the first on the fifteen minutes or twenty minutes
21:04
Speaker 3: of the flight, but after that, I can't remember all
21:08
Speaker 3: the stuff that went on out there and my mistakes.
21:11
Speaker 3: And finally I sent to the guys, you know, because
21:14
Speaker 3: I finished my list, and then they said, well, Boss,
21:17
Speaker 3: we also did this and this and this and this
21:20
Speaker 3: and finally, you know, and just a little bit of
21:23
Speaker 3: frustration and exasperation, I said, I said, okay, you guys,
21:31
Speaker 3: don't you see I'm trying as hard as I can here,
21:35
Speaker 3: And God bless them, they looked at me and very
21:38
Speaker 3: professionally and everything they said, Roger that, Boss, we know
21:43
Speaker 3: you're trying hard, but we don't grade on effort. We
21:47
Speaker 3: grade on performance. And in these these four or five manoevers,
21:52
Speaker 3: you suck. You got to get better. You can't be
21:54
Speaker 3: waggling your wings because we can't get in there, and
21:58
Speaker 3: so forth. And it was an AHA moment for me
22:01
Speaker 3: because I looked across the room at my wingmen and
22:06
Speaker 3: I realized they weren't bringing me this to make themselves
22:10
Speaker 3: look good or make me feel bad or point fingers
22:14
Speaker 3: or they They were one hundred percent wanted me to
22:18
Speaker 3: get better, and we as a team weren't going to
22:21
Speaker 3: get any better than by definition than that. I as
22:25
Speaker 3: the leader flew right. And so that was a switch
22:30
Speaker 3: for me that allowed me to embrace Okay, I want
22:34
Speaker 3: it all, bring me all the truth you got because
22:37
Speaker 3: I want to I want to get really good and
22:40
Speaker 3: be worthy of you know, what the team stands for
22:43
Speaker 3: and where we want to accomplish. So it was pretty cool.
22:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's hugely important as well.
22:53
Speaker 1: You know, I when I slang in.
22:56
Speaker 2: Helicopters, particularly helicopter search and rescue, which is inherently dangerous,
23:02
Speaker 2: I mean the culture and I'm imagining the culture would
23:05
Speaker 2: be the same. You know, there's four people that are
23:07
Speaker 2: one person making mistake and four people are dead, and
23:11
Speaker 2: so the the the debrief culture is tabs off.
23:15
Speaker 1: Rank does not matter in the debrief.
23:17
Speaker 2: And and and you brought it up like somebody pulling
23:20
Speaker 2: the boss up and going you suck like you don't.
23:23
Speaker 1: You don't get that culture very much in business, do you.
23:28
Speaker 2: And and and it's I think it goes back to
23:30
Speaker 2: what you're talking about the egos earlier on. But but
23:33
Speaker 2: this is where performance tied to safety takes it up
23:39
Speaker 2: a notch. And and and where there's that desire for
23:42
Speaker 2: performance and the idea of mastery, then then Eagles.
23:48
Speaker 3: And you know, when I talked to groups, sometimes somebody
23:52
Speaker 3: will say, well, yeah, you guys had to be that
23:55
Speaker 3: way because it was life and death, right, And I say, yeah,
23:59
Speaker 3: you're right. But I don't believe that the principles change
24:05
Speaker 3: just because the consequences go up. We just couldn't compromise,
24:10
Speaker 3: We couldn't look away. And I tell them, look, if
24:14
Speaker 3: you'll take these principles and you applying at your business,
24:19
Speaker 3: you're going to see massive improvement. Now you don't have
24:22
Speaker 3: to be all the way to the end of the
24:25
Speaker 3: continuum like we had to. But if you just raised
24:30
Speaker 3: your game and the level of trust in your organization
24:34
Speaker 3: fifteen twenty thirty percent, man, you'll see Yeah.
24:40
Speaker 1: Game changer. Game changer. Yeah. Absolutely.
24:43
Speaker 2: And now before we dive into because I do want
24:46
Speaker 2: to really dive into your book, but when you transitioned
24:52
Speaker 2: and from civilian from military to civilian.
24:56
Speaker 1: Life, what was that like? And was bump? Because I
25:00
Speaker 1: did the eight years.
25:01
Speaker 2: And when I laughed, you know, there was big holes
25:05
Speaker 2: whenever I laughed, But you did about twenty six years.
25:09
Speaker 1: So how did you how did you.
25:11
Speaker 2: Find that transition? And the second part of the question
25:14
Speaker 2: is what do you still well.
25:16
Speaker 3: They answered, it both is the same thing, and I'm
25:18
Speaker 3: sure it's the same for you. It's it's the people.
25:22
Speaker 3: It's very much a cliche, but clichees are often that
25:25
Speaker 3: way because they're true. I mean, when the people that
25:29
Speaker 3: you lived and worked with and sacrificed with every day,
25:35
Speaker 3: you just got to a level of camaraderie that you
25:39
Speaker 3: don't see. I mean, you see it somewhere. I'm working
25:42
Speaker 3: with a company out here in California right now that
25:45
Speaker 3: has very a great culture and so forth, but generally speaking,
25:53
Speaker 3: you don't have the same out there, the same sort
25:55
Speaker 3: of you know, commitment to each other and all of
25:59
Speaker 3: that was the biggest The biggest change for me was
26:04
Speaker 3: you know, giving leaving that team spirit if you will.
