Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Oak, welcome to the cultural Leadership podcast. How are you today, buddy?
[00:00:03] Speaker B: I'm doing really well, Brendan. Thanks for having me on the show, mate.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Thank you very much for coming on. Now, I've learnt in our bit of a pre conversation to hitting the record button. You've done 195 plus podcast, so pretty experienced, dude. But what I want you to tell me is give us a bit of a flavor of what your best podcast experiences look like so far. And give us a flavor a bit of what your worst podcast experiences look like so far.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Oh, that's a great question. I don't know that I've ever had anybody ask me that.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: So for me, I'm very interested, mate. I'm very interested. Hopefully we're going to pull somewhere near the top. The most experience, the best experience.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope. I have no doubt this will be for me. The best podcasts are the conversation. I mean, lots of times people say, well, I'll send you the questions. And I said, I don't even need to see questions. You just ask me a question, I'll answer it. That'll lead us to our next question. And I love live podcasts, live shows, because then people in the audience can actually ask questions. And I love that. And when I talk on my keynote, I love the question and answer period after just as much as the talk, because I think just as much can be learned through that, if not more than my talk.
The ones that the worst experiences on podcasts are the ones that are trying to read it off of a script. You know, they've come up with their ten questions and they want to stick right to their ten questions. You know, there's nothing wrong with coming up with questions. If I was hosting a podcast, I'd have some questions.
But you don't have to stick to it. You know, get us started and then go where the conversation takes you. And those are the best ones, are the conversational ones.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Love it, mate. Well, certainly on cultural leadership, we pride ourselves on having genuine conversations and good conversations. So hopefully we can live up to that, mate. And you and I met a little while ago. We had a fantastic conversation on Zoom, I think, at the time, and we'd met through LinkedIn. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to this, mate. So how about give our listeners and watchers a bit of a background on oak? You've got unbelievable experience in the us forces, so tell us a bit more about that. So what's led you up to where you are today, buddy?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Right. So I did 23 years on active duty in the army. I was a combat arms officer. Started off, I did my first five years in the infantry, and then I switched over to armor calves. So I got to ride around on some m one tanks for a while. And I did a lot of teaching experience in the army as well. I taught at several of our schools, including our command general Staff college and the Australian Command General Staff College. I was a foreign exchange officer there, and I taught there for two years and loved it. That was a great experience.
And did a couple deployments. I did Desert Shield, Desert Storm as a lieutenant. I did Bosnia as a captain, peacekeeping operation, and I did Kosovo as a major, and then did a couple disaster relief operations here in the United States. Hurricane Hugo in Charleston back in 80, 819, 88, and then I did Hurricane Andrew here in Florida. And that really helped me. When I transitioned from the army, I ran a food bank for a couple years, and it was right along the Gulf coast, covered 52 counties, the whole Gulf coast of Mississippi, the whole Gulf coast of Alabama, and about a third of the panhandle of Florida. And I took over that position about a month, month and a half before the BP oil spill.
So it shut the gulf down. So all those people who made their living in the gulf, the shrimpers, the fishermen, the cannery, all those people were out of a job because they couldn't go out in the gulf. They shut it completely down. And so I had to come up with some new ways to feed people that we normally weren't feeding.
And the disaster relief operations really helped, helped me during that time. Then I recruited for Army ROTC here at a university, helping to produce that next generation of leaders. And I had my hand in commissioning over 600 leaders for the army and for this nation. And I wrote my book, February 2021. I published it, and I retired from my day job last October. And now I'm just out doing speaking engagements, and I'm working on my second book.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Well done, mate, and you're smashing the speaking game. What's the second book? We're going to talk a bit about the first one. What's the second one?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the second one, the second keynote talk I give is I call it arm yourself for success, and I talk about what it takes to be successful. You know, and I started with, you know, I'm not going to stand up here and give you a checklist. You do these 15 things, and I guarantee you're going to be successful. I tell everybody, if anybody tells you that, run away, because that's not the real world. You know, I can tell you things that will help increase your possibilities of being successful. But in the real world, there are no guarantees. You still gotta hustle. You still gotta do those hard, hard work and do those things that other people aren't willing to do to get your. Get that foot ahead to be successful. And so that's what my next book is gonna be on, is. Is that talk?
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Sounds fantastic, mate. Look forward to seeing it come out. I'm always fascinated, too, in people that go into the. I guess you could say the life of service, mate. You've had a fair life of service. I think you could say, what is it about your mindset or even further back in your background that's led you down that path?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, when I retired from the army, I had Fortune 500 companies that were asking me to come work for them, and I. And I just had no interest in doing that. I knew I wanted to do something, still do something service oriented. And I think it comes from, you know, I grew up in a.
I know poor is a relative term, but, you know, we did not have a whole lot when I was growing up, and. And yet I got to make some great decisions that changed my life. I got to go to the United States Military Academy. I got my commission in the army. I retired a lieutenant colonel. Got to go. I've been in 45 countries on five continents. Would never have been able to do that if I hadn't been in the army. And for me, the reason I continued that service oriented mindset, I think, is because I always believed if I, you know, my service allowed your kids, somebody else's kids, my kids, to have the same choices and opportunities that I had when I was a young man. And so to me, that was. What was all about is the service to the country and to the people of this country.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: And thank you for your service, mate. What would you have done if it wasn't army? Let's say army was first love. What was the second love?
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I probably would have been a police officer.
