#111 Christina Bates - Unlocking Human Potential Through Authentic Leadership - Tales of Leadership

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast
.
This podcast is for leaders atany phase on their leadership
journey to become a morepurposeful and accountable
leader what I like to call a pal.
Join me on our journey togethertowards transformational
leadership.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
All right team.
Welcome back to the Tells theLeadership podcast.
I'm your host, josh McMillian.
I'm an active duty Army officer.
I'm an Army leadership coach.
I run my own leadershipcoaching company, mcmillian
Leadership Coaching, and I amthe host of the Tales of
Leadership podcast, and mymission is to eliminate toxic
leadership by promotingtransformational leadership

(00:41):
practices, with the vision ofimpacting 1 million lives in the
next 10 years.
And I plan on doing that bysharing my self-reflections of
me continuing to become a betterleader, by sharing leadership
principles and bringing ontransformational leaders and
having them share their storiesfrom all walks of life,
regardless of your background orregardless of the profession

(01:04):
that they find themselves in,and on today's episode, it's
absolutely fire.
So Dr Christina Bates is a momof two sweet girls, an
entrepreneur, a leader and ananimal lover, with three dogs,
two cats, one bunny and then oneguinea pig.
She is passionate about allthings military.
We share that, especially whenit comes to weapons systems.

(01:24):
About all things military.
We share that, especially whenit comes to weapon systems.
She is dedicated to helpingleaders and organizations excel
and realize their full potential.
She believes that God has apurpose for each of us and, in
small but impactful ways shesupports leaders and members of
organizations in living out thatpurpose.
This is a great episode.
Again, as always, stay to thevery end, and I'll share the top

(01:48):
three takeaways that I had fromthis episode.
This has been a little bitlonger than normal, but again we
had to kind of cut it short.
But this is a very importantepisode to kind of get some key
methodologies and frameworksthat I've used throughout my
leadership journey, but Ihaven't really been able to kind
of clarify or bound that downinto words.

(02:10):
Dr Bates does that beautifully,so let's go ahead and bring her
on.
Christina, welcome to the Talesof Leadership podcast.
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hey, I'm well, josh, you.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Doing well we always talk about.
Right before I start a podcast,I always have the intro studio
and we kind of talk through someof the struggles.
And it's important to note thatI just got back from the UK
with my wife, so a little bitlate, but thank you for taking
the time and kind of goingthrough your leadership journey,
which is something I thinkwe're both passionate about.

(02:43):
So I'm excited to hear yourstory.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
And thank you for having me on Josh.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.
So I think always a great placeto start is to kind of get a
barometer on how you viewleadership, because we have
everyone from DOD toentrepreneurs to C-suite
executives and leadership isusually always uniquely defined
to the individual and how theywent through their shared
experiences.
So the first question is howwould you define leadership?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Well, to me, first off, I think leadership is a
tremendous honor and also atremendous burden.
I'm sure you're aware of beingin the military.
Leaders do a lot of theblocking and tackling.
To me, a strong leader alwayshelps the members of the
organization or their followersto make sense of what's
happening in their environment,right?

(03:39):
So one of the things I studiedin my PhD program was something
called sensemaking, and it'swhat everyone kind of naturally
does, but sensemaking makes itmore overt.
One kind of naturally does, butsense-making makes it more
overt.
And so it's the idea that we'reconstantly in our minds as we
act or as something happensaround us.
We're constantly, in a sense,trying to make sense.
What does that mean?
What does that mean to me?
What does that mean in myenvironment?
It kind of goes back also tothe fight or flight idea, right?

(04:00):
So your mind's constantly doingthat, whether you're conscious
of it or not.
Obviously, folks who studied ittried to bring those principles
and make them more consciousand study exactly how they
happen.
And obviously, being a personwho loves communication, a big
part of how we make sense ofthings to others is through
communication, right?
So to me, an effective leaderone of the biggest things

(04:23):
they're always doing is tryingto read the environment, whether
it be in the organization,outside the organization rapidly
, ideally, figure out what it isthat that person is passionate
about, what are their strengths,what do they see as their

(04:57):
purpose in the organization andI'll talk just from an
organization perspective,because that's where I have the
most experience, obviously.
And then I think the leader'smain task is to help each of
those members realize their fullpotential in that organization
and, collectively in doing so,help the organization to realize
its full potential.
And when you think aboutmilitary leaders, for example,
in the acquisition corps, theleaders are typically there for

(05:19):
a three-year period, and soit'll depend on what point in
the organization's life thatthat leader enters, what kinds
of things that leader might needto emphasize.
If it's an organization that'sbeen tremendously successful,
then it's probably grabbing ontothose successes and
extrapolating from them andkeeping up the momentum and

(05:40):
identifying what new talent youmay need to continue building on
those successes.
If it's an organization that'sfacing particular challenges,
whether portfolio-wise ortalent-wise or morale-wise, or
sometimes a combination of allthree and many more, then that
leader may have to draw ondifferent skills and may have to
spend more time emphasizing thestrengths of the organization

(06:02):
in order to motivate folks.
So I think a strong leaderneeds to be very adept, needs to
be able to pivot quickly, needsto be able to read the
environment and the organizationnot only quickly, but generally
fairly accurately.
And I think the biggest waythey do that obviously someone
coming from my background isthrough communication, right, so

(06:22):
I know a lot of leadersemphasize open door policy, but
I think it's more than that Italk to folks always about.
It's the small.
What I call the smallinteractions is where you
typically would want to focusyour communication as a leader,
right, and that's whether you'repassing someone in the hallway
or someone pops their head in totalk about something.
It could be somethingsignificant or mundane.

(06:43):
It's in those smallinteractions where you have that
opportunity to showcase whatyou bring to the table as a
leader, and in those smallinteractions is where you also
have an opportunity to buildtrust.
It's usually not you probablyknow this it's usually not in
the big forums that aretypically staged for obvious
reasons and I don't thinkthere's anything wrong with
those forums and they'recertainly necessary but it's

(07:05):
usually in those smallerinteractions and I mean not only
in size, but in what exactlythe exchange looks like from a
communication standpoint, whereI think you have an opportunity
to show the person that, one,they are seen and two, they are
heard.
Three, you're processing whatyou've heard.
It matters to you in heart andmind and you're truly interested

(07:27):
in who they are and whatthey're sharing and you have
something either meaningful tosay in the moment or, if it's
just, hey, that's veryinteresting, or that's something
that hasn't been shared with meyet, but I need to take that
back and give it some thought.
But I definitely will get backto you.
So, to summarize, I think astrong leader is someone who
recognizes that their main goalis to help the folks in the

(07:50):
organization realize their fullpotential.
If you're a faith-based person,folks might refer to that as
what you think your calling isin life, what you think you're
here to bring, what changeyou're here to bring about, or
what difference you're here tomake before you leave this earth
.
Or it could just if someone'snonfaith based, it could just be
what you think your strengthsare in your career and your
subject matter expertise andwhat you bring to the table, and

(08:10):
I think a good leader's mainjob would be to tap into that
within their team and to createan environment in which that is
nurtured and drawn out of folksand obviously in our, in our
world, directly applied toexecuting the organization's
mission.
The other piece I would say, inaddition to being someone who

(08:30):
can adapt very quickly theirleadership styles and their
tactics, I think also someonewho's able to accurately read
the environment and tap intothat and, more often than not,
be accurate with their readingof the environment.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
That's, hands down, the best definition of
leadership that I've had, and Ifilmed over like 99 episodes.
That was amazing and I've neverheard of the sense making you
tied into so many differentprinciples from different
leaders.
That I've had on.
General Petraeus was one thatyou kind of spirited with having
a malleable leadership approachthat it's not one size fits all

(09:08):
.
You come into an organizationand you quickly read what you
need to do, you set a path foryour team, you communicate it
and then you tie your strengthsto the team, or the weaknesses,
to make sure you fill that deadspace, and you just keep moving.
I love the concept ofcommunication.
While you're writing that down,some of the three pillars of

(09:30):
communication for me isauthenticity, transparency and
clarity.
If you can do those threethings at least from what I've
learned then you can build trust, and that was an amazing bomb
that you dropped right there,too, is that that's what that
does.
Over time, our actions lead toour character of how people view

(09:51):
us, our reputation, and thatall leads into trust.
That's amazing.
We could end this episode now,and you've just already dropped
so many pieces of wisdom.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I think when you say authenticity, that's an
interesting concept too right,because I think another leaders
that I've observed that Ithought were exceptional.
One of the things that they didreally well was they recognized
that the way they communicatedwith me, for example.
I'm more of a straightforwardcommunicator.
When I'm dealing asparticularly one-on-one with
leaders, I, you know, kind ofsay what's on my mind.

(10:25):
I'm polite and tactful, but Idon't sugarcoat, but I think
some folks don't communicatethat way and if you spoke with
some other folks on your staffand interact with them the way
that, for example, a leaderinteracted with me, it would be
highly ineffective and you wouldprobably silence that person or
probably leave them wonderingwhether they'd ever come back

(10:46):
and talk to you, for example,one-on-one.
So I think authenticity mightlook different depending on who
it is you're interacting with,right, how I perceive someone's
authenticity, particularly interms of their communication
style, whether verbal ornon-verbal, may be very
different than the factors thatyou would look at, as Josh, in

(11:06):
determining whether someone isbeing authentic.
And that's where I said goodleaders, developing that ability
to accurately read folks, readtheir comfort zone, read how
much personal space they require, read how they communicate and
what makes them comfortable andwhat makes them uncomfortable.
And grasping that very early on, especially for the people that

(11:26):
you work around regularly, like, for example, a leader with
their staff, I think isabsolutely pivotal, especially
in the inception of a leadercoming in.
Because I think once you loseground with folks, the
unfortunate part about trust isit can take a long time to build
it up, but you can destroy itin a moment.
You can destroy it with a lookright.
You can destroy it in a moment.
You can destroy it with a lookright.
You can destroy it with a word.

(11:47):
And so I think that ability toread folks is incredibly
important.
And, of course, that flowsright into your ability to adapt
right, because there's no pointin adapting if you can't read
right, because what are youadapting to?
Typically, you're going toadapt to what you think you've
read in the environment, similarto like a radar, right?
I liken a good leader to a very, very sophisticated radar.

(12:08):
You're always reading yourenvironment right and you're
constantly scanning tounderstand what's noise, what's
meaningful, what's somethingthat I can grasp onto that
aligns with my agenda, andwhat's important to me that I
can run with, what's somethingthat doesn't necessarily align,
and how and when should Iaddress that if at all.
So I think that ability toadapt is only as good as your

(12:31):
ability to accurately read yourenvironment and determine what
is the best response from acontent standpoint and,
obviously, from a timingstandpoint and from a caliber
standpoint, right, how much of aresponse is required.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's one of the hardest things and that's always
been a superpower of mine and Idon't know if that was learned
through the military of ifyou're a junior officer, of kind
of like painting the picturefor everyone.
I started off in combat arms soevery year I would switch and
have a new role, a newleadership position, like
platoon leader in combat,platoon leader in garrison
company XO, and I would keepdoing that and I'm still doing

(13:11):
that up to this point as asenior major.
But it's kind of unique becauseI work in SOCOM right now and
there are some organizationalchallenges so I had to cover a
position and go into anotherposition, which is okay because
the organization needed that.
But I think over time and thosereps that I've gotten, I've
been able to read people likeand it's a, it's a literal

(13:33):
superpower.
I can meet you like face toface and I can pick up on your
emotions and I can learn how tocommunicate with you.
But for someone who doesn'thave that, how did you learn
through the academic piece andyour just experience, to begin
to communicate with people andpick up on those social cues and
emotional cues?

Speaker 3 (13:52):
That's a great question.
I don't think I've ever beenasked that directly, but it's a
great question and I think itwas a combination of things for
me.
I think even when I was a kid Iwas always very curious.
I didn't have anything that wasmy favorite, that I liked to do
, I just love learning.
So whatever was put in front ofme, the exciting thing to me
was the learning, notnecessarily even the subject
matter.
So I think I just had a naturalcuriosity about people, about

(14:17):
why they do the things they do,why they think the things they
think, and I had that drive forlearning.
I think the other thing was incollege I was a dual major in
sociology and communication andthat was again an extension of
my desire to really understandwhat makes people who they are
Right, what makes a person thinkone way versus someone who

(14:37):
could think dramaticallydifferent, even people in the
same families.
I'm sure a lot of people seethat, especially people who have
siblings, and so a lot of whatI studied kind of furthered my
and fueled my interest in that.
And then I was always a bigSherlock Holmes lover and what I
loved most about him was it wasall about observation, right.
So by the time I got intoconsulting early on, I was

(14:59):
fortunate to have folks all ofthe folks that I worked with
early on in the boutique firm Iwent to in my late 20s.
They were all much older in agebut also had different
experience.
Most of them were engineers orfinance folks.
A lot of them were engineersformer GE engineers and so they
had a different way of lookingat the world and I loved that
because it gave me exposure tofolks who thought very

(15:24):
differently from the academicworld I came from.
Obviously, the subjects Istudied, as well as the work I
did as an attorney, right, insome ways we were similar, like,
right, very logical,logic-based thinking, obviously
as an engineer, but in many wayswe were different.
So I would say the folks Iworked with early on were they
were all high-caliberconsultants and they lived and
died by their ability to go intoan organization that was

(15:46):
relatively unknown.
And as a consultant, especiallyif you're highly paid, which
they were everyone's watchingyou, right, they want you to
deliver value very quickly andvery significantly out of the
gate.
And typically you're not doinganything without people, right,
I don't care what you're doingin an organization, you're not
doing it without interactingwith people to some degree, and

(16:07):
typically to significant degrees.
So I watched them and we'd havemany debriefs, which in the
military we'd call them AARs,right, but they served the same
purpose.
Right After every meetingparticularly consequential ones,
but even ones that were fairlystandard we'd all sit around and
ask each other what did you see, what did you hear, what do you
think that means?

(16:28):
And I would joke with folks.
Once I was more well-versed init and I became more adept at it
, I would joke thinking back towhat I called my old self and I
would say I would leave meetingswith them and we'd debrief and
I'd go was I at the same meetingyou were in?
Because I didn't see any ofthat or I didn't pick up on even
half of that?
And slowly, over time.

(16:52):
And we would observe each otheras well.
If one of the people was leadinga session or a working session
with clients or teams of folks,even down from the front line
all the way up to SVPs andC-suite, we would critique each
other.
So one of us might sit in theback of the room suite.
We would critique each other,so one of us might sit in the
back of the room and, inaddition to helping, we would be
assessing and we would givevery candid you know, polite and
tactful but very candidfeedback.
And I remember early on themanaging partner gave me

(17:14):
feedback which I try to thinkabout to this day.
He said you know you were doingvery well, but you don't
realize that you saw the track,the train, 10 steps down the
track, very well, but you don'trealize that you saw the track,
the train, 10 steps down thetrack, and you lost the audience
at like step three.
And he said I knew you weren'teven aware of that, and so he
would.
We would often give each othervery detailed, constructive,

(17:34):
helpful feedback and then we'dspend, sometimes even after
hours.
We'd spend hours if we atedinner together.
We'd then spend time talkingabout again what did you see,
what do you think, what do youthink so-and-so might do next,
or do you think there was anoffline conversation that we
weren't around for?
And so I continued to honethose skills.
And so, as I'm doing this right, I reread many Sherlock Holmes

(17:57):
stories over the years and Iwould see the parallels right.
And so eventually I would gointo someone's office and I'd
try to get there a little earlyon purpose and if they were nice
enough to let me in, or if theadmin let me in, I'd sit down
and I just observe what was intheir office.
Right, and I tried to get asense of, in my mind, a very
quick back of the napkin profileof this individual, right, what

(18:19):
was important to them?
What seemed to matter to them?
Did they have quotes hanging ontheir wall?
Did they have nothing at all ontheir wall?
Were their blinds closed eventhough it was daytime and they
overlooked a beautiful field?
Or were they open?
What kinds of furniture didthey have in the room?
How was their table set up?
When their folks came in theroom, where did they sit?
Who did they sit next to?
So, in my mind, I trainedmyself to be a radar that, as I

(18:42):
said, that was always turned on.
So in my mind, I'm processingwhat's happening in the room at
the same time that I'm thinkingabout what I need to do while
I'm there, what I have toaccomplish.
My mission for that meeting, orwhatever the interaction was,
observing folks in the room,understanding the dynamics, do
you get a sense that certainfolks are allies or not.

(19:05):
All those things becomecritically important and then
they become the input right.
So I would gather all thatinformation, mull it over in my
mind Hopefully I had some otherfolks in the room who were
trusted people that I couldbounce things off of later.
Sometimes you do, sometimes youdon't, depending on how you
operate.
And then I would mull that overand when I came to some what I
thought were fair conclusions orreasonable, I would hold those

(19:25):
conclusions and those would bemy input for the next meeting.
And then, of course, in ameeting it depends on your
objective or your interaction.
You know, sometimes I would notsay much on purpose because I
wanted the person in the meetingto wonder what I was thinking
and maybe talk more and more andmore.
Right, a lot of times whenyou're silent, people feel
compelled to talk more.

(19:46):
They may not want to, but theydo, and so they share things
that you otherwise wouldn't havelearned from them.
And other times, if I'm goinginto a meeting with a colonel
and we think you know there's alieutenant colonel where there's
something that's being heldback that is really driving what
we see on the surface, and Ikind of sense it's there.
The other shoe needs to drop Imight just show up for the
meeting when I was not reallysupposed to be there, because,

(20:08):
one, that's unsettling, right.
And then, two, I might turn upthe heat at some point because I
want this person to show theircards, and oftentimes that's
something hard for the leader todo directly, depending on their
relationship with that person.
And that's where someone likeme can be tremendously helpful,
because I can be that otherperson in the room who doesn't
carry the same burdens, who hassimilar objectives, but can

(20:33):
carry that water in a differentway for that objective than that
leader could themselves Right,and oftentimes it worked right.
The person would feel unsettledby my presence, wonder why I
was there.
You turn up the heat a littlebit and then all of a sudden
they share the real thing thatwas bothering them about another
leader, about an issue with aproject.

(20:53):
And I don't do that to putanybody on the spot.
Let me clarify the leader needsto have that information to be
effective for the organizationand to determine what needs to
happen next.
And if there's somethingbothering a person that's more
on the emotional side of thingsand not on the logical side of
things.
That's as important as thelogical, and so you need to get

(21:14):
to the bottom of that in orderfor you to kind of get past that
hump and then achieve what youneed to for the organization and
also help this leaderunderstand how to manage to that
, so that they can have thatteachable moment and recognize
that that's part of what they'redoing, whether they were
conscious of it or not, and helpthem move past it.
So I would say leaders need tobe constantly observing ideally

(21:40):
someone who's a lifelong learneror someone who's just
passionate about learning andpassionate about understanding
people and why they do what theydo and why they don't do what
they don't do.
Again, all with the goal offiguring out what is this
person's full potential and howdo I, as a leader, help them
reach it.
And in doing so, if you thinkabout it in the aggregate, if

(22:02):
you're doing that, at least witha lot of the key people in your
organization, but ideally everyperson in your organization who
presumably is there to delivervalue if you're doing that, then
in the aggregate you're helpingthe organization to realize its
full potential, and that may bedifferent for an organization
depending on where it is in itslife cycle.
When I was trying to get intocollege, my main goal then was

(22:24):
getting into a good college.
Once I graduated then my goalsshifted right and my potential.
I then kind of reached thatazimuth.
And once you reach that azimuth, of course you're now able to
see the next mountain, whereasif you were still at the bottom
you can't see what's next.
So I always said that once youachieve a certain success, the

(22:45):
good part is yay, I achieved it.
The, I guess, kind of downsideis now I see the next success or
potential for success that isin front of me that prior to
that me having the previoussuccess, I would have never even
been able to see.
And that's where the lifelonglearner becomes important, right
, because lifelong learnersrecognize it's not really about

(23:08):
achieving a certain degree ofsuccess or reaching a zenith.
It's the fact that the zenithnever really it doesn't really
exist and it never can really bereached, because there's always
something you don't know,there's always something you
don't fully understand andtherefore that means there's
always something you can learn.
So the best leaders I've seenare folks that are humble, in

(23:29):
the sense that they recognizethat yeah, they're in that seat
because they've accomplished agreat deal and certainly they
know quite a bit, Otherwise onewould assume they're not there.
But there's also things thatthey still have yet to learn,
and so I've learned tremendousthings from the leaders I've
worked with.
Even though I was often there tohelp them lead, I never in my

(23:50):
own mind I knew it was a two-waystreet and I always treated it
as such.
I was there to help to teach asmuch as I was there to be taught
and in a sense it was.
I was like wow, this is like afree education in a sense.
More than that.
I'm actually getting paid tocontinue to be educated by
watching leaders in action,because, as someone who's gone

(24:11):
through many programs, I'm notshy about saying this there's
only so much you're going tolearn from books.
There's only so much you'regoing to learn being in
controlled environments withother students and professors.
To me, the biggest learninghappens by interacting with
folks kind of raw and nativelyright and going into those
interactions with the mind ofI'm here to learn as much as I

(24:31):
can because that'll help merealize my full potential and it
will better equip me to dowhatever mission is in front of
me, and my mission is typicallyhelping leaders and members of
organizations be effective sothat the organization can be
effective.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
There's so much wisdom in there, and it's funny
too that we share a lot ofsimilarities.
So my bachelor's degree is incriminal psychology and I wanted
to learn the psychology of howto read people and be a criminal
profiler.
And then I wanted to join thearmy and then I joined the
infantry and I didn't even usemy degree and now I have a

(25:06):
systems engineering master'sdegree.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
So I'm sure you use it, though I'm sure you do use
it.
You just don't make.
You may not formally use it,but I'll probably guarantee you
you use it probably in everyinteraction, and, and, and, and.
Your task would be to try todraw the subconscious and make
it conscious, to start to figureout what are the things you're
doing.
That you almost do naturallythrough education and through

(25:31):
practice, so that you cancompartmentalize them and
package them in ways that makethem accessible to others who
may not have the same backgroundand experience, but who are
certainly in need of those kindsof skills.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, there was two other great things that you said
, and I've never heard anyonesay this, but I do the same
thing If you're going to have ameeting with someone, try to get
there a little bit early,because that's just good TTP or
tactics, techniques andprocedures.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, Like your recon right.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
But read the room is like straight fire, and I've
done that all the time.
Because if you're going to meetsomeone for the first time,
like if you come in my room andyou see all the crazy stuff
behind my plaque, then you couldprobably pick up one that I'm a
Marvel fan, I'm an acquisitionofficer, I've done some combat
arms things, so you couldprobably quickly read on my

(26:22):
background.
But what you don't know is thatall of those things tell a
story, and a lot of people Ithink they're so tunnel focused.
When they go in to talk to asenior level leader, regardless
of the organization, they'rerehearsing their scripts.
They're trying to get whatthey're going to think.
I've changed my mindset,especially when it came to

(26:43):
public speaking.
I don't memorize speechesanymore.
I have key points that I wantto bullet and I want to
communicate.
But I naturally let itorganically flow and I read the
room.
But I've learned that too withhaving one-on-one conversations,
of trying to pick up oneverything, the entire
environment, to help me be abetter communicator.
And I love the concept of aradar.

(27:04):
I'm totally going to use that.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
And you bring up another great point when you
said a lot of folks go into ameeting and their mind and I
guess rightfully so is on.
Okay, what do I need toaccomplish here?
What were my key points that Ineed to make sure that I make?
Did I shore up all the math inmy briefing, et cetera, et
cetera.
And I think this is why Iemphasize to folks all the time
master what it is you do.

(27:28):
Right, make sure that you'vemastered that briefing long
before you get to that meetingso that when you speak in that
meeting you speak withconviction.
You're polite, you're tactful,but you speak with conviction
because just the tone of how youspeak and the eye contact you
make, the other person doesn'teven realize.

(27:48):
Because it again goes back tothe fact that we're animals.
Right, it conveys something tothem.
Right, immediately inside themthey're thinking this person
knows what they're talking about.
Right, or at least they believethey know what they're talking
about and they've come armedright with the information.
So if you go into a meeting andyou're kind of a little unsure,
and well, maybe I didn't do asmuch work on this as I should

(28:11):
have, or I didn't do enoughrecon on who I'm meeting with,
or there's a number of things,right, you're not going to have
the extra mental space andenergy to do the things that I
just talked about, like look atthe room, like observe the
people that come in, who shakeswhose hand and who doesn't.
Where the people sit, what's inthe room?