26:10
Speaker 1: And and where do you think that?
26:12
Speaker 2: Because I've often thought about this, like where does that
26:17
Speaker 2: come from?
26:18
Speaker 1: Is it the overall military culture? And uh?
26:23
Speaker 2: And and I mean I think it's elements of it, right,
26:26
Speaker 2: the overall military culture, the very strong connection to purpose
26:30
Speaker 2: and me it ship, but also I think living through
26:35
Speaker 2: shared adversity, because it's in those situations you kind of
26:42
Speaker 2: see into the soul.
26:44
Speaker 1: Of your appo, don't you.
26:46
Speaker 2: And when you're in those dangerous life threatening situations or
26:49
Speaker 2: even not even life threatening, but just where you have
26:52
Speaker 2: to go to a level of yourself that you didn't
26:56
Speaker 2: know existed.
26:57
Speaker 1: I think it's in business. There's a lot of layers
27:01
Speaker 1: of the onion I find. Uh.
27:03
Speaker 2: And then you know, when you go through those really
27:06
Speaker 2: tough experiences, you see into the other person's soul and
27:08
Speaker 2: that creates that deep, deep, deep.
27:12
Speaker 3: It's the shared sacrifice, it's the it's the importance of
27:16
Speaker 3: the mission. Uh. And it's you know and like and
27:20
Speaker 3: does while of course you go through some great adversity together,
27:25
Speaker 3: it really bonds you. But a lot of it is just, hey,
27:30
Speaker 3: this is a shitty situation and we're all in it
27:32
Speaker 3: together and let's and let's make the best of it.
27:35
Speaker 3: And uh and out of that comes yeah, that that
27:39
Speaker 3: bonding and uh uh yeah, it's it's very powerful, no
27:44
Speaker 3: question about it.
27:46
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. So what and so you so you transition, deny.
27:51
Speaker 2: You are a high level coaching consultant for teams and
27:55
Speaker 2: particularly around building high performance teams.
27:58
Speaker 1: So you wrote a book on it, I trust leadership.
28:01
Speaker 1: So what motivated you to write the book?
28:05
Speaker 3: Well, when I left active duty, I was living in
28:08
Speaker 3: the Boston area, and as I would meet people, I
28:11
Speaker 3: would and they found out a little bit about my background.
28:14
Speaker 3: I would get lots of questions about how did we train,
28:19
Speaker 3: how do we lead, how do we organize? And then
28:21
Speaker 3: I was getting invited to speak, and so initially because
28:26
Speaker 3: they were actually paying me money. As my daughters would say,
28:30
Speaker 3: they're paying you to tell stories, Dad, So.
28:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my life.
28:37
Speaker 3: So because they were paying me money, I wanted to,
28:40
Speaker 3: you know, give them value. So so I've tried to
28:43
Speaker 3: give them twenty six years of leadership lessons in an hour.
28:47
Speaker 3: And while they loved the photos and the videos and
28:51
Speaker 3: the stories, I really felt like it was a mile
28:56
Speaker 3: wide and an inch deep, and a lot of it
28:59
Speaker 3: was stuff that, you know, I mean, these universal principles
29:03
Speaker 3: that they could get it just about anywhere else. Right.
29:06
Speaker 3: So I had lunch with a friend of mine who
29:08
Speaker 3: was a senior executive at Wells Fargo Bank, and he
29:14
Speaker 3: said to me, he said, you know, I've been to
29:16
Speaker 3: hundreds of these keynote presentations, and I tell you, the
29:20
Speaker 3: ones that are really good are the ones that when
29:24
Speaker 3: I walk out I'm thinking differently than when I walked in.
29:29
Speaker 3: So that forced me to think about Okay, what is
29:32
Speaker 3: it about my experience that I can share that maybe
29:37
Speaker 3: they're not hearing anywhere else or certainly not necessarily hearing
29:41
Speaker 3: it from from the perspective that I'm going to share it.
29:45
Speaker 3: And that's when I came upon, Okay, the one thing
29:48
Speaker 3: that we all took for granted. I'm sure, as we've
29:51
Speaker 3: been talking today, very much the same for you. Anytime
29:55
Speaker 3: you're in a high performing organization, the one thing they
29:59
Speaker 3: a all have in common is you Trust is not
30:04
Speaker 3: something that's just nice to have. It's not just something
30:08
Speaker 3: that hey, you put you put good people together and
30:11
Speaker 3: you're gonna have it. I mean, we can see lots
30:14
Speaker 3: of sports teams where that's not the case, right and so,
30:18
Speaker 3: And in my experience, every high performance team I was on,
30:22
Speaker 3: whether it was a fighter squadron in combat or top
30:25
Speaker 3: Gun or the Blue Angels, trust wasn't something that was
30:29
Speaker 3: just nice to have. It wasn't some sort of hr initiative.
