Guy Snodgrass: Former naval aviator, TOPGUN instructor, and speechwriter for Secretary of Defense James Mattis

Guy Snodgrass recently served as director of communications and chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis. A former naval aviator, he served as commanding officer of a fighter squadron based in Japan, A TOPGUN instructor, and a combat pilot over the skies of Iraq.  Today he is the founder and CEO of Defense Analytics, a strategic consulting and advisory firm. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis and his latest book is titled: TOPGUN’s Top 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit. 

Some interesting insights from this episode:

·         To succeed a TOPGUN, you have to possess three traits: talent, passion, and personality.

·         Competence is when you have an excellent capability but you operate below that level. Arrogance is when your competence is lower than you anticipate but you act like you’re better.

·         You can achieve anything you put your mind to so long as you’re willing to break down the problem and put the resources against it to solve it.

·         After every simulated dogfight there would be a debrief comparing your recollection of the events with the actual video footage.  This created a continual feedback loop to accelerate learning.

·         President Eisenhower once said: “Plans are worthless but planning is indispensable.”

·         TOPGUN has a flat organizational structure whereby junior officers are calling a lot of the shots.  Decisions are made based on capability and knowledge base, not based on rank. This allows them to get to the best tactical end result. 

Show Notes:

TOPGUN'S TOP 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit

Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis