1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:24,000 [Music] 2 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,000 Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast. 3 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:34,960 Today I'm excited to speak with Damon Wells, a career army officer with 28 years of service. 4 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:42,160 Thank you so much for your service, Damon, and I'm excited to talk to you today about some of my favorite topics, 5 00:00:42,160 --> 00:00:45,760 leadership, team building, and strategies for success. 6 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:48,160 Thank you so much for being here. 7 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:49,760 My pleasure. Those sound like straights. 8 00:00:49,760 --> 00:01:00,000 I want to jump right into talking a little bit about your background, including your time as a commander, 9 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,000 and working in high stakes and environments. 10 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 Can you share a little bit with our listeners? 11 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:08,160 Yeah, so I can go through just quickly through my background, 12 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:12,400 joined in 1995, which really sounds like ages ago, 13 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:18,000 which puts me almost almost at 30 years, which as you know is mandatory retirement, 14 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:19,520 which I'm absolutely looking forward to. 15 00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:26,960 Right now, I am in Schupegark, Germany, I'm the deputy chief of staff at Africa Command, 16 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:31,520 the joint U.S. Command that oversees the command of Africa. 17 00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:37,760 Before that, I would brigade commander at Carson Colorado, which is a beautiful post. 18 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:46,000 I've been to from Silo, Oklahoma, to what's now Fort Cavattos, which used to be called 19 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,840 food in Texas, been on the East Coast, been to the West Coast, been to Iraq a couple times, 20 00:01:51,840 --> 00:02:00,320 been to Afghanistan, some time in Korea, the Baltics, and now Germany. 21 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:03,680 So over the course of 30 years, around the world a few times. 22 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:12,560 Well, that sounds amazing, traveling all these different places, and I imagine it must be 23 00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:18,640 challenging and to pick up and move. And I want to talk a little bit, one of the things, 24 00:02:18,640 --> 00:02:24,320 you know, having a father that was also in the military. I know a lot of times, 25 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:33,520 you know, uncertain times happen in the military and you're, like you mentioned, you change locations, 26 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:39,760 you change ranks, you change roles, you really have to pick up and start over and sometimes 27 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:46,960 uncertain times. So I want to talk a little bit about what advice you would give to civilian leaders 28 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:53,760 about maintaining calm and focus when their path isn't really clear and they have to pick up 29 00:02:53,760 --> 00:03:01,520 and lift to maybe a different job or a different state and just a little bit about your experiences 30 00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:09,680 as you've navigated across the globe. I actually love that question. So you mentioned uncertainty 31 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:14,640 and then changing ranks and then changing jobs, where's changing, you know, changing where you live. 32 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:22,320 So to us uncertainty and ambiguity, and ambiguity, comes with the territory. There's 33 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:28,640 always a certain amount of information that you just can't know. As an example, you know, as I get 34 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:36,560 ready, as I'm looking for my new job, or I'm waiting on the new assignment, I'm pretty comfortable 35 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:42,720 as are the people I work with, just not knowing. And I say that because my wife will always want to know, 36 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,720 hey, did you find out where we're going yet? You know, where we're going now? She wants to know. 37 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:54,320 And I just know the answer, not only is it going to come later than you want it, but it's never, 38 00:03:54,320 --> 00:04:00,080 it's never 100% that that's where we're going. It could always change the last minute. So you have 39 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:07,760 to be comfortable with ambiguity and have to know when uncertainty is important, when you need 40 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:15,520 certainty. So there are certain things, you know, each rank comes with, you know, it's four or five 41 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:20,720 years per pay grade, per rank that you hold in the military. And then there are certain jobs 42 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:26,240 that you must do. There are key development jobs that you must do in order to get promote 43 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:32,080 to the next race. So understanding when and where you're going to perform those jobs, you know, the 44 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:36,720 uncertainty isn't great for that. You've got to know, you've got to have a plan for that. 45 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:44,560 And there are certain times when, you know, you're in environments, Iraq, Afghanistan, when there's, 46 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:50,480 when you're given an operation, there's just a certain amount of that operation that you just can't 47 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:56,080 know. And there are certain parts that you that you really have to know. You know, where are we going? 48 00:04:56,080 --> 00:05:01,760 Why are we doing this? What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? The details along the way, 49 00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:06,560 sometimes they're just going to have to be ambiguous. What we do is we see, okay, this is a piece of 50 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:13,760 information that I need to continue making my plan. I don't have that information. So I'm going to 51 00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:20,800 insert an assault in here. So between now and whatever that decision point is, I've got to look for 52 00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:25,920 details of information that help me confirm or deny that assumption. And that that's a decision 53 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:32,080 point that will tell me go either, you know, left or right. So it's, it's being comfortable, 54 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:39,040 ambiguity, and it's knowing what facts do you actually need? And which ones can you make assumptions for? 55 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:48,560 Yeah, and I love, you know, to, I always say this to myself, worry is negative goals setting. I think 56 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:55,600 there's thousands of assumptions one can make in any given situation. And the more you worry and 57 00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:01,360 focus on what could or might go wrong, it's, it really takes you off your course and off your 58 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:07,520 mission. And you can't really focus on the actual facts that you have. And facts, the way I think of 59 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:12,640 facts are like a puzzle, right? The more facts you have, the better you can put your puzzle together. 