May 27, 2025 • 40 mins
Looking for fresh insights on leadership and workplace culture? In this episode, leadership experts Dennis Mellen and Louie Sharp break down the keys to high-performance teams and positive workplace cultures. From the transformational impact of servant leadership to the four C’s—communicate, connect, commit, and care—they share actionable strategies to elevate your leadership effectiveness.
💡 Visit fullthrottleleadership.com for a free Elite Performance Blueprint. 💡
Louie’s Leadership & Love Nugs (podcast time stamps)
🔹 Leadership sets the tone for workplace culture (0:07) 🔹 Leaders can use the four C’s—communicate, connect, commit, and care—as a framework for meaningful conversations. (4:43)
🔹 Team collaboration is strengthened when all voices are heard and valued. (12:14)
🔹 Culture building requires continuously fostering environments where open communication is encouraged and expected. (17:15)
#LeadershipCulture #ServantLeadership #TeamPerformance #OrganizationalCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #Culture Change #EmployeeEngagement #DennisMellen #LeadershipandLove #thegiftedleader #LouieSharp #Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's the first thing you would recommend for people
(00:02):
listening about how to start to shift or change a culture?
Become the servant leader that is the giver.
Culture is driven by leadership.
Who are you busy being as a leader?
You have to have a map, and that's the start,
is being able to communicate, connect,
and get the commitment and the caring within your team.
(00:24):
There's this synergism that happens when you become a team.
In a culture where you connect the dots, but as the leader,
you have to be in the game.
You have to be getting the experience.
Culture is the single most important thing that drives
performance.
Welcome to the Leadership and Love podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
(00:45):
and sales and marketing.
You'll experience thought-provoking conversations with both
nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
(01:06):
with love.
Welcome back, everybody,
to this week's episode of Leadership and Love.
I'm your host, Louie Sharp, and this week,
my guest is a dear friend and a very funny man,
Dennis Mellen.
Dennis Mullen and I met at a networking event and an
organization called Engaging Speakers.
(01:26):
And we found out pretty quick that he had spent time in the
Air Force, and I had spent time in the Marines.
And so we've been making fun of each other ever since.
Dennis was obviously in the Air Force as a pilot.
He flew cargo planes,
and then he also ended up as a commercial airline pilot,
much like one of the guests we had a couple weeks ago.
So, Dennis, welcome.
(01:48):
And if you'd like to add anything to your introduction,
please feel free to tell us a little bit more about
yourself.
Yeah, I actually was a cargo plane, but it was a tanker.
KC-10 is what I spent most of my career in the Air Force.
I retired in 1996 there.
And at the same time,
I was working as the fleet captain at Alaska Airlines for
(02:10):
the MD80 fleet at the time.
So I've got a pretty good background in leadership,
at least stumbling through,
and I can pass on some anecdotes and things I learned from
the University of Hard Knox.
Not the most brilliant or sharpest tool in the toolbox,
but a lot of experience, just like you've had.
(02:34):
Right.
Well, if you are the sharpest tool in the toolbox,
you'd have been in the Marines, not the Air Force.
So one of the things that I'd like to share with the
audience is,
and you'll see that kind of humor go on the rest of this
conversation.
But, Dennis is now a leadership speaker and coach.
And one of the things he specializes in is culture.
(02:54):
So, Dennis, the first thing I'd like to ask today is,
if you could share with the audience, what's....and,
and I think that's important because culture runs both in
companies and organizations as well as families.
What's the first thing you would recommend for people
listening about how to start to shift or change a culture?
(03:15):
Well,
leaders are the single biggest influencers to culture and
performance.
So if you can turn yourself or not necessarily turn
yourself but become the servant leader that is the giver. W
hat is it you need to be successful today should be almost
a standard question that you ask of every employee or every
(03:36):
team member.
We've all seen this.
We saw it in the World Series this last year.
The Dodgers had gone through a team culture metamorphosis
using John Gordon principles which I'm a certified trainer
with.
And the New York Yankees had all these stars. And the star
(03:59):
performers, unless they come together as a team,
will never equate to what a rock solid team can do and what
they can accomplish.
And both you and I have seen that both in the Marines and
the Air Force.
The camaraderie, the esprit de corps,
the willingness to go that extra step to create that
environment where you become more than what you appear on
(04:24):
paper to be.
Yeah, and so there's two, I call them golden nuggets,
Dennis, that you dropped.
One of them I want the audience to catch is that culture is
driven by leadership.
I'll repeat that because this is the gold mine right here.
Culture is driven by leadership.
The other thing that Dennis spoke about is who are you busy
(04:48):
being as a leader?
So Dennis, I'd like to dive a little deeper into that.
So when you go into an organization or a company,
and they're struggling in culture,
what do you do for your coaching or your wisdom and advice
on how to understand where somebody is right now and start
(05:11):
to get them to change their mindset around leadership on
who they want to be to grow that culture?
You know, that's a, that's a really great question, Louie.
And it's, it starts with, uh, well, I like to tell a story.
Like if you and I were getting ready to, to, uh,
drive down to Disney World together, we could go through,
uh, uh, Memphis. We could go through Nashville.
(05:33):
We could go through Knoxville.
We could pick any direction to go, uh,
to a Disney World with the ultimate goal of being
Disney World. But just like when we're driving, uh,
at night, your headlights only cover 200 feet.
Uh,
you have to take care of that 200 feet and then the next
200 feet,
the next 200 feet till you finally get to your goal.
(05:54):
Now,
the way to develop that is you've got to create that environment
within your team where those,
I like to call them those positive, purposeful,
and productive conversations are routine.
So I map them out, uh, a route for them using the four C's.
You got to start with being able to communicate with your
(06:16):
team, open communications,
you have to be able to make a connection there,
and that's when you start getting that commitment and
caring within your team.
And that's basically the roadmap of how, of,
of what you need to do.
Now, how you accomplish that involves a lot more, uh,
details and a lot more coaching,
but at least that's the map.
(06:36):
And if we're starting out to go to Disney World as our
goal...as our goal. You have to have a map and that's the
start, is being able to communicate, uh,
connect and get the commitment and the caring within your
team.
So who do they need to be, Dennis,
as a leader to implement and apply your four Cs?
(06:59):
Who do they need to be busy being in that role?
Well, I think it starts with a commitment to being a giver,
being that servant leader that is there for not to solve
every single problem,
but to get that energy from the....Let's say you have 10
(07:21):
employees,
10 people on your team. Being able to get the everything
from the extrovert to the introvert to commit to the goal
or the key performance indicators,
or the ultimate goal that you're trying to achieve,
whatever your business is.
(07:41):
And it can start easily start with creating a mission
statement, something, this is where we're going,
we're going to Disney World,
and we're going to bring ever as many people as we can,
creating a vision,
also the individual goals that you develop,
and then having a set of principles that are
(08:02):
uncompromised.
And as we travel down this road,
it's easy to get distracted.
Oh,
here's a place in Nashville to go see country music or something.
But we have to keep in mind,
our goal is to reach Disney World,
and to be entertained down at Disney World,
whatever your your ultimate mission is,
(08:22):
you have to keep that in the forefront.
With every decision, with every meeting,
with every commitment that you make to that,
you're committed to reaching that, that ultimate goal,
your mission.
So I'd like to, again,
(08:44):
Dennis is dropping a couple of golden nuggets here,
but again, it's the servant leader.