30:34
Speaker 3: It was a strategic imperative. I mean, we recruited for trustworthiness,
30:39
Speaker 3: We trained to build it every day. If you had it,
30:42
Speaker 3: you got rewarded and promoted. And if you lost it
30:46
Speaker 3: and you couldn't get it back, quickly you were either
30:49
Speaker 3: sidelined or you were gone because we could not afford
30:53
Speaker 3: as I'm sure as you described in your helicopter you know,
30:56
Speaker 3: you had to really trust the other three guys in
30:59
Speaker 3: your crew. And so I just you know, share with
31:03
Speaker 3: people what were the things that we had to do
31:06
Speaker 3: to build a really high level of trust. And you
31:09
Speaker 3: know it's not rocket science, but but it's work and
31:13
Speaker 3: you you have to, you know, proactively do it because
31:16
Speaker 3: too many organizations don't really think about trust until it's
31:20
Speaker 3: broken or gone and then they're struggling.
31:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and then then there's there's big issues, isn't there.
31:29
Speaker 2: I mean I run some high performance team stuff. I
31:32
Speaker 2: use pat nan Chionese model.
31:34
Speaker 1: I'm not sure here for many.
31:35
Speaker 2: Of us that you probably are, but but the bottom
31:38
Speaker 2: of that bag is trust foundation right at the bottom.
31:42
Speaker 2: And it's that and it's it's not predictive trust, you know,
31:48
Speaker 2: which is you know, if I've been working with someone
31:49
Speaker 2: for years, I kind of know what they're going to do,
31:51
Speaker 2: so I've got.
31:52
Speaker 1: That level of trust.
31:53
Speaker 2: It's the deeper level of trust based on vulnerability and
31:57
Speaker 2: openness to share your fears, your failures, your apprehend and
32:01
Speaker 2: and and actually that that's what I was talking about
32:04
Speaker 2: earlier on when you go through that adversity or the
32:07
Speaker 2: hard the hard training, we were owned the pumpany you
32:10
Speaker 2: see under the levels of the onion and we get.
32:14
Speaker 1: That deeper trust. And I think that's his real In.
32:18
Speaker 3: My book, I described three levels of trust, and I
32:22
Speaker 3: talk about you know, when I got to the Blue Angels,
32:24
Speaker 3: I had much more flight time, but I didn't a
32:26
Speaker 3: Blue Angel time, as I'd said, So I was at
32:29
Speaker 3: trust one point oh. And this is sort of your
32:31
Speaker 3: garden variety trust. And you know, you hire somebody because
32:36
Speaker 3: they've been to the right schools or they've had done
32:38
Speaker 3: the right job or whatever it might be. And you know,
32:42
Speaker 3: you trust them to show up and you know, do
32:45
Speaker 3: their do their job and then trust two point oh.
32:49
Speaker 3: And this was after I worked.
32:53
Speaker 2: So George, can I just am clarify is that trust
32:57
Speaker 2: one point oh?
32:58
Speaker 1: Based on their perceip mostly you know.
33:01
Speaker 3: I'll give you a really mundane example. I mean, you're
33:04
Speaker 3: driving down the highway and based on the guy coming
33:08
Speaker 3: the other way, has you know, done what was necessary
33:11
Speaker 3: to get a driver's license, you trust that they're going
33:14
Speaker 3: to stay on their side of the line, right so
33:17
Speaker 3: it's it's what I call you your garden variety trust, right,
33:21
Speaker 3: And my team said, look, boss, just fly your jets
33:24
Speaker 3: safely and we're gonna we're going to show you in
33:28
Speaker 3: our training. We're together, we're going to become Blue Angels.
33:32
Speaker 1: Right.
33:32
Speaker 3: So so then I kept working, working, and I got
33:36
Speaker 3: to trust what I call trust two point zero. And
33:38
Speaker 3: this is where we live most of our relationships. And
33:44
Speaker 3: this is what it's conditional trust. Right. If you do
33:48
Speaker 3: A and B, I'll trust you with C. Or it's
33:52
Speaker 3: selective trust. I'll trust you here, but I'm not trusting
33:56
Speaker 3: you over here, right, And it feels like a contract
34:01
Speaker 3: sort of. In fact, you know, that's why we have contracts,
34:05
Speaker 3: is because we're trying to raise the level artificially of trust.
34:09
Speaker 3: Everybody knows what's expected and if you don't do it,
34:13
Speaker 3: here's what's going to happen. Right, So you artificially mitigate
34:18
Speaker 3: the risk as best you can so that you can
34:21
Speaker 3: get a deal done. And so I kept working, working, working,
34:25
Speaker 3: until finally when we came out of winter training and
34:29
Speaker 3: we started doing Blue Angel air shows. I had invested
34:34
Speaker 3: in my teammates and they and me to the point
34:38
Speaker 3: that we said to each other. I trust you, period.
34:43
Speaker 3: And this is where the magic happens. Right, this is
34:45
Speaker 3: this feels like a covenant. If trust two point zero
34:48
Speaker 3: is a contract, trust three point zero is a covenant.
34:53
Speaker 3: And that's when you get to the point where you
34:55
Speaker 3: know there's no hesitation, and that's when you can really
34:59
Speaker 3: move quickly. You can be very agile, you can adapt.
35:04
Speaker 3: The resilience goes way up, productivity goes way up, quality
35:08
Speaker 3: goes up. Everything does right if you make those investments. Unfortunately,
35:13
Speaker 3: too often organizations and teams aren't willing to devote the
35:17
Speaker 3: time and the effort consistently in order to achieve that
35:23
Speaker 3: level and maintain it.
35:27
Speaker 2: So give us one or two things that a leader
35:31
Speaker 2: could do to tick up the level of trust in
35:34
Speaker 2: their team, and I'm imagining there would be a reason
35:37
Speaker 2: amount of transfer to trust in relationships.
