Captain George dom Well very much.
Now you are the You're actually the second American military person that I've had on this podcast, and the first was Colonel Lee Ellis Lately Ellis and I know your Navy, his Army, and he spent five and a half years in the Hanowi Hilton prison camp. Yeah so, and that that was a fascinating conversation.
Now you are a.
Naive all aviator or an next native a aviator.
Like myself, but you had a rather more distinguished and exciting career than my poultry eight years. And tell us what so before we get into your career highlights, what what inspired you.
To pursue your career in.
Native all aviation and and was it was the aviation that you joined them for?
Yeah, that's correct. You know, I grew up I'm going to date myself here, but I grew up during the Vietnam War, and so when I graduated from high school, very few people in my friend group were interested in going into the military. But my father had served in World War Two and in the Navy. And while he never made it a big deal in terms of pushing I was the youngest of three boys, I knew it was important to him that one of us had a military experience, whether it was just for a couple of
years or a career, but just something. So so I signed up to apply for the Navy ROTC program. And this is a program where you can go to one of many different civilian colleges and when you graduate, you become commissioned and go off to serve whatever. And and so I did that, and that's what that's what got me interested in the Navy. And then in the summertime they give you opportunities to see what you could go into.
So I spent a week on a submarine, a couple of weeks on a destroyer, a couple of weeks with the Marine Corps, and then a couple of weeks where I got to do some flying. When I got a backseat flight in a THA FORO Skyhawk jet, that that really hooked me. And so after I graduated, I went off to I'm off the flight school, and twenty six years later, I'm walking out of the Pentagon saying that was pretty cool time.
Yeah, awesome.
And I tell you what, I bet you the week in the submarine. Didn't want you to join submarine.
Was a little claustrophobic.
Yeah, they are very specialist individuals, aren't they.
Environers?
And there's no you need characters.
Yours like you had a pretty distinguished career ending up as as Navy captain, and and anybody who knows army it's very very different.
What's what's the what's the equivalent crank in the army?
I forget I've been out so long, colonel, yeah, so, and you know you've been commander on of of flight squadrons on aircraft carriers, which the Americans do aircraft carriers a lot better.
Than the British.
And you you also ran the Blue Angels, which is anybody from the UK the Red Arrows, I think it's the equivalent, right so, which just must have been amazing. And then you're an instructor at top Gun. So give us a couple of highlights from from those different areas. You know, your time on the carrier, your time and the.
Brillions and the time on top.
And during my career I had the opportunity to deploy nine times on the aircraft carrier around the world, got to of course see some very interesting places and participated in combat actions against Libya and of course against Iraq during desert storm and also in the Adriatic in Kosovo against the Serbs and so forth. So it was a
very exciting opportunity. But the neat part about living in of course, the flying off the carrier is just very exciting and on a beautiful day or even at nighttime, if you have a good horizon and a steady deck. Don't tell anybody this, but we would pay money to do it. We call it the sport of Kings and it's just fabulous sport. And we grade every landing in order to channel that type a personalities to try to do it. Landed perfectly on the carrier and that then
enhances our safefty level. Right. So, but then it you know, in bad weather, nighttime, there's something wrong with the carrier, there's something wrong with the airplane and the decks moving.
That's when you really really earn your pay. But the highlight for that experience for me was being on a ship of literally five thousand people that come from all walks of life in our country, all economic backgrounds, all religions, ethnicities, and we come together under a common mission and shared sacrifice, and it's really just a wonderful experience to be a part of that. The morale is great, and so that
was my big takeaway from that experience. Top Gun was interesting in that, again I'm going to date myself, but I checked in as a young bachelor lieutenant to become a top Gun instructor in San Diego a month after the first movie came out.
Uh oh, my goodness.