I'll bring this book up again because I think it's worth
the read.
It's called 11 Rings by Phil Jackson.
And in that, I've said this and shared this before,
in that book, when he was coaching the Chicago Bulls,
every year he would buy a book for the members of his team.
(09:07):
And he didn't buy them all the same book.
He knew each one of them well enough individually to buy
them books that was something they were interested in.
I'd also like to reiterate something that Dennis said that
it's very powerful.
Vision, mission, he calls them principles.
I call them core values.
What are the core values that you're operating on?
(09:27):
You need to know that.
Your mission, how do you do what you do on a regular basis?
And is the team tied to this vision of where you want to go
at the end of the day?
Dennis,
when you go into an organization and they're lacking these
things, any one of the three, their principles,
mission statement, or a vision statement,
(09:49):
what are your suggestions to our listeners on how to create
those and find them tied to their purpose and love for what
they're doing to start helping get that message to the
team, to communicate that to the team.
Well, let me back up because it's easier to remember.
I call it my MVP program. You know, in sports,
(10:12):
it's always referred to as most valuable player,
but in a team, it's your mission,
your vision and your principles.
And it can't be something that comes from the leader.
It has to be something that you sit down with the entire
group.
Here's the product.
Here's the service that we provide.
What is our mission?
(10:32):
You know,
Campbell's Soup might have been to provide nourishment to
people worldwide on a daily basis.
That's kind of a paraphrase of what Doug Conant used to
repeat.
And by allowing not all the employees,
but some of them to come in and develop this mission,
(10:54):
vision and principles,
you get a connection with those that are participating.
And it's like, well, you and I have talked about it before.
It's like being that tiny coffee bean that jumps into that
rolling boiling pot of water that is business and starts
spreading their influence.
So by bringing these employees in to create this mission,
(11:18):
vision, and principles,
you're creating coffee beans to go back into the business
and start spreading their influence with the ultimate goal
of creating that gourmet coffee state where you feel like I
get to go to work instead of I have to go to work.
And imagine how inspiring that is,
how much more work you're gonna get out of somebody over
(11:40):
and above somebody that's just showing up and collecting a
paycheck.
When they're committed to the mission, vision,
and principles,
they see where their goals tie in with the company's goals,
and they're more inspired....And if they can't do that,
that's when we either need to coach them up or we need to
let them go because there's this synergism that happens
(12:06):
when you become a team,
and you're all working towards the same,
in the same direction, same goal.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I've experienced it on both sides.
Again, for our listeners,
Dennis touched on something that's very, very powerful.
And I learned this from a mentor of mine years ago at this
point.
And he used to say all the time, do it with them,
(12:27):
not to them.
So if you're a leader listening to this,
I would ask yourself to do some self reflection.
People that you're leading, are you doing it to them?
Or are you doing it with them?
Because Dennis just gave you some wisdom that you really
want to apply for the rest of your life as a leader. You
want to bring them in and get their input.
(12:49):
Dennis,
when leaders are struggling to find clarity around that,
or their team is struggling around the clarity around the
mission, vision, and principles,
what are your tools that you use to give them guidance to
kind of get clarity on why it's important and what's
important?
Well,
I think it's important to really get offsite as a group,
(13:12):
get away from the work area, have a workshop,
even if it's within your own team,
but it's better to have a mentor there with some guidance
to try and develop this mission, vision,
and principles that will drive your team.
If you can get away from the workspace,
(13:34):
people are more apt to open up, and the ideas flow better.
And if you're...
if you're offsite coaching a group, o
ftentimes I find I learn more myself from listening to all
the inputs that occur, then I think the participants get.
(13:55):
I've used a lot of the things that I've learned in some of
these workshops to use...
to coach leaders on some of the experiences that other
people have had. There's nothing that replaces...
You can study books you can study, go,
go to school on it get degrees.
(14:16):
But until you actually experience using the tools,
or can sit down and talk with somebody that's been through
those experiences, you don't get the full effect.
It's like, we, we, we talk about leaders coming in, Oh,
(14:37):
I've got an MBA, I've got a PhD,
but maybe they don't have the years of experience that you
do in the Marines or that I have with some of the
experiences I've had.
Bringing that those experiences into a group allows you to
get the different perspectives, the different experiences,
(14:59):
without actually having to go through them yourself.
Yeah, that's very powerful.
And again,
I want the audience to catch what Dennis is sharing here.
And that is, is that you've got to get in the game, right?
You can't sit on the sidelines.
And I just had this conversation recently, Dennis, with
somebody about music.
(15:20):
And we were talking about it.
And I told them, you know,
you can sit at home and practice an instrument until you're
blue in the face.
But until you get out and play music with other people,
you don't have that experience of what it's like to be in a
band and be connected to that band.
And that's exactly what you're talking about in a culture
where you connect the dots.
(15:42):
But as the leader, you have to be in the game,
you have to be getting the experience.
And I love that Dennis touched on something else.
I think that regardless of who you are,
and Dennis is a leader of leaders, he's always learning.
And he's learning from people that aren't necessarily the
head of the organization,
but they've got wisdom and insight,
(16:02):
because they see that thing from a specific perspective,
that you might not necessarily catch as the leader of the
organization in the day-to-day operations.
Dennis, that leads me to my next question.
How would you suggest leaders can gather and keep this
information?
Because it's one thing to have this meeting.
Now I want to stress what else Dennis said.
(16:23):
Dennis said, get out of the environment.
I agree with that very powerful to get them out of the
environment.
Having these workshops, having these mentors,
having these coaches, it's not a one and done thing.
You know, just because, oh,
I went to a leadership workshop last week,
I've got all this new information.
Go out...
the importance of going out and putting it into place,
(16:47):
making the change, you know,
it's really hard to make a change. Making the change in
your personality, the way you approach things,
the way you adapt.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And I think that it's an ongoing thing.
And Zig Ziglar used to say this all the time, right?
He said that there's a reason why we bathe every day,
much like motivation.
(17:07):
There's a reason why we want to do something that's going
to motivate us every day,
because it doesn't stick just like bathing.
You're going to get dirty.
You have to do it again.
So Dennis's point that I want everybody to catch is that
simple fact that you can't have a team meeting once and not
ever do anything again.
You can't bring somebody in to coach the culture and think
a one-time shot is going to fix it,
(17:28):
because it really needs to be repeated until it becomes the
habit and the culture of the organization.
The other thing that Dennis touched on there is you want to
continue to go back on a regular basis.
And his first C is communication, and communicate that,
I heard you.
It's really important for them to be heard.
And also that you might not have accomplished or completed
(17:51):
what they were wanting,
but you're still working on it and headed in that
direction.
Dennis,
what's the biggest thing that you see for the biggest
challenge companies have around culture?
It goes to...
I think it's a Stephen Covey story where he's walking out
in a forest,
(18:12):
and he comes upon a gentleman that's chopping down a tree.
He says, Hey there, what you doing?
He says, well, I'm chopping this tree down.
How's it going?
Oh, I've been at it for about three hours.
Have you thought about sharpening your axe?
I haven't got time to sharpen my axe.
Well, same thing with leadership.
(18:35):
Almost 100% people buy into, oh,
I need some leadership training.
But finding the time to do it,
finding that time to sharpen the axe,
they haven't got time because it doesn't show up on a
financial statement.
It doesn't show up on your key performance indicators.
(18:56):
Oh, our leadership is an eight,
and we're moving towards a nine.