60 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:19,440 And worry just distracts you. It's like a blindfold as you're putting your, your puzzle together. And so 61 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:30,640 a lot of times in uncertain times, I like to say to people, focus on the facts. And anytime you have 62 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:36,560 a worry that comes into your mind, replace it with a fact because you can't make really strategic 63 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:43,360 business decisions in your type of situations or in regular civilian life without all the facts, 64 00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:52,800 right? And so, you know, we live in a very rapidly evolving and changing world as far as technology 65 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:59,760 and global events. And so I want to talk a little bit about from your experience how the military 66 00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:06,400 prepares leaders like you to be adaptable and flexible from going to Colorado to Africa. 67 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:12,400 Very different environments, very different cultures, very different weather. So let's talk a 68 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:19,680 little bit about that. Yeah, so again, be adaptable just comes with territory. And I think in the military, 69 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:27,520 because that is a prerequisite, if, especially the leader, the further you get in your career, 70 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:34,400 if you aren't adaptable, at some point you're going to get weeded out. So people that can't 71 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:40,160 adapt to new situations and environments won't function all that well. And I'll be honest every 72 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:47,680 organization I've been to, does it differently? Because if, because I went from Colorado to 73 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:55,760 Germany, huge, huge difference. So when you do a new unit, there's things you're going to want to know, 74 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:59,600 there's actually things you need to know. When you get a Germany, for example, 75 00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:07,040 German government, because we are in Germany, though the German government is in charge of Germany. So 76 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:13,680 when you get here, you have German rules. You have to follow, when you also have US rules, you have to follow. 77 00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:21,280 So what people like to say is, you know, for the end process, you have to go register your car, 78 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:27,120 and you have to do, you have to do a lot of things, make sure it's your, I guess, legal, 79 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:31,840 yes, data, support, as a commit, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of bureaucracy, you have to go through 80 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:39,760 when you come to Germany as a US military service member. And it's described as like the worst 81 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:45,840 of German bureaucracy combined with the worst of US bureaucracy. It's just, it's a lot of, it's a 82 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:50,880 lot of red tape, a lot of, a lot of hassle. But back to original question, 83 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:58,960 what, what should happen? And like I said, every instance of some, some units do this well. But 84 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:05,440 you have to be cognizant of the fact that everybody that's coming to you, nearly everybody is coming from 85 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:14,320 somewhere else. So it's sort of incumbent on the unit that's there to help the people adapt to, 86 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:20,080 you know, whatever the new things are. So if it's, if it's Germany, that's a huge adaptation. 87 00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:27,040 So what can we do in a unit for incoming personnel to ensure that they adapt, they understand, 88 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,960 because the German laws are different, you have to have a special drummer's license here, 89 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:36,160 there's different regulations on, you know, the maintenance standards for your car. And 90 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:41,280 if somebody doesn't help you understand all that, you're going to have a lot of problems. 91 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:46,080 So it's really incumbent on the unit to understand that the problem you just asked, and it's 92 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:52,800 fairly ubiquitous throughout the army that there's some process for that. It's not always employed 93 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:58,720 with 100% efficiency because somebody's actually got to be the one who takes the new person and 94 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:05,520 helps them do that process. It's just another simple example when you go to Carson where I just came from, 95 00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:13,840 Colorado. It's at 6,000 feet elevation. So running is much more challenging if for Carson that is 96 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:20,720 at, at sea level. So because of that, you're a lot at a certain amount of time before you have to take 97 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:27,920 your physical pasture, your fitness test, because it's going to take you long to adapt. Kind of a 98 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:34,640 small sort of physical example, but it's an acknowledged fact that everybody has to go through an 99 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:38,640 adjustment period. And if helped along that just period, you'll, you'll adjust faster. 100 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:49,120 I love that. I think we got to give ourselves times to adjust, right? So any new situation, whether 101 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:54,800 you're taking a new job or moving to a different country, there's time like you said, adjusting to 102 00:10:54,800 --> 00:11:01,280 the time zone, for example, seems pretty easy, but if your body is used to sleeping, you know, on 103 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:07,440 Pacific Standard Time, and now you're, you know, X hours ahead in other countries, it takes some time 104 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:14,240 for your sarcadium rhythm to reset so you can sleep correctly. And so I love kind of what you said, 105 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:23,120 adjusting and really leaning into that and giving yourself time to work through that and let your 106 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:32,080 body adjust to whatever the new challenge that you're in is. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about 107 00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:40,640 the P4 leadership model and talk a little bit about the trust, excellence, embracing your purpose. 