Serious pretty good for lieutenant dom there where I had to come to work to rest up from. But but that was a wonderful experience because that that whole organization is driven to find out how good can you get in the in the airplane and how well can you teach the students that come through in order for them to take take it back to their squadrons and teach them the latest and greatest tactics and standard operating procedures and what the what the threat is up to and
so forth. And the idea is we train the trainers, they go back to their squadrons, and then they raise the level of because you know, interestingly, the Top Gun got started during the Vietnam War and there was a real challenge because historically, you know, we had enjoyed about a ten to one ratio in air to air combat during World War Two and during Korea and in Vietnam, the ratio came down to like two to three to one, and that just wasn't acceptable, right, And so they did
a big study to find out why aren't we performing better? And some of it was technical, some of it was logistics, some of the missiles and so forth were getting damaged in shipment out to the Pacific, But a lot of it was training. We had gotten away from training against
what our typical adversary was going to be. We were fighting against each other in similar performing airplanes, right, And so they started the school to teach how do you maximize your airplanes's capabilities versus the Vietnamese aircraft they were flying Soviet Meg FIFTEENSG seventeens and so forth megs and so after the bombing halt and the first graduates from the school went back out and taught to their squadron mates.
Over time, the Navy shootdown ratio went up to thirteen to one, whereas the Air Force that did not implement a training program at the time like that, they stayed. My understanding is pretty much, you know, three to one or so for the duration. But they now have their version of it at Nellis Air Force Base and have enjoyed the results of that really great training. So that was sort of my top gun experience and I can
tell you talk to you more about it. And certainly we realized the movie was going to be a documentary. But I but I think the flying scenes I think represent very well what the dynamic nature of air to air combat is all about. I mean, you've got airplanes that are swirling all around, You're you're pulling six seven g's, so your body is you know, just imagine being seven times heavier, your head being seven times heavier, and you're looking around trying to keep track of everybody that's out
there and so forth. It's really but but in the move, the big difference in the movie is there's no award given in the class for individual performance because the emphasis is on teamwork and the students working together to develop, you know, good plans and then go out and execute those plans with discipline in order to fight and survive. And so that's the key difference between uh, Tom Cruise, Maverick and Iceman competing for the trophy. You know, it's not that's not how it is.
So yeah, made for TV and The interesting thing about particularly flying in fast jets is.
The speed that you're breeding would have to work out.
So you know, I was a helicopter navigator and that was mental enough. But you know, we're flying around at one hundred and twenty knots and you guys are going way faster, and as you said, there's there's like there's there's.
Aircraft all around you. It's like that that.
Speed of of of processing in the Brian has just got to.
The speed and the and you're and you're trying to you're you're operating in three dimensions. And uh, and some of the guys I flew with, I mean, they were unbelievable in being able to, you know, to deal in that environment. Frankly, I had to work pretty hard at it to keep up. But yeah, that's and so you
have to keep things simple, right. You have to distill down a complex plan and have very specific things that you can trip wires if you will, in the mission so that you know what to do when and you don't overly complicate it, so that you can execute in what what we call when your brain starts running on what we call stem power, right where everything's got your the sheoting's going on, the missiles are coming up, and
you just have to execute right. So you've got to keep it simple and and you've got to train really realistically with repetition so that it becomes something that's very you can just respond react in the moment correctly.
Yeah, and look at it would have been the same with your flying training as my flying training, where they do you know, you do a simulator flight and the instructor can throw curveballs at you, and then you go up and you do that flight in the er, which odds in a whole heap of complexities, but it's the grided, increasing graded exposure through the training and that repetition.
Yeah, it is. In the top gun class, you start out fighting one versus one dog fighting, and then after a series of those, then you go two verses two, and you do a series of those, and then it becomes two verses. You don't know how many are going to be out there, three, four or five, and then you put four jets together what we call a division, and now you go four versus unknown, and so, yeah, you're exactly right. You ramp up the complexity, you also
ramp up what the threat is. Simulating so we would start out with a very pretty basic threat North Korea or something like that, and then as the scenarios went on, the threat would become more and more capable until we got to the end of the program and the class had to do a graduation strike. And it was pretty exciting, I.
Can imagine, and I think the training protocols developed and the ones that I experienced, the ones that you experienced, it's really best class training for anything. Really, you know, that whole created exposure, increasing to overload, and then I remember feeling a flight and they take you back a notch and then re establish your confidence. You'd be assigned in the you added again, and then things just get faster and busier and faster than that busier.
