00:00:12

Welcome back for the amazing Afternoon Sessions. So, up next will be Admiral John Richardson. Over the years, his name came up over and over again in my conversations with Dr. Steven Spear, and I was so delighted last year when I was finally able to meet him, I had the privilege of interviewing him for four hours on the ideal cast earlier this year. And I learned so much from him and so much of what he talked about. I thought it was relevant to not just every technology leader, but every leader. And I was so delighted that he was willing to give a talk here to teach us about leadership development. And I can't think of a better person to teach us this. As Admiral Richardson served as chief of Naval Operations for four years, which is the highest ranking officer in the US Navy, oversee the efforts of over 600,000 people.

00:00:59

And before that, he served as the director of US Naval Reactors, which is comprehensively responsible for the safe and reliable operation of the US Nuclear Propulsion Program, which Dr. Spear has written so extensively about in his book, the High Velocity Edge. And now that he's retired from the US Navy, he serves on the board of directors of numerous companies, including Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, and Exelon a Fortune 100 company, which operates the largest fleet of nuclear plants in America. So here's Admiral Richardson in two parts. The first is a lecture that he gave earlier this year at the Europe Conference, and the second is an interview that I did with him last week to learn more about what leadership development looks like in the military and how it can we be applied to help any leader, especially in times like now.

00:01:49

Well, gene, uh, thank you very much for that, uh, terrific introduction, and thanks for asking me to be here for this, uh, to, uh, unbelievable forum. Um, as you, as Gene said, I just finished a 37 year career in the Navy. I retired about 18 months ago. Uh, during that career, I was a submariner by trade. And when we did the math after I retired it, it turned out I've spent, uh, more than 11 years underwater. And so I've got that going for me. Uh, I commanded it pretty much every level in the Navy, including the commander of the US submarine force. I was the director of Naval Reactors, which was Admiral Rick Over's job if you, uh, if you know about him. And then, uh, finished my time in the Navy as the chief of naval operations. And since, uh, retiring, I've, uh, been part of a number of different, uh, corporate boards, uh, doing some consulting and helping other teams, uh, really kind of deal with this, uh, you know, quickly accelerating situation.

00:02:48

In fact, one of the, the, the couple of questions that I get asked most often are, you know, how can we achieve, uh, objectives or results at speed? And then how as a leader, uh, might we address, you know, both leader and worker fatigue, particularly as, uh, COVID has, has gone on much, much longer than any of us anticipated. And, uh, you know, my answer to both of those questions is roughly the same. And it, the answer, uh, involves kind of a radical pushing of ownership of the mission out to the farthest capable edge of your organization. You know, this, this radical delegation, if you will, is really the essence of effective naval power, where, you know, the Navy will send a, a captain and his or her crew over the horizon with a mission, with very little oversight, give you a, you know, a big, uh, chunk of assigned water and expect you to come back with that mission accomplished and also come back with a team that is better in every respect than the team that you left stronger in every respect.

00:04:06

And so, maybe to illustrate that, I thought I'd start with a C story. And it, there's a one week period in October of 2016 where the United States had sort of the highest levels of government had decided to send a, uh, destroyer from the East coast of the United States to, uh, the Middle East. And part of that journey was a, uh, transit through the, uh, straits of Baba Mende at the, at the southern end of the Red Sea. This was an Arley Burt class destroyer, very advanced warship. And as the, uh, destroyer went through the, uh, straits of Baba Mende on the, uh, northern, uh, side of that strait was the coast of Yemen. And the, uh, destroyer was attacked by coastal cruise missiles fired from the coast of Yemen. In fact, they were attacked not once, but three times. And, you know, this involves really reaction times in seconds.

00:05:06

And this ship, uh, successfully defended herself, you know, not once, but three times. And in one of those times, uh, put together an effective counter attack. Now, this combination of defense and counter attack is, is takes tremendous coordination, uh, by the crew, right? The crew on board the ship, and also a coordination of the ship with its task force and also that task force with the larger command and, and, uh, leadership elements of the nation. It requires really a full team approach from the strategic all the way down to the very tactical edge. And it eventually, even aboard the ship involves several teams working really in a, a symphony of coordination. And, you know, another thing that's noteworthy is that even onboard the ship, you know, the actions onboard that ship were not directed by the ship's commanding officer on a number of, uh, on a couple of those, uh, attacks.

