No Way Out

Leadership Action: How to Turn Your Ship Around and Achieve Oscar-Level Success with CAPT J. J. “Yank” Cummings, USN, Retired | Ep 11

March 09, 2023 Mark McGrath and Brian "Ponch" Rivera Season 1 Episode 11
No Way Out
Leadership Action: How to Turn Your Ship Around and Achieve Oscar-Level Success with CAPT J. J. “Yank” Cummings, USN, Retired | Ep 11
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Retired U.S. Navy Captain  J.J. "Yank" Cummings is a decorated naval aviator, fighter pilot and former captain of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier. With a M.S. in Education from Old Dominion University, a M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and a Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program and TOPGUN graduate, J.J. has extensive experience in leading and managing thousands of men and women. He was a key influencer on Paramount Pictures' recent blockbuster and six-time Oscar-nominated movie, Top Gun: Maverick.

Selected chapters found in this episode:

  • Leading in Conditions of Uncertainty
  • Principles: Setting the Tone
  • Building Exceptional Teams
  • Actions, Not Words: Show Them You Care
  • Nuclear Navy. Regular Navy. Fighter Aviation.
  • Value (Kill) Chain Thinking: The Why Behind the What
  • 1MC Thinking: Communicating the Mission, Reducing Uncertainty
  • You Are Never Mission-less
  • Go to the Gemba…Unannounced
  • Building Credibility is Hard
  • LBWA Over LBBOO
  • Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief (PBED): Focus on the “D”
  • The Recall Matters (What Happened)
  • At a Profit, If We Can; At a Loss, If We Must…
  • Systems Drive Behaviors
  • Top Gun: Maverick Started on “Yank’s” Couch
  • Leadership Lessons from the Making of Top Gun: Maverick
  • Team Building Outside of Work
  • Blue Water Advisors
  • How to Connect with “Yank”   

Be sure to use the Chapters Feature on Apple and Spotify to quickly browse and navigate to segments of this episode.

J.J. "Yank" Cummings on LinkedIn
"Navy pilot and Bates graduate helps take film franchise to new heights"
Bob Hoover: An Aviation Legend


Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1
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https://flowguides.org/
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Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch:

Eddy Network Podcast Ep 56 – with Ed Brenegar
The School of War Ep 84 – with Aaron MacLean
Spatial Web AI Podcast – with Denise Holt
OODAcast Ep 113 – with Bob Gourley
No Fallen Heroes – with Whiz Buckley
Salience – with Ian Snape, PhD
Connecting the Dots – with Skip Steward
The F-14 Tomcast – with Crunch and Bio
Economic...

Transcripts are machine generated and are NOT edited for grammar or spelling.

00;00;00;22 - 00;00;22;01
Speaker 1
All right. 36 years in the Navy. Right. Enlisted. I'll total out. AOC. Yes, its officer and a gentleman school. For those of you who are keeping score, right? That's correct. Now called OCS Naval Aviation Officer. Yeah, I went through AOC. Yes. So a little bit different than AOC. Yes. I won't think any less of you. Okay. Okay. We still had the Marine Corps, Gunny.

00;00;22;01 - 00;01;00;15
Speaker 1
So Reg Tomcat, the big fighter. Fighter Topgun. Right. Yeah. You did that. Yeah. So the world famous rippers referred to us. Yeah. Yeah. And then XO of the Nimitz, you know, CEO of the Anchorage commanding officer of the Navy's largest aircraft carrier. Right. The newest and most lethal complex. Complex yet. Yeah, the USS Ford. And then you did this little thing a few years ago, which I believe you had the biggest influence on a movie about airplanes.

00;01;00;19 - 00;01;21;11
Speaker 1
Right. We could talk we can talk about that, too. So 36 years, two Navy captains sitting together right now, one retired. Why is that? Why are we sitting together today, man? Why are we so close together? I've never been this statue, the seating arrangement like this before. So. So working through that. Usually when I flew with you, you're facing the other way.

00;01;22;09 - 00;01;44;17
Speaker 1
Should I stretch? Oh, damn. We couldn't fight like this. We would not go anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So, Tomcat background. We're here with our Yank Cummins, retired captain. We're going to talk about leadership. Are going to talk about mission command. We're going to talk about what life is like turning a ship around, not just a ship with 133 people, but a ship with.

00;01;44;20 - 00;02;04;17
Speaker 1
How many people on the carrier? About 3000. Just just about 3000 embarked about 4500. But ship's companies, about 3000. So you don't have a book or anything. You can't go out and talk about what it's like to turn around a large ship in the Navy. But that's why we're here. We're going to have that conversation. I want to talk about that.

00;02;04;17 - 00;02;34;23
Speaker 1
And what what can leaders from industry learn from a guy like you who knows a little bit about maybe teamwork, leadership, complexity? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Let's start off with the Ford. So the last time you and I connected, we I think it was 2018, 2019, 2019 probably. Yeah, I texted you. I asked you for a favor. Hey, can I come on board and do something that hasn't really been done in the U.S. Navy?

00;02;34;23 - 00;03;00;16
Speaker 1
And you said, yeah, please, come on. Or bring me up on it. And we brought the Naval Safety Center over. Your famous last words to me, to me were, Hey, don't fuck it up. Words of wisdom painted very clearly. So as a leader, you listen to somebody new in the past and said, Hey, yeah, I want to hear about this ability to understand culture a little bit better, this narrative based approach.

00;03;01;17 - 00;03;25;02
Speaker 1
So we tried it, you know, the Naval Safety Center learned a lot about it or from that that opportunity. But to get somebody, any leader to do something that's unique, you know, it's challenging to do so. Can you walk through what life was like as a commanding officer, USS Ford, you had so many people looking at you, calling you senators, congressmen, SECDEF Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;03;25;03 - 00;03;50;29
Speaker 1
SECNAV, SecDef. Yes. All the whole shootin match keeping the ship. Sure. I mean, do we have 4 hours just to talk about Ford we can't reach? Sure, but we're going to miss a happy hour here. We're going to make that guarantee. Sure. Took over and August the 2018 ship and it was behind schedule a lot of shipyard time a lot of the under ways were met with some engineering issues that required the ship to return because of the design flaws which they corrected.

00;03;51;12 - 00;04;09;14
Speaker 1
And my mission was take 15 months in the shipyard and get the ship launched on an post-delivery test and trial. So the crew had become very accustomed to being pier side for Navy folks. As you know, that's not where we need to be. We need to be at sea. A lot of alcohol totally. And morale issues, discipline issues.

00;04;09;14 - 00;04;27;22
Speaker 1
Absolutely. When you're pier side, but more importantly, not doing the job, you've came the Navy to do so badly that pretty much every day. And then that attitude of while every time the ship pulled out, they seemed to come back early. So this crew had this mentality of, well, we're not really we're a pier side asset and we're going to come back early every time we got underway.

00;04;27;22 - 00;04;48;14
Speaker 1
And in fact, I'm just not going to plan on going away. So then we had to change that mentality. Look, this is a warship, not a pier side asset. So to kind of get that culture change of be ready to go to see and to take this new technology improve pretty much the defense media, Congress and the Navy that this ship, the Ford is is ready to go on to the next level.

00;04;48;25 - 00;05;15;28
Speaker 1
And as we speak, I think as of today, the Gerald Ford launch complex is taking place as we speak. And Cruise is here coming up in the spring. All right. First deployment, so happy to have been part of the team that shook that pier side ship yard. We're never going to make it this this technology is unproven it doesn't work attitude to deploying here in a few months to go over the over the horizon and do great work for our nations are pretty proud of being part of that team.

00;05;15;28 - 00;05;44;06
Speaker 1
You have some guiding principles here, if you will. It's called We Are a warship 78. You want to walk me through this on and our listeners, what this what this is? Sure. You know, every command. I've been in three command positions. Now you come on board with kind of a command, a mission and vision. And when I first came on board the ship with my previous discussion in mind about this pier side shipyard mentality, to shake that and remind folks that the ship it's not a ship, it's a warship.

00;05;44;06 - 00;06;04;21
Speaker 1
And we had to think about that every day. So, you know, so basically we must we will. We are a warship seven, eight. And what we must, as we must prepare, deploy with our carrier strike group the teamwork and savage the enemy. Savage enemy was talking to our average age to a sailor about 21 years old. Savage. I want to remind that we go to war and we kill bad people.

00;06;04;25 - 00;06;23;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, so do dangerous things. Anchor on that for a moment. The average age on the flight deck on a carrier is how old roughly? You know, 20, 20, 19, 20 years old. Right. And then turnover on aircraft carriers is about 100% every four years. About right. Yes. Depends on the rate. But yeah, every month we get 60 new people.

00;06;23;23 - 00;06;53;14
Speaker 1
So okay, well so park every month. So you think about most industries right now, you know, most corporations, they don't have 100% turnover every four years. Right. They do not yet. They're struggling at the moment to not just attract and retain people, but to keep them motivated as well. Right. Sure. So this is a very important, important point about the U.S. Navy we bring in and I'm going to say this, even though, you know, we both wore uniform, we bring in below average people, if you will.

00;06;53;25 - 00;07;21;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. And we make exceptional teams. Yes. Okay. Industry brings an exceptional people and they can't build a a subpar team right now. Yes. Yeah. So yeah. Can you can you pull that apart a little bit and figure out why we do such a great job in creating teamwork on on our flat tops? The one benefit we have is we have folks who volunteer to do this difficult and challenging job, and then they come into an organization like a carrier or a fighter squadron with a mission clearly defined.

00;07;21;08 - 00;07;38;28
Speaker 1
Everyone knows the mission on the carrier get underway and launch and recover aircraft in the squadron for a maintainer, get the jets airborne. A bunch of salty folks in there have been in the Navy between eight, you know, in 28 years of there to inspire these young men because they were those young men, young women 15 years ago.

00;07;39;06 - 00;07;59;29
Speaker 1
So I think that focus of mission and clear clarity of that, there's no vagueness, if that's a word. Yeah. Get the jets airborne, get the ship underway, launch recover aircrafts. Next slide. So I mentioned earlier that you were enlisted and I believe I can remember which side of the line you have here came from a CPO when you were a junior.