That's what I was looking at. If the army hadn't worked out, I think I probably would have been a police officer. I speak to a lot of first responder groups, policemen, firemen, and I really identify with the first responders. I think more the policemen than I do the firemen. You know, you can shoot at me all day as long as I can shoot back, but I'm not sure that I'd want to be running into a house on fire.
That takes a whole different mentality.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't know. I tell you what, if I've done something wrong, I don't know if I'd want to be in an interrogation room with you, mate. You've got pretty steely eyes. I reckon you can read through the bullshit pretty quickly.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's funny you say that, because one of my favorite parts of my time in the service was my service in Kosovo. And a lot of that was negotiation with, you know, I'd have the Serbs and the Albanians and sometimes even the gypsies all in the same room. And trying to get them to come to an agreement on something was like pulling teeth. And, you know, I negotiated several deals that helped people in that country, you know. And it was funny because when I first got there and I would hold the meetings, I would just hold it.
Just Serbs, just Albanians, just gypsies. I didn't get them intermingled. And every meeting would start with the first 15 minutes. The Serbs were telling me every bad thing the Albanians had done for the last 2000 years to theme. And the albanian meeting would start with, the Serbs have done this to us for the last. And finally I just said, look, I'm a history major. I know all of you people have done bad things to each other. Don't care. Moving forward, if we want to make this a good place to live for all of you, we got to move forward from that.
And I finally got them on board with that. And then I started bringing them together. And the first couple were pretty.
There was a lot of tension in the room the first couple times that I brought them all together. But eventually it got to the point where they were pretty civil to each other. And we actually worked some things out. There was a stone quarry that, before the fighting all happened, the Serbs owned it afterwards, the Albanians owned it with. The Albanians didn't have any served work in there, and they couldn't do any work because we wouldn't let them have explosives. So one of the meetings, I said, look, I'll bring the explosives in. The United States army will contract somebody to bring it in. We'll do the explosions that you need. They'll leave, and you can deal with the rock and do whatever it is you got to do. I said, under one condition. You got to hire five Serbs.
And that took me about two or three meetings to get them to agree to that. And they finally did. And we got five Serbs working there. By the time I left there in nine months, I think we had 15 serbs working at the stone quarry. And I did the same thing with a meat packing plant. The Serbs owned it. No Albanians working there. And I said they needed a new. I don't know if it was a generator or a cooler or something. And I said, we can make that happen. I said, but you got to hire some Albanians. And I think by the time I left there, there were 1012 Albanians working at the meatpacking plant. So that was really interesting to me, working, doing the negotiation piece of it. I had never done anything like that before, and it was interesting, and I got to be pretty good at it.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: I think, mate, it sounds like you did some pretty decent negotiations. A great story. What was it that sort of triggered your thinking about, you had them sort of coming in and talking, negotiating separately and moving to a place of, we need to be in the same room.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So I knew if we wanted to turn this thing around and, look, I'm not naive to get we in America and in Australia, we think we know what hatred is. We have no idea what hatred is. I'll give you an example.
I was going to a meeting, and one of the serb priests, the highest priest in our sector, he didn't have a way to get to the meeting. So I went and picked him up, and I was going to take him in my Humvee.
And en route to the meeting, I got a call from one of my platoons saying, there's a disturbance in this town. We need you here. And I said, okay, well, it happened to be an albanian town, so I'm taking this serb priest into an albanian town.
And we got there, and I got out of the Humvee and I looked at him and I said, do not get out of this vehicle. I said, if you get out of this vehicle, I can't help you. You're on your own. You stay in the vehicle. We will protect you. And he did. He wasn't stupid. He stayed in the vehicle. But I came back getting ready to get back in the vehicle, and there was this probably a five year old albanian kid who walked up, realized that that was the serb priest, and he went like, this five year old kid. So the hatred that the parents had had already infected the kids. So you're not going to change the parents? No way.
All you can, best you can do is let is get them to where they will act somewhat civil to each other. You're probably not going to change those kids. You might change some of their kids, but to really make a change, you're probably going to have to change their kids kids. So you're talking 50 years to really make a change. And we saw that in Northern Ireland, it took about 50 years to get to where we are today in Northern Ireland. It's still not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was. But it will take about 50 years to make that change. When you talk about the hatred that they have against each other.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah. It's unbelievable, the level of entrenched hatred, isn't it? And the history of Hindi is, I mean, the world today and all the things happening in the Middle east, it's very, very hard to understand and comprehend that level of hatred.
How do you given these. And you're just sharing a slither of some of the experiences you've had and the wonderful opportunities you've had as well on the back into some of those precious situations. How do you adjust from a leading oak person, leading yourself? How do you adjust back to civilian normal life when you've been in those sort of situations for so long?
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, I am a firm believer that leadership is leadership. It doesn't matter where you learned it. It doesn't matter where you practiced it.
Because I believe leadership is about two things. People and trust, period. End of story. If you know how to lead people, if you can get people to trust you and you take care of those people, and that's part of how you get them to trust you, then you can lead any organization. And I kind of proved that. You know, I was 23 years as a combat arms officer where I fought our nation wars and did peacekeeping operations and deployments and everything. And then I went and ran a food bank. You don't get any different than that. That's 180 degrees difference. And I knew nothing about a food bank except that it had food in it. That's about all I knew.