It's not easily measurable, but over a period of time,
periodically updating, having your seminars,
having your lunch and learns, having your workshops,
you start developing that culture where you have those open
(19:16):
communications, where, like I mentioned before,
those positive, purposeful,
and productive conversations without fear of retribution or
shame. Where you get the introverts to speak out.
It's easy.
There's usually one or two people that dominate meetings.
(19:37):
Neither one of us will be described as shy, but let's say, H
ey, Louie, what's your input on this today?
What are you thinking?
Or how would you handle this differently?
Or what have you seen?
Drawing out the introverted Louie's and the introverted
Dennis's is so important to creating that culture where no
(20:02):
matter what's thrown at us,
we're going to do what we can to alter change or affect the
outcome.
So, so Dennis just hit that...boy...
That's you're hitting this baby out of the park.
You hear what he just said?
We're doing what we can to change and affect the outcome.
And one of the things that I think is critical here that
Dennis is talking about is that in that engagement,
(20:25):
you want everybody to speak.
I just recently read, I might've read it or heard it about,
I think I heard it from Simon Sinek, who said,
you should speak last, right?
And then that way the room has....
it has the space to be heard.
One of the things that I think is interesting is that in
these cultures, it's often challenging.
(20:47):
I'd like you to talk about the effect of one negative
person in an organization and what's your advice in
coaching to a leader who's struggling with that one chuckle
head, who's, and you know, like I know,
that one chuckle head can drag the whole team down.
Yeah, we referred to those as energy vampires, you know,
(21:10):
the ones that walk into a meeting and just suck the energy
out of that meeting.
Well, you've got to be able to coach them up.
You've got to be able to create that environment where,
yeah, his or her input is important,
but it can't be just a complaint.
If you're gonna complain, you better have a solution to it.
(21:33):
Here's what we should do to fix this.
Otherwise,
we're just mindless complaining is what's happened.
It's just, if we have that kind of environment,
nothing's gonna get done.
Oh, we tried that before that didn't work.
That will never work.
That's a dumb idea.
(21:53):
That's suppressing ideas.
That's sucking the energy out of the discussion.
As leaders, well, as businesses really,
events are coming at us all the time.
There's nothing we could do.
COVID comes, late suppliers, absenteeism.
These problems are constantly coming at us.
(22:15):
And whatever we do,
whether we do nothing or whether we do something,
there's still gonna be an outcome.
So our jobs as leaders is when that event comes,
what's our positive reaction?
What are we gonna do to alter change or affect that
outcome?
And we may not be able to do anything,
but we have to try to do something.
(22:37):
It may be,
we may be overcome by events and the outcome is predetermined,
but we're gonna do everything we can to alter change or
affect that outcome.
And we need the input of every team member on that.
That's important.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And so Dennis just touched on something else.
(22:58):
Everybody's input matters.
One of the things that I would suggest to the audience and
I've experienced,
practiced this and experienced it is get a flip chart or a
whiteboard.
And if somebody has an idea, you simply write it down.
And then you just ask for the next idea.
You let them flow with those ideas because at that point,
Dennis, you're right.
They're being heard,
(23:18):
and they're gonna speak up more and then you put all of
them on one place and then you can take a look at it and
say, Okay, if we could have impact,
which one would we do first?
When you go into organizations and I know you travel across
the country and you speak and coach on leadership,
when you go into an organization,
(23:40):
what's one of the things that you do to assess the culture
so you can help them decide what the next steps are to help
effect the change in that.
That's that's an interesting thing.
A lot of times I think the average coach goes in and go.
Oh, I have all these ideas.
Let's try this Let's try that. The first thing to do is go
(24:01):
on and see how how the meetings are run,
you know. How do the meetings run?
How often do they have meetings?
Are they needless meeting?
How does a meeting...
how's it conducted? Is everything...is the agenda entirely
controlled by the leader of the group?
Are there individuals that are dominating it?
You know, you start kind of getting a feel.
(24:21):
It's almost like a report card for the way they're running
their business right now That's what culture is all about
the way we do things on a daily basis,
the way we interact with each other. It can be one of
those awful ones where aha Louie I caught you making a
mistake, don't do that and start punishing right away. Or,
it can be one where Louie that one's not working out.
(24:45):
That's one way that doesn't work.
It's a Thomas Edison thing, you know,
the light bulb it was asked.
Hey, how many times did you fail on your experiments?
He said, I didn't fail.
I tried 10,000 ways that didn't work, you know.
Instead of punishing the input...
(25:05):
if somebody's doing something intentional,
if somebody's an energy vampire and you can't convert
them, yes,
that's when we start easing them out or firing them. But, y
ou can coach a person to inspire them to participate in
these discussions and that their input is valuable.
(25:26):
Because you may miss out on an opportunity or an option to
alter, change,
or affect the outcome of something. There's no point in
business where we say oh, we've got everything handled, y
ou know. Nothing's gonna change.
(25:47):
Well, I wouldn't even say bookstores.
I'm sure there's dynamic things happen in in bookstores,
too,
but I but in a dynamic environment like like in a Marine
squadron or on Alaska Airlines,
things are happening on a daily basis.
How do you create that environment where we're working
(26:09):
together on this. We're trying to get things better,
trying to reach that mission statement, vision that we have.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I think again, for those of you listening,
Dennis touched on something very important,
and he didn't use the word,
but I'm going to use the word here.
And that's the process, right?
(26:29):
If something's not working, and you fail,
then you go back and change your process.
And one of the things I share with people, Dennis,
is that they're only going to have two challenges,
one of two challenges,
either a people challenge or a process challenge, right?
And so if we're doing something and it's failing,
then if I know I've got somebody that's on my team,
then I'm going to go look at that process and figure out
(26:53):
what has to be different in that process to get the result.
I'd like you to talk a little bit about decision making,
because you've got your MVP acronyn (26:58):
mission,
vision and principles.
I'd like you to share with our listeners why those three
things are so important in decision making.
Well, first of all, decisions, you know,
there are decisions that have to be made on the spot,
(27:21):
no questions asked.
And as a Marine here you're fully aware,
if we're charging a machine gun nest, it's not time to go,
well, you know what, I think we should, no,
maybe we should, you know, there's,
you know. You need to flank it this way,
you need a frontal assault this way, whatever.
That's one way.
There are decisions that have to be made in the cockpit
where there's a,
(27:41):
immediate action items that have to be done.
Well, it's the same thing in business.
There are occasions where,
and it's good to have plans in place or processes in place
to handle it,
but there are things that happen that have to be taken care
of right now.
But if you have the luxury of being able to see what can be
(28:06):
done to bring in team members on it,
the Air Force has a process that,
I know businesses have a different,
there's all kinds of acronyms.
They call it a OODA loop, O-O-D-A,
and it's observe what's going on, orient yourself,
decide on what you're going to do, and then take action.
(28:27):
And once you take action, you circle back to observe,
did it fix it?
Well,
it's the same process that needs to be done within a team.
And it can't be, unless we're charging a machine gun nest,
it can't be relying on Louie the leader or Dennis the
leader to make all the decisions.
I just wrote an article, a newsletter,
(28:48):
and LinkedIn about this very issue.
If you're walking away from a meeting and everybody seems
to be in agreement on it,
and there was no disagreement in anything,
that it all came from the leader or the leadership.
There was no input.
You're not going to have that optimum solution or that
(29:10):
optimum process in place because everybody's just relying
on the leader.