(28:32):
If it's in the leader's office,right, what is the room
communicating to me?
Because everything is, as yousaid, it's trying to tell a
story.
Now, some of that is going tobe interpreted through your own
lens.
Inevitably we all have a lens,right, and it's going to be
interpreted by our lens, right,because we're seeing the world.
We each have a camera in frontof our eyes, right, and that
camera is calibrated just to us,an individual.

(28:52):
And so some of the things thatcamera is going to see because
it's what we see, and some of itwe're not going to see because
it's not in our worldview.
But that aside, right,everything in that room is
saying something to you, right,it's conveying a message or
messages, and if you go into ameeting and you don't feel as
confident in your preparation,your mind is never going to have
the space.
Right, it's like a radar thathas an old operating system,

(29:15):
right, it's not going to be ableto do the things that a very
sophisticated top-of-the-lineradar would be able to do, right
, it simply doesn't have thememory, it doesn't have the
software and the technologicaland hardware capability.
And that's why I always hammerfolks on being the epitome of
prepared, because when you are,you then have the mental space

(29:35):
and energy and requisite calmand in your demeanor to go into
that space and be able to takeall of the data that it's
offering you.
Now, if it's repeat, and themore you do it with the same
leadership or group of leaders,you should still be actively
gathering your data, right,drawing preliminary conclusions,
and those are all inputs to thecomputer.

(29:57):
That is your brain, right, andso you should be feeding.
The next thing you're going todo should be fed by and informed
by those inputs.
And if you go in and observeearly, right, then part of the
meeting, if you're really good,you can use part of that meeting
to either confirm or deny yourpreliminary conclusions, right?
So if I saw things on your wallthere, I may come to some very
preliminary conclusions,recognizing this is the first

(30:18):
time I'm speaking with you.
This is the first time I'mseeing what's on your wall and
so those conclusions I'm drawingby anything I see, I have to
acknowledge to myself those arevery, very cursory preliminary
conclusions.
Now, if I've come to theconversation feeling like I'm
prepared on my side what I needto talk about, what we're likely
going to hit on some of thethings I know I want to make
sure I include, then I can usesome of our conversation to try

(30:43):
to confirm or deny thosepreliminary conclusions.
Right, and I can do that moredirectly by speaking with you
and you speaking with me andI've done that many times with
leaders, right, I'vepurposefully observed the things
in the room and then,throughout the conversation,
without them realizing of courseI wouldn't necessarily do it
pointed, unless I had that kindof close relationship with the
person I'd probably indirectlytry to confirm or deny some of

(31:05):
the preliminary conclusions Iwas drawing in that interaction.
But in order to be able to doall of that, as I said, the
first step is be prepared, knowwhat you're going in there to
discuss, have a mastery of thematerial to the point where,
ideally, you wouldn't evenreally have to look at the brief
.
At some point the brief becomesa prop because you already know
it in heart and mind.

(31:26):
And the reason I say heart andmind and I do mean that
literally is mind meaning youhave mastered the material and
the content.
Now, this is where my legalbackground comes into play.
Right, you mastered yourargument.
You've anticipated the likelycounter argument.
You've developed your countercounter argument, anticipated
the likely counter argument.

(31:47):
You've developed your countercounter argument and you go in
there with that requisiteconfidence.
Right, and at that point thebrief in many ways is really
just a prop.
Right, it's there because mostfolks, even to this day, they
expect some kind of piece ofpaper.
Right, they expect it to look acertain way, right.
But if you really know whatyou're doing, you end up having
a dialogue with that leader andunless it's a really, really
technical brief where they'vegot to look at like an eye chart

(32:09):
and it's about a number and adecimal point, you should find
through that conversation thatthe leader is looking less and
less at that brief and more andmore directly into your eyes as
they're speaking to you and asyou're speaking to them, right.
So brings me to another point,which is when you, when I, go
into meetings, I always askfolks, before we even start
preparing, what are yourmeasures of success for the

(32:30):
meeting?
And I always say, asked anotherway, if you leave them, what
would it take for you to leavethat meeting?
And high five everybody.
Versus leave and think we justbarely got through that, versus
leaving go.
Oh my God, we bombed.
I said what are the measures inyour mind?
You must have some.
And I said I need you to makethem overt because that's where
we start with the briefing.

(32:51):
That's where we start.
And in military lingo you mightsay, okay, what's our
overarching mission?
And then what is our missionfor this particular unit?
And then how would we know thatwe met the mission very
specifically?
And then you backwards planfrom there.
In my mind it's the same withany interaction, especially the
ones that are planned andscheduled.
That's what you do first.

(33:13):
So again, a big part of what aleader can do with their team,
as far as being a good leader,is kind of hammer those things
home to your team, where thatbecomes part of their natural
way of thinking.
And then you'll notice I'vealways joked with leaders and
said the brief looks like a mess, because the brief is just
merely a reflection of thethinking I said.
Now some people are better atPowerPoint than others, no doubt

(33:35):
.
But if a briefing is wendingand winding, if it's logically
not flowing the way the logicshould flow, that's more
reflection that the thinking isand where it needs to be.
And so I've often emphasized toleaders one of your main jobs
is to teach your followers howto think right, how to structure

(33:57):
their thinking and, ideally,their critical thinking.
And once you can get them to aplace where they do that fairly
well, you typically start to seetheir briefs improve.
Now, the graphics may not beterribly sexy or anything like
that which someone can readilylearn, but the thinking, the
flow of the logic, the A mustproceed, b must proceed, c, and

(34:17):
if C is this, then it means thatE and F must be that You'll
start to see that improve.
So I think you know and that allgoes back to a leader helping
people realize their fullpotential right is equipping
them with those skills that arereadily transferable.
Because that critical thinking,no matter what environment
you're in, whether you're on thefrontline fighting, or whether

(34:38):
you're in the acquisition coreperforming more business type
functions, whatever you're doing, that kind of thinking is
readily applicable.
So those are life skills, right?
And so, again, I think a goodleader feels that it's their
responsibility to impart thoseskills to their followers, and
also to find folks within theirorganization that are

(34:59):
particularly good at that andprovide those folks with the
necessary underpinnings andenvironment where they can use
those folks like a forcemultiplier, right, and let those
folks do a lot of that for them.
So, yeah, the reading the room,though, is pivotal, and, as I
said, if you go in there andyou're not prepared, or you
don't think you're prepared,because a lot of it is all in

(35:21):
your mind right You're not goingto have mental space to do any
of these other things.
In fact, you probably missthings that are blatant, that
are right in front of you, thataren't even things that you'd
have to have a moresophisticated radar to pick up.
You'll probably miss the thingsthat are very obvious, and those
things, if you miss them, youmiss the opportunities to
calibrate in the moment right,it's almost like you know how

(35:44):
the military is now talkingabout transforming in conflict,
right, that's basically what I'mtalking about in a sense, but
it's not conflict per se, it'stransforming I would say
transforming in interaction,right.
So as a radar, right, if you'rereading that room and you get
pretty good at it and you'reaccurate and you're quick, you
see something going sideways.

(36:04):
You know exactly how tocalibrate it and you know
exactly when to calibrate it,right, and and and and.
By the time you do it, peopledon't even realize that that's
what you've done, right?
They may never realize thatthat's what you've done.
But that's why that reading theroom becomes very, very
consequential, because if you're, if you are, if you're hoping
to transform in interaction,right and I'm taking this, I'm

(36:27):
extrapolating, from thetransforming in conflict,
because I think the underlyingconstructs are exactly the same
right is how quickly can youadapt?
As I said, adapt assumes thatyou've already determined what
it is you need to adapt to,right.
And so if your process of how,determining what you need to
adapt to, is flawed, then youradaptation is going to be flawed
and, in some situations,actually dangerous and worse

(36:50):
than sticking to the status quo.
So I think a good leader, goodleaders that I've seen, have an
exceptional ability to readrooms that they've been in for
many, many meetings and for longtimes, and to read rooms that
they never stepped in before,and to do that with fair degree
of accuracy and at a decentspeed, and they're able to

(37:11):
calibrate and adapt quickly inthose moments, and they do all
of that with a relatively highsuccess rate, and that, again,
those are skills that take timeto learn.
Well, first they take desire andinterest.
That's number one.
If you don't have the desire andyou don't have the interest, I
mean you could have the bestperson in the world teaching you
.
So first it takes the desire andan interest and then it takes

(37:32):
the dedication to want to dothat and then, of course, as you
see small successes coming fromthat, you get more confident,
right, you get, you get morepracticed in what you're doing.
You, you kind of learn theprocess in your mind of take
these inputs, take these outputsfrom this meeting that are
preliminary conclusions, usethem as inputs for the next
interaction, recognizing thatsome of them are preliminary,

(37:54):
probably more like researchquestions, and some of them
you've seen so many times withthis person that you can
squarely say it's a hypothesisand you're fairly confident that
that's one of the attributes ofthis person in terms of their
thinking or how they justapproach their, how they
interact with the world, right,and you're constantly using
those outputs as inputs to yournext interaction and over time

(38:16):
you'll find that in your mindyou've amassed quite a data set
of very clean, very repeatedlyvalidated data that you can then
use to continue to hone thoseinteractions again to achieve
what it is you think you need toachieve as a leader.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
I love podcasting because I just naturally do
these things, but you have aclear framework methodology in
place that anyone can take thisand repeat the same steps.
But I love that.
Take this and repeat the samesteps but I love that.
One of the things that I've hada mentor tell me is that you
have to care, prepare, thenexecute.
If you care about a position.

(38:57):
I think that's the hardestthing too.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Cares the heart, prepares the mind.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
There's another thing that I've learned throughout my
career.
I call it the rule of triple Hhead, heart, hand alignment.
If you can see it in your headand you can create an emotional,
intrinsic connection, somethingthat will actually make you
motivated and inspired, thenyour hands will just naturally
do the work.
And I've always kind of thoughtit through that lens head, hand

(39:21):
, heart alignment but I love howyou kind of frame that and then
you tie it back in to thisradar framework, which is
awesome.
It's funny, we're 40 minutes inand I haven't even asked you
any questions.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
No, it's great because you've just naturally
explained so much of what I doas a leader and I've learned
over time, but I've never beenable to put it into words.
And you've said it beautifully.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
You need to write a book on that.
Oh, maybe, maybe that's coming.
But something else you saidthat kind of I wanted to hone in
on, was the head, heart, hand.
The ancient Greeks talk aboutethos, pathos, logos, right, so
ethos is appealing to someone'svalues and ethics.
Pathos would be like it'sdirectly the root of the word,
like pathetic, right, whichreally is about.
It's a feeling oriented thing,right, so pathos would be

(40:13):
appealing to their emotions andtheir feelings.
And then, of course, logos isappealing to their logic and
reason, right, and effectivecommunication typically would be
able to hit on all three.
Right, but this again goes backto your ability to read the
environment, right, because if Iinaccurately characterize your
values, right, I might betapping into values that you

(40:36):
don't espouse to at all, in fact, values that may be
diametrically opposed to yourvalues, right.
So, again, I think all of thosethings are great, but it all
goes back to it's like what wedo in the military, right Detect
, recognize, identify.
Right, you can't recognizeuntil you detect.
You can't really identifyaccurately unless you've

(40:56):
detected accurately andrecognized accurately, right.
So certain things necessarilyprecede others.
And so I think, in order for acommunicator to understand, hey,
if I'm talking to Josh and I'mtrying to employ principles of
ethos, pathos and logos.
Well, first I have to have apretty good read on Josh,
because the ethos, pathos andlogos levers that I may push may

(41:17):
at worst be the opposite andmay at best just be apathy.
Neutral didn't get me anything,I didn't win anything and I
didn't lose anything.
Neutral didn't get me anything,I didn't win anything and I
didn't lose anything.
And so I think a lot of it doescome back to being able to
accurately read people, and Ithink part of that is having

(41:41):
requisite empathy, being aperson who can empathize with
others, being a person whoactually cares enough about
other people to have the desireto read them right.
Because if you're a person whodoesn't care, you just go in
like a shotgun blast, youdeliver your message or your
briefing and you hope that youachieved what you wanted and you
leave.
But I think part of being aneffective reader of people is
having a requisite degree ofcare and empathy.