And then I was thrown right into that gulf oil spill, and I quickly realized, going back to those experiences that I had, that it was still about people. But I went back to crisis management, that I had to make changes in order for us to accommodate the new group of people that we had to feed. And when I took over that organization, we were handing out 1.2 million pounds of food a year. When I handed it off two years later, we were handing out 3.8 million pounds. We doubled the size of the truck fleet and we almost doubled the size of the staff. Now, would I have made all those changes if it hadn't been for the BP oil spill? I don't know, because maybe there wasn't a need for it. But once I saw the need, I knew I had to do something.
And I fell back on all those experiences that I had in the disaster relief, peacekeeping operations, all those things that helped me make those decisions.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: How long has it taken you to get to that point where you've simplified leadership down to that level people trust?
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I finally figured I had some great mentors in the army, guys who retired, two, three, four star generals. And I was a captain.
This is when it first hit me.
I was a young captain, senior first lieutenant. I was promotable, so I was still a lieutenant, but I was out on the captain's list, and I was working in a cab squadron operations office. So I was helping to write the operations orders, the day to day stuff that we were doing. And I had this boss who was a major, and he was one of those guys that if he was in the office, he expected you to be in the office. I don't care if it was 08:00 at night. If he was in the office, he expected you to be there. He was unmarried, so he had no reason to go home, and he didn't. And us lieutenants were married. Our wives wanted us to come home and had kids, but we did what we had to do. We were in the office, and all of a sudden, he left. And a new major came in the very first day that this new major took over.
05:00 at night. I'm sitting in the office, and I'm working on an operations order that's due three weeks from now, just doing busy work, trying to get.
I got to be there, so I might as well do some work. And the new major sticks his head around the door, and he says, oak, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm working on this op order. He said, is it due tomorrow? And I said, no. He said, then go home.
So that's when it first hit me. And when I took over an s three shop, an operations shop, as a major, the very first day, I said, look, there are days when I'm going to need you to be here at 08:00 at night. But if I need you, I will tell you that if I don't tell you to be, go home at 05:00 I may still be here, but that doesn't mean you have to be unless I tell you to.
You should have seen the look on their faces. I mean, you know, because it's just about that trust piece and taking care of the people that you have the privilege to lead. And it is a privilege to be the leader. It really is. And I think that's part of the problem in this world today is that many leaders have forgotten that it is a privilege, it's not a right. And you got to earn that privilege every day by taking care of the people that you're leading.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah, spot on, mate. And I guess the pretense for asking that question is that I tell people, and when I speak around some of the stuff that I speak about, that there's three elements that I believe fits into leadership. It's about developing character, building competence and creating connection. And certainly all of that is people, but the individual. But it took me 30 years to try and get to some level of simplicity. I'm a bit of a slow learner.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Well, it probably would have taken me that long if I hadn't had some great teachers that taught me that along the way. And they taught me all kinds of lessons that I've used throughout my, my life, not just in the army, but at the food bank and my government service job that I use now.
You know, that's the great thing is if I harp on the mentorship piece because it's so huge. And I was given a talk to a group of CEO's and presidents of companies, I don't know, about two months ago maybe. And I brought up, my phrase is have a mentor, be a mentor. And I told him, I said, you got to have a mentor. And one of the CEO's from across the room yelled out and he said, I'm the top of my company. How can I have a mentor? And I said, really? I said, look around this room. How many CEO's are in this room? Nobody says your mentor has to be in your company. In fact, I encourage people to have a mentor not only outside their company, but outside their profession. Because everybody in your profession is looking at things like this, same culture, same experiences.
So you're looking at it from the same point of view. If you get a mentor outside your profession, that they bring a whole new view to your problem and probably can give you some ideas that you would never have thought of and neither would any of your friends in the same profession because you're all in that box.
Somebody outside that box is looking at it a whole different way.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah, spot on, mate. And we will duck back a bit to mentorship. But what I want to just attack first is your leadership legacy. And what's, before we explain that or get you to explain that, what's given your broad experience and the amount of areas you could have focused on within this big bucket of leadership, let's say, and again, I know you've simplified to people and trust, which is fantastic.
Why did you choose this path, at least to get on now that you're speaking, you've written the book and stuff on that leadership legacy side, why was that part so important for you to get that message out?
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah, because I think that's all part of the servant leadership piece, is that it's giving back. And where it really hit me, I think I always understood that from the time I came into the army. Certainly by the time I was a captain in the army, I kind of understood about the legacy piece of it. But when it really hit me, 100% is, and there's a quote in my book that I use, and I love it. It's called. Then the quote goes, great leadership, handed down from generation to generation, is what develops great nations. And I thought, I wish I could take credit for that quote, but I can't. Master Sergeant David Powell, who worked for me, who I still stay in contact with today, he worked for me, and I say he worked for me. He was probably a better leader than I was.
And one day we were talking about the significance of what we were doing in our ROTC program, producing that next generation of leaders for the army and for the nation. And he looked over at me and he said that quote. He said, great leadership, handed down from generation to generation, is what developed nations. And I thought, wow, what a powerful quote. But you know what the most powerful part of that quote is, and this is why I think it's so important, and I use it no matter what profession I'm talking to, is you can take that word nations, and you can substitute anything you want for it. Hospital, university, food, bank, business. But I don't care. Every organization needs good leadership. And the way good organizations build that leadership from the ground up. And the analogy I always use is, pick your favorite sport, whatever it is. The teams that are always at the top are the ones who build their teams from the bottom. They're not the ones who go out and trade for that one player or sign them for one year, for $10 million a year.