The critical element of that learning process. There's a lot that goes into it, of course, but the critical element to it is something that is sacred in naval aviation. And I'm sure I'm sure the same, Yes, I guess, of course exactly. And you know, coming into the womb and figuratively taking off the rank and going into the room and being willing to figure out okay, because nobody has the complete picture of what happened out there, so together you figure out and first of all, you just
want to objectively get out there what happened. And then based on that, then okay, why did it happen? And then what can we do to reinforce the things that went well and also to correct the things that could be done better? And you know, we had little tricks that we did, you know, for example, to try to defuse some of the ego in the debrief, we would we would talk in the third person. It would it wasn't you and me, it was the blue fighter and
the red fight. And we would and we would get a little bit of cognitive distance from it to try to keep the ego out of it so the student was more likely to absorb and take on mistakes and so forth if we if we did that, and then we always tried to at the end, we really tried to.
You know, we would call it goods and others and we would make a wed make a list as a wrap up for the debriefs, because again we wanted to make sure we recognized what went well, uh, but also point out, okay, now what do we need to do tomorrow in order to continue to raise our game? And uh, and it's and it's really very cool once you embrace it. However, as I work with corporations and companies and business teams, they seem to struggle with all of that.
One hundred percent percent.
And and you know, and because I really wanted to to co deep on this one, because I worked with a lot of businesses as well, and I often tell a story that that this was the thing that really made the power of a debrief sink in for me. And we were all young, young instructors going through advanced flying training pilots and observers or navigators. And one of the instructors who was a retired pilot doing instructing NIGHTE. Hennel was his name, and he was so experienced, he'd
been flying since the sixties. And he sat as don and he told us one day about when he first got his wings.
And he went on the aircraft carrier.
They sealed from Portsmouth and they sealed to the far East and he said, by the time they got there, I think it was three months later, half of all the crew.
On board were dead.
Because he said, flying helicopters off ships is inherently dangerous and that was just jaw dropping, and he said, that's where that culture of debrief came in so strongly.
And it's not not just about learning from your mistakes, but learning from others.
And I'm sure it would be the same in the American military that as an aircraft captain you had to read all of the aircraft incidents that had happened and sign that you had read them before you were allowed to take your aircraft out. And that culture of learning from others' mistakes and the willingness like anytime there's an incident, there is that dissection of what happened and you know whether it was part of our engineering or whatever it was.
And it's not to fingerpoint, it's so that people can learn from others mistakes because with our crew often you can't wait to learn from your own mistakes, right And and and I think it's a critic on so many businesses, don't do you have seen it? George be at these conferences and they're up there and they're talking about best practice and all that, and I'm like, who's start talking about the big fuck ups?
Right, so that people can learn from that. What's your what's your take on this?
A couple thoughts. One is you know, not only did we take time to investigate and debrief mishaps and so forth. But we would also do the same thing for near missus. We didn't we didn't want to be where well we leoked out on that one and then forget about it.
Uh.
We would have we would assume, Okay, we just had a midair out there. Now, let's go back and figure out what what happened, you know, even though it wasn't. Thankfully we didn't have to pay the ultimate price for it. Uh. And and I'll share with you a story from when I was with the Blue Angels, because I was the leader of the of the Blue Angels. And interestingly enough, you don't start as a wingman, at least in our organization and then come up to be the leader. You
come in as the leader. So I had much more experience than my wingmen did because they were much junior to me in rank. But I didn't have any Blue Angel experience, which requires a level of consistent, very precise flying that you know, I'd never been asked to do before. Right,
So my first couple of weeks were really something. And I just remember being in a debrief at the end of my first week, and one of the things that we do in the debrief is I'm expected to share what significant mistakes I'm aware of that I made, because what that is that gives my wingmen an idea of to what degree am I aware of our own performance? Because because if I'm making a mistake and I don't
I don't recognize it, we got a problem. If I'm making a mistake and I'm not willing to admit it, we got another problem because you're not going to trust somebody who's not willing to be vulnerable to be transparent.
Right.
So, anyway, we're sitting at the end of that. It's been a long week. We've been flying two and three times a day. I'm trying to not only fly precisely, but with the Blue Angels, we fly so close together that I have to talk while I'm flying because I don't move either hand without first telling my wingman a command of preparation and then execution. Right, So I'm trying to talk and fly, and anyway, at the end of the first week, I'm I'm worn out right, and we're
in the debrief and my bucket is so full. I remember the first on the fifteen minutes or twenty minutes of the flight, but after that, I can't remember all the stuff that went on out there and my mistakes.