35:41
Speaker 3: Well if this works at home, yeah as well. And
35:45
Speaker 3: because it's universal and a couple of things that to
35:49
Speaker 3: be aware of. I mean, you know, trust can't be bought,
35:52
Speaker 3: it can't be expected, it can't be demanded, it can't
35:55
Speaker 3: be coerced. It's a gift, and it's a gift that
35:59
Speaker 3: is give And whenever you have behaved in a way
36:02
Speaker 3: a trustworthy manner that the other person is willing to
36:07
Speaker 3: give it. And so you know, I talk about five
36:14
Speaker 3: things that I had to do in order to earn
36:17
Speaker 3: this unconditional trust in my wingman, and they with me, right,
36:21
Speaker 3: and I'll go through them very quickly, and then you
36:23
Speaker 3: can drill down into whatever strikes your fancy. And you
36:27
Speaker 3: have to pay attention to all five. If you drop
36:29
Speaker 3: one out, we were going to face an issue that
36:31
Speaker 3: we would have to ultimately work on. But the good
36:35
Speaker 3: news is for each one of them, it reinforces the
36:38
Speaker 3: other four so that there was an upward spiral of
36:41
Speaker 3: trust and confidence. Right so here very quickly, and for
36:44
Speaker 3: each one there was a question that my team was
36:47
Speaker 3: asking about me every day, and depending upon the answer
36:51
Speaker 3: they discerned, they would make a judgment about my trustworthiness.
36:55
Speaker 3: I believe these are the same five questions your listeners
36:59
Speaker 3: are being asked by their people in their lives, whether
37:03
Speaker 3: professionally or personally, either consciously or unconsciously. So here we go.
37:08
Speaker 3: The first one is character, and the question was simply,
37:13
Speaker 3: do you walk your talk? Do you live up to
37:18
Speaker 3: your responsibilities? Do you keep your promises? Do you own
37:23
Speaker 3: you know, whatever, do you live our shared core values,
37:27
Speaker 3: and for us in the Navy and Marine Corps, it
37:29
Speaker 3: was honor, courage, and commitment. And my team was judging
37:34
Speaker 3: my character based on to what degree did I live
37:36
Speaker 3: up to those those core values and our standards that
37:40
Speaker 3: we had as a team for excellence, and we had
37:43
Speaker 3: lots of you know, norms that the team had developed
37:47
Speaker 3: over the years. So that was a first one. The
37:49
Speaker 3: second one was commitment. Now, my team was absolutely certain
37:54
Speaker 3: that I would show up to lead them with a
37:56
Speaker 3: smile on my face when the sun was shining and
37:59
Speaker 3: the sky was blue and the air was smooth. But
38:02
Speaker 3: they knew that during our time together we were gonna
38:06
Speaker 3: have to go through some storms, because that's sort of
38:09
Speaker 3: how life is, right you're either in a storm now,
38:12
Speaker 3: or you just came out of a storm, or look out,
38:16
Speaker 3: you're getting ready to go into the next one exactly.
38:20
Speaker 3: So what they wanted to know was, are you gonna
38:22
Speaker 3: be with us when the going gets rough? I mean,
38:25
Speaker 3: are you gonna Are you gonna show up and play
38:28
Speaker 3: your a game when we're in the storm and be
38:31
Speaker 3: at your best leader and lead us to victory on
38:35
Speaker 3: the other side, Because if you're just gonna show up
38:38
Speaker 3: and take names, cass, blame ce ya, forget about it.
38:44
Speaker 3: We want you to be the best leader you can be.
38:47
Speaker 3: And oh, by the way, when we get down to
38:51
Speaker 3: a moment of truth where you have to make a
38:54
Speaker 3: choice between the team's interest or your interest, which one
38:58
Speaker 3: are you gonna pick? That's what they want to know, right,
39:02
Speaker 3: So that's commitment. The third one is competence. Now, it's
39:06
Speaker 3: absolutely important to be trusted, particularly in your professional life,
39:11
Speaker 3: that you have to be very good at what you do,
39:14
Speaker 3: no question about it, right. But I put a third
39:17
Speaker 3: here for a reason because I believe if you don't
39:20
Speaker 3: get the first two, the third one doesn't matter. If
39:24
Speaker 3: a person doesn't walk their talk or be all in,
39:29
Speaker 3: then you know, forget about it. But if they do
39:34
Speaker 3: walk their talk, walk our talk, live our values, and
39:37
Speaker 3: they are all in, we can teach them. I mean,
39:41
Speaker 3: they have to have a certain amount of talent and skill,
39:43
Speaker 3: but we would trade off a percentage of some amount
39:48
Speaker 3: of skill in order to make sure we got the
39:51
Speaker 3: first two. It wasn't necessarily the ace of the base
39:56
Speaker 3: who became the blue Angel. It was the guy who
39:59
Speaker 3: could who was you know, had great integrity, total commitment
40:04
Speaker 3: to the mission, and would come to work every day
40:08
Speaker 3: and accept constant professional, constructive criticism in the debrief and
40:13
Speaker 3: not get discouraged, distracted, or let his ego get in
40:15
Speaker 3: the way. So every day, as I walked into for
40:20
Speaker 3: a pre flight briefing and I would sit down at
40:22
Speaker 3: the conference table and I would look around at my
40:25
Speaker 3: wingman gathered around, I could see the third question in
40:29
Speaker 3: their eyes, and the question was are you good enough
40:32
Speaker 3: to be our leader today? Are you better than you
40:35
Speaker 3: were yesterday, but not as good as you're going to
40:38
Speaker 3: be tomorrow because we don't want to stay here. You
40:41
Speaker 3: want to keep getting better and better. By definition, we
40:44
Speaker 3: as a team can't get better if you don't get better.