They build them from the bottom up. They're the ones that are consistently the best. And I think companies are the same way. That doesn't mean that every once in a while in a company, you don't go outside the company to get some superstar to be an officer in your company. But the majority of your leaders, you need to build from the ground up with that professional development program to help develop that great, that next generation of great leaders. And it's so vital because we are going to reap what we sow. I promise you, if we don't do a good job of helping to create that next generation of leaders, we deserve everything we get. And old people like me, I always tell, you know, when I'm talking to a bunch of old men and women in a conference, I say, look, we are all going to leave our position one way or another. You're either going to retire, you're going to fire, you're going to, you're going to get fired, you're going to die. One way or another, you're leaving that position at some point. And if you haven't done a good job of helping to create the people who are going to take your position, shame on you.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Yeah, spot on, mate. How do you define leadership legacy? What is that definition for you? Just so we can again bring all of our community onto that same page of what we're talking about.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Right. So, obviously, I mean, that's what I titled my book, your leadership legacy. So I get asked that question a lot. Obviously, legacy means something to me, or I wouldn't have done that. And to me, it has two parts. A very small part of your legacy is what you actually accomplished in the organization you're in now. That's important because in the real world, resort, results do matter. Maybe in fantasyland where everybody's a winner and everybody gets a trophy, maybe not. But in the real world, results do matter. So I'd say 2020, 5% of your legacy is that. And here's why I think it's that small part. Because if you tie your legacy to what you did in that organization, when you leave and the next person comes in and they change everything, what's your legacy at that point?
Your legacy really is that next generation of leaders that you're helping to create who are going to carry on your philosophies of leadership. Those things that I picked up from those two, three, four star generals along the way, that I then passed on to the over 600 lieutenants that I've helped create, who then they will pass it on to that next generation. So if you look at your legacy that way, you could affect your organization for the next 1015, 2030, 40 years. Whereas if you look at it as just what you did in your organization, your legacy has a very short lifespan.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: That sort of feels like it's the. I agree. It feels like that's what would be a major difference in the leadership mindset from the standard commercial world that I live in versus that serviced armed forces world that you've spent a lot of time in.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: I think when I, when I explain that to some of the business conferences that I talk at, I get that deer in the headlights look, they just can't even, they can't even understand what I'm trying to say, you know? But then afterwards, a lot of times, some, but a lot of people will come up after I talk and, and they'll ask me questions and I'll spend a little bit more time with them and make them understand that, that, you know, because I always get this when I say that. And I say, you know, being a leader isn't about you. It's all about your people. I always get somebody, especially young people, who walk up and say, well, Colonel McCullough, I really want my next promotion. I want my next pay raise.
And I said, look, if you, if you do the servant leadership thing right, and you train people and you empower people and you take care of people the way you should as a servant leader, then you're going to get what you want because you're going to create a better person, not just a better worker, but a better person who then will make the organization better. And you're going to get credit for it because you're the leader.
So you're going to get what you want, but you got it for the right reasons, not because you were greedy or selfish, but because you helped somebody else. And I think that's when they finally start to figure it out that, yeah, maybe I'm onto something here.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: I work with a number of business owners over the course of having my own business. And so what would you say to them that if you've, you're in this situation, let's say, okay, so I'm an owner of a manufacturing business, and, you know, I've had the business for, I don't know, ten years. And, you know, my plan to sell in the, you know, 10, 15, 20 years when I retire or whatever that looks like, why should they care about their own leadership legacy?
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think that's an individual thing. I mean, some people don't care, obviously, but I think they should because, look, if we're not on this earth to help other people be better, then why are we here? I mean, I just don't understand why else we're here to. I got it. We all want to be successful, and that's good.
You know, I don't have any problem with that at all. We all have egos. Anybody who tells you they don't have an ego is lying to you. We all have an ego, and we want people to have an ego because that's what drives them to be the best at what they do, to be successful. So we want, especially people who own businesses because we want them to be successful. But good leaders know when to put that ego aside and realize that it's not only about them, it's about the people that they're employing and that they're responsible for on a day to day basis. You know, one of the things I tell people, everybody I get a chance to talk to is, you know, as a leader, you are going to, you're going to have an impact on somebody in your organization every day. Every single day, you're going to have an impact on somebody. Why not make a conscious decision to have a positive impact on that person? And I tell everybody, go out. Your goal should be to go out every single day and find one person, not ten. If you can do ten, good for you, but one person, and make a positive difference in their life every day. Imagine how much better our neighbor, our families, our neighborhood, our communities, our businesses, our country would be, the world would be if everybody went out and made one positive difference every day in somebody's life. And it's doable.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Absolutely, it's doable. And it certainly would make a massive difference. I guess my read on that is so example. Another example could be that, hey, and this is a call. I'm not sort of putting my own eager out there, but I made a call not long before recording this interview today to a lady who I was involved in a panel a couple of months back. I was involved in the same panel just this week, and I just called her and said, hey, the difference in your level of confidence. And she was new to the role previously when I first went on. Difference in her level of confidence from here to what it was back then to where she got to this week was just unbelievable. So much more confident, her presentation skills, so much better. So just making that call again. She doesn't work for me. You know, she does work for a client of mine, but it's just. I see. And what I think you've shared is that they don't need to be in your business, they only be working for you. Just have an impact on people. And if you're giving that bit of feedback, then maybe that's given a little bit of seed in her to just appreciate that fact. And she might pass that on and think, oh, I need to make sure I give feedback to somebody else about a situation I found really enlightening powerful, whatever. So I think that's what you're saying.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Make a difference in people's lives. I mean, and I think, you know, whether they work for you or not, but certainly the people who work for you, I think you gotta make an effort to make a difference. And I think here's part of the problem is that a lot of CEO's, presidents, senior level leadership, they don't even know the people that work for them.