That's the epitome of micromanaging right there.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And the other thing I'd like to add for our listeners is
keep in mind when Dennis has had a great point...
it's funny,
because I told somebody this just the other day, Dennis,
(29:35):
they were feeling stressed.
And I said, Look, nobody's shooting at us, r
ight? What we're doing isn't that stressful.
But one of the things I want listeners to go away with what
Dennis is talking about is in there are some times when a
decision has to be made immediately, he's absolutely right.
And there's the times when you have time to think about it.
(29:57):
In those times when you have time to think about it,
I'd like you to realize that Dennis is talking about
mission, vision, and principles,
because those are the things that guide your decision
making.
Right?
Who do we want to be?
What do we want to be?
Where are we going?
What are our defining principles?
And so when you have those clearly,
(30:18):
then decision making gets to be a whole lot easier.
And Dennis, I would ask,
isn't that also applicable when you have that employee when
you're on the fence?
Should they stay or should they go?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I think one thing is when it's intentional infractions,
hands down, there's no question.
(30:40):
There needs to be discipline or possibly firing.
But the fact that if you can rehabilitate that employee,
I mean, you've got,
what do they say it takes about a year and a half to
replace an employee for them to get the flavor of what the
culture is, where they fit in that culture,
where they fit in the scheme of things, what their job is.
(31:03):
So it takes about a year and a half.
If you let somebody go, if you fire them,
when you could have rehabilitated,
you're costing yourself more money in the long run.
Stop, stop, say that again.
Can you repeat that sentence?
Cause that's, that's really, really, really valuable.
Okay.
The part about rehabilitating your employee,
because in the long run,
(31:23):
it's going to cost you more money to replace them than it
will to try and rehab them to fit into the culture or the
process or the work that you have.
One of the keys to being a good leader is being able to
counsel.
You know, from the whole gamut, from Louie,
(31:45):
you did a great job on that project to Louie,
what did you learn from this?
It's rehabilitating them to save you money in the long run.
So Dennis's term for your listeners,
Dennis's term is coach up.
And I like that term,
but it's the philosophy and it's the mindset around,
(32:07):
how quick are you throwing people away when you have the
ability to rehabilitate them or coach them up?
And again,
I would suggest that Dennis has dropped a lot of wisdom
today around the vision, mission, and principles.
And when you have that clarity,
you're going to know whether this person is somebody that
(32:29):
you want to continue to invest your time and energy in or
whether it's time for them to go.
And if it is time for them to go,
it's going to be a lot more expensive at the end of the day
to Dennis's point.
The other thing is, is Dennis,
what would you recommend for our listeners when they're
hiring people?
(32:49):
How would you suggest they hold candidates up to that MVP:
their mission, vision and principles?
Well,
we always talk about hiring people that are a good fit.
But good fit implies that they're going to fit in and
there's not going to be that constructive criticism,
that constructive feedback.
(33:10):
Good fit typically means, go along to get along.
You need to hire people that are willing to speak up.
If you've created what I call a speak up culture and you
want to maintain that,
you need to hire people that are willing to speak up.
(33:32):
Oh, I saw this.
Oh, that's a good point.
We need to fix that.
Or,
you came across pretty hard when you chided so-and-so out
on the shop floor.
That should have been done privately.
You need to be able to take the criticism, too.
Creating that speak up culture is so important.
(33:54):
And if there's any fit that you're trying to find with an
employee when you're getting ready to hire them,
it needs to be that fit where they're not afraid to speak
up, where they're not afraid to challenge or be challenged,
where they're willing to take feedback.
(34:15):
Are they open to feedback?
Because when they come into their organization,
I don't care if they're a master mechanic or a master pilot
or whatever,
they still have things to learn about the culture.
Culture is the single thing that drives performance,
the single most important thing, I should say,
(34:37):
that drives performance.
And that goes back to your story earlier about the World
Series, right?
You can have a team of superstars,
but if they're not connected and cohesive,
then you're not going to win a World Series or any
championship.
But Google did a study one time,
they took all their top performers and put them on one
team,
and then they took a cross-section of other team members
(35:00):
and created a different team.
And because of the eagles involved with all the top
performers,
they performed worse than the team that was put together
from a cross-section of people.
Some people refer to that as diversity.
I think it's diversity of abilities,
being able to bring people with different backgrounds and
(35:24):
different perspectives on things allows you to build that
synergy that creates that performance.
I think there's a statistic from Harvard Business Review
that disengaged employees, quiet quitters,
are costing you 18% of your payroll and lost performance.
(35:46):
And it's something that doesn't appear on a financial
statement,
but it's certainly something that if you create the right
culture,
imagine if that entire 18% were put on your profit line.
That's a huge amount of money,
no matter whether your business is a hundred thousand a
year or a hundred million a year.
(36:07):
That's a lot of money, 18%.
You betcha.
So Dennis, as we start to close our time here,
I have two questions that I'd like to ask.
The first one is,
if you could pick one book for our listeners,
what's your favorite book that they should read on
leadership?
Well, I'm a John Gordon certified trainer,
(36:30):
and I would have to say his two books on the Power of P
ositive Leadership and the Power of a Positive Team are
really good,
a really good start on how to create that culture.
So, I give a plug to John Gordon on that, I guess.
Okay,
so one of the reasons why Dennis was in the Air Force,
because I asked for one, he gave me two.
(36:53):
The next thing I'd like to ask is,
I'd like you to share with our listeners,
what is the one thing, the most,
the biggest thing that you love most about what you do as a
leadership coach?
What's the one thing that you really love the most about
your job?
I think it's when you're talking to a leader and they have
(37:16):
that aha moment of, Oh yeah, if I only tried doing that,
you know. Oh, I see how that might work, o
r I see how that will work.
When they have that aha moment and they look at you and go,
something along the lines of,
you're a lot smarter than you look, you know?
(37:38):
Of course, being a Marine,
you probably get that all the time.
You're a lot smarter than you're talking.
Something like that.
So, Dennis, if you could,
please share with the audience if they'd like to reach out
and connect with you,
hire you to speak or come into their organization.
How can they reach you?
Well,
they can reach me at dennis@fullthrottleleadership.com for
one, or they can go to fullthrottleleadership.com.
(38:01):
And actually there's a free gift there,
four action items that you can implement today.
It's my Elite Performance Blueprint, it's free.
Four things that you can implement and start seeing results
within a matter of days, guaranteed.
And they deal with what I was talking about earlier,
those four C's (38:20):
Communication, Connection, Commitment,
and Caring.
And there are ideas that you can implement in a matter of
days and start seeing results almost immediately.
Thank you.
Dennis for such a generous offer to the audience.
And again,
would you share one more time the four C's that you're
talking about that they can get for free.
It's communication, which leads to connection,
(38:43):
which leads to commitment and caring.
And once you have those four C's implemented,
you'll start seeing your team come together.
That's awesome. Again, thanks.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you for your generosity.
I always enjoy our conversations and much like you said,
I get to learn from people that I get to interview like
you.
So thank you for helping ramp up my knowledge and my
(39:05):
wisdom. And, thanks again.
I'm sure I'll see you soon in a networking event
somewhere.
Thanks, Louie.
I appreciate being here.
And I have to say, for a Marine, you're pretty articulate,
so.
Thank you, Dennis.
Until next week, everybody, have a great week.