00:06:07

Uh, but they were, uh, the, the entire response of the ship was coordinated by a much more junior leader, the officer of the deck, who was, uh, controlling the ship at that time. And it's just the way that, uh, we do 24 7 high impact operations on onboard a ship, right? We've gotta, uh, uh, be operating, uh, all hours of the day, uh, while we're underway. And, uh, so we put, you know, junior officers on duty so that the captain can perform the other duties that, uh, he or she is responsible for. And also, of course, importantly, get some rest. And so even though we had, uh, delegated that, uh, mission to a junior officer, uh, we had also given him, uh, that officer, you know, full ownership of the situation. That officer had the expertise and the authority, uh, to execute, uh, the responsibilities to defend the ship.

00:07:05

And you can imagine that if that ship had failed in any regard, and one of those attacks had been successful, how quickly that would situation would've escalated, you know, from the very tactical situation in that strait all the way up to become a, a, a global crisis. And so, you know, I thought it would be illustrative to think about how our young people navigate their way through these trying circumstances. And, uh, what are the conditions, uh, that, that must pertain to allow this successful execution of such an important mission way out on the edge of the organization of the United States Navy and the United States itself. And for a non-military listener. You know, for all of you on this call, uh, I think that this story has relevance. It, it's really, uh, the same, uh, question that I get. How can we achieve our objectives at speed?

00:08:04

And how can we do so at tempo over time, uh, without, you know, ex experiencing chronic fatigue? Okay? What are the essential elements, uh, both in and out of the government, uh, that, uh, that allow you to do this successfully? And for us, it came down to the fundamental matter of leader development, alright? And as I've talked to a lot of teams, both in and outside the government, what I have found is that there is a, uh, a lack of a very deliberate approach to developing the leaders that would be able to act throughout the organization at that level of confidence and, and responsiveness. So I thought I'd today about how, you know, we, uh, approach developing those leaders. Uh, you know, the United States Navy really is a leadership factory. Uh, we bring in about 40,000 sailors every year from all over the country, in fact, all over the world.

00:09:08

And, you know, as junior as they are, and inexperienced as they are, when they join in a very, very short period of time, they are leading other sailors almost before they know it. And, you know, my message in this talk is that if you want to be competitive, if you want to be achieving objectives at speed, you want to be seizing every fleeting opportunity that comes your way, your organization must think deliberately about how it develops its leaders. This is not something that happens on its own. Okay? So the framework for achieving this as we thought through it was, uh, first we wanted to, uh, determine, you know, what were the attributes that we wanted our leaders to have, right? And that's gonna differ for every one of the, or, uh, every different organization, right? The, the, the, the essential qualities of your leader are gonna be highly dependent upon the mission of your organization.

00:10:04

You know, what you wanna do. It's very specific, but that's the goal that your system has to be tuned for. And then it, you know, if that's the objective, we sort of, uh, conceived of a road leading to that objective that has three lanes. The first lane, uh, involves competence. And I would think that there'd be very little in terms of arguing that competence is absolutely essential to being an effective leader. You've got to know your job, uh, otherwise you as sincere and dedicated as you are, you're not gonna know right from wrong when you see it. So competence absolutely necessary. We also spent a tremendous amount of time, uh, understanding and building the character and integrity of our leaders. You know, it, it was important that, uh, as we delegated and pushed this authority out to the edge of the organization, remote from any kind of central, uh, uh, command and control, that we knew that those leaders would be acting consistent with the values of the organization.

00:11:08

And so we spent a lot of time on, on character development. And then finally, the, uh, the third lane involves the idea of connections. So that, uh, we had a co a sense of confidence that those leaders, if they ran into a problem, if they ran into a situation that they didn't recognize, that perhaps their training hadn't prepared them for, that they would reach back, they wouldn't hesitate to reach back to get more information, perhaps more guidance, more support to, in order to execute their mission effectively. And so it was by virtue of, you know, this, this three lane path towards, uh, developing our leaders through competence, through character, and through connections that really developed the sense of trust and confidence that allowed the superior leaders, the, the, the top leaders to work with the leadership team and push that, that authority out to push that ownership of the mission out to the furthest possible edge.