They may know their name, may, they may not even know most of their names. They don't know them. And so here's what I see a lot of times is that somebody will assign somebody a task, a job, a mission, a project, and that isn't the right person for that job. That may be one of their weaknesses when the person sitting right next to them, that's one of their strengths. And they don't even know it because they don't know the people. And I beat into the heads of all my lieutenants, the ones that were commissioning through our program, I said, the second goal that you should have as a leader is that every day you should go find one person in your organization and find out something new about them. Not about work.
Eventually about work. But start off with personal. What's their spouse's name, what's their kid's name, what sports do their kids play, what's their hobbies? What do they like? Don't like. Just get to know them a little bit.
And a great way to do that. First of all, you got to get out from behind your desk. Nobody wants to be led by somebody who's sitting behind their desk all day. Get out from behind your desk and walk around and ask questions. And a good way. I had a boss who retired a three star general, and he told me one day, he said, oakley, I don't care how high up in the organization you get, never, ever, ever turn down a chance to go get your own cup of coffee. He said, you do two things when you do that. Number one, you show everybody that's working for you that you are no better than they are. You've got to go get your own cup of coffee just like they do, he said. And number two, if you're lucky, you got two or three different ways to get to and from the coffee pot back to your office. And you stop along the way and you talk to people and you ask them questions and you get to know them. The trust will just explode in that organization. And again, that's what it's all about. You know, Vince Lombardi was probably the greatest football coach in America, american football.
He one time said, a team is not a group of people who play together. A team is a group of people who trust each other. And that is absolutely true. The more trust you have, the more effective and efficient your organization is going to be.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Yes, mate, you're spot on there. What's one of the strangest, or maybe one of those deer in the headlight questions you've got when you're talking to, say, corporate audiences around this? Again, the reason why I asked that is because you've just like, everything you say is in my head. My world is common sense. And I know that. I know that people know that. It's common sense. You know, these leaders in a room, you're talking to CEO's and stuff, they know. But there's a big, big chasm generally between that knowing and then doing and applying. So I just wondered sort of what sort of question or questions have you got from audiences that you're on stage and you're thinking they just don't get it or that person just does not get it?
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think the big complaint that I always get is, of course, I don't have enough time to do that. And then that leads me into the, then you're probably a micromanager and how you prevent yourself from becoming that. But this is what I tell them. Look, there are certain things that only you, the leader, can do, and if that wasn't the case, then why do we need you? There are some things that only you can do. If you're doing anything other than what you only you can do, then you are cheating other people out of an experience.
Delegate that stuff. Empower people to be able to do those things, but delegate it to them to do the one, you know. And the next layer of leadership should have things that only they can do and then the next layer. And then eventually, if everybody is doing that, then you've got frees up a lot of time and that allows you to get out there and spend time with the people you know. And maybe you don't look down every day, all the way down to the guy who's putting the part on whatever vehicle you're making or machine that's being made, but at least get down to the next level of leadership. And then if you do that, you're setting the example and they'll get down to the next level. And so somebody is getting down to that person who's actually doing the work and make sure that they're feeling like somebody's taking somebody cares about them and that they're taking care of them.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: But circling back to the sort of entrenched hatred that we spoke about or you spoke about and the generational, several generations to change that, how long do you think it's going to take from a leadership CEO level perspective to start to get your message out there? A great message, and it's shared by many, but to get that message out there so that we're starting to actually make real traction in this marketplace and we're changing the mindsets and people actually getting, feeling like they're actually being led by people that actually do care about them as people and have developed that trust, as you say, those two pillars, because they are absolutely bedrocks.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think, I think that certainly we got to start teaching it at the young level because if we don't start there, I mean, we at least got to start it going up the ladder as well as coming down. Look, some, some CEO has been, your.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Next book needs to be a kids book, mate.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Pardon?
[00:37:57] Speaker A: It sounds like your next book needs to be a children's book.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I never, ever turned down a chance to talk to young men and women.
You know, I was just in Wisconsin last week and I spoke to two different high schools. I spoke to a public high school and a catholic high school. And between the two of them, I think I talked to about 275 high school students.
And I, and you'd be surprised.
The questions they ask are unbelievable.
And they, I think they, they probably get it better than some of the CEO's get it because this generation understands, they understand the people part of it. They're not very good at face to face talking, but they, they do a lot of good stuff on their phones and that. So I think they understand the people. You know, I read a thing that said that the average young person today, they consider somebody that they've never met in person, that they have a relationship online on their social media. They consider them just as good of a friend as somebody that they've known all their life.
So they understand it's about people.
And so I think if we can get that message to them early that they will start to carry it up. But, you know, some CEO that's been the CEO for 50 years, I'm not sure that you're ever going to change their mind or convince them that they got to do something different. But I think I do see the mid level leaders.
I think we can change a good percentage of their, the way they look at things so that as they move up, they're implementing some of those. But I think it's going to, the majority of the change is going to come by teaching the young generation that aspiring leaders and the brand new leaders that just took over as a leader, that's where I think we're going to make our money.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: I feel like I'm going to take a slightly different direction because you're the right man to do this with. But one of the things that I ponder a little bit around the leadership space and it comes back to caring, and you're a man of service. And so people that are people of service doesn't mean they've got to represent their country, but they care for country. There's like this bigger care factor sitting over that. So when you feel like you're caring for your country and to go and fight, you have to care for your country. You have to believe what your country believes in, in the world. I guess I'm probably talking a bit more about the US because we see that in our news here and also in Australia. There's almost like this generation of being told that their country is a bad country. They've done terrible things and like, you shouldn't care so much for your country. So therefore, when I take that pillar there, why should I care about caring for other people when I haven't got this greater thing that's sort of overseeing that?