(42:02):
And empathy obviously is verydifferent than sympathy and
trying to put yourself in thatperson's shoes as best, as best
as you can, because no one cando that one-to-one and anyone
who says they can, I think iseither not being totally genuine
or is probably a little bitdelusional.
You can't do it perfectly, butyou can try right, and it's in
the effort whereby you pick upon these little cues right and

(42:25):
again, because becausecommunication scholars always
talk about, you know, way backin the day they thought
communication was as simple asgiving someone a needle.
You deliver your message andthe person gets it exactly as
you intended, and very quickly.
That was debunked, and werecognize that the message, the
efficacy of the message, is asmuch about the sender as it is
the receiver, right, and so thenthat begs the question what do

(42:47):
you know about your receiver?
And I don't just mean thecursory.
Here's their title, here's whatthey did in their career.
I think it's much more nuancedthan that.
Those things aren't really goingto get you to knowing what
levers to push and how much topush them and when to push them
and in what forums to push them,and what other folks should be

(43:07):
around when you push them or,ideally, wouldn't be around when
you push them.
So I think, going into eachinteraction and each
relationship, no matter where itis in its life cycle, whether
it's at its infancy or it's verymature, being genuinely
interested in getting to knowthat person and kind of
understanding their life storyand understanding things that

(43:31):
they made them happy, thingsthat they struggled with, things
that they pushed through.
All of those things that personbrings to that briefing with
you.
They never leave those thingsoutside of the room.
They bring all of that with you.
They bring the whole person tothat interaction.
And so your job, if you want tobe an effective communicator
and in turn I think the bestleaders are also very effective

(43:52):
communicators your job is toreally try to understand that
person as best you can fromtheir vantage point.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah, I think leading the whole person is.
A foreign concept to a lot ofpeople, especially in leadership
nowadays, is that they'refocused solely on the metrics.
And I talk about this a lot oftransitional versus
transformational leadership.
Transitional views people asobjects.
To get to where you want to go,yeah.
Transactional, yes, uh-huh,yeah.
And then transformational.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, it's a mere transaction.
You are a necessary cog in myprocess to get me to my end
state.
So I'm going to use you in thisway and I'm going to use you in
that way and I'm going to use.
And you see, the problem withthat is, again, it's
irrespective of the person'swhat is their real potential and
what is that gold in them thatyou can unlock right?

(44:43):
Sometimes the gold might fityour little cog agenda, but I
would guess most of the time itprobably doesn't right.
Sometimes the gold might fityour little cog agenda, but I
would guess most of the time itprobably doesn't right.
And people know instinctivelyagain, we're animals, right, we
feel it, we know if someone isjust using us and that's really,
in a sense I think that's apretty flagrant word for
transactional leadership butthey're using us or they're
genuinely interested in bringingour best to the table and part

(45:07):
of their job as a leader isfiguring out how to unlock that
and how to make it a forcemultiplier for the organization.
Now, that's not to say therearen't situations that require
transactional leadership.
And that's where I get back tothe adaptive leader, sometimes
based on the timing, the optempo, what needs to be achieved
and the urgency of it and theimportance of it.
Yeah, transactional leadershipmay be what is required, right,

(45:29):
but a good leader would alsoknow, again, gathering their
data, using it as inputs to thenext interaction.
They would know when thatsituation was occurring and they
would know what to do in thatsituation, right, and they would
have the skill set to enacttactics that are typically
endemic of a transactionalleader versus a transformative

(45:51):
type of leader.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
You see what I'm saying yeah, no, a hundred
percent.
And it kind of goes back to thesame concept of I call it TNT
transitional versustransformational.
And then there's a middleground there.
If I'm in combat and I have tomake a decision, then I'm
probably going to have to be ahammer and people won't like
what I have to do, but it's adecision that has to be made
instantly or the consequencesand likelihood is very high.

(46:16):
So it's based on risk and if Ihave the time to kind of do the
shaping operations, to clearlycommunicate, to make sure that
I'm sitting empathetically withsomeone at least understanding
like where they're coming from,but still holding them
accountable.
And I think a lot of peoplenowadays too, they view you hit
the nail on the head of sympathyversus empathy.
I don't think they clearlydefine empathy correctly,

(46:39):
because empathy means, hey, Ican view it from your standpoint
, but we have a standard in theorganization and if you don't
hit that standard, it's my jobas the leader to hold you
accountable, but I also shouldbe held accountable.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Right.
And if you don't have a propergauge via empathy, as to where
that person's at, you don't knowhow much of a delta exists
between where they're at orwhere they see themselves at in
whatever the issue is, forexample, and where you need them
to be for the organization'sgood, right.
So again it all comes back.
In a sense it kind of goes backto the garbage in, garbage out.

(47:14):
When you're thinking about atraditional process or data,
right, If you have flawed datafrom the beginning, then
everything that that datatouches and feeds it's almost
like the flaws become more andmore exacerbated as you move
down the chain of interactionand logic, right.
So by using empathy you're ableto at least get as good a

(47:35):
handle as any person can becauseyou're not that person where
that person's coming from, andunderstand where they're coming
from and then determine how muchof where they're coming from is
really all that different fromwhere you're trying to move the
organization to go and getting ahandle on if there is a delta,
how much of a delta is there?
And is it a bridge too far?
With some folks it may be.

(47:56):
I think that's probably morerare.
Usually it isn't a bridge toofar and part of the leader's job
, in addition to the otherthings I've said, is to figure
out when the bridge is too farand maybe the person would be,
their attributes and theirpotential would fit better in
another organization, or thebridge isn't too far and is
gonna take the work of theleader to help that person get

(48:18):
there, and that may be anythingfrom assigning a mentor or
putting a person with somebodythat you know would work well
with them and has the requisiteattributes and talents to really
tap into where that person is,to get them where they are In
the law.
It's funny we talk about intorts.
They talk about the soft skullright, meaning, like if you rear
end a person and they end uphaving catastrophic head

(48:40):
injuries from a you know simplebumper hit, you take the
plaintiff as you find them.
You know too bad, hey, they hada soft skull, you know.
So the same thinking I apply islike you have to take the
person as you find them, not asyou wish they would be or as you
, in your ideal world, picturedthem as being.
You have to take each person inthe organization as you find

(49:04):
them right, and as the leader,your job, among other things, is
to figure out what do I thinkthis person's real potential is
ideally with that person right.
And then figure out, as aleader, how far you can get them
down that path.
Again, with the North Starbeing what it is, the
organization is ultimately thereto do, right, what it is is

(49:24):
expected of that organization interms of what value they are to
deliver in services, goods orboth right.
And then figuring out whereyour deltas are and which people
you can get there by helpingthem realize their full
potential.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Today's show sponsor comes from 10th Mountain Whiskey
and Spirit Company.
They are a philanthropic,award-winning craft distillery
located in the heart of theRocky Mountains in Colorado.
For being a listener of Talesof Leadership, you get 10% off
on any order using the promocode PANDOCOMMANDO when you
place an order at 10thwhiskeycom.

(50:00):
Both of those are in the shownotes, so you'll be able to find
them.
10thmountainwhiskeycom Both ofthose are in the show notes, so
you'll be able to find them.
10th Mountain Whiskey andSpirit Company honors heroes and
they craft a legacy.
I've commanded two organizationsin the 10th Mountain and both
of which are very deeplyimpactful to me.
This is a company that I standbehind and if you're looking for

(50:20):
a great bottle of bourbon, lookno further at 10th Mountain
Whiskey and Spirit Company.
Back to the show.
Yeah, there's definitelycertain people within the
organizations that I've learned,like Perino principle right,
like 20% of the organizationproduces 80% of the results and
then, opposite, 20% of yoursoldiers create 80% of your

(50:41):
problems.
So you can use thatstatistically any way you want,
but I've learned that like overtime.
But it's taken me a hard,sometimes hard lessons to learn
those concepts.
But I love how you break itdown from a clear methodology
standpoint, and what I wouldlike to try to take it back to
is your educational backgroundand then transitioning within
the DOD.
How did that go in terms oflike going from college to

(51:02):
transitioning within the the dod?
How did that go, um, in termsof like going from college to
transitioning within the dod andthen working within the
acquisitions core with seniorlevel leaders?
Was there any challenges thatyou found?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
oh, yes, man, um, so I'll just try and be as succinct
as I can.
So I started my career as anattorney working for a large
bank.
I was a contracts attorneysupporting the global trading
desk.
I executed all the contractsthat essentially memorialized
very sophisticated derivativesand high value trades.
It was enjoyable work.

(51:36):
Very interesting because youhad to learn how the trades work
, which is sometimes complex,math and other things like that
in order to understand theproper terms of the contract,
what should be in the contractand what you should try to
negotiate.
But it was very bounded work inthe sense that it's a very kind
of narrowly tailored and onceyou master it, I found myself
getting bored pretty quickly.

(51:57):
So I started looking for otherthings to do.
I started writing in that fieldand teaching classes at BU,
which is where I got my lawdegree and master's.
I taught at the College ofCommunication and Research
Methods and Statistics and didthat while I did my day job as
an attorney and then while I wasat the bank, I actually that's
where I met the boutique firm ofconsultants the smaller firm

(52:18):
that I referred to earlier inthis conversation of very high
caliber former GE audit stafffolks mostly engineers and
financial folks who hadtransitioned into strategy
consulting.
But what was unique about themwas they did the strategy and
the execution, so they didn'tjust come in and detail this
very high level strategy andleave the organization to figure

(52:40):
out how to execute, which istypically the hardest part.
They brought in the strategy,helped the organization build a
strategy and then they were onthe hook and were happy to be so
, to help that organizationexecute that strategy.
So that was kind of ourguarantee was, hey, we're going
to come in and roll up oursleeves and actually help you do
that.
And so I got very fortunatebecause, one, I was much younger

(53:00):
than all the folks on the teamand, two, I was the only one who
didn't have an engineering orfinance background.
But I met the managing partnerof the team who unfortunately
passed away in 2005.
He was a PhD in electricalengineering and he was just a
phenomenal person incrediblytalented person, very driven
person, incredibly naturallycurious person.

(53:23):
I'd say we were probably mostalike of all the folks on the
team and he saw me in a.
We had a working session as theattorneys one night.
They were sent in to help usoptimize operations and
technically we really shouldn'thave been there, but we were
part of the team, so we wereincluded and I wasn't invited.
I was a junior attorney, butone of my attributes is I can

(53:45):
force myself into somethingsometimes.
So I just said, hey, I'm going.
And so my senior attorney Iguess he didn't want to have the
argument with me, maybe he wastired that day anyway so he let
me in the room and I ended upbeing the person who briefed out
for our team on what we weredoing in that working session.
And then the managing partnercame back to me about a year
later when I was looking toprobably go to another bank and

(54:06):
do higher caliber derivatives.
He came back and said I'mlooking to build out the team
and hire another person.
Are you interested?
And I thought, wow, you know, Ireally loved what they did that
night and that resonated withme and something clicked inside
of me, so he flew me out.
Bank One was one of their bigclients at the time.
The predecessor, eventually BankOne when Jamie Dimon was the

(54:28):
CEO and he was looking tostreamline operations to either
acquire or be acquired, and thatwas partly why we were brought
into Bank One and he said comeon out to one of our sites I
think it was in Indiana at thetime and he said I just want you
to watch a couple of sessionsand see if it's something that
still interests you.
And I knew by the end of thatday, watching what they did, I
thought this is really what Iwas made to do.