40:48
Speaker 3: So that was a third question. Then the fourth one
40:53
Speaker 3: is the one I think most leaders in this modern
40:57
Speaker 3: age have dropped off their radar. And that's connection you see.
41:04
Speaker 3: By the middle of the season, I could do just
41:08
Speaker 3: about anything I wanted with my jet, and my guys
41:10
Speaker 3: would follow me. If I needed to speed the role
41:13
Speaker 3: of the formation to stay under the clouds, I could
41:16
Speaker 3: do it. If I needed to pull harder at the
41:18
Speaker 3: bottom of a loop to avoid a ridge line, I
41:20
Speaker 3: could do it. If I needed to tighten the turn
41:23
Speaker 3: with more g around a skyscraper, I could do it
41:26
Speaker 3: because I had invested in my wingman such that they
41:31
Speaker 3: believed I knew what I was asking them to do
41:35
Speaker 3: out there as I changed the trajectory. Right. But if
41:39
Speaker 3: for a minute they doubted that I understood what I
41:42
Speaker 3: was asking them to do, that's when you get hesitation, separation, disengagement. Right.
41:49
Speaker 3: So the question, and this applied just as much on
41:53
Speaker 3: the ground as it did in the air with the
41:55
Speaker 3: sailors and marines on the team, and the question was
41:59
Speaker 3: do they believe you understand them? Which is a different
42:04
Speaker 3: question than do I believe I understand them? Because what
42:07
Speaker 3: I believe is interesting but not sufficient. What matters is
42:10
Speaker 3: what do they believe? And when they believe that you
42:14
Speaker 3: get them, that you understand their concerns, their challenges, what
42:19
Speaker 3: you're asking them to do, what their hopes, their goals are,
42:23
Speaker 3: and that whenever you're making the tough decisions, you're taking
42:28
Speaker 3: them into account. When they believe you do that, even
42:31
Speaker 3: if the decision doesn't go their way, they'll join up
42:35
Speaker 3: and come along. But if they don't. If they then
42:39
Speaker 3: then you always have friction. And challenges, and it's like
42:43
Speaker 3: it's like aerodynamic drag, you know, on the on the airplane,
42:47
Speaker 3: you know, So that's that's connection. And then the last
42:51
Speaker 3: one quickly is communication. If connection is do they believe
42:55
Speaker 3: I understand them? Then communication is do they understand me
43:01
Speaker 3: and my clear, concise, consistent and direct in my transmissions?
43:06
Speaker 3: And are they receiving the messages that I intended when
43:11
Speaker 3: I sent it? Right? And you saw that, you know,
43:13
Speaker 3: in aviation, we have very specific protocols to make sure
43:17
Speaker 3: that there's no misunderstanding on the radios when you're assigned
43:21
Speaker 3: a heading or an altitude or whatelse. And we need
43:25
Speaker 3: to implement those types of feedback in our communication strategies
43:30
Speaker 3: on the ground, in our work, and in our life
43:34
Speaker 3: right because the biggest challenge with communication for leaders is
43:39
Speaker 3: the presumption that it's occurred. I sent the email. I
43:44
Speaker 3: sent the email, they get it. I gave the talk,
43:46
Speaker 3: they get it. I had the one on one, she
43:49
Speaker 3: gets it. They don't get it, at least not yet,
43:52
Speaker 3: because they aren't as close to it as you are, right,
43:55
Speaker 3: And I like to say, how many times do you
43:58
Speaker 3: have to hear a new song before you get the lid? Ricks.
44:00
Speaker 3: So we have to transmit consistently in a variety of
44:06
Speaker 3: forms until until the audience gets the message. Right.
44:12
Speaker 2: So that'll say you can never over communicate clarity.
44:18
Speaker 3: And you know you've done it when they start making
44:20
Speaker 3: fun of you, right, Okay, yeah, I think they got
44:24
Speaker 3: it now. Yeah.
44:28
Speaker 2: Look I love that that the character, commitment, competence, connection communication.
44:34
Speaker 1: So is that this is that a hierarchy?
44:36
Speaker 3: Hierarchy?
44:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and and I see why you have
44:43
Speaker 2: put character first because I mean people can just that
44:48
Speaker 2: they can they can smell it at fifty pieces if
44:52
Speaker 2: you're not authentic, right, that they really do and and
44:57
Speaker 2: and that is what and you know what reminds me
45:00
Speaker 2: there's a couple of ones tied in together, character and commitment.
45:05
Speaker 2: I remember my first boss, Commander Jock Alexander, and people
45:09
Speaker 2: would have walked over broken glass for him.
45:11
Speaker 1: But we we had there.
45:12
Speaker 2: There was a big night in the naval fleet, Fleet
45:14
Speaker 2: of our Arms called Taranto Knight, and it celebrated the
45:17
Speaker 2: Battle of Toronto when our our our squadron went in
45:21
Speaker 2: and sunk to half the Italian fleet.