I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself correctly, but I think you get it because you've served and you know what I'm talking about. What would you say to this care? And then there's this generation of generations coming in that are being taught to not care. We're not this, we're not nationalistic or whatever term you want to use.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you see that. And I don't know what the recruiting numbers in the australian military is, but in the american military, not good, from what I know. Horrendous.
We can't get people to join the military. And part of it is that the message I always give people is that I don't care what profession you want to do.
You got to have a belief that there's something bigger than you, that you are part of something bigger than you.
And if we can get back to whatever that is, whether it's a company, you know, some Fortune 500 company, the military, the government, whatever, then I think that's the road back to there. But I think part of the problem is that people have just lost trust in them, in all forms of government, everything, at least in the United States, we have lost trust in everything that has to do with the government. We lost trust in the presidents, the Congress, the military, our justice system, the voting system. I mean, people don't trust anything right now, and how can you run a country?
And I really feel sorry for the young kids coming up that, you know, when I was growing up, I trusted all those things, maybe wrongly, but I did.
And we had that national, and I know nationalism and that is a bad word for a lot of people, but you got to have it if you want your country to survive.
Show me a country that isn't, that doesn't have that and I'll show you a country. It's not going to be a country for very long. It's just that you got to have that now. You can't take it to an extreme. And I think that's part of the problem not only in this country, but in the world right now.
But I think that's part of the problem here.
And part of the problem, this great resignation that we have across the world where people are just leaving their jobs, I think that goes back to trust, and they feel like they're not being taken care of and they're just tired of it. And so they're going out and they're trying to start their own business or they're stuck there. You know, a lot of young men and women today are doing uber because it's just, it's them, and they can dictate when they work, how they work, how long they work, all those kinds of things, anything that gets them out of the system. I see a lot of young men and women opting out of the system, and we got to change that. And we're not going to change that unless we fix the trust piece and we take care of people, you know? And trust has a special thing for me. You know, as a combat arms officer, you got to really trust people.
And when I talk about trust, I talk about 360 degree trust because I think everybody understands that as a leader, the people I'm leading have to trust me. That is the most important one. If that one isn't there, you can just forget it all. You can go home, because that one, if that one's not there, nothing works.
But then also the leader has to trust the people they're leading, that they're going to do the right thing, they're going to live within the culture of the organization that you're leading in and that they're going to do make decisions based on what is right or at least what they believe is right.
And then everybody in that organization has to trust each other that they're going to do what's right. They're going to do their job. They're going to pull their weight and then take it one step further. You know, businessmen for the army with the american citizens for businessmen. It's whatever businesses you're dealing with and the people who are buying your product, they have to trust you, and you have to trust them.
And so if any part of that circle is missing, then you've got problems in the trust area. And I think a lot of people just don't understand that. It isn't just the one way that the people I'm leading have to trust me.
That's a given. But it's all those other things that you got to work on trustwise as well.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: From this bigger lens, let's say, and we see government and institutions, what has eroded the trust, and it seems to have rapidly happened over, I guess, maybe the last one or two decades.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Well, you know, I hearken back to, you know, the military because that's where I grew up.
After Vietnam, nobody trusted the military because they lied to him.
It goes back to what you kind of brought up in the beginning. You know, integrity, values, all those things. And we see that they are lying to us. They're not doing the right thing. And leaders do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because somebody's going to check up on them or somebody's watching. They are going to check up on you and they are watching, but that's not why a leader does the right thing. They do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And I don't see a lot of people doing the right thing. You know, one of my favorite quotes, and I use it all the time, is by Tuckaville. And he said, america is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. And I believe that. And I think over the last 2030 years, we stopped doing a lot of good things, and we're doing things that aren't good. And the american people are finally seeing that.
And because of that, a lot of the trust is gone. Look, I still believe that the west is the most western countries are still far superior to other countries. Again, I've been in 45 countries on five continents, but we could be better, but we're not going to get better if we don't have leaders who are doing the right things. And I just see a lot of leaders today not doing the right things.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Let's lighten it up a little bit. So if you were, you have, you've spoken to, talked about speaking to some younger people at some universities or colleges or whatever in the state, so what's the key message to them about caring about their legacy? Again, they don't need to be thinking, I'm going to be CEO of a Fortune 500 or company every day. They've got a chance to lead themselves and have an impression on other people. But what is your message to them about? What are those first steps you can take to start thinking more about this and actually transferring that thinking into action so that we do start to implement some change?
[00:48:32] Speaker B: Right. Because, I mean, leadership is an action. It's not a title. It's not a position.
You don't have to have those things to be a leader. In fact, many leaders out there don't have those things, and that's okay.