00;08;00;03 - 00;08;20;19
Speaker 1
So yeah, my leadership bumper sticker, which is driven me since 1996, my first squadron, you have 24. I checked in, I was the assistant corrosion control branch officer. Well, whatever that was. But I had a chief petty officer who was a very senior enlisted member. I had 12 sailors that worked with me, and I pulled the chief aside.

00;08;20;19 - 00;08;39;12
Speaker 1
I'm not sure I don't fit your pockets to cover what a Chief Petty Officer is, but it's your middle manager that's come up through the ranks, start out as a frontline worker, other middle management, salty dogs that had been the Navy for a long time have the experience and the expertize to to make things happen and getting an earn their respect is critical in that respect and earn their respect.

00;08;39;23 - 00;08;57;07
Speaker 1
You're going to be challenged as an officer. So I pulled them aside and moment humility and said, Hey Chief, what do you want from me? What do you need from me? He goes, Hey, sir, just showing your care. I'll tell him you care. Show them you care, you know, show true, genuine, authentic concern for the personal, professional well-being and the love you as a person.

00;08;57;17 - 00;09;22;15
Speaker 1
And all the officer stuff will come right in the place after that. I never forgot that. And every day in Commander, every day is in the Navy. Even to this day, I think about how I can show the people that I work with, that I care about them, but my actions. Actions and not words. Yeah. So, so over the years, you learn this leadership thinking and attitude and actions and you had to display it on the USS Ford.

00;09;23;05 - 00;09;54;07
Speaker 1
What are some of the key lessons or learning points or activities you did in the Navy that helped you build that leadership ability? That capability, I think, helped build that that compassionate concern for the personal and professional development of our sailors came from just being a young sailor in the reserves. When I first came in and seeing the chief the officers are after didn't care about who I was as a person, and that really bothered me.

00;09;54;26 - 00;10;12;01
Speaker 1
I know early on in squadrons dealing with commanding officers, a few that were clearly on their own track to do their what was best for them and that was best for the team. I, I observed that that frustrated me and I vowed I would never be that individual that didn't show to concern for, you know, the team developing as a group and as individuals.

00;10;12;16 - 00;10;31;25
Speaker 1
I think along the way, just observing senior leaders who really were just caring people who didn't try to be someone who they were not. They were just themselves. They're authentic. And they really, really believed when they spoke to you, they spoke to that from a feeling of trust. Yeah. Because they were honest when they made mistakes, they owned up to it.

00;10;32;22 - 00;10;55;04
Speaker 1
And that's all part of that. Show them your care methodology, if you will. My bumper sticker. So along the way, just observing leaders did it right and leaders, it didn't didn't do it right. And building that scrapbook, if you will, unfortunately, the scrapbook of how not to. Yeah, it was much greater and the scrapbook filled with the how tos and but I would argue that the how not to Fail taught me more about leadership and the folk, the how to examples.

00;10;55;04 - 00;11;16;12
Speaker 1
So I think 36 years of just observing leaders and then helping develop my own style was critical to coming to the point where I was able to, you know, do this these very challenging jobs and be successful at it. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about nuclear power school and the nuke navy, because I can't I, I know we can't go there right?

00;11;16;12 - 00;11;43;10
Speaker 1
We can't talk about the aliens either, so. Well, sure, let's another let's next podcast. We want to talk about their nuclear powered navy different than round shore navy. Absolutely. But what are the similarities? Let's focus on those right now between the regular Navy surface and nuclear navy. I've seen both. I've been part of nuclear navy down in the reactor reactors, on the aircraft carrier, and I've been the commanding officer of the regular Navy ship.

00;11;43;10 - 00;12;08;11
Speaker 1
I will tell you that they both put ships to sea. Yeah. And they both and they both stand watches. All right. I will tell you, a nuclear navy. Wow. They go from fighter pilot F-14. Make it happen. Holding circuit breakers in on the catapult, taking down jets, flying to get that mission done to go to nuclear navy. Where that does not happen.

00;12;08;12 - 00;12;27;13
Speaker 1
Yeah was an eye opener for me to see how they did business. It is amazing the integrity. That is not that we don't have integrity. We have mission focus. They mission focused, but they also have issues of compliance to make sure that we don't mess up the reactors. Yeah, because, you know, if we lose the ability to repel our warships with nuclear reactors, we're done as a fighting force.

00;12;27;13 - 00;12;47;11
Speaker 1
So there is demand for perfection every day in the nuclear navy. And every day we get it because of, you know, the way that they train and teach and mentor and lead young sailors down there on the reactor plants, in the aircraft carriers? In the submarines. Yeah, this is a fail safe environment. And I would I would argue so is fighter aviation, but not to the same degree.

00;12;47;11 - 00;13;07;07
Speaker 1
Right. The very you know, there are similarities. Every I'm you're is the commanding officer next to an aircraft carrier. You require to go to training regularly to stay proficient at nuclear principles and and just basic nuclear basics. And I would always speak at these events and compare fighter aviation to what the nukes are doing down in the reactor plant.

00;13;07;07 - 00;13;23;20
Speaker 1
They dug that. Yeah, I taught. I would tell them they and they try to get them fired up, you know, in line with Savage the enemy. I would tell them you are part of the kill chain. Without you, this ship truly is just a floating building. You give it the power to move the move the catapults and move it.

00;13;23;20 - 00;13;38;13
Speaker 1
Propel the ship through the water to launch and recover aircraft. You give us light and power to build up weapons. So I tell them you are the first link in the kill chain. Yeah. You're all killers. And they ate that up. Yeah, it's a little behind the scenes, but it is directly. Yeah. And they because they're down, they're down.

00;13;38;13 - 00;14;09;27
Speaker 1
You're seven, eight stories down. Won't see the sun for five or six days at a time and they have no idea, just their staring at work, doing their work or seeing watch, not aware that what's going on up on the roof, the flight deck is what is really is what they're providing power to do that. And I thought I would every day that we could I would make them bring eight nukes up from the from the the basement, put on the flight deck right next to Catapult and had them observe flight ops and see that F-18 full blower got the front end to remind them what they're doing.

00;14;09;27 - 00;14;25;06
Speaker 1
And they loved it. So you can always tell the nukes and flight deck is a very pale humor in there. They're coveralls like the nukes are out there. But I wanted to show them the why behind the what. Yeah, what they do is important. This is why. Cause you give us the build people that that catapult or you allow us to recover aircraft.

00;14;25;06 - 00;14;42;24
Speaker 1
So it's kind of neat to bring a fighter aviation and fighter mentality to the nukes and they eat it up. It was great. I won't unpack that for a second. The line of sight between what people are doing no matter where they are on the kill chain or the value chain, is absolutely critical if they don't understand that they can't adapt to any type of change.

00;14;42;27 - 00;15;03;13
Speaker 1
Correct. I think of the story of Kennedy walking around when he was president down in Cape Canaveral in the wee hours, he bumped into a janitor that has mop and he asked the janitor, What do you do in here this late? He's like, Sir, important helped put a man on the moon. Yeah. So the janitor at two in the morning on the Cape Canaveral knew what he what he was doing was direct, responsible.

00;15;03;14 - 00;15;24;02
Speaker 1
He's keeping the heads clean. But he was putting a man on the moon. So I always think about that. Does that sailor down in the reactor plant down there, the boatswain mate that's down deep, the the young administration man that's down, you know, working on paper, does you realize what he or she's doing has a direct impact and influence on the ability to launch and recover aircraft and propel our power throughout the world is pretty cool.

00;15;24;02 - 00;15;44;29
Speaker 1
That's an awesome example. I've heard that before. Yeah. I want to continue to talk about nuclear navy and aviation, and there's a book that you and I talked about a few days ago, Turn the ship around. David Geffen. David Mark, you read that book as an aviator and you did write a firm. Yeah. And you learned the language of nuke power is a little bit different than the language of fighter aviation.

00;15;44;29 - 00;15;58;00
Speaker 1
Yes. So that, you know, I think the the way they what they call a debrief is a critique and critique. Yeah. If you screw them up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that's kind of like the wrong message. You don't want to tell people are going to do a critique. Yeah, we could talk about debriefs a little bit later on.

00;15;58;00 - 00;16;24;11
Speaker 1
Oh yeah, we'll dove into that. But there's a nice you know, that book is very powerful. Many people read it and they go, okay, this is pretty cool. I'm going to unpack this just a little bit. So we have a commanding officer of the UC Santa Fe, highly trained personnel. I mean, to be in nuclear powered submarines, you have to have some level of I don't know what's between your ears, but there's something there, some type of gray matter that's maybe acceptable, maybe not.

00;16;26;02 - 00;16;48;03
Speaker 1
There's 133 to 150 folks in a submarine. Yes, that's right. And if you implement the eye on which to which is underneath what we call a Dunbar number. So it's a great span of control that you can actually know everybody. Yes. You cannot know everybody on aircraft carrier, right? No, there's no way it is possible. All right. So you take these great principles that they learn from the nuclear navy.

00;16;48;03 - 00;17;07;19
Speaker 1
You apply them to an organization. And those principles kind of look like what we call mission command, which we kind of get out of our weapons school, our fighter strike fighter weapons training program, and then you implement it and you come out and you write a book about it, about turning the ship around. You know, that is an ideal situation to be in.

00;17;07;19 - 00;17;27;08
Speaker 1
You have the right size of people. You're kind of in a closed system with a submarine. It's not I'm not saying it's a completely closed system. You've been taught your whole life mission command, and you just came through the nuclear power program. This is David Mark. Now compare and contrast that to your world on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

00;17;27;29 - 00;17;48;25
Speaker 1
3000 plus sailors, 60 sailors coming on board every month and rotating out. So you got a lot of turnover. You're you're in port. You have to do something a little different. Right. Can you can you build on that? Is it anything else that you pulled from to really help you accelerate the, you know, getting the forward ready for deployment?

00;17;48;25 - 00;18;10;02
Speaker 1
Yes. And I share this. I've done some keynote speak in a variety of corporations since I retired last September. And I share with them the concept of communicating the mission clearly and regularly. And then what the ship has, what's called the one main circuit, the one at sea, where every captain of every U.S. Navy vessel in the world has this microphone.