00:12:13

Now, how now this sharing is, is also very important, right? Uh, and what we tried to, uh, train our leaders is that, you know, as you walk in as the, as the, the leader of that team, there is no doubt in any of your team's mind who's the boss. You don't have to worry about stressing your and emphasizing your authority. Uh, just to the contrary, you need to, uh, think hard about how you're going to provide guidance to your team that would allow them now to, to go out with full ownership of their mission and execute, uh, without having to come back and, and, and, and borrow from your authority. You want to, to, to do that radical delegation. You want to give them full ownership. And we thought of ownership in terms of, you know, having four components. You know, one goes back to that idea of competence, right?

00:13:06

The, in order to own something at that mission, you've got to understand what it's about. So, enough said about that, you've also gotta have responsibility. And I think that everybody on this call, you know, would agree with that. Uh, certainly there's gonna be an element of accountability, uh, in ownership. And, but the most, uh, difficult thing to, uh, achieve is actually delegating, uh, the authority that's necessary to execute the mission. And I think, uh, well, how many of us have been in a situation where we've been given a mission and perhaps that, uh, that that situation didn't go well, right? It, it didn't turn out the way that we wanted, and we were held responsible for that result. But when we reviewed it, you know, we never really got delegated the authority to do the mission in the way that we wanted. And so, yeah, that's the toughest thing really to, uh, to let go as a senior leader, is that sense of authority.

00:14:07

You've gotta have a lot of trust and confidence in order to achieve that, uh, and, and really delegate ownership of that mission to your leadership team. And so, uh, you know, by virtue of doing that, by, by developing deliberately developing leaders, right, with the, with the attributes that are tuned to your organization, by building their competence, by building their character, and ensuring that they're appropriately connected, that will give you the trust and confidence that will permit you to then push ownership of the mission out to the, to the most capable and furthest edge of your organization. And by doing so, you know, what you'll find, and, and it's been a consistent result of mine, is that by giving them that commander's guidance, if you will, that guidance of what you hope to, for them to achieve, telling them what you want to achieve, but not how they will achieve it, you will find that you'll unleash their creativity. That they will come back to you with ideas that you never would've dreamed of on your own, but then are far more effective than, uh, whatever you might have had in mind. And you, you would, the whole team will just rise up on the shoulders of all these creative leaders who, with this trust and confidence and full ownership of their mission will do it in, in super creative ways. Thank you all very much.

00:15:36

Thank you so much for that lecture, John. I've watched it numerous times and I always get something out of it. Uh, I'm so delighted that you were willing to ask me, ask you even more questions about leadership development.

00:15:46

Uh, for sure.

00:15:48

Uh, so I've heard many military leaders talk about how much they've invested in and have benefited from leadership development, uh, and, uh, how their observation that, how comparatively little, uh, corporate leaders have, uh, after I heard that, I've started to notice that most admirals in general seem to have a graduate degree on top of their university degree, uh, as well as multiple years of leadership training on skills that presumably someone thought was needed for them to succeed at their job. So is that observation correct? And can you talk about what are some of those things that leaders are taught, say from mid grade leaders to flag officers and things that you think are important for them to learn, uh, them to advance?

00:16:27

No, sure. I, you, you're exactly, uh, 100% accurate gene, uh, uh, just about every officer, particularly by the time they reach mid grade or certainly senior grade, are gonna have, uh, some kind of a graduate degree. And, you know, the Navy was very kind to me. They sent me to graduate school twice <laugh>, uh, to get an electrical engineer degree from MIT and the Woods Hole Ocean Graphic Institution, and then back to get a, a degree in a national security strategy whi, which I think was very appropriate for the types of jobs that I would be doing as a more senior officer. And so, you know, it's just another indication of the commitment that, uh, that the services have to, uh, continuous learning and also to leader development. 'cause there's an awful lot of leader development that happens, particularly, uh, in that national security, uh, strategy session.

00:17:15

And, you know, as, as you and I have talked, uh, we, we've, we've had so many great conversations about, uh, leader development and leadership in general. And, uh, as I think about leader development, and it, it's interesting because these things kind of come in cycles and you lock into, uh, different parts of, of, uh, kind of the, the arc that a leader, uh, takes during a career. But, uh, I've learned to try and describe it in terms of, uh, you know, progressions from one job to another. And, uh, in a typical, uh, let's say 35 year career in the service <laugh>, uh, you know, many of those jumps are really, in fact, most of the vast majority of them are just a bigger version of the job you had before, right? So if you were sort of running a division before, you know, your next job would be to run a department right?