But I break it down to some very simple things. I talk about servant leadership that we've already hit that. I talk about communication because I think, you know, and those are the first two things I talk about because I opened my talk, I said, look, we're talking about leadership today because leadership is the number one thing that will determine whether or not your organization has the chance to be successful. There's no guarantees, but if you got good leadership, you've got a chance of being successful. Communication is the second thing that determines whether or not you are going to be successful or nothing. And that's individual communication if you want to be successful individually. But as an organization, you got to have good communication inside your organization. And I always tell people, look, it's never as good as you think it is in your organization. You may think it's good, but I promise you, it's not as good as you think it is. And one of the key things that I hit there is the listening piece of it. And I remind people that listening is part of communication, and we don't do a good job of listening as humans, and certainly not here in America. You know, that old thing where they said, you know, people listen just enough so they're thinking about what they're going to say in response to you instead of trying to actually listen to what you're saying and understand what you're saying. And I've been guilty of that in the past. And I think my wife helped me come around.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: I helped all of us. Might help all of us.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. She helped me understand that the listening piece was very, very important. And so I try to do that.
And then I just, I talk about some very, you know, just some principles that I think everybody needs to understand, you know, problem solving, decision making, professional development.
And that starts with the individual.
You got to want to develop yourself professionally in whatever it is that you're doing. And that's going to take you reading and doing some things on your own. Now, look, every organization should have a professional development program. Unfortunately, many don't.
And I hammer CEO's and presidents of companies that they got to have a professional development program, not just a leadership development program, but a professional development program for everybody in the organization. And so to me, that's a real key thing. And part of that for me is the reflection piece because I talk about habits and motivation and self discipline and a key point of reflection, we don't do a good job of reflecting as leaders in any profession. I think we in the military probably do a better job of it than most companies.
We still don't do it well enough.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: It feels like now is a good time because a number of those things you talk about I relate back to sort of mentorship. If you've got that, that can really help, I guess remove some blind spots there. But also it's that guidance piece, isn't it? So do you ever come across companies that you're involved in that actually have mentorship programs? And if so, what does that look like?
[00:52:11] Speaker B: So I have come across one, at least one where when they hire somebody new during the onboard process, they assign somebody from the company to be their mentor to help them get into the company, to answer questions about the community, to answer questions about the company and kind of artificially make, make a friend inside the company. Hopefully that takes off and it works. Some probably do, some probably don't. But at least it gives them that somebody in that company cares about them. And if they got a question or an issue, they know they got at least one person they can go to that will. If they can't handle it, they know who can. Whereas if you're new to the company, you don't know anything.
So, and I, and it seems to be working in that company, you know, as I go around, because when I go into a company, I, I spend the first day or two talking to the senior and upper leadership, and then I try to spend the last couple days down with the worker be, you know, with the average Joe who's actually doing the work in that company. And I ask them questions, you know, what's the number one problem in this company? Do you feel like you're part of a team? Is there a community here? Or are you just coming to work for your 8 hours, drawing your paycheck and going home?
And so I try to get to those things. And if we have that problem, then I go back to the CEO and the senior leaders and I said, these are the issues that you really got to work on here in the next, next quarter, next year to try to fix that. If you really want to have a team here instead of just having somebody who comes to work, and that makes a huge difference. It really does.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: I always love to hear what, what issues stick in the mind. Mate, have you got one that's stuck in the mind that sort of caught you a bit. Oh, okay.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: That somebody has told me, yeah.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: An issue for them in the company. Because again, issues can be very, very personalized, can't they?
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So one guy, his, he just started at this company and his wife came down with, I think it was cancer or it was some horrible disease. I can't remember if it was cancer or not. And he went to his boss and said he needed to take some time off. And his boss said, sorry, you can't, you haven't earned it yet.
Wow.
You're talking about not taking care of people. You know, I mean, who cares, you know, if you want that guy to stay with you, you better take care. Let him take care of business at home.
You know, if you came up to me and said, hey, boss, I needed, I need 2 hours off, I got something I got to do, I said, okay, now if you came up every day and told me that, then I'm going to ask some questions. But if you come up once a month and you tell me you gotta take an hour off, 2 hours off, go, you know, because that's what they remember is how did you treat them?
They don't remember very much of anything else, but how you treat people is what they're gonna remember. And, you know, you can talk the talk all you want, but they'll quickly figure that out. You know, growing up, my father used to tell me, son, if you say one thing and you do another, what you do will be believed, not what you said.
And so you really got to follow through. And that's one of the points that I try to make to especially aspiring or young leaders, is that you really do have to live that. Live what you're talking, because they are going to, you're going to be judged by it whether you like it or not, they are going to judge you on what you actually did, not what you said you were going to do, mate.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: What advice do you give to people, to up and coming leaders, to current leaders, to business owners where you've had access to quality? You said two, three, four star generals that have given you mentorship guidance along the way and really positive role models. Not everyone has access to that of level of people, but they've certainly got access to people in their network. What advice do you give them to consider about finding or seeking some mentorship in some, whether that's life in general or for some specific moments in time, right?
[00:57:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. I tell people, just like the CEO, you're telling them, go find. Go find somebody in this room. Find somebody outside your profession. And I always emphasize that for somebody to be your mentor, three things have to happen. They have to have something that you need, some knowledge, some skills, something that is beneficial to you. Number two is that they have to want to do it.
And number three is that just drew a blanken with the third thing. I emphasize to them, they gotta have something that you need. They gotta want to do it. And I can't remember the third one right now, but really, I mean, that.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: Come back to you, Mike.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: Yeah, but those two things right, there are enough.
They gotta want to do it, and they gotta have something that you need. Otherwise, what's the benefit of it?
And then I emphasize to them that when that happens to you, you got to go find somebody to be a mentor for.