And finally I sent to the guys, you know, because I finished my list, and then they said, well, Boss, we also did this and this and this and this and finally, you know, and just a little bit of frustration and exasperation, I said, I said, okay, you guys, don't you see I'm trying as hard as I can here, And God bless them, they looked at me and very professionally and everything they said, Roger that, Boss, we know you're trying hard, but we don't grade on effort. We
grade on performance. And in these these four or five manoevers, you suck. You got to get better. You can't be waggling your wings because we can't get in there, and so forth. And it was an AHA moment for me because I looked across the room at my wingmen and I realized they weren't bringing me this to make themselves look good or make me feel bad or point fingers or they They were one hundred percent wanted me to get better, and we as a team weren't going to
get any better than by definition than that. I as the leader flew right. And so that was a switch for me that allowed me to embrace Okay, I want it all, bring me all the truth you got because I want to I want to get really good and be worthy of you know, what the team stands for and where we want to accomplish. So it was pretty cool.
Yeah, And I think that's hugely important as well.
You know, I when I slang in.
Helicopters, particularly helicopter search and rescue, which is inherently dangerous, I mean the culture and I'm imagining the culture would be the same. You know, there's four people that are one person making mistake and four people are dead, and so the the the debrief culture is tabs off.
Rank does not matter in the debrief.
And and and you brought it up like somebody pulling the boss up and going you suck like you don't.
You don't get that culture very much in business, do you.
And and and it's I think it goes back to what you're talking about the egos earlier on. But but this is where performance tied to safety takes it up a notch. And and and where there's that desire for performance and the idea of mastery, then then Eagles.
And you know, when I talked to groups, sometimes somebody will say, well, yeah, you guys had to be that way because it was life and death, right, And I say, yeah, you're right. But I don't believe that the principles change just because the consequences go up. We just couldn't compromise, We couldn't look away. And I tell them, look, if you'll take these principles and you applying at your business, you're going to see massive improvement. Now you don't have to be all the way to the end of the
continuum like we had to. But if you just raised your game and the level of trust in your organization fifteen twenty thirty percent, man, you'll see Yeah.
Game changer. Game changer. Yeah. Absolutely.
And now before we dive into because I do want to really dive into your book, but when you transitioned and from civilian from military to civilian.
Life, what was that like? And was bump? Because I did the eight years.
And when I laughed, you know, there was big holes whenever I laughed, But you did about twenty six years.
So how did you how did you.
Find that transition? And the second part of the question is what do you still well.
They answered, it both is the same thing, and I'm sure it's the same for you. It's it's the people. It's very much a cliche, but clichees are often that way because they're true. I mean, when the people that you lived and worked with and sacrificed with every day, you just got to a level of camaraderie that you
don't see. I mean, you see it somewhere. I'm working with a company out here in California right now that has very a great culture and so forth, but generally speaking, you don't have the same out there, the same sort of you know, commitment to each other and all of that was the biggest The biggest change for me was you know, giving leaving that team spirit if you will.
And and where do you think that?
Because I've often thought about this, like where does that come from?
Is it the overall military culture? And uh?
And and I mean I think it's elements of it, right, the overall military culture, the very strong connection to purpose and me it ship, but also I think living through shared adversity, because it's in those situations you kind of see into the soul.
Of your appo, don't you.
And when you're in those dangerous life threatening situations or even not even life threatening, but just where you have to go to a level of yourself that you didn't know existed.
I think it's in business. There's a lot of layers of the onion I find. Uh.
And then you know, when you go through those really tough experiences, you see into the other person's soul and that creates that deep, deep, deep.
It's the shared sacrifice, it's the it's the importance of the mission. Uh. And it's you know and like and does while of course you go through some great adversity together, it really bonds you. But a lot of it is just, hey, this is a shitty situation and we're all in it together and let's and let's make the best of it. And uh and out of that comes yeah, that that bonding and uh uh yeah, it's it's very powerful, no question about it.
Mm hmmm. So what and so you so you transition, deny.
You are a high level coaching consultant for teams and particularly around building high performance teams.