00:18:06

In, in, in the operational, uh, part of the service. And then, you know, after running a department, you'd come and you'd be sort of like the chief of staff or the second in command. Uh, but there are some jobs that are really kind of almost discontinuous. So they're non-linear, uh, jumps from the job that you had before. And, you know, in a, in a 35 year career, there are very, very few of them, maybe five, right? So the first one is when you first join the service, right? And many, many of our, uh, officers in particular, uh, and enlisted too, they come in from some kind of military education, whether it's, uh, ROTC or one of the service academies, junior, ROTC. So they've got some, uh, experience in that. But by and large, you know, their, their performance, uh, has been dependent upon, you know, themselves, right?

00:18:56

Their grades, their athletic performance, you know, it's, it's really appropriately focused on their development as an individual. And the, and, and that non-linear jump is that, uh, as they move into service, they're gonna immediately be put in charge of a smally, you know, almost immediate <laugh>. And, uh, now you've got to, you know, start to change your, your habits of thinking and behavior. So, whereas, you know, for instance, uh, you know, you gotta put your team first, right? So what does that look like? Well, I mean, it can get pretty basic, right? So, uh, you know, you, you're out, you're on an operation and it's been a long day and you are hungry. Let's say, uh, you know, up until that point, your first response would be to go find something to eat. Uh, now you've got to think about, uh, you know, getting your team something to eat first, right?

00:19:42

Uh, when you're tired, you can count on the fact that your team is more tired <laugh> than you. And so, you know, what are you gonna do to find them an opportunity to put their head down and get some risks before you do it for yourself? And even when, you know, you find yourself being frustrated, usually that's because of some uncertainty or missing information or whatever, uh, you can bet that your team is even more frustrated than you. And so how are you gonna find time to bring them together and share what you know, and try and ease that frustration? So the non-linear aspect is thinking of somebody else, a team before yourself, and, and, and you're assessed on the performance of your team as well, more than you are assessed on your individual performance, right? Uh, or at least you start to be. So then you go through a series of, you know, maybe 10 years or so, and the next nonlinear jump is when you take command.

00:20:34

This is that time where, you know, up to that point, you could almost always, uh, you, if you had a question or, or, or a challenge, you could turn to someone senior to you and say, okay, you know, what, what do I do? How, how would I manage this? But, you know, I, I was, uh, I was in the Navy, I was a submarine. And so we operate pretty much, you know, a look out there, uh, pretty on our own, let's say. And, uh, and so there was that time, you know, when I first took command where I, I felt that that difference in nature of the assignment where, you know, somebody turned to me and said, okay, you know, this is, I, I don't understand. This is really hard. What do I do? And, you know, that impulse to maybe turn to find somebody else, well, that was it.

00:21:18

The buck stopped with me, right? And that's, that's really different. And, uh, and in particular also, you know, I'd be in the control room of the submarine and, uh, let's say something happened, right? Everybody, uh, yeah. Something unexpected and, or, or maybe there was a situation, uh, to, to, to deal with urgently. And, you know, every eye turned to me, right? It was like, whoa, <laugh>. And so you really feel that, that, uh, change in nature, right? So that's number two. I would say you could progress after command until, uh, the next non linear Jeff would be what we call major command. When you are commanding a squadron of, of ships or submarines, and, and you are now, you know, commanding commanders, right? So how do you preserve, uh, and, and really enhance their ability to command effectively, uh, what, what, drawing them out really, rather than reaching down in, right?

00:22:14

There's, there's gonna be a temptation to reach down in and, and do what you know, needs to be done. Uh, but that's not going to, you know, build your commanders, right? It's not gonna make them more effective, okay? And I think information technology has increased that temptation, you know, exponentially, uh, because it's so much easier to, to reach down in with all of the, uh, it, uh, in fact, I think even, uh, we've talked about is recharting the development of your commanders <laugh>, the, the outcome of not doing that well, that's exactly right. They'll never feel that, uh, sense of, uh, okay, this decision is mine. I've gotta, I've gotta wrestle this to the ground. I've gotta, you know, figure out the pros and cons, the risks, the opportunities, and, and, and come up with a course of action on my own. If, if, if the commanders don't wrestle with that on their own, I think that they are gonna be underdeveloped, let's say, <laugh>.