And remember,
what's one thing that you can take away from the
conversation today with Dennis that you can implement to
(39:27):
improve your leadership?
Thanks, and we'll talk to you soon.
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of Leadership and Love.
I would like to challenge you to ask yourself,
what's one thing that you heard today that you can
implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth.
If you've gotten value out of this episode,
(39:49):
or learned something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about.
Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading with
love.
What's the first thing you would recommend for people
(00:02):
listening about how to start to shift or change a culture?
Become the servant leader that is the giver.
Culture is driven by leadership.
Who are you busy being as a leader?
You have to have a map, and that's the start,
is being able to communicate, connect,
and get the commitment and the caring within your team.
(00:24):
There's this synergism that happens when you become a team.
In a culture where you connect the dots, but as the leader,
you have to be in the game.
You have to be getting the experience.
Culture is the single most important thing that drives
performance.
Welcome to the Leadership and Love podcast.
We will cover leadership, mindset, personal development,
(00:45):
and sales and marketing.
You'll experience thought-provoking conversations with both
nationally and internationally recognized leaders.
Our goal is to inspire you and deliver actionable items
that you can implement that will help you accelerate your
growth.
Get ready to discover the magic and the power when you lead
(01:06):
with love.
Welcome back, everybody,
to this week's episode of Leadership and Love.
I'm your host, Louie Sharp, and this week,
my guest is a dear friend and a very funny man,
Dennis Mellen.
Dennis Mullen and I met at a networking event and an
organization called Engaging Speakers.
(01:26):
And we found out pretty quick that he had spent time in the
Air Force, and I had spent time in the Marines.
And so we've been making fun of each other ever since.
Dennis was obviously in the Air Force as a pilot.
He flew cargo planes,
and then he also ended up as a commercial airline pilot,
much like one of the guests we had a couple weeks ago.
So, Dennis, welcome.
(01:48):
And if you'd like to add anything to your introduction,
please feel free to tell us a little bit more about
yourself.
Yeah, I actually was a cargo plane, but it was a tanker.
KC-10 is what I spent most of my career in the Air Force.
I retired in 1996 there.
And at the same time,
I was working as the fleet captain at Alaska Airlines for
(02:10):
the MD80 fleet at the time.
So I've got a pretty good background in leadership,
at least stumbling through,
and I can pass on some anecdotes and things I learned from
the University of Hard Knox.
Not the most brilliant or sharpest tool in the toolbox,
but a lot of experience, just like you've had.
(02:34):
Right.
Well, if you are the sharpest tool in the toolbox,
you'd have been in the Marines, not the Air Force.
So one of the things that I'd like to share with the
audience is,
and you'll see that kind of humor go on the rest of this
conversation.
But, Dennis is now a leadership speaker and coach.
And one of the things he specializes in is culture.
(02:54):
So, Dennis, the first thing I'd like to ask today is,
if you could share with the audience, what's....and,
and I think that's important because culture runs both in
companies and organizations as well as families.
What's the first thing you would recommend for people
listening about how to start to shift or change a culture?
(03:15):
Well,
leaders are the single biggest influencers to culture and
performance.
So if you can turn yourself or not necessarily turn
yourself but become the servant leader that is the giver. W
hat is it you need to be successful today should be almost
a standard question that you ask of every employee or every
(03:36):
team member.
We've all seen this.
We saw it in the World Series this last year.
The Dodgers had gone through a team culture metamorphosis
using John Gordon principles which I'm a certified trainer
with.
And the New York Yankees had all these stars. And the star
(03:59):
performers, unless they come together as a team,
will never equate to what a rock solid team can do and what
they can accomplish.
And both you and I have seen that both in the Marines and
the Air Force.
The camaraderie, the esprit de corps,
the willingness to go that extra step to create that
environment where you become more than what you appear on
(04:24):
paper to be.
Yeah, and so there's two, I call them golden nuggets,
Dennis, that you dropped.
One of them I want the audience to catch is that culture is
driven by leadership.
I'll repeat that because this is the gold mine right here.
Culture is driven by leadership.
The other thing that Dennis spoke about is who are you busy
(04:48):
being as a leader?
So Dennis, I'd like to dive a little deeper into that.
So when you go into an organization or a company,
and they're struggling in culture,
what do you do for your coaching or your wisdom and advice
on how to understand where somebody is right now and start
(05:11):
to get them to change their mindset around leadership on
who they want to be to grow that culture?
You know, that's a, that's a really great question, Louie.
And it's, it starts with, uh, well, I like to tell a story.
Like if you and I were getting ready to, to, uh,
drive down to Disney World together, we could go through,
uh, uh, Memphis. We could go through Nashville.
(05:33):
We could go through Knoxville.
We could pick any direction to go, uh,
to a Disney World with the ultimate goal of being
Disney World. But just like when we're driving, uh,
at night, your headlights only cover 200 feet.
Uh,
you have to take care of that 200 feet and then the next
200 feet,
the next 200 feet till you finally get to your goal.
(05:54):
Now,
the way to develop that is you've got to create that environment
within your team where those,
I like to call them those positive, purposeful,
and productive conversations are routine.
So I map them out, uh, a route for them using the four C's.
You got to start with being able to communicate with your
(06:16):
team, open communications,
you have to be able to make a connection there,
and that's when you start getting that commitment and
caring within your team.
And that's basically the roadmap of how, of,
of what you need to do.
Now, how you accomplish that involves a lot more, uh,
details and a lot more coaching,
but at least that's the map.
(06:36):
And if we're starting out to go to Disney World as our
goal...as our goal. You have to have a map and that's the
start, is being able to communicate, uh,
connect and get the commitment and the caring within your
team.
So who do they need to be, Dennis,
as a leader to implement and apply your four Cs?
(06:59):
Who do they need to be busy being in that role?
Well, I think it starts with a commitment to being a giver,
being that servant leader that is there for not to solve
every single problem,
but to get that energy from the....Let's say you have 10
(07:21):
employees,
10 people on your team. Being able to get the everything
from the extrovert to the introvert to commit to the goal
or the key performance indicators,
or the ultimate goal that you're trying to achieve,
whatever your business is.
(07:41):
And it can start easily start with creating a mission
statement, something, this is where we're going,
we're going to Disney World,
and we're going to bring ever as many people as we can,
creating a vision,
also the individual goals that you develop,
and then having a set of principles that are
(08:02):
uncompromised.
And as we travel down this road,
it's easy to get distracted.
Oh,
here's a place in Nashville to go see country music or something.
But we have to keep in mind,
our goal is to reach Disney World,
and to be entertained down at Disney World,
whatever your your ultimate mission is,
(08:22):
you have to keep that in the forefront.
With every decision, with every meeting,
with every commitment that you make to that,
you're committed to reaching that, that ultimate goal,
your mission.
So I'd like to, again,
(08:44):
Dennis is dropping a couple of golden nuggets here,
but again, it's the servant leader.
I'll bring this book up again because I think it's worth
the read.
It's called 11 Rings by Phil Jackson.
And in that, I've said this and shared this before,
in that book, when he was coaching the Chicago Bulls,
every year he would buy a book for the members of his team.
(09:07):
And he didn't buy them all the same book.
He knew each one of them well enough individually to buy
them books that was something they were interested in.
I'd also like to reiterate something that Dennis said that
it's very powerful.
Vision, mission, he calls them principles.
I call them core values.
What are the core values that you're operating on?
(09:27):
You need to know that.