So you wrote a book on it, I trust leadership. So what motivated you to write the book?
Well, when I left active duty, I was living in the Boston area, and as I would meet people, I would and they found out a little bit about my background. I would get lots of questions about how did we train, how do we lead, how do we organize? And then I was getting invited to speak, and so initially because they were actually paying me money. As my daughters would say, they're paying you to tell stories, Dad, So.
Yeah, that's my life.
So because they were paying me money, I wanted to, you know, give them value. So so I've tried to give them twenty six years of leadership lessons in an hour. And while they loved the photos and the videos and the stories, I really felt like it was a mile wide and an inch deep, and a lot of it was stuff that, you know, I mean, these universal principles that they could get it just about anywhere else. Right.
So I had lunch with a friend of mine who was a senior executive at Wells Fargo Bank, and he said to me, he said, you know, I've been to hundreds of these keynote presentations, and I tell you, the ones that are really good are the ones that when I walk out I'm thinking differently than when I walked in.
So that forced me to think about Okay, what is it about my experience that I can share that maybe they're not hearing anywhere else or certainly not necessarily hearing it from from the perspective that I'm going to share it. And that's when I came upon, Okay, the one thing that we all took for granted. I'm sure, as we've been talking today, very much the same for you. Anytime you're in a high performing organization, the one thing they a all have in common is you Trust is not
something that's just nice to have. It's not just something that hey, you put you put good people together and you're gonna have it. I mean, we can see lots of sports teams where that's not the case, right and so, And in my experience, every high performance team I was on, whether it was a fighter squadron in combat or top Gun or the Blue Angels, trust wasn't something that was just nice to have. It wasn't some sort of hr initiative.
It was a strategic imperative. I mean, we recruited for trustworthiness, We trained to build it every day. If you had it, you got rewarded and promoted. And if you lost it and you couldn't get it back, quickly you were either sidelined or you were gone because we could not afford as I'm sure as you described in your helicopter you know, you had to really trust the other three guys in your crew. And so I just you know, share with people what were the things that we had to do
to build a really high level of trust. And you know it's not rocket science, but but it's work and you you have to, you know, proactively do it because too many organizations don't really think about trust until it's broken or gone and then they're struggling.
Yeah, yeah, and then then there's there's big issues, isn't there. I mean I run some high performance team stuff. I use pat nan Chionese model.
I'm not sure here for many.
Of us that you probably are, but but the bottom of that bag is trust foundation right at the bottom. And it's that and it's it's not predictive trust, you know, which is you know, if I've been working with someone for years, I kind of know what they're going to do, so I've got.
That level of trust.
It's the deeper level of trust based on vulnerability and openness to share your fears, your failures, your apprehend and and and actually that that's what I was talking about earlier on when you go through that adversity or the hard the hard training, we were owned the pumpany you see under the levels of the onion and we get.
That deeper trust. And I think that's his real In.
My book, I described three levels of trust, and I talk about you know, when I got to the Blue Angels, I had much more flight time, but I didn't a Blue Angel time, as I'd said, So I was at trust one point oh. And this is sort of your garden variety trust. And you know, you hire somebody because they've been to the right schools or they've had done the right job or whatever it might be. And you know, you trust them to show up and you know, do their do their job and then trust two point oh.
And this was after I worked.
So George, can I just am clarify is that trust one point oh?
Based on their perceip mostly you know.
I'll give you a really mundane example. I mean, you're driving down the highway and based on the guy coming the other way, has you know, done what was necessary to get a driver's license, you trust that they're going to stay on their side of the line, right so it's it's what I call you your garden variety trust, right, And my team said, look, boss, just fly your jets safely and we're gonna we're going to show you in our training. We're together, we're going to become Blue Angels.
Right.
So so then I kept working, working, and I got to trust what I call trust two point zero. And this is where we live most of our relationships. And this is what it's conditional trust. Right. If you do A and B, I'll trust you with C. Or it's selective trust. I'll trust you here, but I'm not trusting you over here, right, And it feels like a contract sort of. In fact, you know, that's why we have contracts, is because we're trying to raise the level artificially of trust.