00:23:06

So you gotta look for those opportunities to, you know, let them do that. Uh, you know, perhaps even, uh, well certainly recognize that it's most likely not the way you would do it, right? So, but, you know, there are a lot of ways to success, and you just gotta realize that, uh, you know, this is one way perhaps. And then if you see it kind of going sideways, well, how do you deal with that? You know, one of the leading questions that you can draw to, again, make this, uh, their solution, uh, rather than yours. And, and, and, you know, the other thing about, uh, major command is it's, uh, its command at a distance, right? And so, up to that point, uh, you've been in physical proximity pretty much with the team that you're commanding now with major command. You know, you're, there's a physical separation.

00:23:57

So how do you communicate your intent? Get fe you know, meaningful feedback that that intent is, is being, uh, manifested. And, uh, so sometimes that physical distance is also a, you know, a challenge that <laugh> that that's new to people. And, you know, I'll tell you that, uh, you know, many major commanders who get into the job and think that they can succeed by just being a super version of, uh, commanding officer, that they end up having trouble, right? And, uh, and that's where it stops. The next, uh, non-linear jump, I think is at, uh, what we would call sort of three star, uh, so that you, you're at a very senior level at that point, uh, at, at the three star level, you are going to be responsible for a tremendously big part of the Navy's success, right? Whether it's a fleet or a major region, or whatever it may be.

00:24:50

And, uh, and the navy's gonna count on you to, you know, manage all of your resources, manage your mission, and, uh, square those two off, right? And, uh, and so that's at the three star level. If you have a little bit of a relief valve at the three star level, that's goes up to the four star, uh, which is, you know, the very, very senior level of the Navy. And, uh, and, and that's the next nonlinear jump, because there really is no relief valve there. You really have to manage it all, you know? And, and so I think that that's how, you know, that's the skillset that our leader development program is, uh, is at attuned to, right? Hey, let's, first at junior officer level, you gotta think about leading a T, right? Team leadership, basic leadership, tactical teams, lots of competency development there. Uh, so you become skilled at your, at your job as you get more senior, you're building more, you're leading bigger teams, and then you get to command where, you know, you, you've got responsibility for the whole thing. There's nobody to turn to often major command or you're commanding commanders. There's a whole new skill set that's associated with that. And then, you know, really at the very senior levels, how do you, you know, balance all of those resources and, and really solve, you know, very complex problems that you've been given to solve. So that's, that's kind of in a nutshell, I think that's how I thought of That's

00:26:14

So great. And I love the, the perspective that, uh, you are bringing to us. You know, you were talking about the need for leaders to exercise, uh, appetite suppression, that, uh, and you had, uh, told, uh, me previously of this amazing story about how radar operators on a submarine, um, and because they don't get a lot of practice, would often require multiple levels of, uh, supervision and approval. Yeah.

00:26:36

<laugh>, well, you know, this is sort of, uh, you know, bandaid fix, like fix the symptom versus fix the problem, right? And, uh, so there's a, there's a couple of different, uh, lessons in that that, that at story. But yeah, I mean, you know, radar operators, it, it's a skill that really needs to be practiced on a submarine, because most of the time we're submerged, we're not using the radar. And so, um, you know, I, I just saw too many times where, you know, the sub would be on the surface, it would be using the radar, and the radar operator would, you know, maybe not remember a particular aspect of it, or, or, uh, uh, and maybe it didn't alert it that, you know, they were still pretty inexperienced. And, uh, so the response was, okay, well, you know, we'll put a supervisor behind the radar operator and looking for the shoulder to make sure that, you know, everything goes well.

00:27:24

You know, and, and so you, uh, the qualifications of the radar supervisor, you know, that's another, uh, topic altogether. But, uh, you know, then, you know, if even with that group, uh, if something, you know, happens that, uh, doesn't go quite right, well, you know, the response would be to put like a maybe another supervisor <laugh>. And so you just get this sort of daisy chain. And, and you know, what goes on in people's heads is that, well, the radar operator's thinking, oh, you know, okay, I got this, and if I mess up, uh, visor will catch it. The supervisor's like, well, I sure hope the radar operator knows what he's doing, <laugh>. Now if I, if I, you know, if it messes up, then the supervisor of supervisors will catch it, and this shared responsibility starts to emerge, which is always you never good, right? And so, you know, rather than saying, Hey, let's take a time out here, train the radar operators now properly, uh, and, uh, yeah, and, and then provide the appropriate amount of supervision, I think is, uh, yeah, it's always a tempation, right? <laugh>, that's,

