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