Everybody knows what's expected and if you don't do it, here's what's going to happen. Right, So you artificially mitigate the risk as best you can so that you can get a deal done. And so I kept working, working, working, until finally when we came out of winter training and we started doing Blue Angel air shows. I had invested in my teammates and they and me to the point that we said to each other. I trust you, period. And this is where the magic happens. Right, this is
this feels like a covenant. If trust two point zero is a contract, trust three point zero is a covenant. And that's when you get to the point where you know there's no hesitation, and that's when you can really move quickly. You can be very agile, you can adapt. The resilience goes way up, productivity goes way up, quality
goes up. Everything does right if you make those investments. Unfortunately, too often organizations and teams aren't willing to devote the time and the effort consistently in order to achieve that level and maintain it.
So give us one or two things that a leader could do to tick up the level of trust in their team, and I'm imagining there would be a reason amount of transfer to trust in relationships.
Well if this works at home, yeah as well. And because it's universal and a couple of things that to be aware of. I mean, you know, trust can't be bought, it can't be expected, it can't be demanded, it can't be coerced. It's a gift, and it's a gift that is give And whenever you have behaved in a way a trustworthy manner that the other person is willing to
give it. And so you know, I talk about five things that I had to do in order to earn this unconditional trust in my wingman, and they with me, right, and I'll go through them very quickly, and then you can drill down into whatever strikes your fancy. And you have to pay attention to all five. If you drop one out, we were going to face an issue that we would have to ultimately work on. But the good news is for each one of them, it reinforces the other four so that there was an upward spiral of
trust and confidence. Right so here very quickly, and for each one there was a question that my team was asking about me every day, and depending upon the answer they discerned, they would make a judgment about my trustworthiness. I believe these are the same five questions your listeners are being asked by their people in their lives, whether professionally or personally, either consciously or unconsciously. So here we go. The first one is character, and the question was simply,
do you walk your talk? Do you live up to your responsibilities? Do you keep your promises? Do you own you know, whatever, do you live our shared core values, and for us in the Navy and Marine Corps, it was honor, courage, and commitment. And my team was judging my character based on to what degree did I live up to those those core values and our standards that we had as a team for excellence, and we had lots of you know, norms that the team had developed
over the years. So that was a first one. The second one was commitment. Now, my team was absolutely certain that I would show up to lead them with a smile on my face when the sun was shining and the sky was blue and the air was smooth. But they knew that during our time together we were gonna have to go through some storms, because that's sort of how life is, right you're either in a storm now, or you just came out of a storm, or look out, you're getting ready to go into the next one exactly.
So what they wanted to know was, are you gonna be with us when the going gets rough? I mean, are you gonna Are you gonna show up and play your a game when we're in the storm and be at your best leader and lead us to victory on the other side, Because if you're just gonna show up and take names, cass, blame ce ya, forget about it. We want you to be the best leader you can be.
And oh, by the way, when we get down to a moment of truth where you have to make a choice between the team's interest or your interest, which one are you gonna pick? That's what they want to know, right, So that's commitment. The third one is competence. Now, it's absolutely important to be trusted, particularly in your professional life, that you have to be very good at what you do, no question about it, right. But I put a third here for a reason because I believe if you don't
get the first two, the third one doesn't matter. If a person doesn't walk their talk or be all in, then you know, forget about it. But if they do walk their talk, walk our talk, live our values, and they are all in, we can teach them. I mean, they have to have a certain amount of talent and skill, but we would trade off a percentage of some amount of skill in order to make sure we got the first two. It wasn't necessarily the ace of the base
who became the blue Angel. It was the guy who could who was you know, had great integrity, total commitment to the mission, and would come to work every day and accept constant professional, constructive criticism in the debrief and not get discouraged, distracted, or let his ego get in
the way. So every day, as I walked into for a pre flight briefing and I would sit down at the conference table and I would look around at my wingman gathered around, I could see the third question in their eyes, and the question was are you good enough to be our leader today? Are you better than you were yesterday, but not as good as you're going to be tomorrow because we don't want to stay here. You
want to keep getting better and better. By definition, we as a team can't get better if you don't get better. So that was a third question. Then the fourth one is the one I think most leaders in this modern age have dropped off their radar. And that's connection you see. By the middle of the season, I could do just about anything I wanted with my jet, and my guys would follow me. If I needed to speed the role of the formation to stay under the clouds, I could
do it. If I needed to pull harder at the bottom of a loop to avoid a ridge line, I could do it. If I needed to tighten the turn with more g around a skyscraper, I could do it because I had invested in my wingman such that they believed I knew what I was asking them to do out there as I changed the trajectory. Right. But if for a minute they doubted that I understood what I was asking them to do, that's when you get hesitation, separation, disengagement. Right.