00;18;10;02 - 00;18;35;24
Speaker 1
You could pick it up to press the switch and talk to all folks in your command. At that time, every space in the ship has speakers to hear what the commanding officer says. And by Navy tradition, everyone stops in the and listen to what the captain has to say. So you talk about a enthralled audience, but I guess the point for that is you can really attack the mission and the the communication what the mission is every day on the one emcee.

00;18;35;25 - 00;18;50;22
Speaker 1
You probably heard it. Yeah, it's so I really worked hard to do that where I would take that moment or usually under way once in the morning, usually once in the evening, I would wrap up. I would use that opportunity to explain the why by the what change, you know, changes in schedule as to why we're not pulling in.

00;18;50;29 - 00;19;12;05
Speaker 1
I would squash rumors at that time. Yeah, I would walk the ship there in the day and hear the latest rumor and then be on the one emcee that night. Okay, team. No, we're not pulling in early and getting promotions, getting steak dinners in a few days. We're staying out here until the mission's done. Yeah. So I think routinely repeating that mission is a bit of humor, a little bit of borderline inappropriate to kind of catch their attention.

00;19;12;09 - 00;19;41;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, and not because I know they're listening. And then I always ended every one emcee call with we are warship seven eight captain out every time for two and a half years so they had no doubt I was transparent honest blunt raw and building trust with every word. I spoke to the one and see, and I really felt that was helpful to take those new sailors of folks who weren't quite sure what we're doing and make sure they knew exactly what we're doing by communicating that mission vision daily.

00;19;41;13 - 00;19;59;24
Speaker 1
Now, I, I do feel sorry for corporate America. They should have one emcee, but they don't have that outlook. I think. Well, that's why I always ask these people what you want and see how you do in that, how you're going to do in videos. Are you calling are you doing weekly newsletters? I don't know. But I do wish the Copa America had that.

00;20;00;04 - 00;20;17;00
Speaker 1
But there's ways to do that, I think can get the word out in the way that I did that really keeps folks tuned to the mission, going the right direction and leaving no room for rumors and, you know, uncertainty. You can fill that with your clarity of mission. On the one hand, Sea helps to keep the ship the team moving.

00;20;17;05 - 00;20;32;11
Speaker 1
Let me ask you this. This can be a tough one. What if you as a leader can go next question, then? If it's tough, it's got to be tough. Yes, we can always edit this year. What if your mission isn't crystal clear? What if it's just the direction of travel? What if you need help in defining that mission?

00;20;32;18 - 00;20;47;07
Speaker 1
How do you you. I would say you can always find the mission. Okay. You never mission less right? Right. So you would. You could certainly find ways. I'm with it. We'd be out there just student around off the coast of Virginia. And I've tried to find ways to give a little bit of vibe on the what? Hey, we're out here.

00;20;47;07 - 00;21;07;08
Speaker 1
You know what we're doing this year because we're getting ready for our next, you know, in two weeks. We're coming with the airline, coming out to do care qualifications, using this time to get ready for that. Yeah. Hey, we're training. We're doing our damage control training. So I would argue there's always a mission. It maybe it's a stretch, but if you're being truly honest and not trying to be awesome and just throw fluff at them, I think you get some of that.

00;21;07;09 - 00;21;32;02
Speaker 1
You get some, you know, honest feedback from that. So I felt there was always a mission of some sort just being under ways, a mission that's a challenging mission. You know, when we talked to military leaders about this type of thinking, it's I believe it's more a little more challenging for them to define missions every now and then than corporations and, you know, the reason a corporation exists is to develop a customer or to create a customer so they can always they should be making that connection to a customer.

00;21;32;29 - 00;21;52;23
Speaker 1
I'm not going to get into the customer conversation for who? Our customers in the military. I mean, we we have many, many, many, many customers. Most of them are not the military industrial complex, as many people believe it is. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say, you know, it's probably the American people more than anything. But that challenge is out there for military leaders every single day.

00;21;53;19 - 00;22;24;28
Speaker 1
I think it's going to be a little bit easier inside corporate America because once you identify that customer who you're trying to deliver value to in our world, the kill chain that has it that is an easier sell to people in an industry. Yet they don't they don't they don't apply these principles that that's clarity that's your desired end state and work towards that in every conversation should not be about the fluff in the hearing announce like hey this we're doing the why and then I what to get to this yeah to get to the customer provide value, add value and to develop revenue streams.

00;22;24;28 - 00;22;53;24
Speaker 1
So I think that's something that can be easily talked about. You are listening to No Way Out sponsored by AGL X. Now let's get back to building your confidence in complexity. You had a generation problem and say problem an opportunity on on a carrier and that is you know when I say something like hold on, Uncle Jesse, what does that remind you of?

00;22;53;24 - 00;23;14;15
Speaker 1
Shoot that TV show. Which one? Not good times. No Dukes of Hazzard, though. Guess I sort of was. It's see that I grew up in the Boston area, so we weren't. Where are you from? In Colorado. Okay. Okay, so maybe it's more of a dukes. Yeah, but glad. Yes, yeah, yeah. The white beard and the coveralls. Yeah. So.

00;23;14;15 - 00;23;32;29
Speaker 1
So when I say that to kids today. Hey, hold on, Uncle Jesse, what do you think about something inappropriate? No, no, no, no. And maybe now. I don't know. Yeah, there's a TV series on that. Had an Uncle Jesse on it, and I can name of it. I don't know. You don't know that? Yeah, there's several. So anyway, that generation gap, you know, we watched Airplane, we watched different movies.

00;23;33;23 - 00;23;51;00
Speaker 1
You know, we're quoting different things from the seventies and 81, the roles and the yeah. So here you are as a leader, you have to figure out a way to communicate to this new generation. Walk us through how you figure that out or how you, you know, so, yes, I try to be kind of a wise ass on the one I'm see, I try to have a little a sense of humor.

00;23;51;00 - 00;24;11;22
Speaker 1
I try to be, again, honest. And then for me, it was sports. Okay, yeah, that was my ice breaker walk. And I would try to walk the ship every day for half an hour just to talk, to, say, look at feedback, listen to what's going on. I would also eat lunch on the Mystics once a week. I would get my tray stay in line, even though I have my own kitchen up on the bridge.

00;24;11;22 - 00;24;26;19
Speaker 1
I would come down from the bridge and just sit in line, get my food, talk to the CSEs, the culinary specialists, sit down with a bunch of sailors and then talk with them and be like, Hey, you know, sports is my in. Did they know you were going to be there or are you just. No, I just showed up unannounced.

00;24;26;20 - 00;24;42;14
Speaker 1
Okay. And was anybody with you or are you alone by myself? So no. Show up and I would plop down the CMC or no one. Just me. Okay. And I love that moment because first you would catch them off guard. Wasn't a pre-planned thing. No photographers, just the captain. And they knew I had my own kitchen, my own cook.

00;24;42;19 - 00;24;55;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, but I would come to spend time, take the time, come down and speak with them, and I'd sit down like, All right, tell me one thing we're doing right here on the ship and more importantly, one thing we're doing wrong. And then they would tell me that I would instantly like what again, the radio, the brick. Hey, supper.

00;24;55;22 - 00;25;11;14
Speaker 1
Why is a Diet Coke machine flat? You know, fix that. And so and so they knew when I was in Mexico and my breakfast are blowing up with getting things fixed in front of the sailors and they loved that and they also gave me my a late sleepers kids. So I said, hey, tell me these things. I'll give you this thing to sleep in tomorrow night.

00;25;11;16 - 00;25;27;05
Speaker 1
And all sudden it became free flowing and after a few weeks of that, when the crew saw that I was doing that and actually taking actionable steps to improve their lives by listening to them giving their feedback, I walk in the mess. Folks say, Sir, grab a seat, come on, get up. And people that crowd around is awesome.

00;25;27;05 - 00;25;49;01
Speaker 1
I just sit there and listen. Yeah. And, you know, ice breaker for me was sports, you know, Red Sox Patriots. And I could always make fun of the Yankees or make fun of the Air Force, and they would eat that up. And easy to me, it's almost club and it's club of ABC but it was very easy. Get that flowing and to break the generational gap just across it by virtue of speaking very bluntly.

00;25;49;01 - 00;26;05;13
Speaker 1
Honest. Yeah, maybe cursing a little bit. Yeah. And human, right? All human. And then also admitting mistakes like, you know, I didn't know that we're screwing up. I'll see if I can address that or we can't do that. We can't pull an early. I'm sorry, we've mission to do, but I appreciate your desire to get home to your family, but we have to do that.

00;26;05;13 - 00;26;21;26
Speaker 1
So I think for me was walking around eating lunch of azaleas and just listening and learning and then doing something about it. So I curious to see what CEOs what's the last time they had lunch with the frontline worker? Oh, they don't, I wonder. No, but I think there's something else in the middle management. So you think about the hierarchy in the Navy and a Navy ship.

00;26;22;11 - 00;26;42;16
Speaker 1
What does that do to your your, you know, fives or fours or threes? You're 76. Is the that shift the way they were thinking? Yes. Yeah. They knew I was a big fan of showing you care. My way of showing the crew I cared was that those walk arounds and I implore them to get off their computers, get out their office and walk around and talk to people, learn and listen.

00;26;42;23 - 00;27;02;07
Speaker 1
Go where they're comfortable because they're not going to come to your office. That's that's they're not they're safe. So the psychologically safe. Psychologically safe. Sorry. In their space of go where they are and talk to them. And I know a lot of the the heads of department or fives or fours that go do that, I think you get a better feel for what's going on by actually being in their house, if you will, not your house.

00;27;02;11 - 00;27;20;04
Speaker 1
So I would make I would push them to get out of our offices and go talk to sailors. So let's let's go back to when you were a Joe 25, 26, 27, 75 years ago, when I remember this, too. It was, you know, you go to flight training, you're flying, and now you're your branch officer, you're doing something like that.

00;27;20;04 - 00;27;44;27
Speaker 1
And your your chiefs are telling you to go engage with these young sailors. Right. We were about five years younger than you or same age back then. Right. What I found very difficult was that was new to me coming out of college, right. That you want me to go do what? Yeah. So is this something you had to learn over the years that you have it inside of you already at a young age, or did it evolve?