108 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:47,840 Can you share a little bit about that with our listeners? Happy to. Yeah, so the P4 is obviously 109 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:56,640 four P. So people is the first P partnerships is the second P practice is the third and PURNUS is the 110 00:11:56,640 --> 00:12:02,560 fourth. So the most basic, and it's kind of based on complexity theory, a little bit of neuroscience, 111 00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:09,120 a little bit of in theory, but the most basic thing you have to understand about building a team 112 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:15,680 is the people. So that's that's why people is first and then sort of the the pinnacle of where you can 113 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:21,760 get a team is that everyone has a very clear understanding of the team's purpose, which is why 114 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:29,280 that's the last one. And just to kind of caveat it upfront, not every team gets that purpose 115 00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:37,280 domain, that echelon of team building is very hard. It's if you think of like special forces 116 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:45,200 organizations, they get they're quicker because they have very rigid selection mechanism that sort 117 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:50,880 of weeds out people until you get to a group of people who all kind of see the world the same way, 118 00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:57,440 who are all willing to sacrifice themselves because they believe in this thing that they tried 119 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:02,560 really hard and seen their friends sort of fall by way, so they just built a lot of energy into 120 00:13:02,560 --> 00:13:08,320 bidding into this organization. So they tend to see the world the same, they tend to share the same 121 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:14,160 values already. So you kind of go through the first phases of people faster than that, but that's 122 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:22,320 just an example. So in the real world, when you start with people, then if you're the new leader 123 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:30,800 coming into an organization, you understand who am I leading? The first mechanism that you have to 124 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:39,680 be aware of is trust. So trust is kind of the gateway criteria to get to the next one. So what does 125 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:46,240 that really mean? So I have to have to exhibit behaviors as quickly as possible because I want to 126 00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:56,000 reach a threshold trust where I can say things and they believe that my motivations are benign 127 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:02,400 and that my interest revolve around making team better and making them better at individuals. 128 00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:06,960 And that sounds simple, but you know if you're for example if you're an introvert, 129 00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:15,120 then you won't be compelled to communicate that often to what happens is people feel the gap in 130 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:21,200 you not talking with their own assumptions about why you're not talking first of all, and then 131 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:27,840 just have to try to use a very minuscule cues that you're giving them to understand you. 132 00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:34,560 So I'm kind of an introvert myself. So I know I have to go out of my way to communicate, to talk, 133 00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:40,240 to let people know that I want the organization to succeed, and that's where my interest lie. 134 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:45,920 So when you ask them to do something harder and comfortable, their immediate thought is, 135 00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:50,080 I don't want to do that. I don't think this guy knows what he's doing. Their immediate thought should 136 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:56,320 be, it's probably okay. I trust him. He knows what's asked for the unit. I'll do the uncomfortable 137 00:14:56,320 --> 00:15:02,960 thing. So to me, that's like the most basic line between the two thoughts of that are people 138 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:12,080 in your organization. Next is partnership. So go ahead. No, no, no, sorry. For a long time. So if you want 139 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:18,480 to chat, yeah, no, I think I was just going to say that like you were saying about trust, I think you 140 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:23,200 know, I'm in a casino gaming industry and I think a trust like a slot machine, you, you got to put a 141 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:28,960 whole bunch of coins in that machine until you can take your prize, right? And I think a lot of times 142 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:35,200 people assume very quickly that they have the trust and that people trust them and it's easy to 143 00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:40,320 break it down too. Like you could spend 10 years building trust and it takes one situation 144 00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:48,960 to lose the trust. And so I think a lot of times trust is not given its earn. And the only way you can 145 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:54,880 earn trust is like you were saying is to communicate into talk. And if you're not talking, it's very hard 146 00:15:54,880 --> 00:16:03,520 to build build trust with body language. And you know, so I just I think that's so spot on. 147 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:10,560 Yeah. And but I imagine it's just way with every organization, but in the military, 148 00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:18,320 part of the implicit trust comes with the rain you wear. So I tend to just have baseline trust 149 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:25,760 for someone who outranks me because I make assumptions about what they know. Got this far. So 150 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:31,040 so there is a little bit of implicit trust, but a lot of it is earned out of its it's almost impossible 151 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:37,440 gained through nonverbals of body language and people just making assumptions out of you. And you know, 152 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:43,440 you can't it is it does take a lot of time to build and you know, you should explain it to me like 153 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:49,760 what I'm asking leaders that work for me like what are you doing to build trust and if we explain that 154 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:56,880 it's literally the aggregate of all your behaviors that that add up trust or not because you can't 155 00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:02,240 just go to your team and say okay team trust me. I want you to trust me. Did everybody trust me now? 156 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:09,280 Just doesn't work like that. It's it's it's an indirect mechanism. And I can move on to 157 00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:17,280 partnerships if you're right. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay so because I needed a model that had all the same 158 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:24,400 starting letters partnerships what I really mean is teams right. So the the milestone criteria for 159 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:30,240 teams is cohesion. So you have the the two dots that are people with the link between them that's 160 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:36,640 trust. Now you aggregate dots and you put more lines and which one is team cohesion and what I mean by 161 00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:45,760 that is not only do I trust the people I work with that then have a have this you know baseline the 162 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:52,800 struttle level of trust. What we also have is sort of a we're beginning to congeal this unit identity 163 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:59,520 i.e. I see my own identity but I also have this unit identity you know where the 164 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:05,440 bear scooters or lands or whatever we are my brain and I'll start to adjust it's okay identify 165 00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:11,680 with this team like these are my people this is kind of like a family and you'll start to put a 166 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:19,200 little more energy into making it seem better at your own discomfort because you feel a special bond 167 00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:26,320 to these people. You know family is a good kind of it's a matter for for it but that you you sort of 168 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:33,280 cross this boundary where