45:23
Speaker 1: Right.
45:23
Speaker 2: And so the tradition is that that you know, there's
45:28
Speaker 2: all there's the whole mess dinner, and there's there's there's
45:32
Speaker 2: fires and stuff like that, and and and and we
45:35
Speaker 2: we tend to burn a piano at the end of it, right,
45:40
Speaker 2: and so that's typical stuff, right.
45:43
Speaker 1: But we were having it was a big.
45:46
Speaker 2: Do and there was there was an admiral coming and
45:50
Speaker 2: things like that, and the commander of the bas who
45:54
Speaker 2: was not an er crew guy, he was a fish
45:56
Speaker 2: head right as we call him. I don't know if
45:59
Speaker 2: you call the same and in the States, but he
46:02
Speaker 2: for being off, I burned the piano and all their
46:07
Speaker 2: crew were like, yeah. So what we did instead was
46:11
Speaker 2: we burned a car. We didn't burn a piano. We
46:14
Speaker 2: got one of the guy's old cars, all chipped in,
46:17
Speaker 2: bought it off of and burnt the car. And the
46:20
Speaker 2: next day the commander of the base went ballistic, made
46:25
Speaker 2: us all and stand on the paray ground in our
46:28
Speaker 2: dress uniforms and started giving us a bollocking about burning
46:33
Speaker 2: the car. And the boss of the squadron, Jock Alexander,
46:38
Speaker 2: stepped forward and said, sir.
46:40
Speaker 1: I just need to interject. I told him they could
46:43
Speaker 1: burn the car.
46:45
Speaker 2: And the commander went in my office and he never
46:49
Speaker 2: told us that we could burn the car right, he
46:53
Speaker 2: took the hit for us, and geez did we get
46:56
Speaker 2: a bullocking afterwards? But I tell you what, like that
47:00
Speaker 2: is an example of that character and commit absolute And
47:05
Speaker 2: you know.
47:05
Speaker 3: One thing I'd like to share about the character piece
47:08
Speaker 3: is that you know, no matter how self aware you are,
47:13
Speaker 3: no matter how high your EQ is, you can't know
47:18
Speaker 3: how you're coming across to everybody else in the organization
47:23
Speaker 3: because because you just can't. First of all, you're not them,
47:28
Speaker 3: and second of all, you can't be everywhere all the time.
47:31
Speaker 3: And so sometimes leaders are doing the they think they're
47:35
Speaker 3: doing the right thing, but they for whatever reason, members
47:41
Speaker 3: of the team are receiving a different message. And some
47:44
Speaker 3: of that occurs, you know, like for example, in communication,
47:48
Speaker 3: if you're not communicating, if there's a if there's a
47:51
Speaker 3: gap in communication, people are going to fill the gap
47:55
Speaker 3: with stories or perceptions or whatever. Right. So I share with.
48:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, the brand, the brand is a prediction machine. And
48:04
Speaker 2: if people don't know.
48:05
Speaker 3: The story makers, right, we make stories all the time.
48:09
Speaker 3: So I share with leaders that you need to have
48:13
Speaker 3: truth tellers in your organization, people that you trust who
48:18
Speaker 3: will bring you the truth to let you know they
48:21
Speaker 3: they understand what you're trying to do. They understand what
48:24
Speaker 3: your values are, and you trust them to come tell
48:29
Speaker 3: you whenever. The perception out there is that you aren't
48:34
Speaker 3: walking your talk or for whatever. And perception isn't always reality,
48:39
Speaker 3: but that's what they're thinking, right. So, and here's the challenge. Though, Yes,
48:45
Speaker 3: you authorize somebody to bring you the truth, they'll bring
48:49
Speaker 3: it once and depending upon how you react to the truth,
48:54
Speaker 3: you may never see it again. So so we as leaders,
48:58
Speaker 3: we have to be wise enough that, however the truth
49:02
Speaker 3: shows up, that we are willing to look at it
49:06
Speaker 3: and objectively evaluate what is here that I need to
49:10
Speaker 3: act on. Maybe nothing, but maybe there's some things here.
49:15
Speaker 3: And let me ask you, who do you think, other
49:19
Speaker 3: than your spouse and your children are the best people
49:24
Speaker 3: to bring you the truth?
49:28
Speaker 1: Other than your spouse, See, I was going to say
49:30
Speaker 1: your children and.
49:33
Speaker 2: The best people to bring you the truth probably the
49:38
Speaker 2: people that you're not that aligned, people that don't like.
49:42
Speaker 3: You very much because they don't care how you feel
49:45
Speaker 3: about it.
49:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, And unfortunately they're going to wrap it up, you know,
49:52
Speaker 4: with a bunch of drama and stuff, and they're gonna
49:55
Speaker 4: stick it at you, right and so we have to
49:58
Speaker 4: be smart enough when that happened to unpack it and.
50:01
Speaker 3: See is there a kernel of truth in there somewhere
50:05
Speaker 3: or is it just rubbish? I don't know, but but
50:08
Speaker 3: we have to at least be smart enough to do
50:11
Speaker 3: that dissection.
50:16
Speaker 1: That that actually brings me.