00;27;44;29 - 00;28;04;17
Speaker 1
That's a great question. You know, I don't know where I learned to do that. I don't upbringing, certainly, but I just it's hard. By the way, to your point about young junior officer and naval, it's hard to be a naval officer because for hundreds of years we have slept in a different location, in a different spot and done different jobs.

00;28;04;18 - 00;28;26;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, Marine Corps Army Air Forces accounts or just like Marine Corps and Army just by being in the field and shooting that same Howitzer, eat the same food, sleep in the same, you know, pile of mud as you as the Marines or soldiers. You get credibility just by being their naval officer. That's not the case. You have got to forcibly take yourself from these officer locations and force yourself into enlisted locations.

00;28;26;25 - 00;28;43;07
Speaker 1
Works in is flight deck on in the hangar bay that's hard I tell I would share that with young junior officers is it is tough to walk into a work center in an aircraft carrier. People are covered in sweat. Yeah grease grind, even working 16 hour days. You come in your flights, you just came off of 18 hours of sleep playing video games.

00;28;44;00 - 00;29;02;17
Speaker 1
Hey, guys, how's it going? So it's hard, but, you know, you got to do it. Yeah, you go in there, you sit down and listen. And I said, sports. Talk about sports. Talk about the latest rumor. Just get a conversation going. And then so that was my guidance to help them to do that. And other times I'll tell you, there are times I did not want to watch gymnastics.

00;29;02;17 - 00;29;20;01
Speaker 1
I want to go to my rack and sleep. And I like, you know what, I got to go do it and you have to do it. So I would share that with the officers do it. And what did I learn that I am not sure. I think being prior enlisted, certainly going through boot camp back in 87 and seeing that, observing that when I was enlisted in the reserves, I think helped.

00;29;20;14 - 00;29;38;15
Speaker 1
And then what that how I learned to do that is I think having some a few leaders along the way. My early squadrons that taught me to do that. Yeah. And then one master chief collection mentor Samir Bhatt mashes in the name. Yeah, we use a maintenance officer in via 24. He's like, Hey Yank, if your chief's pissed at you, you're doing your job.

00;29;39;00 - 00;29;54;02
Speaker 1
Oh yeah. Because if you're just rubberstamping it, that means you're not involved. So get involved. Go find out what they're learning. And that's I really listened to BET and he's the one to help me to understand that getting in the work center and getting your chief manager because you're there, he doesn't want you there. Yeah. He want you out of his house to take care of things.

00;29;54;02 - 00;30;09;02
Speaker 1
So when you're there, he's making a man, which is great. So I want to be mad that I'm there because I'm doing my job. So there's something to think about that. I remember leaders in fighter squadrons. I would have us drag chains around the flight deck. You know, I mean, it was painful. Yes, it was miserable. Yeah. I would do that same.

00;30;09;02 - 00;30;26;12
Speaker 1
I would even as so I would go do the water brake inspection on K2, which is brutal. I don't know. Think about it. You're covered in grease. It's hot water. It's designed for someone, not six foot two. But I went in there with his young ab e to to do that. I want to show that I want to learn what he did.

00;30;26;21 - 00;30;42;22
Speaker 1
It sucked, but it was worth it to get credibility to know. No. XO did a water brake inspection, a cartoon that put the word goes out that him trying to learn what you guys do and I walk around the ship, hey, what do you do here? What's this thing? How does this thing work? They love that that I was intellectually curious about what they did.

00;30;42;22 - 00;31;07;20
Speaker 1
So it's really important. That's great. Let's say you have help and I think that's leadership by walking around and you have another acronym here, it's LBB. Oh, oh, lead. Yeah. So I prefer leadership or lead by walking around as compared to lead by being on Outlook. Yep. Much a big better fan of the walk around versus the lead from behind your computer hidden behind thousands of emails.

00;31;07;27 - 00;31;38;05
Speaker 1
Yeah, very frustrating. Let's go back to the big fighter, the F-14 community and how that got you prepped. Well, teared up right now. Back to the big fighter as it is choked up. Yeah, we're going to be around a bunch of big fighter alumni here. Hang on. Yeah, yeah. And we're all. You think about it, correct? Last jet I saw was down in Texas, Christine, the oldest serving F-14 Pyo, you know, number 159600.

00;31;38;05 - 00;31;54;09
Speaker 1
Nice. I know that. Because I flew in combat and then proposed to my wife from it here at Oceana, you know? Really? Oh, it's pretty cool, man. That's awesome. So if we got a piece of history there. Yeah. Yeah. So the big fighter has a special place in my heart, too. I am going back to the culture of the community.

00;31;54;13 - 00;32;17;19
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then lessons from the weapons school. What are some of the big highlights for you from? So the first squadron, the F 24 it was I learned about they taught me how to be a a naval officer, a fighter pilot and a servant leader. They also taught me about striving for excellence every day, esprit de corps and camaraderie.

00;32;17;19 - 00;32;36;17
Speaker 1
And as you well remember, the F-14 community was knee deep in esprit de corps. I think it's and camaraderie. We are off the chart. Yeah. And just first day, first time on a ship, first port call, Corky Erie who works at Oceana right now. Remember, Corky, he's like, when Liberty Call is called, we leave together. We don't go as singles.

00;32;36;17 - 00;33;05;25
Speaker 1
Like you see other squadrons peel off flights of three division here. All three of us shall leave the ship together. We go out. We shall go out together. Are there any questions you think? No, Corky, I never forgot that. Yeah, that's. That's a huge camaraderie, esprit de corps thing. We're proud of that. So, I don't know. We did that to a fault, but that's where we learned that early on about being in a fighter squadron and how you do things with you, do it aggressively to the best of your ability and you go and get some.

00;33;05;25 - 00;33;23;06
Speaker 1
You make it happen in the F-14, we flew all flew old jets required some pretty aggressive maneuvers to get the thing airborne to go do the mission. Because if we if you followed the book, sometimes you would still be on deck, not getting ill, drop bombs in Afghanistan. So I learn that. So I learn how to make it happen just to get it done.

00;33;23;12 - 00;33;41;25
Speaker 1
So we would never violate any of the rules. We just stay within the here's the limits of things you and not do. Right? Right. Which, as you mention, the Air Force. I love the Air Force. The way there's the book that says what you can do are smaller books is what you can't. Yeah. If you can't. But even then, even the book says you need to have says write good for the expression.

00;33;41;25 - 00;34;03;28
Speaker 1
But if you have good sound thinking and logical thought, you can even violate the rules. If at that moment in time it's what's required to either save the jet or get the mission dead. Yeah. I watched a crash in demo. Their engine go on fire during the practice in El Centro and Nate Thompson's the eject. And they they, you know, they put the aircraft on the ground and it was like, good for them, right?

00;34;04;00 - 00;34;30;00
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, right there watching it. Yeah. I've seen that a few times, you know, as far as the network goes. So the culture is built on. I believe it's built on a couple of things. Number One, the type of task we had in the aircraft, it's an older aircraft analog. You know, it's high task interdependence. You can't do things alone in that aircraft and seeing what you do in the front cockpit that you can't do in the back and back, that you can't do in the front.

00;34;30;08 - 00;34;55;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. For those of you who've seen the movie Top Gun, Maverick, there's a ton of circuit breakers in the back. I don't think they're in the F-35 anymore. Eight, eight up upfront. That's it. There you go. So you have this task interdependence that demands two people work, interdependent, adaptively and dynamically towards a shared and valued goal all the time.

00;34;55;09 - 00;35;14;03
Speaker 1
Right. And then you add that with a squadron and this type of thinking, this mindset of working together, and then I'm going to throw something at you that I think you may have been involved in or at least seen the early rollout of, and that is for resource management in the nineties. Were you there when they just. Right.

00;35;14;03 - 00;35;30;19
Speaker 1
Okay, Dan classmates, you're in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember what else stands by way? I could give me some time. I could pull it up. Okay. And you have to memorize it. Oh, yeah, because you've got to stay ahead of time. Yeah. No, no, no. So in the early nineties, I think it was early nineties, we pick up crew resource management.

00;35;30;28 - 00;35;52;01
Speaker 1
There's no God in the cockpit. There's no you know, it's a crew concept. Absolutely. Yeah. So now we're building up these crews in this highly interdependent platform and we'll call it a high performing team. And these teams can pick up at any moment and work with another person. And that's the culture that we have there. And we and out of sight of each other.

00;35;52;01 - 00;36;05;24
Speaker 1
They're not. Yeah. See each other. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of unique. Yeah. I mean, this is this like you said, this is kind of odd that we can see each other right now and put it together. Yeah, they can't. They can't look at you. They can't use any body expressions or points or body language. It's just all.

00;36;05;28 - 00;36;27;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, sometimes you just do stuff without even thinking about it. Yeah. So, so we go through this training and it's, some people call it charm school and commercial airlines. We learn this we we learn PE bed and you want to walk us through PE bad from plan effects you debrief. Sure. Okay. Yeah. For just, I think something that's been neat to learn from the corporate America.

00;36;27;23 - 00;36;44;11
Speaker 1
They don't do this as religiously as we do did in the Navy. They pretend to. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny to take it also, too. I took it to the ship where I noticed they were doing a e a little bit of PE and definitely no d, so they kind of carry that even to the nukes. I brought that to them.

00;36;44;11 - 00;37;02;14
Speaker 1
So yeah, plan B execute if you plan for like well just take a regular day and topgun going through class, you're playing for hours, you breathe for an hour, you execute for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. You debrief between, as you recall, between four and 6 hours and folks like four and 6 hours. Yes. Because all the learning occurs in the debrief.

00;37;02;14 - 00;37;22;20
Speaker 1
It's not to an execution. It's when you be able to exhibit what you learned, what you did wrong, and demonstrate that to instructors, that you understand the big picture where you diverge from the brief, the plan, and then what the end state was. So that was kind of neat. On the ship you did damage control cuz as you recall you had to see them because you're in your stateroom sleeping, right?

00;37;22;20 - 00;37;38;15
Speaker 1
Right. But their debriefs were nonexistent. I'm like, You can't do that. We've got to learn how what you know what the damage control training team, the Red Air was trying to accomplish and then the blue team, the firefighters and all the teams make sure they did as they were supposed to. And I wanted them to demonstrate what they knew, what they did wrong.