now this team that you you know that you were new to at some point and you 169 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:38,240 didn't know anybody now you know people now you know about their families you can say oh that's 170 00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:44,400 Joe Joe's really good at this if we this then we'll go to Joe and he'll do it then you get this like 171 00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:50,160 because you want the team to succeed hey Joe didn't show up today hey we got to pull that 172 00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:55,760 out a little extra weight do Joe's job and nobody's really upset about that yeah I know big deal so 173 00:18:55,760 --> 00:19:03,520 we do it for us we'll just fill it in right so at this level generally then of course these things 174 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:10,320 don't always perfectly apply but you can think of the transition from a very basic team to 175 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:18,960 really efficient team at some point the team has a very hierarchical leadership structure in which 176 00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:26,320 the leaves at the top people at the bottom can be good but they're always looking up for so 177 00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:31,920 into kind of give them direction and this is where it sort of transitions at that puntership stage 178 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:38,400 is I'll go from a hierarchical leadership to you know what I've been doing this I know how to do 179 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:42,960 this I want the team to succeed if I go ask the boss he's going to tell me to do this I know this is 180 00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:48,240 what we're doing Wednesdays I'm just going to do it anyway without asking and then people sort of 181 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:54,480 build this you know this initiation mechanism that lets them just do what you're supposed to do without 182 00:19:54,480 --> 00:20:00,800 being told that's a huge threshold right there and that's purpose I'm sorry that partnerships 183 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:13,360 yeah I think it is it's an interesting I love the piece first of all that's great um I do think when I 184 00:20:13,360 --> 00:20:21,360 think of a you know a well you know cohesive working team you know sometimes one of your teammates 185 00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:27,360 are going to be down and the some total of the group needs to pick up when let's say somebody sick 186 00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:34,640 right and you have a mission to get done or so I think when there's trust in a team and one person 187 00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:41,520 is not on their A game the other team members pick up the slack and I see this in sports I see this 188 00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:49,120 and you know the military in corporate America but if you don't have the trust in the team it's highly 189 00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:56,720 unlikely you know people are going to want to you know do stately to do extra work if you know you're 190 00:20:56,720 --> 00:21:02,560 not well liked and you're not well trusted in that group so your spot on it requires a lot of trust 191 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:08,480 communication collaboration understanding the vision and the purpose and why we're all here 192 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:16,880 doing this together and so I think those are great great uh any final thoughts on that before we I 193 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:25,520 switch gears on you no uh yeah let's switch gears um I want to talk a little bit when I about 194 00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:33,760 you know making decisions I think in the military you're often it's it's like a muscle you make 195 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:40,320 you're able to make quick decisions and you don't think about it's gut reaction you you do it right 196 00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:46,160 away without thinking I and in corporate America I think a lot of times we do a lot of humming and 197 00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:52,560 thinking and processing and going back to the drawing board and sometimes decisions might take 198 00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:58,960 take years in corporate America which effectively slows the business down from like you were saying 199 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:05,520 their purpose so I want to talk a little bit about how you can balance these quick decision making 200 00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:13,360 um with fear of not making the right one but still making sure that you're making the best decision 201 00:22:13,360 --> 00:22:23,120 for that time yeah that's a huge topic so decision making in the military so there's a couple ways 202 00:22:23,120 --> 00:22:30,000 this happens and it's not necessarily quick it depends on what the decision is because I know our times 203 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:35,840 when you know I'm gonna I'm gonna let you do this right now it's a high stress environment and 204 00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:40,560 you have to do it and I have to think through you know was you know what's the decision somebody's 205 00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:49,120 got to do it go go for the most part every service is different but in the army we have a structure 206 00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:56,000 sort of framework called the military decision making process and it's very rigid very structured 207 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:01,280 first understand all the variables that go along with this problem that's our things like assumptions 208 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:09,440 come in do I have all the facts I need to conduct operation and essentially what the way to 209 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:17,120 describe the military decision making processes if you could put out a theoretical theoretical dry 210 00:23:17,120 --> 00:23:24,720 race word here's all the facts that I would need to know in order to flee execute decision 211 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:31,040 some of those you do know so you can kind of mark those off some of them you don't if I don't know 212 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:36,320 this do I really need to know it and I really need to know it then it becomes an assumption 213 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:42,960 that I have to verify along the way before we execute hopefully and then you can you can 214 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:48,240 build a plan and you can second here here was a big conceptual problem that we wanted to solve 215 00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:57,760 and and the white and here are the much smaller more well-defined less-complinated problems 216 00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:03,280 that prize that big problem which you essentially do is you take this big ambiguous problem like 217 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:12,320 move you know 300 vehicles and 1200 people from Texas to California to conduct a big training 218 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:19,280 rotation you essentially whittle those problems down into command level problems at the 219 00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:24,960 Virginia level okay commander you know figure out how to get your people from your headquarters 220 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:31,600 this bus with with this gear and it even goes lower than that okay slot leader I need you to take 221 00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:37,040 your sub people inspector gear make sure they have other stuff make sure it's sensible and get to 222 00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:44,000 this point at this time to get on the bus so there's there's different ways to look at decision 223 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:52,000 