(54:51):
It leveraged all my skills asan attorney, obviously, public
speaking, being able to putarguments together quickly on
your feet, critical thinkingskills but it also overlapped
really well with what I wasdoing in communication, which by
then I had my master's degree,and I was always fascinated with

(55:12):
how people in organizationscommunicate and what effective
communication looks like inorganizations and among leaders
and from leaders to followers,and so this position offered me
the opportunity to do all ofthat.
Now it also was throwing meinto a big pond as a very small
fish, because I had never reallytraveled anywhere outside of
Boston.
I spent my whole life there, soI never really knew what it was

(55:34):
to get on a plane, let aloneget on a plane every week and go
to places I had never been toand go into organizations where
I had no history with them otherthan walking in.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
I will tell you, Boston is intensely different
than what I grew up in RuralWest Virginia.
I traveled to Boston for thefirst time and I felt like I was
completely lost.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Right, and it's, relatively speaking, a small, a
very metropolitan obviously, buta small city.
But I had never left there.
I had all my education there,my whole family was there.
We didn't really travel as afamily, so there I was going
from, you know, a very kind ofand I don't mean this in a bad
way provincial life to gettingon planes every week taking
connecting flights, becauseBoston was and still is in some

(56:15):
ways, sorry, boston out there,but it's a terrible airport to
fly in and out of.
And a lot of my colleagues wereflying from airports in
California and one was fromAtlanta flying, and they would
always arrive so well rested andready to go, and they had come
from GE as audit staff and theyhad years under their belt.
And so I think this is where mystubbornness helped me, because
I was so intent on masteringwhat they did, because I loved

(56:38):
learning and being successfulwith what I was trying to do for
them, that it allowed me tojust plow through everything
else.
Like I said, well, damn it,you're going to get on this
plane and you're going to sleepin that hotel room alone, you
know, in your bed, and putpillows around you, because
you're not comfortable sleepingin a strange place and you're
going to do any, whatever ittakes within reason, obviously

(56:59):
appropriately to be successful.
And I learned very, veryquickly because I was thrown in
the deep pond and also becausethose folks we were tight knit,
we did very high caliber workand we were constantly going,
but we would tighten it.
And Kenneth, the man who ranthe company to this day I still
hear his words and they ringtrue to this day and this is now

(57:19):
going on.
You know, close to 30 years agonow, all the mentoring and the
time that he spent with me andall that I learned from all the
clients that I worked with allover the country, because we
worked with very big clients,but we worked with everyone,
from the frontline folks whowere executing, for example,
processing the checks in thebank to the senior level, svps

(57:39):
and the guys running operations.
So I naturally related to peopleat every level because I never
went in thinking I'm smarterthan you or I know this better
than you do.
I went in with a learner'smindset of you guys know this
work.
Now you may not know how tooptimize it.
Maybe you don't know thespecific techniques that I've

(58:01):
learned and I've honed, butyou're the experts on what you
do here.
So my job first is to learnwhat you do and to help you do
that better and to help yourealize your full potential.
So I worked with frontlinefolks who never were comfortable
speaking in front of anybodyabout anything, and I helped
them develop the courage and theknowledge to get up and do
presentations in front of VPsand SVPs.

(58:24):
And what gave me the most joyand even now thinking about it
it makes my heart happy was towatch people who thought, never
thought they'd do that, neverthought they were the kind of
person, in a sense, who deservedto be doing that.
And I remember watching themyou know, from the back, of
course doing their briefing whatwe would call a briefing in our

(58:45):
world, and I remember thefeeling of happiness that came
over me, watching people,watching their eyes light up,
watching them that have thatspark of confidence and when
they were finished and thenfielding questions and watching
the VP clap for them and knowingthat they did that, I realized

(59:06):
in that moment, in a sense thatwas my calling.
I was never one that liked tobask in my own light, although
I'm sure some people probablywould think that looking at my
background or what have you, butthat was never me.
I was much more of an introvert, naturally, and I was never one
.
I never wanted the limelight.
Now I would take it if it wasrequired for me to do my job,
because it was part of me doingmy job, but I was never one.

(59:28):
I'm not one to run out in frontof the big group and get in
front of people.
It's not my natural tendencyand so it solidified me in that
moment.
I can still see myself at BankOne in Phoenix at that meeting.
I can see the room and whateveryone was wearing and the
woman that was briefing.
But in that moment it reallydrove home to me that my passion
was helping people dig deepinside themselves and see their

(59:54):
potential and help them drawthat out, and then seeing the
satisfaction and the happinesson their face once that became
real for them.
And then, of course, watchingthem go right and watching them
reach that, as I said earlier,that next Zenith, and then
seeing all that was in front ofthem that they would have never
seen prior to that, and that'swhy I always joke.

(01:00:15):
There's that scene in JerryMaguire I don't know if you
remember where this photo isbeing taken and he jokes and
says that's my corner of my suit, right there, that's my
shoulder right there, right,because it was always the
athletes out front, Right, andthe agent, like he, was always
in the background and you mightsee a corner of his suit.
And I always joked with peopleand said that's the person that
I want to be.
I don't necessarily want to bethe person out in front, I want

(01:00:38):
to be the enabler, I want to bethe person walking around with
the proverbial key that unlocksthe potential of everyone else.
And so nothing in my career evermade me happier my
accomplishments as well,personal accomplishments, a
professional none of it evermade me as happy as that day
that I stood there and I watchedthat woman brief, knowing where

(01:01:01):
she started and knowing whereshe was in that moment, and
seeing the happiness on her faceand how proud she was, in an
appropriate level of pride inthat moment.
And that's when I knew that'sreally what I wanted to do.
And my job from that point onwas to continue to gather skills

(01:01:21):
and continue to educate myself,formally and informally, to
make myself the best I could beat being that person that
enables others to realize theirfull potential and, in doing so
collectively, to have anorganization realize its full
potential.
So I went from there to.
I left that small consultingcompany after two years because

(01:01:42):
I started my PhD program andafter the first year we were
doing so much internationaltravel that I couldn't keep
doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Was your PhD in London.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
No, no, my PhD I did at ASU, the Hugh Downs School of
Communication at ASU, which isa Research One institution, and
it was very highly regarded,particularly in the areas I
focused in, which was mainlyorganizational communication for
my PhD.
And so I started that while Iwas working for the consulting
company.
And then by my second year itjust became too much because we

(01:02:11):
were doing a lot ofinternational travel for clients
and I couldn't be out of thecountry for like two weeks at a
time and do a research one, youknow, phd, a very traditional
PhD program.
So I transitioned.
I worked as an independentconsultant for some time doing a
lot of the same kinds of work.
I took an in-house position,very briefly, as a director of
operational excellence, and thatwas kind of a gentle reminder

(01:02:33):
to me that I was in many waysbetter suited to be kind of the
outside person brought in, andthere's many benefits to having
that outsider come in becausethey bring views and see things
that you wouldn't necessarilysee being a member of the
organization.
But I was able to veryeffectively build respect and
have influence without havingdirect authority, which is very

(01:02:54):
hard to do.
But critical in the roles thatI play, because rarely am I
going to be a person givendirect authority.
I have to earn my authoritythrough respect and ideally
through a combination of respectand affinity.
Now I can do it with justrespect, although I'd like to do
it with respect and affinity,which is kind of the magic combo
.
So when I was a director ofoperational excellence, that

(01:03:17):
organization was going throughmajor changes they were just
recently acquired.
There was a lot of upheaval andI realized that I think they
liked the idea of operationalexcellence but weren't yet ready
for what it meant in terms ofrolling up your sleeves and I
didn't really want a positionwhere I couldn't affect change
because that gave me tremendoussatisfaction to do so.
So when I decided I would goback to consulting, I knew at

(01:03:39):
the time in Phoenix there wasn'ta lot of big consulting firms.
The market there just wasn't atthat point yet.
And that's when I moved toAtlanta and I moved to Booz
Allen on their organization andstrategy team at the time and
mostly I did commercialengagements for the first few
years with big financialinstitutions on the commercial
side of Booz Allen.
And that was around the timewhen the commercial side was

(01:04:00):
beginning to separate for anumber of what I think were very
good reasons.
And so there was essentiallythe federal you know government,
more public side.
And then they what I think itbecame strategy and at some
point.
And so when I was finishing up acommercial engagement for a
commercial client here inGeorgia, they told me I'm a Lean

(01:04:20):
Six Sigma master black belt aswell.
And so they said we have a, youknow, army client that needs a
Lean Six Sigma black belt for aproject reducing the turnaround
time for sensors, verysophisticated sensors, the
turnaround time as well as thecaliber of the maintenance.
And so they said okay, you'rethe place I was consulting with,

(01:04:40):
wanted to hire me internally.
There was a position opening up, but I really wasn't interested
in taking an internal role.
So in the consulting world yougo quote back on the bench.
And I wasn't on the bench long.
And so I said, well, this willbe great.
I don't really know much aboutthe Army.
I didn't come from a militaryfamily, so I was ecstatic
because it was a new space, newthings to learn, new people to

(01:05:01):
meet.
And so I went up there andbrought up a small team with me
and we did drastically reducethe turnaround time.
I won't talk about the vendorsor anything like that that were
involved.
But the deputy at the time, whoI'm still close friends with to
this day, to the colonel it wasin the acquisition corps he
basically, when I was finished,he basically told my boss at the
time hey, you know, christinais a really smart person.

(01:05:23):
We have lots of other thingsaround here.
It was at the height of, youknow, fielding in Iraq and he
said and this shop was doingtremendous amount of fielding
because of the systems theyprovided.
And he said, hey, you know, weneed Christina for many other
things.
And from that point on I stayedand I very quickly became in
many ways, you know, kind of theinformal advisor to the colonel

(01:05:45):
at the time.
And once she saw my backgroundand then, more than that, saw me
, you know, as they say, inaction, she realized what a
pivotal role that was and it wasdifferent than an aide to camp
and other things.
It was kind of something in andof itself.
It's oftentimes very difficultfor me to explain the role.
It's oftentimes very difficultfor me to explain the role.
So I do need to take some timeout and really put pen to paper

(01:06:06):
on exactly what that roleentailed, because it doesn't
necessarily fit neatly intotypical categories and titles.
It's almost more of like a likethe Supreme Court always said
about obscenity you know it whenyou see it, but it's very hard
to define.
And so over time, as eachcolonel would transition and the
next would come in, they keptme on basically in that role.
I mean they called me at timeshead of comms, which I did a lot

(01:06:27):
of the comms for them, thewriting and the marketing of our
systems and responding to RFIsfrom Congress and things like
that.
But I also did many, many otherthings, some of which people
would see if they weren'tleadership and some of which
they wouldn't see.
Working very, very closely withleaders and so, because they
rotate, as you know, every threeyears, I got the tremendous

(01:06:49):
benefit of just when you getclose enough to somebody, the
new person comes in, and whatthat means is you now have to
figure out.
Okay, I'm still tasked withbeing an effective advisor to
this leader, and now my jobbecomes what does that look like
with this particular leader?
Because each leader hasstrengths and weaknesses.

(01:07:10):
Of course.
Each leader has differentbackgrounds, different ways,
they grew up different places,they came from different paths
in their military careers, etcetera, and of course they often
have a civilian deputy, andsometimes those folks change out
as well.
And of course, then you havethe 05 lieutenant colonels that
are changing out, oftentimes ona different pace, and so for me

(01:07:31):
it was wonderful, because therewas always something new, a new
person, a new problem, a newdynamic, and so for someone like
me, who tends to get boredeasily, it was the ideal mix of
I knew just enough to be able tobe very effective, but I didn't
know everything, and so my jobbecame simultaneously working

(01:07:53):
with what I knew to be effectiveand deliver value quickly,
while also learning as quicklyas I could about the new
landscape, and again, as I saidearlier, processing the inputs
and the outputs, the inputs andthe outputs, and confirming and
denying conclusions.
It was just a constant processin my brain and, in some ways,
24, seven, right Whenever I wasawake, that function turned on,

(01:08:16):
and especially, of course, onceI hit the actual workplace, and
then, of course, through COVID,adapting with.
Now, I've always been remote,although at times I would travel
up to DC more than others,depending on the op tempo and
what we were working on, but, ofcourse, being very effective in
a remote fashion as well.
And so not only did I have tobuild, did I have to kind of
secure authority throughinfluence to a degree.