50:17
Speaker 2: That's a great point, actually, George, And it brings me
50:20
Speaker 2: to something else. And that often I talk about because
50:22
Speaker 2: often when we get an idea, and particularly as leaders,
50:27
Speaker 2: and we go and we seek sounding boards, and we
50:30
Speaker 2: seek people who are similar to us and have similar
50:34
Speaker 2: thinking to us, and we're kind of bouncing it off
50:37
Speaker 2: the echo chamber. And I always say to people, go
50:40
Speaker 2: and pick the person who is stormy and prickly and
50:44
Speaker 2: who you've got a different point of view and lots
50:46
Speaker 2: of things, and then bounce it off them, because then
50:48
Speaker 2: you'll get to.
50:49
Speaker 3: The accltes, you'll get a real test.
50:54
Speaker 2: But that that that requires and parking a little bit
50:57
Speaker 2: of your ego, doesn't it? So sodge tell us and
51:02
Speaker 2: in environments where trust has been eroded, because I will
51:08
Speaker 2: often talk about this, like you can build trust, and
51:10
Speaker 2: build trust and build trust, and then if that trust
51:13
Speaker 2: is broken, the whole house of cards kind of tumbling down, right,
51:18
Speaker 2: And you know, you can be in a deep relationship
51:22
Speaker 2: with somebody personal and the trust goes and just everything's gone.
51:26
Speaker 2: So in that we're trust has been eroded. And maybe
51:31
Speaker 2: pick maybe there might be two scenarios. Trust has been
51:34
Speaker 2: eroded because you've done something as a leader, or then
51:37
Speaker 2: you go into a second scenario would be going into
51:41
Speaker 2: a new organization where trust was eroded because of the
51:45
Speaker 2: leader and the culture just stinks because of that.
51:49
Speaker 1: So what could leaders do in those two different.
51:53
Speaker 3: In the first one, you know Stephen Covey who wrote
51:57
Speaker 3: the Seven Habits of highly vin Habits, I think he
52:02
Speaker 3: has it right in that you can't talk your way
52:06
Speaker 3: out of something that you acted your way into, right,
52:09
Speaker 3: So so you know step number one is to apologize
52:14
Speaker 3: in an authentic manner, but that isn't that doesn't do
52:18
Speaker 3: it right. That's just gets you into the into the room, right.
52:23
Speaker 3: And then over time you have to behave in a
52:26
Speaker 3: trustworthy manner such that you hope that the people will
52:32
Speaker 3: again regain trust in you. But you don't get to
52:35
Speaker 3: choose right and and depending and and you know, sometimes
52:40
Speaker 3: when you're betrayed by somebody, the deeper the trust that
52:44
Speaker 3: you that you had together, the betrayal hurts more, right,
52:49
Speaker 3: so you may not get it back, you know, but yeah,
52:53
Speaker 3: you can't worry about that. You have to just do
52:55
Speaker 3: your best and you have to hope that they will.
52:58
Speaker 3: And generally speaking, people are pretty forgiving. I mean, if
53:02
Speaker 3: you own it and you're sincere and then you communicate
53:07
Speaker 3: that sincerity in your behavior over a period of time,
53:12
Speaker 3: you know, people are pretty forgiving. So that would be
53:15
Speaker 3: my answer to the first scenario and the second scenario
53:18
Speaker 3: where you're walking into an organization that has very as
53:24
Speaker 3: the trust has been broken, right then that I think you,
53:30
Speaker 3: first of all, don't dwell on the past. You want
53:34
Speaker 3: to get them beyond that. But the challenge is is
53:37
Speaker 3: that there's a lot of emotional inertia. And I've been
53:42
Speaker 3: involved in doing you know, some turnarounds with an organizations
53:46
Speaker 3: that had the trust had been broken, and I was
53:50
Speaker 3: constantly amazed at how long people held onto the feelings
53:55
Speaker 3: of betrayal, even though that leadership team was gone, but
53:59
Speaker 3: they kept holding onto it and holding on to it. Right,
54:02
Speaker 3: So you have to you have to lead by example,
54:07
Speaker 3: and you have to you know, you know, employ those
54:11
Speaker 3: five principles of being you know, walking your talk and
54:15
Speaker 3: being transparent and bring in it every day and trying
54:20
Speaker 3: to you know, here's what who here's who we are,
54:23
Speaker 3: Here's what we stand for, and hopefully, you know, you
54:26
Speaker 3: can turn it around. But you know, there were some
54:29
Speaker 3: people in this one organization I have in mind where
54:33
Speaker 3: they couldn't get over it. So at some point they
54:36
Speaker 3: were no longer a good fit for our organization and
54:39
Speaker 3: we needed to move them on. Unfortunately, they were a
54:42
Speaker 3: casualty of all of that. But you do your best, and.
54:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people can can become you know, like some
54:52
Speaker 2: people have learned helplessness. And you know that old classic
54:56
Speaker 2: experience with the animals where they have them and the
54:58
Speaker 2: kids and there's an electric shop and they keep getting
55:01
Speaker 2: shocked and in they stop, and they take away the
55:03
Speaker 2: sides of the cage, and still the animal doesn't try
55:06
Speaker 2: to get out of that learned helplessness. And I think
55:09
Speaker 2: there can be that that that's.
55:12
Speaker 1: Sort of a learned.
55:16
Speaker 2: Bad egg attitude, right, just because of what had happened.