I can that is the most deliberate most sort of step action drill of decision making but there are 224 00:24:52,000 --> 00:25:00,480 other times like you said when I just need to be made right now so it's it's one of things where 225 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:11,920 hopefully you have enough experience and context to be to not just be at a decision point and have 226 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:18,160 to make a decision in the in the absence of any other data usually what going on is your 227 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:26,160 situations usually stressful it's got to be a quick decision and then the environment you're in 228 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:32,560 you're constantly watching for data and as a commander which you should be thinking about as a leader 229 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:39,120 in general but the commanders really do is you're always thinking what could happen what's next 230 00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:44,240 where am I accepting risk with the worst thing that could happen right now what would I have to 231 00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:51,040 if that thing happens and then and you're always thinking what decisions might I have to make in 232 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:57,040 fact you might say hey look the worst thing that can happen in this operation is something that's 233 00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:03,520 catastrophic so before we go well let's figure out what can we do to mitigate that risk because 234 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:09,520 it might be something on a road okay can we avoid that road that way that decision point is just 235 00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:16,800 eliminated but it's kind of things like that so it's not the absence of data because you're constantly 236 00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:23,600 scanning for data the ability to keep that data in front of your mind so that if there's a decision 237 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:29,760 point it's going to be it's going to be quick you can make it as much data as you as you had access 238 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:37,680 to at the time and you know one of the things they they kind of beat into us is an 80 80% solution 239 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:44,560 right now is much better than a hundred percent solution that's too late so and that was made sense to 240 00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:52,240 me absolutely I love that and I think the military really does help train leaders to make decisions I 241 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:58,960 think you know going back to your example in in the military if if you know your leader yells at you 242 00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:05,040 to do whatever the thing is you do it you don't overthink it you don't you do it right he's your leader 243 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:12,880 where she's your leader in in corporate America if you know your leader you know yells at you to get 244 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:19,840 something done you're let we get into the emotions a lot with things or overthinking it or you know 245 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:25,920 in not just doing it right because really like you were saying at the beginning the leader is 246 00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:32,000 you know made its way up to the CEO or whatever the rank is in the military and and they're the 247 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:38,560 decision makers for whatever the mission is whether it's you know military or corporate America so I 248 00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:44,560 do I do like that saying about 80% because you know kind of going back to what I said before I see 249 00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:50,640 people him and hall over decisions all the time you know and sometimes it's just picking and going 250 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:57,920 with the best decision with 80% of the information so I want to transition and talk a little bit about 251 00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:05,680 leadership principles and you know from the military's point of view how do you think that those 252 00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:11,600 principles that you mentioned some of them any others how they translate into civilian world 253 00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:21,840 and how you think it they will transition for you yeah well they're kind of ubiquitous so 254 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:28,560 they translate into everything and I'm writing a book right now that starts with those 255 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:34,400 and sort of drives down to some of the details throws a cup other leadership models on 256 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:41,200 top of them and it kind of spits out the the P4 model and you know I think some time when I was in 257 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:48,480 the war college leadership's always been my passion so I wanted to understand you know leadership 258 00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:54,320 or leadership doctrine in general where does this come from how how well are we applying it but 259 00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:59,760 what is the army really say we're supposed to do and the interesting thing is if you want to you take 260 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:06,960 the arm get to the art principles here in the mint but you can imagine there's a ton of army 261 00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:15,120 leadership doctrine like it's a leadership factory we you know we are very we prioritize leadership 262 00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:21,440 we we want to train people leadership the funny thing is we don't really train specific 263 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:28,000 leadership skills until the much much higher like not so you're you've been an army for probably 264 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:36,160 15 years do you go to school that shes kind gives you leadership paradigm to talk through the 265 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:43,040 intricacies of leadership writ large you're just expected to go read the field manual that 266 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:50,960 talks about leadership and apply it from you know knowledge from the book which always found 267 00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:56,960 was interesting because leadership is one of the the backbones of what we do and in my opinion 268 00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:03,840 if you can learn how to be good leader you can fit all the other stuff in there because you're really 269 00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:09,680 good at getting people to do what's supposed to be done without you know without too much of a fight 270 00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:17,920 so there's a couple things right so a fast-mount of leadership doctrine that's that's not really 271 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:22,880 trained in any of the army schools a little bit but not too much less than you'd expect 272 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:29,120 and then you have things like well okay if we're not going to put you in the schools then the assumption 273 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:35,520 is they're going to get when they go to the to organizations and at you know at the junior ranks 274 00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:42,880 the organization will be responsible for training very young officers lieutenants on 275 00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:48,480 tenant level tasks and they'll be responsible for training young commanders, 276 00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:57,600 county commanders and aptans on specific skills for that rank and on and on which which does happen 277 