00:28:25

Uh, that's fantastic. I think that will resonate so deeply with somebody in the, uh, technology community, what, uh, where people, uh, you know, need approval from distant authorities or committees, you know, to do what, uh, to get done, what needs to get done. Uh, you had mentioned, uh, something that deeply resonated with me because I think it matches so much of the stories that are told here at DevOps Enterprise now. So one aspect was, uh, how you talked about how there's some important times in history where there's an inflection point due to a confluence of, uh, major changes in two things, one in strategy and the other in technology. And so, uh, our mutual friend, Dr. Steven Spear, taught us about the learning war last year. And so briefly, uh, 150 years ago, uh, if I understand correctly, the technology change was among other things, ships powered by Wind and cannons on the side of the hu Correct. Moving to ships Harbor Oil and Aimable Artillery. Yeah. And there was a strategic change, uh, as well. And if I, um, what I took away from that book was that this required a massive distributed learning dynamic to really figure out, you know, how do you use these technologies to actually, uh, compete in this, uh, new strategy goals? And it seems very similar to what's happening now around digital disruption and the emergence of software as a critical capability. Uh, does that resonate with you? And if so, it seems like we need leaders more than ever.

00:29:42

I, I couldn't, uh, agree with you more, Jean, that that resonates completely with me, that we are at, you know, kind of a dual inflection point, as you described, that has very few precedents in history, right? So you, you talked about one where, you know, and, and the dual inflection point is the global strategic situation is changing in a major way, right? Uh, and so, so the power balance is realigning, and then, uh, simultaneously you have this tremendous technological, uh, revolution, you know, we, we might say going on as well. So the one you described there at kind of the turn of the 19 hundreds, late 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds, the industrial revolution was really starting to manifest itself at sea. And, you know, the United States had, uh, reached, you know, a a point where if it was gonna continue to prosper, it had to go off offshore, right?

00:30:34

Had to reach markets overseas in a really, uh, you know, dynamic and, and vigorous way. And also it sort of moved into, you know, the position of, you know, world leading com, uh, country, right? Uh, sort of, uh, you assume that from, from the, uh, United Kingdom. And, and just as you said, the, the Navy responded to that vigorously. We stood up the Naval War College, the Naval postgraduate school, so that we could better address the strategic challenge of being a global Navy now, rather than kind of a coastal navy that does excursions. And, uh, and so, you know, that's, that's, that's one example I think at, and, and the team that got that most right, gene was the team that kind of set the terms of the debate until, you know, the mid 20th, uh, uh, 21st century. So that's the global strategic shift, and then this digital revolution that you described, I think is as significant as the industrial revolution or the atomic, uh, revolution as well.

00:31:33

And so, you know, the, the consequence for leadership now is, uh, well, we, we've got a new situation on our hands, right? <laugh>, uh, you know, the, the skills, the competencies, the, uh, the connections, the character, you know, all of those things that made us successful up to now may or may not apply going forward. They, they may or may not survive this, uh, major inflection. And so, you know, I, I think the most successful leaders and the ones that we've talked about are the ones that recognize, I, I need to pause and I need to study this new situation in detail to make sure that, uh, I understand it. And, you know, the, the structure that I have, the approach that I have going forward is gonna continue to be relevant to address the, the challenges in this new situation

00:32:25

That resonates so deeply with me. And, and I think the reason is that one of the patterns we've seen here at DevOps Enterprise over the years is the magic that happens when there's a revolution that is energetically driven by the bottom and the middle up, and recognized and fully supported from the top down. And so one of the, uh, case studies that, that we were talking about was, uh, target earlier this, today, we heard how Brett Craig then the, uh, senior vice president of merchandising capabilities provided a mandate and the air cover that allowed Luke Redig, senior director of merchandising to lead a small cross-functional team to create a new way of working, uh, in the fresh foods division. And so it was high stakes. If they didn't, uh, there were a lot of doubters <laugh>, and if they didn't succeed, they might've exited the market.

00:33:06

Um, and it, uh, not only was it successful, but it created the skills that were massively helpful in terms of them navigating, uh, the code pandemic. And for me, it reminded me so much of the story in team of teams where General Stanley McChrystal asked, you know, whether his forces were achieving the mission of dismantling the terrorist network in Iraq in 2004. And, you know, concluded, no, we're not <laugh>, which then led to the amazing sweeping changes describing the book. So it seems in both cases, you need courageous leaders, both at the mid-level and senior levels to make this magic happen. So does that interpretation resonate with you? And if so, in your ideal, how could better leadership development increase the likelihood of all these magical right things happening?