00;37;38;15 - 00;37;58;03
Speaker 1
Don't let us tell you what you did wrong. You tell us what you did wrong to exhibit learning. So it's very challenging. Yeah. So you listen to the podcast with Major General Tank Leonard Yes. We talked about the art of the debrief a little bit. Yeah. Let's go back to the cockpit and you know, I'm your student. We're down in Key West and they're doing a debrief.

00;37;58;10 - 00;38;27;03
Speaker 1
One of the first things you would ask me when we get back to the the ready room to do a debrief or to the briefing rooms was, hey, where was the sun? Yeah, sure. Yeah, what altitude, what side, where we on. And guess what what I get wrong I'll 3043. Yeah. So Noory took off from under the runway was because it's such a dynamic environment when you're young you're right you're learning this new thing, you're learning what to pay attention to.

00;38;27;06 - 00;38;46;26
Speaker 1
And that's what I think the debrief allows us to do back then is really accelerate what's important. Yeah, because when you don't know what you should be paying attention to it, it makes it really hard to do a debrief, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, if I listen to that podcast and one thing I thought could have been highlighted, great, or maybe it's not an Air Force thing, but the reconstruction for us is big.

00;38;46;26 - 00;39;04;00
Speaker 1
He didn't I don't recall him discussing. I want to dove too deep in that. Yeah. For me reconstructions. That's that's the recall part. That's that's the what happened. Right. And then from that you go over never topcon you pick your pick two or three areas that you would not all of them don't pick 75 go three areas where the fight changed, where we need a diversion to brief.

00;39;04;07 - 00;39;20;22
Speaker 1
We lost a fighter or we didn't get mission accomplished. We pick that and we deep dove that. So I kind of think that's kind of neat to reconstruct, you know, and then pick your points. And then the goal is not to have the instructor point out what you missed right? Your goal was to show yourself right to do this day yourself.

00;39;20;23 - 00;39;40;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then they're going to have and say, hey, Yankees, wasn't that bad. You got to be hard on yourself. I really worked hard to make them say, hey, you know, actually wasn't that bad. Yeah, but you try to be sure to show them that you are super critical ability to self-assess and to call yourself out. Yeah. So, so today, the way most organizations do debriefing is they use attitudes and beliefs about how things ought to be changed in the future.

00;39;40;27 - 00;40;01;18
Speaker 1
There's a danger at that is you don't understand what just happened. Right. How can you improve the future? Right. Correct. So the deconstruction or reconstruction of the of the event could be a 45/2 engagement. It could be a four hour flight. It could be river is more important. And chances are, even though you and I may be in the same cockpit, we're going to have different perspectives of what actually happened.

00;40;01;18 - 00;40;19;18
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And that's important because it doesn't mean one of us is right. It just means collectively, we're going to be more we're going to be closer to reality than just one of us alone in loss of rank in the debrief to would tell the swirls even corporate America that if you're the most junior guy in the squadron, guy or gal in your seat, your commanding officer is in that flight.

00;40;19;18 - 00;40;41;12
Speaker 1
He makes a mistake. You have to call him or her out. Yeah. If you don't, you get called out for not calling out the CEO because you have to let him know. Hey, sir, we've reached this. You did that. That was incorrect. Yeah. You know, and it causes a loss of training. Objective. Good call. If you're if you're dancing, you know, on what I can eggshells afraid to call it commanding officer that's not where I need to be and the CEO needed to receive that feedback.

00;40;41;12 - 00;40;55;13
Speaker 1
So. Yep, you're right. Good. Yeah. So I always tell folks that most see your guy or gal on that flight is also going to take shots as well. If you don't do it well, if you don't, if you don't ask you to call the plan, you're going to get called out. And you should. If you don't, that's a that's becoming now a personal professional.

00;40;55;13 - 00;41;18;25
Speaker 1
And it's all about professionalism, not personal stuff. Yeah. How is the community now? Not I'm talking to the F-18 community. Have things changed quite a bit since you've seen it or great questions. I fly once a month. When I was on Ford, I didn't get the radio rooms quite as much. I still believe it's the same. I still think that Top Gun mental city of brutal debriefs get it right, call the folks out.

00;41;18;25 - 00;41;40;08
Speaker 1
Need you call out and find the way to fix it for next time is still there. Yeah. And has no fear as I understand it from calling out senior folks for if they make a mistake. I have a story to share. Unfortunate forget his name at the moment. I went blank weapons school start working with seals passed away about a year and a half years ago.

00;41;40;16 - 00;42;01;12
Speaker 1
Okay me later here in Virginia Beach. I was sitting next to him at the and I can't believe I forgot his name right now. Pop up in a moment. So next to him at the pool bar house. Something funny, right? And just having a conversation like we're having right now. And he pointed out something that I don't know if I'm getting the story right.

00;42;01;12 - 00;42;18;16
Speaker 1
Maybe he has more background on it. And that is our Navy weapons school. Our top gun instructors helped the SEALs out and understanding and respect your debrief and things like that. You know, I think about this. I don't and I know we start showing them how we brief and debrief. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we've done that on the ship.

00;42;18;16 - 00;42;35;06
Speaker 1
When I was up for we had a Top Gun guy on our on our staff do at top gun level brief for the shipyard and they're like wow. Yeah. So yes, that that is kind of pervasive throughout our commands. I've been in to show a demo, brief the show, how we do it. Yeah. And show the top of the planning process, how we brief it and then debrief.

00;42;35;06 - 00;43;01;27
Speaker 1
Not so much. No real opportunity there, but I wish we had done more debrief to show how debrief is run. Walk me through some planning from from the US forward and then make some connections back to fighter aviation if you. So what's who's involved in planning and who is or is there one person doing all the planning half connection because it's such a beast you know you have 400, you know, let's see, you know, or at $50 million worth of maintenance being done on a ship.

00;43;01;27 - 00;43;22;08
Speaker 1
And you have you start that planning process two years out and you're you're flowing out the whole work package. It's basically a team of 20 to 30 people are working through that. And of course, you have the budgeting budget constraints can address that as well. But it's basically for for me, very little influence on the plan because it's so big and it's been contracted out for someone to do that.

00;43;22;18 - 00;43;41;07
Speaker 1
I'm involved in I'm watching execution and then, you know, looking through the various graphs and metrics to see how are we sticking to plan if not asking questions, good questions to why we're not. And then, you know, can we deviate resources to make something happen? A lot of times you no, because a shipyard is a fairly hard wired fixed price contract.

00;43;41;07 - 00;43;59;11
Speaker 1
So that was challenging for a fighter guy. I'd be like, Well, let's just do that now. Well, it's going to cost you money to change the contracts. Oh, okay. Well, then we'll do what we have. Will do, will deal with it. Another form or fashion. So challenging for a bid disciple to be involved in the shipyard work where it's so there's no flexibility.

00;43;59;13 - 00;44;17;20
Speaker 1
It's just very little. It's just go and hopefully we got it right. There is some, but not to. The level we would prefer would cost millions of dollars. Yeah. If you change something. Oh you want to change that. And that's going to cost you with rewrite the contracts. Yeah. Contracting officials, lawyers, which equals millions of dollars. There's no agility in anything.

00;44;17;20 - 00;44;36;00
Speaker 1
It's just. Just. But I could go on hours about shipyards. And what's fascinating about it was Newport News Shipyard in New. You see Charlie Pressman is on our show and he brings up a great story about Newport News. And I wish I had the quote in front of me, something about they make great ships that this is their model years ago.

00;44;36;01 - 00;44;55;25
Speaker 1
Right. Okay. Make great ships. Yeah. I think it has to do with we'll make money if we can. We'll lose money if we need to. Right. At a profit if we can go a loss if we must. There you go. That's it. And really? Yeah, well, this this goes back 60, 70 years, right? So, so we'll make that connection to back to Charlie Protestant and in the show.

00;44;56;09 - 00;45;12;13
Speaker 1
And I think when he brought that up, I'm like, that's a great motto. I don't think that's how that's being executed right now. And I'm not there to bash on any note. Agreed. I will tell you that for me, the leadership component of the shipyard, it comes down to the foreman, which is the chief petty officer of that organization.

00;45;12;25 - 00;45;31;09
Speaker 1
I felt that they didn't have they needed better leadership qualities and more drive. Yeah. Like a Navy ship officer sees an obstacle. Either he or she runs it over or goes around it. Yeah. Shipyard. They get stopped by the out school, by contractual union, all kinds of system is driving their behaviors, man. It's not bad people, right? They're great people.

00;45;31;09 - 00;45;52;25
Speaker 1
It's the system workers, great executives. Talk to the game. It's that foreman. I all-city i think personally, this is my personal opinion. There should be no cell phones allowed on a project. I seen more shipyard workers on their phone in the hangar bay. I wonder if they didn't. They're looking up things, I'm sure. Yeah. You're like a Puget Sound Naval shipyard.

00;45;52;27 - 00;46;10;27
Speaker 1
Cell phones are not authorized inside that. That industrial environment of that shipyard is very successful. I wonder. Oh, wow, it is. So I the an interesting study but also know they. Oh well we needed to contact our foreman. Yeah okay. True. But not whatever. I, we walked in the hangar bay like what do you you've been here for an hour.

00;46;11;03 - 00;46;31;23
Speaker 1
What do you detect? Switching and. Yes, exactly. Chronic nicotine there. Yeah, exactly. This is awesome. Let's let's start talking about this little project you were on a few years ago as the name of it, Iron Eagle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. Which is awful. I think the Journal talked about Iron Eagle. He tried to defend initially, but then he realized that you got you can't you have no game on.

00;46;32;02 - 00;46;57;06
Speaker 1
It was a fun movie to watch when we were. Well, I was a kid. Right. Same a little bit old. Early eighties, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's understandable. Yeah. Unless you're ten. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's about true with anything. Air Force touch is very true. Yeah. Even even the aerospace operation center, when they made it into a weapon system, I'm like, Oh, so what if we're going to go that dispatcher Quick A-10 pilots, your fighter pilots?