Your mission, how do you do what you do on a regular basis?
And is the team tied to this vision of where you want to go
at the end of the day?
Dennis,
when you go into an organization and they're lacking these
things, any one of the three, their principles,
mission statement, or a vision statement,
(09:49):
what are your suggestions to our listeners on how to create
those and find them tied to their purpose and love for what
they're doing to start helping get that message to the
team, to communicate that to the team.
Well, let me back up because it's easier to remember.
I call it my MVP program. You know, in sports,
(10:12):
it's always referred to as most valuable player,
but in a team, it's your mission,
your vision and your principles.
And it can't be something that comes from the leader.
It has to be something that you sit down with the entire
group.
Here's the product.
Here's the service that we provide.
What is our mission?
(10:32):
You know,
Campbell's Soup might have been to provide nourishment to
people worldwide on a daily basis.
That's kind of a paraphrase of what Doug Conant used to
repeat.
And by allowing not all the employees,
but some of them to come in and develop this mission,
(10:54):
vision and principles,
you get a connection with those that are participating.
And it's like, well, you and I have talked about it before.
It's like being that tiny coffee bean that jumps into that
rolling boiling pot of water that is business and starts
spreading their influence.
So by bringing these employees in to create this mission,
(11:18):
vision, and principles,
you're creating coffee beans to go back into the business
and start spreading their influence with the ultimate goal
of creating that gourmet coffee state where you feel like I
get to go to work instead of I have to go to work.
And imagine how inspiring that is,
how much more work you're gonna get out of somebody over
(11:40):
and above somebody that's just showing up and collecting a
paycheck.
When they're committed to the mission, vision,
and principles,
they see where their goals tie in with the company's goals,
and they're more inspired....And if they can't do that,
that's when we either need to coach them up or we need to
let them go because there's this synergism that happens
(12:06):
when you become a team,
and you're all working towards the same,
in the same direction, same goal.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I've experienced it on both sides.
Again, for our listeners,
Dennis touched on something that's very, very powerful.
And I learned this from a mentor of mine years ago at this
point.
And he used to say all the time, do it with them,
(12:27):
not to them.
So if you're a leader listening to this,
I would ask yourself to do some self reflection.
People that you're leading, are you doing it to them?
Or are you doing it with them?
Because Dennis just gave you some wisdom that you really
want to apply for the rest of your life as a leader. You
want to bring them in and get their input.
(12:49):
Dennis,
when leaders are struggling to find clarity around that,
or their team is struggling around the clarity around the
mission, vision, and principles,
what are your tools that you use to give them guidance to
kind of get clarity on why it's important and what's
important?
Well,
I think it's important to really get offsite as a group,
(13:12):
get away from the work area, have a workshop,
even if it's within your own team,
but it's better to have a mentor there with some guidance
to try and develop this mission, vision,
and principles that will drive your team.
If you can get away from the workspace,
(13:34):
people are more apt to open up, and the ideas flow better.
And if you're...
if you're offsite coaching a group, o
ftentimes I find I learn more myself from listening to all
the inputs that occur, then I think the participants get.
(13:55):
I've used a lot of the things that I've learned in some of
these workshops to use...
to coach leaders on some of the experiences that other
people have had. There's nothing that replaces...
You can study books you can study, go,
go to school on it get degrees.
(14:16):
But until you actually experience using the tools,
or can sit down and talk with somebody that's been through
those experiences, you don't get the full effect.
It's like, we, we, we talk about leaders coming in, Oh,
(14:37):
I've got an MBA, I've got a PhD,
but maybe they don't have the years of experience that you
do in the Marines or that I have with some of the
experiences I've had.
Bringing that those experiences into a group allows you to
get the different perspectives, the different experiences,
(14:59):
without actually having to go through them yourself.
Yeah, that's very powerful.
And again,
I want the audience to catch what Dennis is sharing here.
And that is, is that you've got to get in the game, right?
You can't sit on the sidelines.
And I just had this conversation recently, Dennis, with
somebody about music.
(15:20):
And we were talking about it.
And I told them, you know,
you can sit at home and practice an instrument until you're
blue in the face.
But until you get out and play music with other people,
you don't have that experience of what it's like to be in a
band and be connected to that band.
And that's exactly what you're talking about in a culture
where you connect the dots.
(15:42):
But as the leader, you have to be in the game,
you have to be getting the experience.
And I love that Dennis touched on something else.
I think that regardless of who you are,
and Dennis is a leader of leaders, he's always learning.
And he's learning from people that aren't necessarily the
head of the organization,
but they've got wisdom and insight,
(16:02):
because they see that thing from a specific perspective,
that you might not necessarily catch as the leader of the
organization in the day-to-day operations.
Dennis, that leads me to my next question.
How would you suggest leaders can gather and keep this
information?
Because it's one thing to have this meeting.
Now I want to stress what else Dennis said.
(16:23):
Dennis said, get out of the environment.
I agree with that very powerful to get them out of the
environment.
Having these workshops, having these mentors,
having these coaches, it's not a one and done thing.
You know, just because, oh,
I went to a leadership workshop last week,
I've got all this new information.
Go out...
the importance of going out and putting it into place,
(16:47):
making the change, you know,
it's really hard to make a change. Making the change in
your personality, the way you approach things,
the way you adapt.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And I think that it's an ongoing thing.
And Zig Ziglar used to say this all the time, right?
He said that there's a reason why we bathe every day,
much like motivation.
(17:07):
There's a reason why we want to do something that's going
to motivate us every day,
because it doesn't stick just like bathing.
You're going to get dirty.
You have to do it again.
So Dennis's point that I want everybody to catch is that
simple fact that you can't have a team meeting once and not
ever do anything again.
You can't bring somebody in to coach the culture and think
a one-time shot is going to fix it,
(17:28):
because it really needs to be repeated until it becomes the
habit and the culture of the organization.
The other thing that Dennis touched on there is you want to
continue to go back on a regular basis.
And his first C is communication, and communicate that,
I heard you.
It's really important for them to be heard.
And also that you might not have accomplished or completed
(17:51):
what they were wanting,
but you're still working on it and headed in that
direction.
Dennis,
what's the biggest thing that you see for the biggest
challenge companies have around culture?
It goes to...
I think it's a Stephen Covey story where he's walking out
in a forest,
(18:12):
and he comes upon a gentleman that's chopping down a tree.
He says, Hey there, what you doing?
He says, well, I'm chopping this tree down.
How's it going?
Oh, I've been at it for about three hours.
Have you thought about sharpening your axe?
I haven't got time to sharpen my axe.
Well, same thing with leadership.
(18:35):
Almost 100% people buy into, oh,
I need some leadership training.
But finding the time to do it,
finding that time to sharpen the axe,
they haven't got time because it doesn't show up on a
financial statement.
It doesn't show up on your key performance indicators.
(18:56):
Oh, our leadership is an eight,
and we're moving towards a nine.
It's not easily measurable, but over a period of time,
periodically updating, having your seminars,
having your lunch and learns, having your workshops,
you start developing that culture where you have those open
(19:16):
communications, where, like I mentioned before,
those positive, purposeful,
and productive conversations without fear of retribution or
shame. Where you get the introverts to speak out.
It's easy.
There's usually one or two people that dominate meetings.
(19:37):
Neither one of us will be described as shy, but let's say, H
ey, Louie, what's your input on this today?
What are you thinking?