(01:08:38):
Oftentimes I had to do that ina remote fashion.
So when I was on site I knewthose moments and those
interactions had to be even moreimpactful because I didn't have
the luxury.
So in some ways it's a luxuryto be around every day, but in
some ways it's also a tremendousburden, right?
Because in some ways you kindof fade into the background.
You in some ways can go native,as they call it, and so you put

(01:09:00):
on blinders without evenrecognizing that you have.
So I think there was a benefitto being present, but not being
present, especially in the rolethat I was enacting.
And so over time I justcontinued to hone that, and I
was always a person I'mgenerally an introvert in many
ways, but I have a tremendousinterest in people and why they

(01:09:21):
do what they do, why they thinkwhat they think, and so I was
always excited to meet newpeople and get to know them and
get to know their life story.
So I tried to spend as muchtime with leaders and their
people.
I always joked and said if youreally want to know how an
organization operates, don't goto the formal meetings.
Go to the bathroom, go to thebreak room, stand by the copier,

(01:09:41):
go and sit with the secretarywho, by the way, I believe, the
secretaries and the admins thosefolks play pivotal roles in
many ways, right?
So go to those places.
That's where you'll observepeople and maybe I'll make up a
word here in their realistmoments, right, and that's what
I wanted.
I wanted to deal with thegenuine data, not the

(01:10:02):
transformed variables instructured meetings.
I wanted to see people raw,right, because that's where I
needed to start, so oftentimes,and because I was sometimes a
newcomer, if someone saw me inthe bathroom, you could see they
were wondering who is she andwhat is she doing here, and then
they'd strike up a conversationand I'd talk with them.
And again, two reasonsGenuinely, I wanted to get to

(01:10:24):
know that person because I'mgenuinely interested in people
and I care about what they'rethinking and their life story
and what they bring to the table.
And then, also, I was doing mydata gathering because that was
part of what I needed to do tobe effective in my job, and so
it was funny.
You know, I built very strongrelationships with many clients
from the front line to seniorlevels, and I think part of it

(01:10:45):
was I came from a backgroundwhere my parents were not very
formally educated.
They were very successful peoplein their personal lives, with
my family, and they were verysuccessful professionally as
they went through life.
But they always instilled in usthat it's about a person's
character.
It doesn't matter what degreesthey have, it doesn't matter how

(01:11:06):
much they've accomplishedcareer-wise in their life or not
.
It's about who they are as aperson.
Are they a good person, arethey a person of character?
And so they didn't see color,they didn't see rank, they
didn't see degrees, and sothat's how we were raised, and
all of my siblings very muchtake that approach.
And so the benefit of that,among others, was you can relate

(01:11:28):
to all kinds of people.
Right, and I think that'sanother important attribute in a
leader is the ability to relateto all kinds of people and to
be able to see the spark in allkinds of people.
Right, and that potential thatfor some people is deeply buried
beneath many other things andfor some people is right at the
surface and all the way inbetween that continuum right.

(01:11:51):
But if you're not able torelate to them because you carry
with you a significant baggage.
And this is not to say we allhave biases of course we do but
if you're the type of personthat thinks that the only person
who can say something smart isa person who has a degree and oh
, by the way, in a certain area,then you're going to find it
very hard to relate to manydifferent people, right, and
it's going to come through inhow you interact your verbals,

(01:12:13):
your non-verbals.
People feel that they may notunderstand what they're feeling,
which makes it dangerous, butthey'll have a reaction to it,
right, and then thatsubconscious reaction that's the
most dangerous one, in a sense,for a leader, because you
people won't even know where itcame from, but you'll feel the
effects of it.
So I never judged people onpaper, what they did or didn't

(01:12:35):
do I again I'll go back to myjoke about the soft skull and
the plaintiff I tried to takepeople as they came and to
interact with them in a way thatthey could relate to.
And this isn't to say being aphony, because I could never.
Like when I worked in the South, I didn't do what I saw other
people do.
I didn't put on a fake Southernaccent because I'd said you
know what?
No one is going to believe.

(01:12:56):
I'm from Boston, I'm from theNorth, my demeanor says it, my
aura says it.
I wouldn't insult people bypretending that I have a drawl.
I don't have a drawl, I neverwill have a drawl, but I
certainly can respect people andI can relate to them and I can
learn about their background andI'm sure, being human beings
both of us, we will have thingsin common by the fact that we

(01:13:17):
share the fact that we're humanbeings.
So this isn't to say thatsomeone should be disingenuous.
I mean genuine relating toothers.
And again, you can't really dothat without communicating right
, non-verbally or verbally, andit's typically verbally
complemented by non-verbals.
You're not going to do thatunless you are a willing and

(01:13:37):
open communicator in terms ofsharing and in terms of
listening, right.
That's how you start to relateto people and find commonality
and find common ground.
And I found that with everyonefrom.
You know folks who are lifelongenlisted soldiers, from
different parts of the country,different educational

(01:13:57):
backgrounds, some from verynuclear families, some from very
disconnected families and allthe way in between, because I
genuinely found all of thosepeople interesting and I knew
they all had potential, real andunrealized, that they brought
to the table.
And part of my job for theleader and for the organization
was to find that potential andprovide them with the skills and

(01:14:19):
the environment to unlock itand to apply it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
I learned a lot of those same lessons from my
father, not necessarily likespoken, but just through his
deeds, and I always kind of goback to this concept of deeds,
not words.
I think that a great leaderaligns both you can communicate
clearly and then your actionsalign with what you're saying.
But I think the most importantthing is, even someone who can't

(01:14:45):
necessarily communicate clearly, but they can still hit the
mark your actions speak waylouder than your words.
And then my father, same way.
He had no real lens, he wasjust a selfless leader who works
in the coal mines.
I'm from rural West Virginiaabout as rural as you can get
and he would get off late atnight, probably six o'clock in
the evening.
He would go to work at three inthe morning they called it the

(01:15:07):
Houdow shift and would work allnight, come home and go mow
other people's grass and we'retalking about like 70, 80 year
old people.
That just couldn't do it.
And he did it freely because hewanted to go serve the
community and people.
And I was raised in that and Isaw the hard work ethic that he
did.
And a lot of who I am today,especially as a leader, is

(01:15:28):
instilled from just the actionsthat I saw my father doing as a
young man growing up, which it'sfunny that we share the same
thing but two different culturesin a way Boston and West
Virginia, I would say aretotally opposite in terms of
just how we probably grew up,but some of the same principles
align.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Exactly, and that's, I think, a great point.
When you talk about principles,right, because action sometimes
, you know we all actinconsistent sometimes, but I
think that the bedrock of a goodleader is consistency and
values.
Right, I think people are moreforgiving than we probably give
them credit for.
So I think followers, theworkforce, for example, they can

(01:16:07):
forgive inconsistencies,certainly mistakes.
But I think when you startbecoming, or you demonstrate
inconsistency in your values, Ithink that's when you because
the values of the bedrock andonce folks start to see the
bedrock becoming eroded, it'slike they have no left and right
parameters, right, they have noazimuth to track to.

(01:16:27):
And I think, like I said,actions that were taken that
shouldn't have been, or mistakesthat were made as leaders.
I think a good leader alwaysadmits their mistakes, of course
, and perhaps even goes furtherto characterize them.
As you know, if we don't takerisks and make mistakes, we
don't really ever get anywhere.
But I think when you becomeinconsistent with your values,
or you're unclear on your values, or your values are case by

(01:16:49):
case, and what I mean by that isis you have certain values when
it comes to this person, butwith others they're markedly
different.
I think that's when a leader,all else in a sense goes by the
by good, bad, success or failure, and you have a crisis of
confidence at that point.
And the crisis of confidence istypically in the values, if you
really think about it, becauseeveryone knows human beings make

(01:17:10):
mistakes, whether we like toadmit it or not.
Right, and we make our ownmistakes and we would like
forgiveness when we do.
But I think when someone isinconsistent or has an agenda
with regard to their values, Ithink that's when people there's
a real schism between theleader and the followers, when
that becomes evident, and thenyou run into real deep-seated

(01:17:31):
problems that go well beyond thefixing, goes well beyond
tactics.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Yeah, I think if you have that consistency of values
throughout your career, you'llcontinue to grow.
But at a certain point, if youractions don't align with your
words, you're going grow, but ata certain point, if your
actions don't align with yourwords, you're going to tap out
at a certain point becausepeople just can't respect or
trust you, because you've erodedthat, especially over time.
I'd love to kind of take it toyou said working as a consultant

(01:17:57):
, all these different companies,what inspired you to break that
mold and create your ownconsulting company?

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Well, in some ways I'm an unconventional thinker,
right.
And so when I came into thegovernment paradigm, I saw that
there wasn't as much familiaritywith the kinds of consulting I
had been accustomed to doing andthe way I executed it right.
And so it took time.
I always say to people I wentblock by block, each block

(01:18:24):
representing a person, kind ofword of mouth, and it was say
and show.
Say and show right.
So over time I would say, hey,I think this is what we should
be doing, or I think this iswhat I'm seeing, and then it
would be show the fruits of that, show the deliverable, show the
change in the person ororganization or persons, right.
And so over time the clients Iworked with closely kind of got

(01:18:48):
used to that, that way ofdelivering, that way of thinking
, that way of delivering.
You know, in a space where inthe acquisition core it's a lot
of, you know, staffing of folksRight, and rightfully so you
need people to perform certainfunctions Right.
There was less of what I wasaccustomed to doing, which was
coming in and simultaneouslybeing serving in an advisory

(01:19:09):
role but also executing andgenerating tangible value.
Now, now I caution.
You know, advising is, is, is,value?
Oh, it's very much, especiallyif you have a good advisor and
you know how to use an advisor.
A good advisor and you know howto use an advisor, it's gold.
But it's not doesn'tnecessarily always manifest
itself in a way that someone canhold and touch and feel.

(01:19:29):
Right, a lot of interactionsdon't.
But they're certainly verymeaningful and you certainly
never forget a lot of them,especially if they weren't
particularly good, right.
But there's no way you cannecessarily memorialize that
unless you've audio and videorecorded it, like we're doing
right.
But even if we had thisconversation as a sidebar and
the only two that ever knew wehad it was the two of us, it
would still be impactful, itwould still have meaning, it

(01:19:50):
would still deliver value.
So I think what I was bringingwas somewhat not as common, and
so I had to break down a lot ofbarriers in thought, in culture,
with other contracting entitiesthat weren't necessarily
familiar with what I was doing.
And some folks are drawn tosomething that's not familiar.
They're excited by it and theywant to understand it, and some

(01:20:12):
folks are scared of it and theydon't want to understand it, or
they understand it and what theysee they don't like.
So it ran the gamut, right, Iwas bringing, in some ways, a
different paradigm, albeit allin one person, but a somewhat
different paradigm, and I likenit to with what some of the
defense tech disruptors aredoing.
Right, they're coming in with avery different approach and a

(01:20:36):
very different paradigm, andthey're delivering value in
compelling ways, but in somewhatdifferent ways, right, and so
there's a learning curve thatgoes along with that.
And so you have to be very goodat doing two things in parallel
executing and generating valuein ways that the organization
can understand and in ways thatthey will label as value added

(01:20:57):
and good.
But at the same time, almostdirectly in parallel, you're
changing mindsets, right, andI'll give you an example that
deputy I referred to earlierthat we became very good friends
and we're still very goodfriends this day.
It took him time and he lateron admitted to me that it took
him time to understand how touse me, where to use me and the

(01:21:18):
real value that I brought,because it was very different
than what he was accustomed toand again, it didn't make it
good or bad, it was justdifferent, and so it was working
with folks over time and again,taking them as they come right.
So as I got him to a certainpoint in that evolution, I kind
of knew when he was at the pointto hear the next thing I was
going to say.
And I knew if I had said thatthing two or three weeks earlier

(01:21:40):
, in five or six meetings prior,at best he wouldn't have
understood it, at worst hewouldn't have agreed with it.
So I had to kind of read wherehe was and know when he would
reach kind of the next pointwhere he could hear the next
thing I needed to say and itwould resonate with him and it
would fit within the process hewas kind of building in his mind
along with me Right, and so Ihad to time that.