00;46;58;04 - 00;47;15;21
Speaker 1
Uh, they call themselves fighter pilot. I went to ESF, so I got some time in Columbus and I met. Oh, it is a different culture. Yeah, cool. Airplane is great plane. But it's not a fighter. That's an attack. Aircraft attack is there. Every missile on there. Is there another. There's a name nine on defensive. Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

00;47;16;09 - 00;47;35;01
Speaker 1
I'll try to defend them the best I can. I'll get my ass kicked. You're losing. I know the winning and losing. Make sure you're sexy. All right. Sorry. Air Force, Top Gun, maverick. Yes. Go for it. All right, so I watch the movie. Like I said, you and I connected back in 1819. Yeah. At that time, you already been work?

00;47;35;02 - 00;47;52;28
Speaker 1
You know, I worked on a complete. Yeah. So the one secret you kept the best is that one, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't think any. A lot of folks knew it. Maybe, maybe a handful folks knew you were working on it. Yeah. So when I watched the movie and my wife watched the movie, it was like watching a fighter flying video.

00;47;52;28 - 00;48;11;28
Speaker 1
We're like, Hell yeah, with the who. Or like, this is awesome. So that was you, right? So what the the the first time that the director, Joe Kosinski, they call me up in 2017 June. Hey, Yank, do you want to be the technical advisor for Top Gun Maverick and drink or talking to at that time and bring the director out to the, you know, Roosevelt for an overnight.

00;48;11;28 - 00;48;37;01
Speaker 1
I'm like, hell yeah. So in true, you know, relationship building fashion I said, hey, Joe, I reached out to him. Why don't you come to my house the night before we fly on, have dinner at my house, just get to know each other. Yeah. They're going relationship, right? Connections which are important. So and then he came over him and the at that point the executive producer came over to our home in Chula Vista, Porton Down the couch, popped in some old school fighter flying videos, flat heading, you know, the remote.

00;48;37;15 - 00;48;56;00
Speaker 1
And I know the ones you're talking about. Yes. You probably were in them. Yes. And the Sea NAF, the Naval Air Force's PO was sitting there watching these and I'm like, shut up. Yeah. And it was just so he saw those early, those those low flying scenes and this fun spirited fighter thing videos he saw mother to Newt.

00;48;56;00 - 00;49;13;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. He's like, what's that like? Oh, it's Snooki. So. So we went he he was very insightful or questioning attitude. Joe was intellectually curious across the board. So early on. So you see. So a fighter from video. Yeah. The first thing he saw on our couch was a fighter flight video. And I will put this out for America.

00;49;13;24 - 00;49;30;03
Speaker 1
Joe Kosinski, direct quote. And my daughter was here to see it at the premiere Top Gun to talk him out of it. Started on my living room couch. Yeah. In due to down 17 because that's where it started. We got them all. Look it up on panel. I could see it, man, when we saw like this came from a tomcat guy.

00;49;30;03 - 00;49;46;28
Speaker 1
I mean, this is when we started was, you know, oh, my gosh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you mention I laughed because that's the first thing we showed him with some of the videos which made the POWs sweat. Yeah, because all the low flying, I'm like, Jeannie, settle down. That's what we do. Yeah, that's okay. Okay, yeah, yeah.

00;49;46;28 - 00;50;01;22
Speaker 1
So sorry I interrupt you. So you talk. I want to I want to learn more about this, not necessarily the movie week. I mean, I know you get to talk about the movie quite a bit, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of fun, happens. Shares of stories if you like. Yeah. No, but I want to know what. So I, I to tell you a quick story.

00;50;01;22 - 00;50;24;20
Speaker 1
I did a little bit of work with a movie in the last couple of years, and I was absolutely shocked that the customer, the end person, the end state wasn't well known. The mission wasn't well known. Yeah, it was like watching a poor, a small little company or a company fall apart in front of me. I don't think that's the same experience you had with the No.

00;50;24;20 - 00;50;45;15
Speaker 1
So I do a keynote speech and discussion about this experience and what I observed on the mic in that movie and how it basically mirrored the exact same leadership principles that we use in the Navy to become successful. So I was I sat down and watched Joe communicate the mission clearly, like, oh, I've done that ownership. I'm watching them lead a leadership.

00;50;45;15 - 00;51;01;24
Speaker 1
I walk around and watch and have a question. It's you all things that I had done in the Navy for the last 32 years. And he was doing him the writer were doing this as we helped develop the screenplay. So very interesting. That's why it dawned on me that, hey, these things work in Hollywood or the Navy can work in your business.

00;51;02;06 - 00;51;19;19
Speaker 1
It works everywhere. It's universal. Yeah. So watching him do that was pretty amazing. I'm like, this is very familiar to me because I've done that and watched him work. So he really did a great job because it was you can imagine the pressure on Joe. Yeah. You got Tom Cruise Bruckheimer exactly. Produces a lot of money and really big egos.

00;51;19;19 - 00;51;40;24
Speaker 1
You have the Navy it was has their own personal thing. What they want to accomplish, which is not what Hollywood wanted. So he was able to synthesize all those various influences and boil it down to the mission, the mission for us, as he helped develop the screenplay was very simple minimum CGI actors and yes, more character plot complexity from the last one.

00;51;41;00 - 00;52;07;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's why they brought in Singer, who was nominated for Academy Award for American Hustle. He was a writer. That's why the character is much more complex in this movie. Let it be respected by the Navy. Make a lot of money drama. Yeah. Keep Tom Cruise happy. Make him look good. Yeah. Yeah. Was it, I think success as that's what that's what the guiding principles which he gave us and we helped with that we were able to he kind of filtered off all the other nonsense, all the chaff gone, here's a signal.

00;52;07;24 - 00;52;22;10
Speaker 1
Go out, move out with eat with these principles. And along the way he guided us. So it's kind of neat to see how we work this. So you got to do some whiteboarding with him to right? Just like we do on a walk home. In fact, it was on Theodore Roosevelt that first trip we got into this one in the Civic without standard marker block.

00;52;22;13 - 00;52;44;04
Speaker 1
Mm hmm. All right, Joe, what do you got for give me your plot themes? What do you have so far? We mapped it out. And how about this? How about this? You threw some ideas. Myself and Sparky Charlevoix's, who's the current CEO via FE. One or two was with me and we helped kind of map out, give me some ideas on what you want to accomplish and with the ultimate final scene being SEAL Tom, that was from day one.

00;52;44;04 - 00;53;04;15
Speaker 1
Still a tomcat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I learned about the tomcat being stolen from you. Remember, Mark my life on fun. Fun removed a tomcat. I can't remember from where to the Naval Academy back. And then he and I were doing some work together and he said, Hey, Ponch, I got the strangest call from somebody on the West Coast to move a tomcat to the carrier.

00;53;04;15 - 00;53;22;25
Speaker 1
I'm like, What? And this is 2017, 2018. I think it's been 18 eight. Yeah. And I'm like, Why are they calling you? And he's like, Cause I just moved the Tomcat from some, you know, I can't remember where. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, ah, they put it out in the movie and he's like, What? Of course, you know, you have to explain things to fun over and over some other.

00;53;22;29 - 00;53;41;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. Been there, done that you know. Yeah. He's in the middle of the wires and things like that which was the front of the aircraft or the back of the aircraft. What a woman is, you know, all important discussion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry fun. By the way, I haven't seen you in a while. Fun. So give me a call this way.

00;53;41;23 - 00;54;03;10
Speaker 1
Anyway, so that's when I learned about it, the Tomcat being in there. And then what influence did you have on that or any, you know, so they came with a very rough plot with that. Basically, Eric Singh was fascinated by Bob Hoover. You know, Bob, the guy who stole a messerschmitt, I think it was, flew himself to freedom from World War Two.

00;54;03;10 - 00;54;22;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. But he used to fly Airshows too. Yeah. I'm not just him guy. This war too. There's. Okay, okay. Yeah. Hoover's his name. I think it's Bob Hoover. He. He was shot down. Egress in escape for egress for a few days. Saw a plane and stole a German plane. Biplane over to and flew it to safety. Yeah.

00;54;22;22 - 00;54;38;27
Speaker 1
So that was what drove that Tomcat thing. Yeah. They want to do a Bob Hoover it. Yeah. So that's what drove that then. Okay. Like that's why I was brought in this Tomcat guy. Can you explain how to turn on a offer? Well, so you you laugh about that. There's that was when I told them, well, okay, we're going to start a tomcat.

00;54;39;06 - 00;55;01;06
Speaker 1
You got to get this right. If you just put an APU in there, just magically start it, you're going to lose everybody. Yeah. So let me take you to the startup sequence. They're like, what? Yeah. Would you meet? You have to do these things because if you want credibility, because I guess I was brought in, they call it a Easter egg, where I'm the Easter egg guy, where someone like you sees a movie and they go, Oh, they talked to somebody because of X?

00;55;01;06 - 00;55;20;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, well the X was for this one was a startup. Yeah. You know, and that back in the back seat the circuit breakers. Yeah. So I talked to them and recently I had them, I had the, the rooster character getting a back and go, can there be any more circuit breakers back here? I had that initial line in there and they they replaced that with some other comments about circuit breakers.

00;55;20;11 - 00;55;35;25
Speaker 1
But they had started with nail. It was spot on. You might have to explain what a circuit breaker went through, but that was early on in. I tossed, you know, the the barricade was something I gave them. You know, they want to make it. They wanted to about drama and crescendo of building up, of anticipation and okay, I'm an American.

00;55;35;25 - 00;56;01;14
Speaker 1
What's that show? Yeah, some videos. Yeah. Oh, let's do that. And this is to work through various plot themes and just give them some ideas and then hearing some really ridiculous ideas and then calling, you know, a couple of times a couple of hills is going to die on. I'm like, No, if you was well, opening the screenplay, the original script had the opening scene of a Top Gun instructor in his underwear, playing the guitar in the locker room at Top Gun.

00;56;01;15 - 00;56;18;13
Speaker 1
I think I've seen Puck do that, you know, not want to see that. And I saw that. I started quivering. I'm like, we we can't do this. We got to stop the locker room scenes. So was this funny to to go from what their impression of naval aviation was, by the way, Eric Singer, Joe super well researched. They knew their stuff.

00;56;18;16 - 00;56;35;03
Speaker 1
They were tight. Just a couple of things. They're all about the drama. Yeah, I was about the reality and we had that negotiation regularly because Joe pulled me aside one time. He's like, Hey, Yank, I kept pushing back. No, no, you know, that would happen because he, like, appreciate your passion. But we can't have this the most accurate yet boring fighter pilot movie ever.