Or how would you handle this differently?
Or what have you seen?
Drawing out the introverted Louie's and the introverted
Dennis's is so important to creating that culture where no
(20:02):
matter what's thrown at us,
we're going to do what we can to alter change or affect the
outcome.
So, so Dennis just hit that...boy...
That's you're hitting this baby out of the park.
You hear what he just said?
We're doing what we can to change and affect the outcome.
And one of the things that I think is critical here that
Dennis is talking about is that in that engagement,
(20:25):
you want everybody to speak.
I just recently read, I might've read it or heard it about,
I think I heard it from Simon Sinek, who said,
you should speak last, right?
And then that way the room has....
it has the space to be heard.
One of the things that I think is interesting is that in
these cultures, it's often challenging.
(20:47):
I'd like you to talk about the effect of one negative
person in an organization and what's your advice in
coaching to a leader who's struggling with that one chuckle
head, who's, and you know, like I know,
that one chuckle head can drag the whole team down.
Yeah, we referred to those as energy vampires, you know,
(21:10):
the ones that walk into a meeting and just suck the energy
out of that meeting.
Well, you've got to be able to coach them up.
You've got to be able to create that environment where,
yeah, his or her input is important,
but it can't be just a complaint.
If you're gonna complain, you better have a solution to it.
(21:33):
Here's what we should do to fix this.
Otherwise,
we're just mindless complaining is what's happened.
It's just, if we have that kind of environment,
nothing's gonna get done.
Oh, we tried that before that didn't work.
That will never work.
That's a dumb idea.
(21:53):
That's suppressing ideas.
That's sucking the energy out of the discussion.
As leaders, well, as businesses really,
events are coming at us all the time.
There's nothing we could do.
COVID comes, late suppliers, absenteeism.
These problems are constantly coming at us.
(22:15):
And whatever we do,
whether we do nothing or whether we do something,
there's still gonna be an outcome.
So our jobs as leaders is when that event comes,
what's our positive reaction?
What are we gonna do to alter change or affect that
outcome?
And we may not be able to do anything,
but we have to try to do something.
(22:37):
It may be,
we may be overcome by events and the outcome is predetermined,
but we're gonna do everything we can to alter change or
affect that outcome.
And we need the input of every team member on that.
That's important.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And so Dennis just touched on something else.
(22:58):
Everybody's input matters.
One of the things that I would suggest to the audience and
I've experienced,
practiced this and experienced it is get a flip chart or a
whiteboard.
And if somebody has an idea, you simply write it down.
And then you just ask for the next idea.
You let them flow with those ideas because at that point,
Dennis, you're right.
They're being heard,
(23:18):
and they're gonna speak up more and then you put all of
them on one place and then you can take a look at it and
say, Okay, if we could have impact,
which one would we do first?
When you go into organizations and I know you travel across
the country and you speak and coach on leadership,
when you go into an organization,
(23:40):
what's one of the things that you do to assess the culture
so you can help them decide what the next steps are to help
effect the change in that.
That's that's an interesting thing.
A lot of times I think the average coach goes in and go.
Oh, I have all these ideas.
Let's try this Let's try that. The first thing to do is go
(24:01):
on and see how how the meetings are run,
you know. How do the meetings run?
How often do they have meetings?
Are they needless meeting?
How does a meeting...
how's it conducted? Is everything...is the agenda entirely
controlled by the leader of the group?
Are there individuals that are dominating it?
You know, you start kind of getting a feel.
(24:21):
It's almost like a report card for the way they're running
their business right now That's what culture is all about
the way we do things on a daily basis,
the way we interact with each other. It can be one of
those awful ones where aha Louie I caught you making a
mistake, don't do that and start punishing right away. Or,
it can be one where Louie that one's not working out.
(24:45):
That's one way that doesn't work.
It's a Thomas Edison thing, you know,
the light bulb it was asked.
Hey, how many times did you fail on your experiments?
He said, I didn't fail.
I tried 10,000 ways that didn't work, you know.
Instead of punishing the input...
(25:05):
if somebody's doing something intentional,
if somebody's an energy vampire and you can't convert
them, yes,
that's when we start easing them out or firing them. But, y
ou can coach a person to inspire them to participate in
these discussions and that their input is valuable.
(25:26):
Because you may miss out on an opportunity or an option to
alter, change,
or affect the outcome of something. There's no point in
business where we say oh, we've got everything handled, y
ou know. Nothing's gonna change.
(25:47):
Well, I wouldn't even say bookstores.
I'm sure there's dynamic things happen in in bookstores,
too,
but I but in a dynamic environment like like in a Marine
squadron or on Alaska Airlines,
things are happening on a daily basis.
How do you create that environment where we're working
(26:09):
together on this. We're trying to get things better,
trying to reach that mission statement, vision that we have.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I think again, for those of you listening,
Dennis touched on something very important,
and he didn't use the word,
but I'm going to use the word here.
And that's the process, right?
(26:29):
If something's not working, and you fail,
then you go back and change your process.
And one of the things I share with people, Dennis,
is that they're only going to have two challenges,
one of two challenges,
either a people challenge or a process challenge, right?
And so if we're doing something and it's failing,
then if I know I've got somebody that's on my team,
then I'm going to go look at that process and figure out
(26:53):
what has to be different in that process to get the result.
I'd like you to talk a little bit about decision making,
because you've got your MVP acronyn (26:58):
mission,
vision and principles.
I'd like you to share with our listeners why those three
things are so important in decision making.
Well, first of all, decisions, you know,
there are decisions that have to be made on the spot,
(27:21):
no questions asked.
And as a Marine here you're fully aware,
if we're charging a machine gun nest, it's not time to go,
well, you know what, I think we should, no,
maybe we should, you know, there's,
you know. You need to flank it this way,
you need a frontal assault this way, whatever.
That's one way.
There are decisions that have to be made in the cockpit
where there's a,
(27:41):
immediate action items that have to be done.
Well, it's the same thing in business.
There are occasions where,
and it's good to have plans in place or processes in place
to handle it,
but there are things that happen that have to be taken care
of right now.
But if you have the luxury of being able to see what can be
(28:06):
done to bring in team members on it,
the Air Force has a process that,
I know businesses have a different,
there's all kinds of acronyms.
They call it a OODA loop, O-O-D-A,
and it's observe what's going on, orient yourself,
decide on what you're going to do, and then take action.
(28:27):
And once you take action, you circle back to observe,
did it fix it?
Well,
it's the same process that needs to be done within a team.
And it can't be, unless we're charging a machine gun nest,
it can't be relying on Louie the leader or Dennis the
leader to make all the decisions.
I just wrote an article, a newsletter,
(28:48):
and LinkedIn about this very issue.
If you're walking away from a meeting and everybody seems
to be in agreement on it,
and there was no disagreement in anything,
that it all came from the leader or the leadership.
There was no input.
You're not going to have that optimum solution or that
(29:10):
optimum process in place because everybody's just relying
on the leader.
That's the epitome of micromanaging right there.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And the other thing I'd like to add for our listeners is
keep in mind when Dennis has had a great point...
it's funny,
because I told somebody this just the other day, Dennis,
(29:35):
they were feeling stressed.
And I said, Look, nobody's shooting at us, r
ight? What we're doing isn't that stressful.
But one of the things I want listeners to go away with what
Dennis is talking about is in there are some times when a
decision has to be made immediately, he's absolutely right.