So the question, and this applied just as much on the ground as it did in the air with the sailors and marines on the team, and the question was do they believe you understand them? Which is a different question than do I believe I understand them? Because what I believe is interesting but not sufficient. What matters is
what do they believe? And when they believe that you get them, that you understand their concerns, their challenges, what you're asking them to do, what their hopes, their goals are, and that whenever you're making the tough decisions, you're taking them into account. When they believe you do that, even if the decision doesn't go their way, they'll join up and come along. But if they don't. If they then
then you always have friction. And challenges, and it's like it's like aerodynamic drag, you know, on the on the airplane, you know, So that's that's connection. And then the last one quickly is communication. If connection is do they believe I understand them? Then communication is do they understand me and my clear, concise, consistent and direct in my transmissions? And are they receiving the messages that I intended when
I sent it? Right? And you saw that, you know, in aviation, we have very specific protocols to make sure that there's no misunderstanding on the radios when you're assigned a heading or an altitude or whatelse. And we need to implement those types of feedback in our communication strategies on the ground, in our work, and in our life right because the biggest challenge with communication for leaders is the presumption that it's occurred. I sent the email. I
sent the email, they get it. I gave the talk, they get it. I had the one on one, she gets it. They don't get it, at least not yet, because they aren't as close to it as you are, right, And I like to say, how many times do you have to hear a new song before you get the lid? Ricks. So we have to transmit consistently in a variety of forms until until the audience gets the message. Right.
So that'll say you can never over communicate clarity.
And you know you've done it when they start making fun of you, right, Okay, yeah, I think they got it now. Yeah.
Look I love that that the character, commitment, competence, connection communication.
So is that this is that a hierarchy?
Hierarchy?
Yeah, and and and and I see why you have put character first because I mean people can just that they can they can smell it at fifty pieces if you're not authentic, right, that they really do and and and that is what and you know what reminds me there's a couple of ones tied in together, character and commitment. I remember my first boss, Commander Jock Alexander, and people would have walked over broken glass for him.
But we we had there.
There was a big night in the naval fleet, Fleet of our Arms called Taranto Knight, and it celebrated the Battle of Toronto when our our our squadron went in and sunk to half the Italian fleet.
Right.
And so the tradition is that that you know, there's all there's the whole mess dinner, and there's there's there's fires and stuff like that, and and and and we we tend to burn a piano at the end of it, right, and so that's typical stuff, right.
But we were having it was a big.
Do and there was there was an admiral coming and things like that, and the commander of the bas who was not an er crew guy, he was a fish head right as we call him. I don't know if you call the same and in the States, but he for being off, I burned the piano and all their crew were like, yeah. So what we did instead was we burned a car. We didn't burn a piano. We got one of the guy's old cars, all chipped in,
bought it off of and burnt the car. And the next day the commander of the base went ballistic, made us all and stand on the paray ground in our dress uniforms and started giving us a bollocking about burning the car. And the boss of the squadron, Jock Alexander, stepped forward and said, sir.
I just need to interject. I told him they could burn the car.
And the commander went in my office and he never told us that we could burn the car right, he took the hit for us, and geez did we get a bullocking afterwards? But I tell you what, like that is an example of that character and commit absolute And you know.
One thing I'd like to share about the character piece is that you know, no matter how self aware you are, no matter how high your EQ is, you can't know how you're coming across to everybody else in the organization because because you just can't. First of all, you're not them, and second of all, you can't be everywhere all the time. And so sometimes leaders are doing the they think they're doing the right thing, but they for whatever reason, members
of the team are receiving a different message. And some of that occurs, you know, like for example, in communication, if you're not communicating, if there's a if there's a gap in communication, people are going to fill the gap with stories or perceptions or whatever. Right. So I share with.