00;56;35;03 - 00;56;54;23
Speaker 1
We need drama to something, so let's just kind of pause on this for a second because, you know, we're getting excited about a movie, but there's a lot of lessons in here. Yeah, sure. They're listening to outside experts. Experts from within to right. And they're listening to potential customers. This is not going to work well with them. This customer said.

00;56;54;23 - 00;57;20;29
Speaker 1
Sure. I mean, and that's that's a great leadership quality to actually listen to folks that know those that are closest to the solutions and they're trying to please not the biggest customer base too. Yeah, they have 14 committee which is what how many people out there right now I think are still alive or not in jail, but but no, I think you think of the answer and the answer to a large portion that that final movie, which is, you know, they can't make it for 3 hours long.

00;57;21;06 - 00;57;37;20
Speaker 1
That start startup took a lot of time and they dedicated time to that. To do what? To please, let's say 50,000 of us out of the how many millions, billions people to watch. That's that's that's an important statement to get credibility, to build trust. And they knew that by word of mouth. They're going to ask us what we thought.

00;57;37;20 - 00;57;53;03
Speaker 1
And if we didn't get come back with thumbs up, then that movie going to suffer a little more, a little bit more than maybe you know or you know would suffer differently if it'd been like eight. But they had these back loops all the time, right. Yeah. Every time they did something that they, they solicited input from the customer or.

00;57;53;05 - 00;58;08;25
Speaker 1
Yeah. A stakeholder or something like you know, after me it was such slaughter. The Chaser and Ferg were there all along the way to kind of Hollywood had their drama moment. We would step in and be like, Oh, can we try this? What do you what do you what's your end state? Be trying to accomplish it? We want to make maverick look.

00;58;08;25 - 00;58;27;10
Speaker 1
We want to have Maverick save Bruce's life. Okay? The jump in front of the like that was hard to do, but he has to save his life. Okay, how about this? Oh, okay. And then it works. It was a good discussion. Yeah, that's awesome. And they're receptive. That's the key. Yeah, they listen. And yes, I think they have a great product.

00;58;27;15 - 00;58;44;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's entertaining. And because they could have done none of the stuff we offered and they sort of made a lot of money. Yeah, they would have made Iron Eagle, right? Right. But that would've made money. But we, they listen to the two, one of their key influences, I guess you'd call us and we were able to get it to a point where us who know the business can.

00;58;44;05 - 00;58;59;11
Speaker 1
These are like murder boards or red teams that you had going on the whole time. Yes. You Ferg and you said Sarge. Yeah, we went yet sequentially. We all went through together. I was first Sarge. Quickly, did you get a chance to talk to each other about this first or is independent? Jason I turned over about a month and then we talked.

00;58;59;16 - 00;59;17;07
Speaker 1
I talked to him where he was based. I was the screenplay guy. He was a screenplay to filming guy. Yeah. And third was the filming hardcore, just making it happen and keeping the shots and working. So he was the guy that tend to close the deal. What's interesting about that is we use the Navy model there, which is you're not going to be on this forever.

00;59;17;07 - 00;59;42;00
Speaker 1
This is a two year gig. Or were you on it? Yeah, it was I was on it for nine months. Okay. Yeah. So we would turn over these roles and instability and it worked because we knew that we knew the mission, knew what we had do. It didn't matter who was in that position, we would know that got the job was to make the movie good and make naval aviation look respectable and proud and shown the spirit and excitement and reward of naval aviation.

00;59;42;00 - 00;59;56;29
Speaker 1
So we didn't need to turn over that. We all knew that going in without even any kind of a brief. No, no. Okay. So more about the movie. The flying scenes are great. I it's still going back to 1986 when we watched the movie Top Gun. And yeah, you know, it's asking in and it was no GS or anything like that.

00;59;56;29 - 01;00;14;24
Speaker 1
You know, my wife, when she saw it, she's like, Is that what you look like in the gentleman? I don't know. I didn't have a period last year. I'm sure I did. Yeah. All this fat flopping around. Oh, I just had a nasty picture for some of the folks we fly with. What's a go? Okay. Yeah, so? So the flying scenes are great.

01;00;14;24 - 01;00;34;10
Speaker 1
You know, we knew a lot of people that worked on the movie. Yes. It's it is. I don't know what type of impact this new Top Gun maverick has on today's, you know, upcoming generation or anything like that. But yeah, for us old, old guys, it's a good swansong. It's a good way to go. Yeah. We were part of something pretty damn cool.

01;00;34;12 - 01;00;57;01
Speaker 1
Wholly. I'm here in the recruiting rush. That start that occurred back in 86. We've not seen that. Yeah, I don't think we go together. Yeah. So that may be interesting as to why that is. I think there's a lot of external advance and issues as to why that is. Right. I mean, it's you got technology, you've got, you know, right now the military is no longer has the trust that it used to have.

01;00;57;01 - 01;01;18;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Still very trustful. Yes, there were it was not number one like it was years, years ago. Agreed. Yeah. I mean there's a lot of forces that, you know, that are acting upon people and at 25, 25% of population can be served in the military. Out of the demographic 19 to 25, only 25% of that is eligible for military service.

01;01;18;16 - 01;01;36;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. And who else is vying for that? Corporate America. Yeah, yeah, they want them to. They want their high school educated, mentally healthy, not on drugs and just and physically fit. Is that too much to ask for? I don't know. Apparently you. Yeah. And I'm sure the number that was that numbers from ten years ago, I'm sure has gone down.

01;01;36;14 - 01;01;52;20
Speaker 1
I'm sure there's even a lower number now with just, you know, just the way that our society is definitely, you know, as physically fit and just more challenged with mental health issues, it seems like. Yeah, that's whole nother podcast. I mean, we talk about mental health quite a bit and you know, there's a lot of aviators that I'll tell you right now.

01;01;52;20 - 01;02;18;24
Speaker 1
I know some. I'm not going to say, I guess I don't want to classify a lot of PTSD in the community from from many, many years of combat. I mean, there's for many reasons, right? Yeah. TBI from not necessarily plunges but some things that happen in aircraft with the like go Boggs and oh yeah p p things yeah I mean it's you know our bodies are pretty beat up from I don't know mind is a little beat up.

01;02;19;05 - 01;02;40;20
Speaker 1
Yeah I used to be taller and you have hair you sit in the org man radar cone. That didn't help either. By the way, do you have girls or boys? So three kids. Girl was born when I was in deployment. Second Dash was a girl I transitioned to. Super Hornets had a boy. Okay, so why am I asking that question?

01;02;40;20 - 01;02;59;26
Speaker 1
Why would I ask that question? Oh, because. Yeah, the remember was Tomcat pilots. Because of that nine, we sent the most powerful radar in the US inventory. You said in that radar sector and they supposedly force you to have girls. I have two girls. Okay. So it's really. Yeah, I do. Yeah, that's true. For a boy. I'm like, well, I'm fly sports.

01;02;59;26 - 01;03;26;28
Speaker 1
Go figure. Yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, yeah. All right. Hey, what else can we talk about today? What else? Any questions do you have, me or what the podcast is about? How can people get in touch with you? I'm curious. Transitioning, you know, from the military to the corporate America I'm trying to get I'm working my way into to sharing stories of of leadership with corporate America through keynote events and ideally get into some consulting to kind of share ideas.

01;03;27;14 - 01;03;52;07
Speaker 1
I think it's very some of the principles we discuss are very simple to understand. It's a matter of execution. That's the challenge. So have you found that where you have principles that are there, why is it so hard for you? We talked earlier about this for folks to get it to execute efficiently and effectively, many reasons. So that's one of the reasons we put this together to really understand some of the ideas that John Boyd gave us and pulled from.

01;03;52;07 - 01;04;16;25
Speaker 1
So let's let's unpack this a little bit. Flight decks of aircraft carriers, aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, things like that. Higher reliability theory, right. Five principles, pretty basic mass observation, meaning that these are not pseudoscience approaches. These are how these organizations that operate at the edge are agile, resilient, innovative. How do they do that? Yeah, so we get that from the US Navy, quite a bit of that.

01;04;17;06 - 01;04;33;23
Speaker 1
Our nuke navy and our flight deck and fighter aviation as well and the special operators, I just want to bring them in on this as well. So that's one number two crew resource management. It was kind of a joke to us when we were going through it. You never like you want me to learn about his name and how to communicate with them.

01;04;33;23 - 01;04;50;24
Speaker 1
Let me know I have a problem and give them a solution and pass back to them, see what they think about it or, you know, how do we how do we hand off the aircraft when we're flying it, you know, your aircraft after that type of thing, if some basic things. Right. That we kind of took for granted.

01;04;51;13 - 01;05;08;17
Speaker 1
Right now, curry sauce management is you know, people know it as human factors. It is the foundation of what is known as team science, right? So team science, yeah, it's pretty cool. So when you think about team science, we lived it, right? We were a great experiment that went well. It's pretty powerful in the U.S. military we have operational risk management.

01;05;08;19 - 01;05;37;07
Speaker 1
We understand risk in the complicated domain. And what I mean by that is when we know the relationship between cause and effect, we can really identify risks. You know, that's why we have checklists. That's why we do a lot of things, identify risk and put a value to them. Sometimes the other side of risk is there's there's risk in areas which we don't know the relationship between cause and effect and the value to that or the value we add to that is distributed leadership and distributed sense making.

01;05;37;07 - 01;05;57;21
Speaker 1
We listen to our people, right? You have to in the communities that you and I came from. So just those couple of points alone are going to help organizations understand how to be more resilient, be more innovative and innovative and be more agile. And then we start getting into like John Boy Do Loop. I know you didn't go to Idlib school.

01;05;57;21 - 01;06;23;13
Speaker 1
I didn't go to YouTube school. They don't sit down and go, Here's John boy, do a loop. You all need to know this. It's not like that. Sure. And in fact, you can see a lot of aviators, kids John boy due to loop wrong. Right. And that's that's one of the things we're really highlighting to folks about, you know, the neuroscience behind it, the physics behind it, quantum quantum physics, psychology, sociology, all these awesome things that are behind it that enforcement culture called the mission command.