00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:04,960 the problem is because it's not formalized at the army level it is actually somewhat it's just not 278 00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:11,040 enforced for the army level down to the unit level so what happens is you get different versions 279 00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:17,680 of that everywhere you go so you get some versions where none of that happens and you get some 280 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:23,280 versions of you know somewhat who really cares about leaders and understands how to train and convey 281 00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:30,000 information and get people to interact with stuff like that it happens very well but it's not 282 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:36,960 standard so it depends on the organization you go to and you've seen the the P4 like I'm so 283 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:43,520 interested in it I built my own model that's derivative from the army model but there's just a lot 284 00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:50,480 of ways to do it now what army uses is what's called the army leadership requirements model though 285 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:59,360 these are roughly the principles it is broken into sort of six facets and there's three on top 286 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:06,080 there's three on bottom and the fail on top are called attributes and three on the bottom are called 287 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:16,080 competencies so the three attributes are things like character presence intellect so these are the 288 00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:23,440 things a leader should be and no so what we expect of leaders is to have strong character that you're 289 00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:30,400 not going to break the laws or break the rules or demean people we want people to have strong 290 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:35,680 intellect so the ability to solve problems to understand what is human related problems as well as 291 00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:46,800 tactical related problems and uh so I already forgot character intellect and presence so presence is 292 00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,640 the third one so we expect you to look and behave like a leader i.e you don't show up to work 293 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:59,840 look and sloppy you and four standards um you stay fit things like that now the competencies are the 294 00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:07,680 things you should do so that things like just a simple category it's called leads right there's 295 00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:15,680 another one that's called develops others and there's a third one called uh get back to that one 296 00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:21,840 and make because I forgot that one too so let's talk about leads so leads is the sub-copy 297 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:29,760 to see of uh getting people to do the things that you need them to do right which I'll say at the junior level 298 00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:38,480 sounds like I know what to do I say do these things and people will do the things 299 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:45,920 but the longer you stay in the military the more you realize it was certainly not that simple um so 300 00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:53,440 along the way you go from transactional leadership to you know it would just be easier if they knew all 301 00:33:53,440 --> 00:34:01,040 the things and they were willing to do the things without me even calling them um so you learned 302 00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:07,440 leadership techniques they've all from you do this and then they do it to here's the plan here's 303 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:12,640 where we would go as an organization here's the behaviors I expect here's the mission here's the 304 00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,480 intent here's what we exist and then you you want your subordinate leaders to do that kind of stuff 305 00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:27,680 right so the next one is develops and interestingly develops is the one do these surveys of a couple 306 00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:33,840 of years develops others is actually one where most army you know in the aggregate army leaders 307 00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:39,680 score the lowest in other words this is our of those cis attributes and competencies that I'm 308 00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:45,040 explaining develops others is the one that's always raid the lowest meaning that 309 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:52,960 the what the respondents said was that develops others is not very high on their organization's 310 00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:58,320 priority list and remembers develops others is part of how you build leaders because we don't do it 311 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:05,200 in schools organizations have to do this but it's done very poorly which is an interesting contrast 312 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:10,880 so it's very hot it's very low on the organization's priority list I mean it's not being done all that well 313 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:18,080 and it's also not being done all that effectively and it's not consistent across units so I'm 314 00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:23,680 you'll get a lot so you'll get literally zero so that's a big one and that's to me that's the most 315 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,640 important one that's where I love especially once I was a badon commander and a brigade commander 316 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:36,160 I really love spending time helping people wade through the complexities of what leadership is 317 00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:41,600 and explaining basically telling them everything I know about it I just fun doing that and then 318 00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:49,600 the third one is kind of catch all called achieves so you can be careful with that when I'll explain 319 00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:55,280 why I didn't make it but achieves you know the simple bumper sticker for that one is GITS results 320 00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:02,000 the problem with that is I can violate all of the all the other five at future competencies 321 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:10,640 to get results but then it doesn't matter right because I basically destroyed my team so yeah I got 322 00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:16,720 results I did the achieve but now everybody hates their army and doesn't want to stay in the army 323 00:36:16,720 --> 00:36:23,680 because of how I treated them because all my plans were terrible and so anyway if I was going to 324 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,120 boil down leadership principles it's those attributes and competencies 325 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:35,440 yeah and I think kind of what you were saying leading people and developing people are 326 00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:43,200 you know here's the mission do the thing and developing people to have the same skillsets is 327 00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:50,320 a tricky tricky and corporate America right I think right now for fear of there's not enough for 328 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:56,480 everyone mentality like there can only be one of this rank so I can't train someone less 329 00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:04,400 ranked because I don't want them to take my job right so I think a lot of time like you can't move up 330 00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:11,840 until you help somebody move behind you right and in some other industries I think in like multi-level 331 