(01:22:03):
And of course where he was inhis timeline was different than
the colonel.
He was the deputy for right.
That person's timeline wasdifferent.
So my interactions with thatperson had to be gauged by where
they were along that continuumand that was at times very
different than where the deputywas.
So imagine you're juggling allthese things and you're juggling
people that work closelytogether and yet they're in two

(01:22:24):
different places with regard toyou and your presence and what
you're trying to do.
And so again I go back to theradar example.
Right, I had to read thesefolks constantly and I had to
know well the deputies at thispoint in the evolution of that
thinking.
So now I can share with himthis particular thing and I'm
fairly confident that he's goingto hear it as I intend, he's

(01:22:44):
going to mull on it and he'sgoing to come to the conclusions
, ideally, that I would like himto come to.
And so I had to constantly bereading that because, as I said,
it's like shooting right If youshoot too soon, you warn people
.
If you shoot too late, they'realready gone right.
So the timing becomesabsolutely the timing.
The content becomes absolutelycritical.
And in my role because it wasn'ta traditional role that fit in

(01:23:07):
any one particular peg that theability to do that well was
basically life or death for mein a sense right, because I was
in a role that wasn't terriblycommon, that people do very
quickly had access to leadership.
So you're, for some peopleyou're a threat.
For some people you're a threatFor some people, you're a hero.
For some people you're inbetween, a role that people

(01:23:28):
typically understand is probablybetter paid than some of the
other positions by what you knowof the role and what you know
of the person in the role, right.
So for many reasons you'reright in the proverbial
crosshairs for good and for bad,right.
And so you need to.
I liken it to, like you know, inthe matrix with the laser lines
and they had to navigatethrough that thing.
In a sense that's what I wasdoing.

(01:23:49):
It was mostly mental work,right In my mind and trying to
get in the minds of others toknow, at what given point in
time, where those lasers were,because they constantly moved
and I had to get through themright and in doing so, get the
people through them to the otherside.
And then, when we got to theother side, there was yet
another field of lasers rightthat we had to conquer.

(01:24:09):
So I actually it was the bestthing that could have ever
happened to me, because as yougo through that, you pick up
battle scars, you run into folkswho just simply don't want you
there.
And now you're battling againsta disingenuous agenda and then,
of course, you're battlingagainst genuine agendas and then
you've got folks who arecompletely on board and they

(01:24:29):
recognize the value and theyknow what you're trying to do
and so you constantly aremanaging those dynamics as well.
So you're operating on manyplanes right, horizontally and
vertically, and they're allinterconnected in some way and
so there are levers andinterdependencies that you're
also trying to monitor.
Right, because you have to havea grasp of that at any given

(01:24:51):
moment, because oftentimes in myrole, like I said, in some ways
you're always on the precipice.
Right, because everythingaround you is swirling and in
some ways uniquely to you, and Iwas ever aware of that from my
earliest days in consulting,because in many ways we
experienced that when I wasthrown in the big pond right and

(01:25:12):
I had to figure that out earlyand in many ways the hard way.
So by the time I got to workingwith Acquisition Corps I had
already been through a lot of it.
I had a lot of the battle scars, but of course this was at a
whole new and different level.
And so I kind of feel someaffinity to some of those
defense tech disruptors althoughthey're bigger now some of them
but they were trying to do alot of what I was trying to do

(01:25:33):
on an individual level.
To a degree they're doing it ona grander scale right.
They're coming into a paradigmthat a lot of folks are very
wedded to, and I don't blamethem.
It's what they know, it'sprobably what they were part of
building right.
So they have a lot emotionallyvested in it and they're trying
to bring in not a totally newapproach, but an approach that's

(01:25:55):
different enough that it causeseverything from unrest and
discomfort to yay, it's finallyhappened.
And everything in between right.
And that has to be done on acertain tempo, in a certain way,
with A logically preceding B,logically preceding C although

(01:26:15):
the space between A and B may bemuch shorter than the space
between B and C and on and onright, and it's being able to
accurately gauge that.
That would likely be thedifference between wild success,
abysmal failure and just kindof hey, we're kind of going
along steady state.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
I love where we're at within the acquisitions core
right now because I cut my teethin PO aviation Infantry officer
.
They decided to put me in AMSAAviation Mission Systems and
Architecture.
So all the avionics that makeshelicopters fly infantry officer
, go do that.
Then that's when I quicklylearned it doesn't matter what
your background is, as long asyou care, prepare, you'll

(01:26:52):
execute, regardless of the job.
And then I go to drones andthen I've been in this drone
space for a while.
Now I'll transition over toSOCOM and I see how SOCOM
doesitions and I see how the bigarmy does acquisitions and
there's some unique authoritiesthat allow us to do things a
little bit quicker.
But in a nutshell, we have thesame acquisition policies that

(01:27:14):
we're bounded by, but I can moveso much faster because I'm
willing to think outside the box.
What leverages or what policiesdo I have that'll allow me to
get to yes, versus like the oldway of thinking, the status quo
way of thinking, and theacquisitions core is that hey,
we can't do this because ofpolicy B.
Okay, no, but how can we dothat?

(01:27:36):
And trying to frame thatcultural mindset.
I love how you talked aboutthat Adding value in the short
term, which is really like theclimate, I think, because that's
easy to manipulate in the shortterm.

Speaker 3 (01:27:47):
Like the small wins, yeah, and they have to run
roughly in parallel.
And people, we are very muchcause and effect.
Human beings right, it goesback to nature, right, you know,
touch the stove, you get burned.
Right, very obvious cause, veryobvious effect.
So I think our minds are wiredfor cause and effect and that's
why I said I was very attunedearly on to go in and make a

(01:28:10):
very quick read and figure outwhere I could start
demonstrating, you know, verynear term, impactful value,
while at the same timerecognizing that it was all part
of a continuum.
Right, once someone felt thatkind of value, then it was okay,
that's, you've met that mark,but it's opened up another
aperture, right, and so you'vegot to bring people along and

(01:28:30):
you've got to bring them along.
And you and again you have tobe someone who's actively
listening, right, because a lotof their feedback was very
reasonable, good feedback, right, and regulations exist for
reasons and things like that.
So you can't be throwing babyout with bathwater, because very
few things are black and whitelike that.
Very, very few things are blackand white like that.
So I think it was just knowingthe right balance and really the

(01:28:53):
only way you can really know,that is having that desire to
understand the people you'reworking with and for and who are
following you and hearing them,taking them as you find them
and recognizing that you knowone of your goals is really to
find that potential and figureout how to unlock it in ways

(01:29:14):
that are beneficial to thatperson and, ideally, in ways
that are beneficial to theorganization's mission.
And then you find that oncepeople start to feel that cause
and effect in those positiveways, it almost becomes at some
point a self-fulfilling prophecy, if and until something from
the environment comes in andwildly derails it, and that
could be anything from adramatic change in funding, a

(01:29:35):
dramatic change in mission, asignificant change in leadership
.
I mean, there are many, manythings, but if you have a solid
base, even those things can beeffectively weathered and
sometimes even capitalized on.
If you have that strong bedrockright, and again, you probably
lose less people, because ifsomeone realizes, hey, if I'm in

(01:29:55):
this organization, they aretapping into me in all the ways
that matter to me and I see thefruits of that it's less likely
that someone's going to jump,and if they do jump, it's
typically likely that someone'sgoing to jump, and if they do
jump, it's typically forsomething that's even better,
because maybe their potentialhas been tapped out and they
need a new environment to unlockwhat remains, because that
environment just doesn't havewhat it takes.

(01:30:17):
In the environment I don't meanthat in a bad way to do the
unlocking right, but even thatperson would probably have a
better handle on when that timecomes, if it comes, because they
would have been tapping intothat Right and that would have
been just what they do in thatorganization, so they would have
been much more acutely aware ofit on a conscious level, right,
and be able to make the calland say, hey, I think as much

(01:30:37):
potential as I have here it'sbeen tapped and I think because
of the mission and because ofwhat we're doing, et cetera, et
cetera, it was great.
But I think if I go here,there's still that piece of
untapped potential that thatorganization is looking for and
needs and I have it and I thinkI can unlock it there and put it

(01:30:57):
to good use.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
I love that.
So, as you started thisconsulting company, did you
start realizing certain trendsthat were in each one of the
organizations, or were theycompletely different?

Speaker 3 (01:31:10):
No, I think in some ways.
I mean, I think well, bottomline, I think we talk about
functional organizations, but Ithink the norm is organizations
are dysfunctional, right Becauseit's relationships and it's
people.
So to think that anorganization is some finely
tuned engine, I think, is inlarge part of fallacy.
But it can be more, more, morethan less finely tuned, I guess

(01:31:31):
I'll put it that way.
And so I saw a lot ofcommonality.
Now, some of that is becauseyou know the offices are
structured similarly because theacquisition core has specific
structures.
You know you see commonalitywith, you see the see the
struggle between do we hope?
Do we keep this program, do wegive it to someone who's
probably it's better suited for,and then what are the
implications on funding andstaffing and having the talent

(01:31:53):
ready to go when we get the nextthing.
So you do see a lot ofcommonalities, but I've seen
significant differences,typically with leadership and
obviously who our senior leadersare in a given project office,
up to the PEO level.
That's where I've seen more ofthe differences is in how people
enact leadership, not as muchthe structural things and how

(01:32:14):
you typically what are the bestpractices for managing a program
and what are the key metricsthat we should be focused on Now
.
I do think in the newenvironment, if certain things
are sped up and accelerated,we'll probably see processual
differences.
We'll see some structuraldifferences, all in an effort to
further support the processualdifferences.
We may see differences in thekinds of talent we think we need

(01:32:36):
more of.
I think those things are likelyto change somewhat, but I think
most of the changes I've seenin organizations was really
hinged on where leadershipplaced emphasis right within the
confines of structure andprocess and things that are in
large part, you know, dictatedbecause you are an acquisition
organization in the army andthere are certain hallmarks that

(01:32:58):
if you went in and you were theman off the street who had had,
you know, experience withacquisition, you'd expect to see
certain things in place andcertain things done a particular
way.
I think where leaders come in is, like you said, things like
where can we do this outside thebox?
Okay, we can't do it that way.
Is there another way it can bedone?
Who do we need to collaboratewith to get that done?

(01:33:19):
Is there an opportunity for astrategic partnership?
Should this be a program thatis shared between two offices,
because we both bring skillsthat are required for that
program to be effective.
And then how do we make thatpitch?
And that's where someone likeme would come in right, helping
them delineate the arguments,helping them determine who the
proper stakeholders are, helpingthem figure out what the story
needs to be, and I don't meanthat in terms of a fiction, but

(01:33:42):
how to tell that story in a waythat is compelling and
substantiated and resonates withthe decision makers and also
communicates to the decisionmakers in a sense what's in it
for them, why it's good for themand the organization writ large
that they're overseeing, right?
So I think that's where I'veseen differences in.
You know, there were someleaders that were very much

(01:34:02):
about towing the line and theythought, thought that that was
critically important and thathad pros and cons.
And there were some leaders whowere much more about
encouraging out-of-the-boxthinking and people kind of
pushing envelopes, and they werecomfortable with that, of
course within reason.
And then I've seen leaders whowere somewhere roughly in the
middle.
But that's where I've seen themost differences is how the

(01:34:23):
folks running the shops executeand what it is that's important
to them and, of course, wherethey come in in the
organization's life cycle, right?
I think an organization I likenit to a person right, we all
have times and seasons in ourlives and I think organizations
also have seasons and so I thinkyou know it depends on what
season that organization is inits life and when that leader

(01:34:45):
comes in, they may need toemphasize maybe an organization
that was operating too looselyand maybe one of their first
tasks is to rein it in, andthat's going to require
different skill sets as a leaderthan if you came in and you
know you were operating anorganization that you know
generally told the line and wasoperating at a very high level
and successful.
Well, now you're dealing with avery different kind of

(01:35:09):
organization, just like if youwere dealing with a very
successful person and you werenegotiating with them, you'd
probably take a differentnegotiation tack than if they
were kind of coming to youasking for something.
So I think a lot of it is alsogetting a gauge on where that
organization is within itslifespan, because it has a lot
of the attributes as a person,right, it has things it does
well.
It has things it doesn't do sowell.

(01:35:29):
It has a history.
It has people who havechampioned it.
It has people who probablydon't know anything about it and
people who may hate it, right.
So it's very much like a person,and that's how I've always
thought of an organization is.
It's not very different from aperson, right?
It experiences a lot of thethings that an individual would,
and it has its baggage and ithas its successes and it has its

(01:35:50):
traumas and it has its Achillesheel and the job of the leader
is to kind of figure out okay,I'm coming in at this point in
this organization and get ahandle on where it is in its
life cycle and determine whatskills I bring as a leader.
How do I need to apply them andwhen do I need to apply them,
and what are my measures ofsuccess?
What am I looking to achievethrough the application for this

(01:36:11):
organization for the time thatI'm here?