And there's the times when you have time to think about it.
(29:57):
In those times when you have time to think about it,
I'd like you to realize that Dennis is talking about
mission, vision, and principles,
because those are the things that guide your decision
making.
Right?
Who do we want to be?
What do we want to be?
Where are we going?
What are our defining principles?
And so when you have those clearly,
(30:18):
then decision making gets to be a whole lot easier.
And Dennis, I would ask,
isn't that also applicable when you have that employee when
you're on the fence?
Should they stay or should they go?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I think one thing is when it's intentional infractions,
hands down, there's no question.
(30:40):
There needs to be discipline or possibly firing.
But the fact that if you can rehabilitate that employee,
I mean, you've got,
what do they say it takes about a year and a half to
replace an employee for them to get the flavor of what the
culture is, where they fit in that culture,
where they fit in the scheme of things, what their job is.
(31:03):
So it takes about a year and a half.
If you let somebody go, if you fire them,
when you could have rehabilitated,
you're costing yourself more money in the long run.
Stop, stop, say that again.
Can you repeat that sentence?
Cause that's, that's really, really, really valuable.
Okay.
The part about rehabilitating your employee,
because in the long run,
(31:23):
it's going to cost you more money to replace them than it
will to try and rehab them to fit into the culture or the
process or the work that you have.
One of the keys to being a good leader is being able to
counsel.
You know, from the whole gamut, from Louie,
(31:45):
you did a great job on that project to Louie,
what did you learn from this?
It's rehabilitating them to save you money in the long run.
So Dennis's term for your listeners,
Dennis's term is coach up.
And I like that term,
but it's the philosophy and it's the mindset around,
(32:07):
how quick are you throwing people away when you have the
ability to rehabilitate them or coach them up?
And again,
I would suggest that Dennis has dropped a lot of wisdom
today around the vision, mission, and principles.
And when you have that clarity,
you're going to know whether this person is somebody that
(32:29):
you want to continue to invest your time and energy in or
whether it's time for them to go.
And if it is time for them to go,
it's going to be a lot more expensive at the end of the day
to Dennis's point.
The other thing is, is Dennis,
what would you recommend for our listeners when they're
hiring people?
(32:49):
How would you suggest they hold candidates up to that MVP:
their mission, vision and principles?
Well,
we always talk about hiring people that are a good fit.
But good fit implies that they're going to fit in and
there's not going to be that constructive criticism,
that constructive feedback.
(33:10):
Good fit typically means, go along to get along.
You need to hire people that are willing to speak up.
If you've created what I call a speak up culture and you
want to maintain that,
you need to hire people that are willing to speak up.
(33:32):
Oh, I saw this.
Oh, that's a good point.
We need to fix that.
Or,
you came across pretty hard when you chided so-and-so out
on the shop floor.
That should have been done privately.
You need to be able to take the criticism, too.
Creating that speak up culture is so important.
(33:54):
And if there's any fit that you're trying to find with an
employee when you're getting ready to hire them,
it needs to be that fit where they're not afraid to speak
up, where they're not afraid to challenge or be challenged,
where they're willing to take feedback.
(34:15):
Are they open to feedback?
Because when they come into their organization,
I don't care if they're a master mechanic or a master pilot
or whatever,
they still have things to learn about the culture.
Culture is the single thing that drives performance,
the single most important thing, I should say,
(34:37):
that drives performance.
And that goes back to your story earlier about the World
Series, right?
You can have a team of superstars,
but if they're not connected and cohesive,
then you're not going to win a World Series or any
championship.
But Google did a study one time,
they took all their top performers and put them on one
team,
and then they took a cross-section of other team members
(35:00):
and created a different team.
And because of the eagles involved with all the top
performers,
they performed worse than the team that was put together
from a cross-section of people.
Some people refer to that as diversity.
I think it's diversity of abilities,
being able to bring people with different backgrounds and
(35:24):
different perspectives on things allows you to build that
synergy that creates that performance.
I think there's a statistic from Harvard Business Review
that disengaged employees, quiet quitters,
are costing you 18% of your payroll and lost performance.
(35:46):
And it's something that doesn't appear on a financial
statement,
but it's certainly something that if you create the right
culture,
imagine if that entire 18% were put on your profit line.
That's a huge amount of money,
no matter whether your business is a hundred thousand a
year or a hundred million a year.
(36:07):
That's a lot of money, 18%.
You betcha.
So Dennis, as we start to close our time here,
I have two questions that I'd like to ask.
The first one is,
if you could pick one book for our listeners,
what's your favorite book that they should read on
leadership?
Well, I'm a John Gordon certified trainer,
(36:30):
and I would have to say his two books on the Power of P
ositive Leadership and the Power of a Positive Team are
really good,
a really good start on how to create that culture.
So, I give a plug to John Gordon on that, I guess.
Okay,
so one of the reasons why Dennis was in the Air Force,
because I asked for one, he gave me two.
(36:53):
The next thing I'd like to ask is,
I'd like you to share with our listeners,
what is the one thing, the most,
the biggest thing that you love most about what you do as a
leadership coach?
What's the one thing that you really love the most about
your job?
I think it's when you're talking to a leader and they have
(37:16):
that aha moment of, Oh yeah, if I only tried doing that,
you know. Oh, I see how that might work, o
r I see how that will work.
When they have that aha moment and they look at you and go,
something along the lines of,
you're a lot smarter than you look, you know?
(37:38):
Of course, being a Marine,
you probably get that all the time.
You're a lot smarter than you're talking.
Something like that.
So, Dennis, if you could,
please share with the audience if they'd like to reach out
and connect with you,
hire you to speak or come into their organization.
How can they reach you?
Well,
they can reach me at dennis@fullthrottleleadership.com for
one, or they can go to fullthrottleleadership.com.
(38:01):
And actually there's a free gift there,
four action items that you can implement today.
It's my Elite Performance Blueprint, it's free.
Four things that you can implement and start seeing results
within a matter of days, guaranteed.
And they deal with what I was talking about earlier,
those four C's (38:20):
Communication, Connection, Commitment,
and Caring.
And there are ideas that you can implement in a matter of
days and start seeing results almost immediately.
Thank you.
Dennis for such a generous offer to the audience.
And again,
would you share one more time the four C's that you're
talking about that they can get for free.
It's communication, which leads to connection,
(38:43):
which leads to commitment and caring.
And once you have those four C's implemented,
you'll start seeing your team come together.
That's awesome. Again, thanks.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you for your generosity.
I always enjoy our conversations and much like you said,
I get to learn from people that I get to interview like
you.
So thank you for helping ramp up my knowledge and my
(39:05):
wisdom. And, thanks again.
I'm sure I'll see you soon in a networking event
somewhere.
Thanks, Louie.
I appreciate being here.
And I have to say, for a Marine, you're pretty articulate,
so.
Thank you, Dennis.
Until next week, everybody, have a great week.
And remember,
what's one thing that you can take away from the
conversation today with Dennis that you can implement to
(39:27):
improve your leadership?
Thanks, and we'll talk to you soon.
Thanks again for joining us and listening to this episode
of Leadership and Love.
I would like to challenge you to ask yourself,
what's one thing that you heard today that you can
implement immediately to improve your leadership and
accelerate your growth.
If you've gotten value out of this episode,
(39:49):
or learned something that you can implement today,
we'd ask that you please share it with those that you care
about.
Our goal is to create more leaders who are leading with
love.
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