00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:16,960 marketing they say you know I don't make a dime and till you make a dollar and that is really 332 00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:22,480 you know correlates back to leadership too right you to build and develop people 333 00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:30,400 it takes time and just like you develop your children right your kids don't you know they're not 334 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:34,800 born and they don't take care of themselves they need to be developed and coached and they make 335 00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:38,960 mistakes and you put them back on the yellow brick road and you teach them again and 336 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:45,120 and and I'll correlate it also to parenting like you want your kid to make a ton of mistakes 337 00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:50,320 while they're in your home because when they go out in the world and they have to make mistakes 338 00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:56,080 if they don't make them with you they're not going to understand in the world how to resolve them 339 00:37:56,080 --> 00:38:02,880 and it's the same thing with leadership right you want before people are leading people you need 340 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:08,800 them to make some of the mistakes with you to learn right from wrong and how to do things the way 341 00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:14,960 you know the military wants it to be done and I think um you know 342 00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:22,000 talking a little bit about the future of leadership I think leadership is changing a ton 343 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:29,520 right now and what is a leader um because a leader isn't just by rank and by title a leader can be 344 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:35,520 someone without a title without a rank that needs to step up in an uncertain situation 345 00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:43,040 and do things because maybe the leader is not present or something happened a leader or they're not 346 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:48,800 available to do what the mission is they those people need to step up and kind of like you were 347 00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:54,000 saying at the beginning like that takes a great determination understanding the mission 348 00:38:54,000 --> 00:39:00,800 and being all in right and it correlates in all different industry so I want to get a little bit 349 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:09,760 of your thoughts and your experience as it relates to you know resiliency too and how do you 350 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:19,120 cultivate resiliency and leadership when you're building your teams yeah so 351 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:25,680 resiliency is kind of comes with the territory and again it's you know this is keep 352 00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:31,360 retraining the same ground but there's a certain amount of resiliency required just just 353 00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:37,600 based on the uncertainty of the military that if if you're not you know if you don't have a certain 354 00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:43,120 level of resiliency the army is not going to be for you because it's just come with territory so 355 00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:48,880 artificial sort of filtering mechanism there but resiliency is important so there's a 356 00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:55,520 there's a lot of things that can happen to you or around you in the military that are 357 00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:03,760 emotionally traumatic or very stressful that require you to be able to have order to kind of 358 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:11,600 process however long that takes process and then get back to what you have to do so 359 00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:19,120 it's sort of sort of a built-in mechanism I'll have them point out that resilience was one of our 360 00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:27,280 taglines for what we were sort of in the heart of the Iraq you know global war on terrorism 361 00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:32,080 because servicemen have come at back and you know having emotional problems 362 00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:38,800 and we're have a hard time we didn't have the the structure the institutional knowledge to 363 00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:45,360 process that now we do but the other time when having social you know people who could give care and 364 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:53,200 and have you know psychologists to help folks it was there it wasn't robust enough to service the 365 00:40:53,200 --> 00:41:00,720 needs of the service numbers coming back so that that got added to the the military's sort of 366 00:41:00,720 --> 00:41:09,120 institutional structure and we started we started enforcing on commanders to build resilience 367 00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:17,600 and now we've got things like we've got classes that the units do we've got there's actually a position 368 00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:24,160 in a lot of units now it's called a master resiliency trainer and I always love the one of the 369 00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:30,240 module they do this is like a four-hour block of instruction on how to be resilient resilient 370 00:41:30,240 --> 00:41:38,320 with a first blocks they do is we titled how to hook the good stuff so it just simply teaches you to 371 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:44,240 understand your circumstances see what's going on and understand that maybe your 372 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:48,640 intervigain is bad may not but you really need to understand what's going on and so are in there 373 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:57,120 is something that's good you can reinforce right and the army is our lifestyle in a lot cases I'm 374 00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:03,280 I'm sort of suited for it and I'm institutionalized at this point so I'm okay but but I know especially 375 00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:10,080 for folks transitioning especially young folks transitioning from the civilian world to military 376 00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:16,640 the huge culture change and so that comes with a lot of a lot of pressures a lot of stress a lot of 377 00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:25,280 uncertainty so it is incumbent on people like me more senior folks to understand and to 378 00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:32,000 do this but to understand that you know anytime you go to a new organization just just being the new 379 00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:38,880 person in an organization is stressful especially when you're young even compounded more when this is 380 00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:46,000 your first unit ever right so so much uncertainty so much of I don't know you don't know the people you 381 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:52,160 don't you have no you have no signs of safety and that's really what you're looking for when you're 382 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:59,440 stressed right I'm looking for something stable you know indications or signatures of safety that I 383 00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:04,240 could sort of latch on to so it's a big deal when people are new I've always tried to do this but 384 00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:09,360 when people are new you have to go out of your way to make them feel comfortable because I really 385 00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:17,600 literally the first day that's sort of the the signal are you are you building trust by helping them 386 00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:24,880 feels even this new environment or you