00:33:46

Yeah, I think that, uh, well, first of all, it does resonate with me, uh, as you know, and, uh, you know, uh, general McChrystal did exactly that. And, uh, you know, the team at Target, what, what an inspirational story, uh, there is there as well, uh, to just sort of say, okay, you know, what we're doing right now is not as effective as I need it to be, right? And so, you know, McChrystal was like, we're gonna have to, it takes a network to defeat a network. And, uh, and that was the big, you know, driving force for him to reorganize and, and change the way he, uh, organizes trains and equips his force, right? So it was really, uh, a, a major change. Um, so, so I think that that's the leader's responsibility, right? One, one of my favorite, uh, quotes is what, you know, when faced with a complicated problem, it saved the world.

00:34:33

You know, Einstein said, Hey, I'm gonna, if I'm give it an hour, I'm gonna take 55 minutes and study the problem, right? And during that time, uh, it will feel like, you know, nothing's happening. We're not making any progress, right? Uh, it'll, it, your curve will feel flat, but it's, it's non-linear, right? It, it, it's, it's exponential. Once you start getting into the addressing the problem, which is much more deeply understood, you know, you get that non-linear, exponential takeoff, and, and you start to become effective very, very fast. And, and, and to your point, gene, I think in addition to sort of the leadership, you know, coming to this, uh, leading this effort, uh, of, of examining the problem in, in particular, I've found that, you know, the, the junior members of the team are ready to be led here. And, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, you need to provide a connection between the senior leadership and, you know, the lower levels of the team, adopting the same ideas, adopting the same thinking, the same approach, even the same language. And so once you get, you know, the, the, uh, junior leaders saying, yeah, I, I adopt, I all in on this, and I'm gonna make it part of my leadership, uh, approach, you know, it meets in the middle and, and I think middle management just sees it, you know, almost as inevitable gene. It's like, <laugh>, I can see the writing on the wall here. Let's, let's all get in this. But, but it's both top down and bottom up, I think keys to success.

00:36:03

Uh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, John. I can't overstate just how much I learn in every interaction that we have. And I trust that, uh, many people right now are saying something pretty similar. Uh, I'm so excited by what you're working on now. Can you talk about what that is and, uh, the exciting opportunity that you're making available to us, uh, tomorrow?

00:36:21

Yeah. I'll tell you what, I, I hope everybody gets a chance to join in, because I'm gonna be joined by my colleague, uh, uh, Navy Captain Emily Bassett, and we're gonna, we're, yeah, we're gonna try to do a live workshop online that takes, uh, a part of the leader development framework and, and, uh, and really focuses on that, right? So in the, uh, area, uh, areas of, uh, of connections and competence and character, right? Sort of the three major muscle movements of the framework, we're going to provide, uh, just a little bit of discussion as to, you know, why we, uh, centered on those three, each of them. But then we're gonna go back to the audience and ask the audience to participate and, uh, make it very specific to them. We'll have some specific questions that they can address, and, uh, and I think that that will tie it in and make it very personal or relevant.

00:37:15

And then, you know, on the backend, we're gonna talk about some hacks or techniques in terms of how you can go about, uh, improving, uh, your connections, your confidence, and your character as a leader with your team. So I think it's gonna be super exciting. I I'm really, really, uh, jazzed up about it, and I hope that everybody can make it. And, uh, and, and, you know, we wanna continue this, uh, discussion, uh, even after the session tomorrow. And so, uh, you know, if you wanna continue to participate, I'd ask you just to, uh, send, uh, an email to Brighty deep at, send your slides.com, uh, with the, uh, subject leaders, and you'll get an automated response, but that will get, you, get the group and, uh, we'll just kind of continue to keep this conversation going, providing material for you to comment on, and, and, and we value your participation. Very much so. Jean, thank you so much for this opportunity. I cannot tell you the extent of my gratitude for you including, uh, uh, v in this. It's a, it's a thrill to be part of this.

00:38:17

And, and, uh, Roy p thank you so much for sharing your experience and, uh, wisdom with all of us. So to be continued, uh, thank you, John.

00:38:24

All right, bye.