01;06;23;17 - 01;06;45;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. So there's a lot we can pull from in there. Now, when you look at what a lot of organizations are doing with OODA Loop thinking, you think about Scrum. Scrum comes from John Boyd. Do a loop, the lean startup. You get a lot of big data things, cyber security, you get information warfare, cognitive warfare, maneuver warfare, fourth generation warfare.

01;06;45;08 - 01;07;06;25
Speaker 1
You get into all of these things that are happening all around us, you and I and a lot of our friends who we flew with know these things. We don't know them to the point where we can go, This is how you do it. Because there's something known as cognitive task analysis when when you're subject matter expert in something, it doesn't mean you know how to coach you to somebody breathing.

01;07;06;27 - 01;07;36;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, right. We're just we're doing and then then we get thrown into corporate America and we assume that all the lessons that we learned. Yeah. Are only contextual, that they only apply to high risk environments. And that's not true. It's, it's the, the features that we learned that we can apply to organizations. Yeah. The leadership principles, mission command, the things that we were taught at JPM, JP to the, you know, you got a physics background, you got a education background all these things can be applied to organizations.

01;07;38;06 - 01;08;00;03
Speaker 1
And in you look at some of the hours of leadership moments that we have just the hours in them, you know, like, like a four hour window or a two hour brief or a mission that went right or wrong. We have a lot of leader. The leadership experience from those little moments. Right. But we have multiple, you know, experiences like that.

01;08;00;09 - 01;08;16;23
Speaker 1
And then, you know, when you get to lead an aircraft carrier and become an officer, an aircraft carrier, that's a lot different than, you know, being a commanding officer of or what what's your Air Force got a flight lead or a you know, where they get to lead? Seven people. Oh, yeah. They're all commanders or chiefs or whatever.

01;08;16;23 - 01;08;36;11
Speaker 1
And in fighter pilots do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different world. Right. So there's a, there's a lot of opportunity to help a squadron leader squadron. Yeah. I think, I think it's what's called. Yeah. Yeah. Which is some like things like ten people I know nothing wrong with it, but on scale, you know, we were doing that as Joes that, you know, 20 GS, right?

01;08;36;11 - 01;08;59;20
Speaker 1
You're absolutely. So it's built into our our DNA. So there's a lot of opportunity to help corporate America in this. And it's just how do you tease out these lessons, share these principles, and more importantly, how do you keep how do you help organizations sustain it and scale it? Right. Yep. And that's what we're you know, that's why we're working on the podcast and getting this out there as we have so much to offer.

01;09;00;06 - 01;09;19;00
Speaker 1
The power of stories. Yeah, yeah. Story to have a story is meaningful that is unique for an experience. We had the Navy and then how that's applicable to corporate America. Folks look much like I tied in nuclear power and these nuclear train sailors battery aviation they love that. Similarly, yeah, this is experience I had on the Ford or Flynn Flying Fighters.

01;09;19;10 - 01;09;35;12
Speaker 1
Here's the exact same scenario just now replicated by what you're doing at this company, this corporation. And there's tie ins and folks to go and finding out what people know like sports and making the connection to that and saying, hey, this is, you know, you may not have the experience that we had in fighter aviation in or what we had in the Navy.

01;09;35;12 - 01;09;55;06
Speaker 1
But it's similar in football, it's similar in soccer, it's similar in basketball. I mean, your kids play basketball. My kids play basketball, yeah. It's a great way to talk about flow system, physics, geometry, leadership, everything, communication, all that. Yeah. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of opportunity out there to to do that. Okay. So we're going to wrap up here in a few minutes.

01;09;55;06 - 01;10;18;22
Speaker 1
We're going to go do something pretty unique here. Once we leave here, we're going to go hang out with, you know, not not here. Yeah, no. And this is very important, too. So there's team building and there's team development intervention. Team development intervention is plan brief execute debrief. That's execution of work at in the workplace. Yep there's something a little bit more I'm not say it's more important but it's a great place to go learn and that's outside the work environment.

01;10;18;22 - 01;10;36;03
Speaker 1
Right. And that's kind of what we're going to do tonight. And I think you invited some other many folks that are my phone that I could. Yeah. Highlight. Yeah. And and this is just a carryover from the tradition of going to the Oak Club on a Friday night. Yeah. It's also, you know, the group we're about to go meet with is it's been around for years here, but it was kind of steel.

01;10;36;08 - 01;10;57;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a lot of you walk in there, a lot of very mature gentlemen there that are not. RH So this is our chance to pass it on to the next generation. So we'll get a younger set in there, all tail hookers and then now we'll pull in some younger folks and we kind of get that going. That's the esprit de corps camaraderie bit that we lived and learned about in our first fighter squadron, every squadron since.

01;10;57;26 - 01;11;12;26
Speaker 1
So just to do that, now we're in civilian clothes being retired and doing that. So I'm excited to kind of see some folks and see in a while. Yeah. And of course we'll all flashback. We'll think we're back in the mid nineties again talking about being a cat one flying. No, no, we misremember past so we're going to embellish some stories.

01;11;14;06 - 01;11;33;03
Speaker 1
Maybe there will be tell some stories. Oh yeah, we do. Although I've got some stories we can talk about. We're not going talk about here another another PG or even R rated podcast from the folks we saw out there. But no, it's going to great to see folks that are that know now we're instantly close serving our nation.

01;11;33;03 - 01;11;48;13
Speaker 1
Another former fashion and corporate America and then but sharing stories and and getting to see folks who we really enjoy, who spend a lot of time with and some really tough conditions at sea in combat and then hang around Oceana. Great to see that. Yeah. Is Norm going to be there, do you know? I think so, yeah. So you want to talk about normal year?

01;11;48;15 - 01;12;24;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. The blue eyed advisors. Yeah. So you got a phone call. When I found out of retiring last year, called around. Look how long transition and blue water advisors popped up and Norm Wallace, former fighter, real F-14 Super Hornet Air Wing commander and then chief of staff of Air Lance Air Force Atlantic. So our organization where he takes people like us and gives a day training and had a strategic thinking about your life job search job planning resume LinkedIn social job negotiation etc. to prepare you for life after the military.

01;12;24;09 - 01;12;42;25
Speaker 1
And he's bringing in folks, you know 16 at a time once a month and developing that network of folks us that can help we can learn from each other and help each other be successful in corporate America. So Blue Water Advisors Fantastic went to the class last about a year ago actually. And I'm still some of the principles I learned from that talk about showing your care.

01;12;43;01 - 01;13;01;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. Normals. Yeah. Textbook and no kidding. My company that hired me called me on a Friday night. See? How much money do you want for a salary like. Well, works like this. We expect an email, so I call them on a Friday after Friday night. He's like, All right. So he took me through. There was Norm, picked his phone up, show me care.

01;13;01;10 - 01;13;17;27
Speaker 1
Yeah. And he helped me work through the process and get a that salary that I was comfortable with, courtesy of him picking the phone up and actually taking the time out of out of his life to help me. So that's a really great showing. You care. That's an action, not words. It is. Yeah. And speaking of action, how can our listeners get in touch with you?

01;13;17;27 - 01;13;33;22
Speaker 1
They want to bring you in for a keynote. Yeah. From Lessons Offer Up Keynote, working on some interactive seminars for groups to kind of learn some the principles we discussed here. I'm on LinkedIn. JJ working on a landing page here and she come up here in the next week or two and then, Hey, let me throw this at you.

01;13;33;22 - 01;13;54;02
Speaker 1
If somebody wants to bring you into digital action, you want to come in to do a couple day training with us, you know, and kind a great idea for that. Absolutely. We could do that. I can turn that on or off at any chance to kind of share the stories that I have that we have, you know, I think powerful and well, I, I can't guarantee it, but I know that the few that I've done, folks have contacted me months later.

01;13;54;15 - 01;14;13;29
Speaker 1
I'm and still see a few of these show me care that sticks. And it's all about what sticks. Yeah. You know, and I have, I think, unique stories that kind of I won't share it here. Kismet, my secret sauce. But I've a really powerful story about a commanding officer that sacrificed his career to save two young lieutenants because he showed action and didn't just give words.

01;14;14;06 - 01;14;30;17
Speaker 1
So in how we did that. So it's a really neat story, that kind bookends the presentation. But you will remember how that that story, when you hear it and you will never forget about Show Me Care, that's awesome. At LinkedIn you said yeah landing page and working it right now come up in a few weeks but JJ Cummings J period.

01;14;30;17 - 01;14;48;28
Speaker 1
J period I guess is a JJ without periods out there, but the one guy that has Top Gun Maverick and is the aircraft carrier CEO on the LinkedIn, so you'll see. So I'm connected to is no wonder I don't hear anything me to respond to my LinkedIn post you jerk because you get the wrong guy. Awesome man. This is believable.

01;14;49;05 - 01;15;06;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, dude, thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate what you're doing to kind of share stories to corporations. And it's all about, I think, making leaders better, which makes people's lives better. So, well, we had influence. The Navy making sailors lives better. Now we can have civilian lives improved because of good leadership at the front of C-suite or middle management.

01;15;06;10 - 01;15;15;22
Speaker 1
So that's important thing that we can wrap our arms around in attack. Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Well Thank you very much for being our guest on No Way Out. My pleasure. We'll talk. We'll see you at the pseudo club.


Leading in Conditions of Uncertainty
Principles: Setting the Tone
Building Exceptional Teams
Actions, Not Words: Show Them You Care
Nuclear Navy. Regular Navy. Fighter Aviation.
Value (Kill) Chain Thinking: The Why Behind the What
Turn The Aircraft Carrier Around
1MC Thinking: Communicating the Mission, Reducing Uncertainty
You Are Never Mission-less
Go to The Gemba…Unannounced
The Big Fighter (F-14) High-Performance Culture
Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief (PBED): Focus on the “D”
The Recall Matters (What Happened)
At a Profit, If We Can; At a Loss, If We Must…
Systems Drive Behaviors
“Top Gun: Maverick” Started on “Yank’s” Couch
Leadership Lessons from the Making of “Top Gun: Maverick”
Leadership Lessons from the U.S. Navy
Team Building Outside of Work
Blue Water Advisors
How to Connect with "Yank"