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
That's great analysis and it's taken me a while to
kind of figure that out.
When I first came into my veryfirst company command I had a
clear framework of what I wantedto bring in because I saw where
the organization was going.
We're getting ready to deployfor Syria, but we were on a be
prepared to deploy for CENTCOMso we could go anywhere within
the CENTCOM AO.

(01:36:34):
So we're kind of planning forthat.
So I had a specific agenda thatI went in and then I quickly
learned that, hey, this agendaisn't going to be executable.
I need to be more malleable.
And then I transitioned toanother company command and I
went in there with what does theorganization need?
And I looked at that and Istood back and I figured out

(01:36:55):
what they needed from me as aleader.
And then I violently executedthat towards that direction.
And I've always adapted thatmindset, especially in
acquisitions.
Now, when I come into a newrole you know I'm in a senior
APM level position when I comeinto a new portfolio, I look at
it where it's at within like yousaid, the season and where the

(01:37:15):
organization's at and what can Ido?
That's most value add.
Do I need to completely shakeup the status quo because
there's a log jam, or do I needto just take the systems that
are already in place andoptimize them better and expand
our organization?
And I love that.
That's critical feedback.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
And I think some inputs to that would be.
They always do the commandclimate survey.
I think the management bywalking around is critical for
that and I know I've seen a lotof leaders do that and it's
funny, you know, sometimes whenthey're doing the command
philosophy, some of the briefingis about the values of course,
which I think is critical.
But I think there's a righttiming for that too.

(01:37:55):
Right Because your commandphilosophy probably has a myriad
of things that couldpotentially apply to a number of
organizations.
But I think if you giveyourself some time to do your
data analysis and yourconfirmations and denials and
preliminary findings and youknow kind of more firm findings,
you can better tailor thatcommand philosophy Because, as
you said, there may be certainthings that are important to you

(01:38:17):
but for where this organizationis, those things are not nearly
as primary and as critical,especially out of the gate, as
perhaps you know.
Let's say there are 10, perhapsonly three of them.
For where this organization isare the things you really need
to focus on and I think acompelling command philosophy
briefing would probably do somepreliminary tethering, showing

(01:38:38):
how those philosophies relate towhat you have gleaned from the
organization, so that again, ina sense high level, of course,
but cause and effect, so thatfolks even in that early stage
can see the elements of yourphilosophy that you think are
directly applicable to where yousee the organization is and
where you believe by what you'vebeen tasked with and by what

(01:39:00):
you've been told about theorganization's missions and what
you've learned from the peoplethemselves is where they want to
go during your tenure, right?
So I think even doing somethinglike a command philosophy would
be well-informed by some of thethings we talked about earlier
the critical observations, theempathy so that you kind of

(01:39:21):
understand the proverbial lay ofthe land and you know what
tools to grab from your toolkit.
Even though you have 100, youmay find that you only need to
use three at inception and thenmaybe halfway you change those
tools out because you recognizethey've done, they've served
their purpose, the nails havebeen hammered and now you need
to do the painting.
So now you're working withpaintbrushes and paint Doesn't

(01:39:43):
mean the other tools in yourtoolkit weren't important.
It just means that now, whereyou're at in the process,
they're not required anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
It's time for our final show segment that I like
to call the killer bees.
These are the same fourquestions that I ask every guest
on the Tales of Leadershippodcast Be brief, be brilliant,
be present and be gone.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
Question one what do you believe separates a good
leader from a great leader?

Speaker 3 (01:40:13):
Heart and mind desire to lead.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
I love it All right.
Question two what is onerecommendation of a source
material that you would give tosomeone who's listening to this
podcast to be a better leader?

Speaker 3 (01:40:25):
There is a very.
It's not necessarily directlyabout leadership, but it's
strategy and there's a lot ofleadership principles overtly
and covertly included in it andit's called strategy.
It's a really thick book and,oh gosh, I think it's Lawrence
Friedman, but I'd have to goback.
I will put that in the notes toyou.

(01:40:45):
The author it's just escapingnow.
I can see the cover of the book.
It's the Trojan horse is thecover of the book.
It's in my study.
But that book it's a long readbut it goes back to strategy and
leadership, starting withearliest.
It starts with the Bible.
It's not a particularlyreligious book, but it starts
with the Bible and it kind ofwalks you through strategy, the
development of the field ofstrategy, but a lot of it

(01:41:08):
directly ties to leadership forobvious reasons.
Right, those things typicallygo hand in hand.
Strategy is typically executedor fomented by the leader, so I
would highly recommend that.
It's a long read but it's areally, really good read and
there's a tremendous amount ofreferences and resources that if
folks want to do furtherreading, it has a really good
references section.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
And then last question.
In respect to your time, I'llonly do three.
Where can our listeners connectwith you and how can they add
value to your mission?

Speaker 3 (01:41:37):
So listeners can connect with me on LinkedIn.
I'm fairly active on LinkedIn.
I think it's a great source ofinformation and just getting to
know folks.
I also have a company Instagram.
I'm unfortunately not as activeon there that I'd like to be,
but I think I'll become moreactive.
And that's CM Bates Consultingis the handle, so it's pretty
simple and they can reach out tome directly.
Certainly, my company email ischristinabates at

(01:42:00):
cmbatesconsultingcom, and aproject I'm looking at now is
I'm very interested in theunique kinds of leadership that
military leaders bring with themand then develop as they come
from more traditional militaryleadership roles into what I
think of as more of the businessside of the Army, for example,
acquisition, where they'reworking with a very diverse

(01:42:21):
workforce of civilians,contractors, matrix personnel
and others.
And what are kind of some of theunique leadership skills that
they've developed over time thathave helped them to be
particularly effective in thatkind of environment?
What did they bring over fromclassic military training and
this is just me, the layperson,calling it that what did they

(01:42:42):
bring over that they found thatworked effective?
And then, of course, whatspecific skills and tactics they
developed purposefully by whatthey learned in their
environment and how they appliedthose to be more effective.
So that's something I'm lookingat doing and tapping into my
network of folks that I'veworked with over the years, of
course, as well as folks thatI've ideally never worked with,

(01:43:03):
who had leadership roles fromvery junior to very senior, to
try to develop some kind oftopology, if you will, of the
attributes that seem to workwell in that kind of environment
, again, ones that have beenbrought over from traditional
military education and practiceand then ones that were
developed and kind of honed, forexample within the acquisition

(01:43:25):
space, so that we can help tocontinue to prepare officers as
they make that transition,whatever level they make it at.
That we can better prepare themfor those roles and kind of
some of the unique things thatoccur in those kinds of
environments, so that they canbe more effective very early on.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
I love that.
I'd love to help when you startdoing that too.
Oh, definitely, effective veryearly on.
I love that.
I'd love to help when you startdoing that too.
Oh, definitely, this has beenan amazing episode.
I could literally talk to youfor three hours.
So again, thank you so much forbeing a guest.
I appreciate everything thatyou're doing oh, my pleasure.

Speaker 3 (01:43:55):
I loved it.
Josh, have a great day and agreat rest of your week.
Bye-bye all right.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
So that was an amazing episode with Dr Bates
and there's a lot of key thingsthat I wanted to kind of round
uh bound that into for our afteraction review.
But the first one is is I'mgoing to talk about radar
leadership and she mentionedthis before and this was one of
the big themes that we had isthat leaders are radars.

(01:44:23):
They're constantly scanning theenvironment and they're trying
to detect what's important andthen what's just white noise in
the background.
Right, that's something thatI've always done as a leader,
but I've never thought of itthrough the metaphor of a radar.
We're constantly scanning ourenvironment.
We're constantly scanning thepeople that we work for and the

(01:44:44):
people that we're workingagainst to try to understand
what is impactful data and whatis just white noise.
And that's the key there isthat, as a leader think of it as
your brain, as a computer we'reconstantly trying to gather
data.
The more data that we collect,the better decisions that we can
make.

(01:45:04):
So think of you as a leader.
Regardless of what positionyou're in, you're trying to
collect the right amount of data, but the right data, because
there's data that's just noiseand there's data that's
purposeful and powerful, and youhave to understand that and
you'll learn that throughouttime.
The next one is communication.

(01:45:24):
So I kind of wrote this onedown.
Is a sense making, is Dr Bateskind of defined it, and I think
communication comes in threedistinct variables.
You have to be authentic withyour communication.
Meaning I'm from rural WestVirginia, right, I'm not going
to speak like I have an IvyLeague education and I come from

(01:45:45):
a more high class family, right, like, because I didn't.
I grew up in rural WestVirginia.
My father was a coal miner, hisfather was a coal miner, so I
have that in my, in my blood.
That is who I am.
I come from a blue collarfamily and I'm OK to put my nose
to the grindstone.
So when I present myself topeople, I do it from a very
authentic point of view of who Ibelieve I am as not just a

(01:46:08):
leader, but as a, as a father,as a person, as someone who is
on this journey of life to bethe best version of themselves.
Number two is transparency.
To be a good communicator, youhave to be transparent, and we
talked about this before.
I call it leading with windows.
Transparency is one of thosebuzzwords that we use in

(01:46:28):
leadership all the time.
Every leader probably has thatin their leadership philosophy,
but not everyone is willing toshare that, and that's why I
call about leading with windows.
There's always a boundary.
As a leader, you have to beable to set a boundary, but
everything that you're doingshould be clearly communicated
and transparent as to the why weare doing those things, to your

(01:46:53):
team, to your organization andeven to your family, right,
because, again, we're allleaders.
It starts with ourselves and itextends to our family and our
teams and our organizations.
And the last one is clarityextends to our family and our
teams and our organizations.
And the last one's clarity youhave to be an effective
communicator, because 90% ofwhat I do as a leader is either
written or oral, meaning thathow I communicate in either a

(01:47:16):
written or oral context shapesthe organization.
If I'm a poor communicator andI can't distill down the
argument correctly, then it'sgoing to impact my organization
in a negative manner.
So you have to be able to beauthentic, be transparent and be
clear and concise, and all ofthose key things lead into what

(01:47:40):
I want to talk about last, andthat's trust.
As a trust, trust is thecurrency that I believe that
great leadership is founded on,and it comes through consistency
in our actions, and Dr Batestalks about this, I think
beautifully is.
Consistency in our actionsleads to how people view us in

(01:48:01):
this world.
Short term is the values that weplace right.
We all have values.
Mine is simple, I'll call itRID respect, integrity and duty
those are my three key corevalues that I always kind of go
back to, and I have more.
If you've ever heard of badhugs, boldness, and I can keep
going.
Accountability, discipline,humility, understanding,
gratitude, selfless service.

(01:48:21):
Those are values that I have,but my core values are respect,
integrity, humility,understanding, gratitude,
selfless service.
Those are values that I have,but my core values are respect,
integrity and duty.
And why?
Every decision that I make isthrough those lenses.
Am I being true to who I am?
Because it's consistency andvalues, as Dr Bates clearly
communicated, is paramount toour reputation, the respect that

(01:48:46):
is earned and the trust that isgiven, and that takes time.
If you constantly erode yourcore values by misaligning your
deeds with your actions, thenyou're going to lose respect and
you're never going to gaintrust, and that is the currency
that sets up great leaders, orwhat I like to call purposeful,

(01:49:07):
accountable leaders.
Pals, that's what I believeseparates purposeful,
accountable leaders or pals isthat ability to be consistent
with their values.
And if you can be consistentwith your values, you are going
to be able to createextraordinary results.
All right, team, those were thetop three takeaways and, as
always, if you enjoy thispodcast, do me a favor make sure

(01:49:31):
you like, subscribe and reviewthis podcast or whatever
platform you listen to.
If you can go to tales ofleadership backslash buzzsprout,
donate and support the show.
Make sure you go to McMillianleadership coachingcom, where
there's tons of differentarticles I've written and all of
the podcasts that I've recorded, to include an individual blog

(01:49:54):
article that is only onMacMillian Leadership Coaching,
distilling down the key concepts.
You can also subscribe to thenewsletter on MacMillian
Leadership Coaching.
When I release a new article orthere is a new podcast that
gets dropped, you'llautomatically get notifications
in your email.
As always, team, I'm your host,josh McMillian, saying every

(01:50:15):
day's a gift, don't waste yours.
I'll see you next time you.

All Episodes

#111 Christina Bates - Unlocking Human Potential Through Authentic Leadership

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#111 Christina Bates - Unlocking Human Potential Through Authentic Leadership