you're gonna play the game of oh you're the new guy I was 387 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:31,600 dressed now you're gonna be stressed let's let's make it more stressful for you as sort of a test 388 00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:38,320 or even worse that you're the new guy and I'm indifferent I don't care so just figure it out like 389 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:43,040 everybody else did so it is real important for you to see I think it's important for senior leaders 390 00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:48,800 to understand that I can make that guy more valuable to the team I can make him or her want to be on 391 00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:54,560 this team more simply by doing a few behaviors to indicate this is a safe place we're gonna take are you 392 00:43:54,560 --> 00:44:03,040 part of the family yeah and first impressions are everything and how you leave people feeling 393 00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:08,560 is everything because that is how they're going to how they're gonna leave 394 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:14,240 feeling is how they think of you right and if you're making a first Brad impression and you're 395 00:44:14,240 --> 00:44:20,160 angry and you're aggressive and you're yelling that's not going to be the great first impression so 396 00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:26,640 like you said you got to go out of your way to make it right for them to get them in the right 397 00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:32,320 mindset to move them forward with the mission and I love kind of what you were saying I think it's 398 00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:41,200 spot on and the other thing is discipline I think resilience and discipline you know I kind of see 399 00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:47,040 them hand in hand right so when people come back from these really challenging missions they need 400 00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:54,640 to have the discipline to take care of themselves to process it to work through it just like staying in 401 00:44:54,640 --> 00:45:00,880 shape right because a lot of times I think the more we bottle things and say okay I'm gonna bottle 402 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:07,520 that I'm gonna put it in a file folder on the back of my head before long the file folder gets full 403 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:14,960 of stuff that we haven't had the discipline to process and work through that it just spills out 404 00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:22,000 into your life and so I love kind of what you were saying but I think you know just kind of 405 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:30,160 enclosing just final kind of closing thoughts and takeaways or anything any key lessons that we 406 00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:35,040 maybe haven't talked about or thoughts you want to leave with our listeners before we close up 407 00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:45,120 so because leadership is is my passion I see the world through the lens of basically all the 408 00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:52,560 stuff we've already talked about so I'm real real cognizant of how a leader makes people feel and 409 00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:58,400 you know you mentioned at one point that maybe it's not leader who's making the decision it's 410 00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:03,600 it's one who's in the right position at the right time that has to do leadership things I think 411 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:09,680 that's very true because it's not just a person that wears the highest rank that has to be the leader 412 00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:15,040 I think everybody has to be able to understand when the environment calls for them to be a leader 413 00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:20,320 and to be ready for that and it's getting the environment to understand is this the time where I need 414 00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:27,200 to do a leadership thing nobody's called me leader but the environment is indicating that I need to 415 00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,360 do this thing I can do something simple as make someone feel comfortable in this environment 416 00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:36,880 you know help them understand what it is that we're supposed to be doing and just lead that person 417 00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:44,080 so for me it's not just it's just not just a corporate or a decorative or a military leadership thing 418 00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:50,720 it's a way it's a framework to see the world around you and to understand how you're interacting with 419 00:46:50,720 --> 00:46:56,640 the people the most basic unit and the social system around you they're acting with the people and 420 00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:02,960 either making them more comfortable in the environment or helping them do something that makes them better 421 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:10,880 yeah oh I love that um oh I have to add impact that I think you could be a fantastic leader you can 422 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:18,720 be the world's greatest leader but if your culture and your environment isn't set up for success 423 00:47:18,720 --> 00:47:27,040 and it's toxic it can be hard to lead in those kind of environments and getting everybody in the 424 00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:34,080 mission right so like the principles you were mentioning um if you achieve a mission but you know 425 00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:40,640 nobody trusts you you've done you know you've taken things you've you know you've not been you know 426 00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:48,480 I would say the right leader is it really all worth it right I think I hear a lot in corporate 427 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:55,840 America you know my culture is toxic therefore I can't do what I need to do or lead the people the way 428 00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:03,680 I need to lead and it becomes tricky right and I think I love all that you just said because I 429 00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:11,760 think to be a really great leader you have to have the support and the vision and clearly understand 430 00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:20,000 the mission that you're going for because it gets everybody going and pulling on the rope together 431 00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:26,000 versus against each other on opposite ends of the road yeah if you've created an environment 432 00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:32,560 and you're the ones technically in charge but but you have a toxic environment and nobody will go 433 00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:38,240 out of their way to do the right thing unless you force them to you're not the leader somebody else is 434 00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:43,120 but it's not you you're the person that owns the reins and you can tell people which direction 435 00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:47,360 to go and they might do it but they're not the leader the leader is driving the organization it 436 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:55,120 is somewhere else in your organization but it's not you yes that is so good I really agree 437 00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:04,400 Damon thank you so much for being here in sharing your insights I cannot wait to read your book I'm 438 00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:13,280 excited to hear all about the principles that we've talked today about follow Damon read his book 439 00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:22,160 we'll share all the details in the show notes and follow us that's the executive connect podcast 440 00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:31,600 [Music] 441 00:49:31,600 --> 00:50:00,000 [Silence]