And the young people that are just starting out, as I always tell them, look, if you don't have anybody stepping up to be your mentor, then go find one, because I promise you, somebody out there that would love to be your mentor. They just may not know that you need one or that, that you would want them to be your mentor. But go find a mentor, because you got to have a mentor. It's huge. It makes a huge difference in your life as a, in your professional life and can be in your personal life as well.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Would you consider mentor and role model as the same thing or something different?
[00:58:55] Speaker B: No, I think that they can be the same thing, that your mentor can be your role model, but they don't have to be. I think role models is somebody you look up to that you would like to be like.
Whereas a mentor has information that you need that teach you how to do, how to be that role person that you were looking up to. So I don't think the role model has to be a mentor, but I think a mentor usually is a role model. Otherwise, why would you want them as your mentor? So I think that they aren't mutually exclusive, but I think that the mentor is the reason that you picked that person or you trust that person to be your mentor is because they are one of your role models.
You may have a role model that isn't your mentor, maybe you wouldn't even want them to be, but your mentor is usually somebody that you want to be like.
[00:59:58] Speaker A: I like that answer, mate. And the reason I asked it is because I just think when you look at these sort of situations, there's probably too much emphasis, whether the term's used or not. Role model. But there's probably a bit too much emphasis for people around role models and social media and who people are looking up to and what that looks like in this sort of fantasy world, for.
[01:00:18] Speaker B: Example, as a place to.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. As opposed to, you know, real mentorship and guidance, hopefully on a. On a decent path, because you can also have mentorship where maybe they're guiding you down a path which, you know, leads you to life, crime, drugs, alcohol, whatever. Can't you?
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, I.
One of the things that somebody told me one time, and I absolutely agree with it, he said, show me who you hang out with, show me who your hero is and I'll tell you who you're going to become. I think that has a lot. I think that has a lot of validity to it.
And so you got to be careful who you're picking as your role model and who you're hanging out with and what your habits are. That's the other piece of it. Tell me what your habits are and I can tell you what you're going to become, whether or not you're going to be successful or not, because I think that has a huge part to play. But we idolize the wrong people a lot of times, at least in this country, I see that the singer or the athlete or somebody like that, rather than somebody who actually has something to offer.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: Nice. I think that's a nice way to start to bring this to a close, mate. What's the bit of advice you'd like to share with people listening here and maybe take this mentor approach?
[01:01:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So especially young leaders who are maybe unsure of themselves. Do they have that ability? Do they have that in them? And I tell everybody, look, if you want to be a leader, you can be a leader. Because I get asked all the time, are leaders made or are they born to? And I think there is a combination. And if you don't believe me, go out to any playground where a bunch of 5678 year old kids are playing. There's a leader there. Nobody made that kid the leader, but everybody's following somebody. So I think there is some of that innate ability, but the majority of what we consider leaders in the world are made.
They were taught how to be a leader. And if you really want to be a leader, you can learn to be a leader. The things that you have to do to be a leader are not hard. If they were, I wouldn't be able to do them. Okay. Just a dumb farm boy. Okay. The things you have to do are not hard. Doing them is the hard part. So you have to really make the decision that that is what you want to do. You want to go down that path of responsibility, accountability, taking care of people above yourself.
And if you really decide that's what you want to do, you can get there.
[01:03:05] Speaker A: Pretty sound advice, mate. What's one thing that's helped you build a culture of leadership?
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Probably my faith.
Faith is huge for me, and that goes back to, in my opinion, the values, character, all those things. And I think that that allows me to build the culture of the organization that I'm in charge of.
And, you know, you don't have to share my religion. Most religions believe in the golden rule and, you know, morals and those kinds of things. So it doesn't matter what religion it is. But I think faith plays a huge part in good organization culture, because it goes back to the values, and that's what culture is, is a shared value.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Love it, mate. I think that actually, although you haven't used the word again at the end into leadership legacy, but people believing in something, having faith in something, it doesn't even need to be religion, but there's core values around that, and what people align with makes a big difference. Then, as you've said through this conversation, you start to get to know yourself better. You start to have faith in you as a person, which gives you faith as a leader of yourself or your family or your organization, whatever that sits. So really sound advice coming from a very, very experienced person.
[01:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And it starts in your family. I mean, that if you're going to be a leader, you got to be a leader in your family first.
If you can't lead your own family, how are you going to lead 50 other people? I mean, you know, so I think. I think that's where it starts. And it really is, like you said, the value piece of it, no matter what that. How that comes to you, whether it's through your faith or how you were raised, whatever, but that the good values and integrity and character, because those are essential not only for a culture but for you as a leader.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: 195 196 maybe episodes now or podcasts now. So I hope it's been enjoyable for you. I've certainly had a great time sort of grilling you with some of these questions and getting some of these answers out of you and fantastic advice you've given, mate, so thank you very much for that. I also think that again, you've got this, you've got a, what's the right word to say? You've got a Persona about you, but I get this feeling through the virtual world about you. And again, I know we've spoken before, but you've got this very mental mentorship aura around you as well. So I've certainly not listened to or watched the 195 podcasts you've done, but I'm sure that they're taking a really good opportunity to be some sort of mentorship, evergreen mentorship out in the space, in this leadership space for people that, you know, come across you through these socials and, and listen to those episodes and stuff like that, mate. So keep doing the great work you're doing, keep getting the word out about the leadership legacy book and speaking to the right people and really fighting the good fight, mate. And all the best as well on the second book and the third children's book as well.
[01:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah, well, thanks, Brennan. I appreciate that, mate.
[01:06:27] Speaker A: It's been absolute pleasure having you on the cultural leadership. Thanks for being a fantastic guest.