55:20
Speaker 2: But is there a value in going into an organization
55:24
Speaker 2: where you know that there has been previous poor leadership?
55:29
Speaker 2: Is their value in getting the people together and letting
55:32
Speaker 2: them vent and letting them.
55:33
Speaker 1: Be heard and go through a cathartic process and take
55:37
Speaker 1: on and their point of view and then explicitly act
55:42
Speaker 1: early on some of their things so that they actually go, Hey,
55:46
Speaker 1: this person.
55:47
Speaker 3: I think that you know I mentioned connection. You want
55:51
Speaker 3: them to believe that you understand what they went through
55:54
Speaker 3: right as best you can.
55:55
Speaker 1: And and so.
55:57
Speaker 3: I think it's very helpful to to open up to
56:01
Speaker 3: that and to be willing to listen. And but then
56:06
Speaker 3: you know, you better do something right and and you
56:10
Speaker 3: may or may not agree with what they think is
56:13
Speaker 3: the path forward, but you need to take action. And
56:18
Speaker 3: if you're not going to respond directly to what they
56:23
Speaker 3: suggested or recommended, then you explain why and you just
56:28
Speaker 3: you just be open with them. Look, I know you
56:30
Speaker 3: wanted you thought we should go this way, but look,
56:33
Speaker 3: we're going to go this way because of this. And
56:37
Speaker 3: and then they need to be big enough to appreciate
56:40
Speaker 3: the fact that you were honest with them and that
56:42
Speaker 3: you know, you you kept them in the loop and
56:47
Speaker 3: let them know right.
56:51
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, now see seege advice as all of this
56:54
Speaker 2: has been seedge advice George So and so for people
56:58
Speaker 2: who want to get your birth. I think leaders aspiring leaders,
57:02
Speaker 2: and it actually sounds to me like anybody who wants
57:06
Speaker 2: to have good relationships in their personal life because that
57:11
Speaker 2: that trust, high trust.
57:13
Speaker 1: And you know, you could.
57:14
Speaker 2: Almost take out the word leadership and put high trust
57:18
Speaker 2: relationships and write a new book, right, And so where
57:22
Speaker 2: can they go with ticket? It's available in all good bookstores.
57:25
Speaker 2: The name I believe it's high trust Leadership Building, and it's.
57:28
Speaker 3: Available Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and that's where they.
57:34
Speaker 1: All bookstores, as we say, all good bookstores.
57:39
Speaker 2: And then if people, if organizations want to book you
57:43
Speaker 2: to come in and talk to their team to do
57:45
Speaker 2: some work with their leaders.
57:47
Speaker 3: And my website is George Doom dot com and imagine
57:54
Speaker 3: that going on, so they can see you what it's about,
58:01
Speaker 3: and it can easily contact me. And I'd love to
58:04
Speaker 3: come in and help out because that's what that's what
58:07
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do. That's my mission now after after
58:10
Speaker 3: the military, is to help companies thrive.
58:13
Speaker 1: And we all need we all need another mission to
58:16
Speaker 1: do with George.
58:17
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I'm going to ask you one last question
58:20
Speaker 2: unrelated to this. Every time I'm in the States, I
58:25
Speaker 2: am blown away by the level of respect given to
58:31
Speaker 2: current and past military personnel, right, and you know, it's
58:35
Speaker 2: boarding on aircrafts.
58:37
Speaker 1: You know.
58:38
Speaker 2: I've been in talks for the somebody's been in the military,
58:40
Speaker 2: everybody stands up and applauds them.
58:42
Speaker 1: It's just and it's mind boggling for me.
58:46
Speaker 2: And having been in the British military and now being
58:49
Speaker 2: in Australia and have worked with the Australian military, you
58:52
Speaker 2: do not see that at all in in Britain and
58:56
Speaker 2: in the in in Australia.
58:59
Speaker 1: Where does that come from? Do you know where that?
59:02
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not really sure. It's a wonderful question.
59:06
Speaker 3: I think some of it comes from a sense of
59:12
Speaker 3: guilt about how veterans were treated coming back from Vietnam. Yeah,
59:19
Speaker 3: they were really treated badly and so forth, and I
59:22
Speaker 3: think the American public and now once the norm is set,
59:26
Speaker 3: it just keeps being passed down, you know. So I
59:29
Speaker 3: think that is the genesis of it, because, as I
59:32
Speaker 3: mentioned back at the beginning of this conversation, you know,
59:35
Speaker 3: when I was growing up during Vietnam, I mean, nobody
59:38
Speaker 3: wanted to go in the military. But we we bounced
59:42
Speaker 3: back from that. And it's interesting because you know, it's
59:46
Speaker 3: a very low percentage of our population, or actually have
59:50
Speaker 3: served used to be many more. And yeah, you know,
59:54
Speaker 3: and that's a little bit of a challenge for us.
59:56
Speaker 3: Also is to make sure the American pusably continues to
1:00:00
Speaker 3: remain connected to the amazing work that's being done by
1:00:05
Speaker 3: other men and women in uniform.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, George, And this has been awesome.
1:00:12
Speaker 2: Thank you for your time, and I wish you all
1:00:15
Speaker 2: the best of luck alow you won't need it in your.
1:00:18
Speaker 3: Thanks very much, my pleasure. I really enjoyed it, great conversation.