Yeah, the brand, the brand is a prediction machine. And if people don't know.
The story makers, right, we make stories all the time. So I share with leaders that you need to have truth tellers in your organization, people that you trust who will bring you the truth to let you know they they understand what you're trying to do. They understand what your values are, and you trust them to come tell you whenever. The perception out there is that you aren't walking your talk or for whatever. And perception isn't always reality,
but that's what they're thinking, right. So, and here's the challenge. Though, Yes, you authorize somebody to bring you the truth, they'll bring it once and depending upon how you react to the truth, you may never see it again. So so we as leaders, we have to be wise enough that, however the truth shows up, that we are willing to look at it and objectively evaluate what is here that I need to act on. Maybe nothing, but maybe there's some things here.
And let me ask you, who do you think, other than your spouse and your children are the best people to bring you the truth?
Other than your spouse, See, I was going to say your children and.
The best people to bring you the truth probably the people that you're not that aligned, people that don't like.
You very much because they don't care how you feel about it.
Yeah, And unfortunately they're going to wrap it up, you know, with a bunch of drama and stuff, and they're gonna stick it at you, right and so we have to be smart enough when that happened to unpack it and.
See is there a kernel of truth in there somewhere or is it just rubbish? I don't know, but but we have to at least be smart enough to do that dissection.
That that actually brings me.
That's a great point, actually, George, And it brings me to something else. And that often I talk about because often when we get an idea, and particularly as leaders, and we go and we seek sounding boards, and we seek people who are similar to us and have similar thinking to us, and we're kind of bouncing it off
the echo chamber. And I always say to people, go and pick the person who is stormy and prickly and who you've got a different point of view and lots of things, and then bounce it off them, because then you'll get to.
The accltes, you'll get a real test.
But that that that requires and parking a little bit of your ego, doesn't it? So sodge tell us and in environments where trust has been eroded, because I will often talk about this, like you can build trust, and build trust and build trust, and then if that trust is broken, the whole house of cards kind of tumbling down, right, And you know, you can be in a deep relationship with somebody personal and the trust goes and just everything's gone. So in that we're trust has been eroded. And maybe
pick maybe there might be two scenarios. Trust has been eroded because you've done something as a leader, or then you go into a second scenario would be going into a new organization where trust was eroded because of the leader and the culture just stinks because of that.
So what could leaders do in those two different.
In the first one, you know Stephen Covey who wrote the Seven Habits of highly vin Habits, I think he has it right in that you can't talk your way out of something that you acted your way into, right, So so you know step number one is to apologize in an authentic manner, but that isn't that doesn't do it right. That's just gets you into the into the room, right. And then over time you have to behave in a trustworthy manner such that you hope that the people will
again regain trust in you. But you don't get to choose right and and depending and and you know, sometimes when you're betrayed by somebody, the deeper the trust that you that you had together, the betrayal hurts more, right, so you may not get it back, you know, but yeah, you can't worry about that. You have to just do your best and you have to hope that they will.
And generally speaking, people are pretty forgiving. I mean, if you own it and you're sincere and then you communicate that sincerity in your behavior over a period of time, you know, people are pretty forgiving. So that would be my answer to the first scenario and the second scenario where you're walking into an organization that has very as the trust has been broken, right then that I think you, first of all, don't dwell on the past. You want to get them beyond that. But the challenge is is
that there's a lot of emotional inertia. And I've been involved in doing you know, some turnarounds with an organizations that had the trust had been broken, and I was constantly amazed at how long people held onto the feelings of betrayal, even though that leadership team was gone, but
they kept holding onto it and holding on to it. Right, So you have to you have to lead by example, and you have to you know, you know, employ those five principles of being you know, walking your talk and being transparent and bring in it every day and trying to you know, here's what who here's who we are, Here's what we stand for, and hopefully, you know, you can turn it around. But you know, there were some people in this one organization I have in mind where
they couldn't get over it. So at some point they were no longer a good fit for our organization and we needed to move them on. Unfortunately, they were a casualty of all of that. But you do your best, and.
Yeah, some people can can become you know, like some people have learned helplessness. And you know that old classic experience with the animals where they have them and the kids and there's an electric shop and they keep getting shocked and in they stop, and they take away the sides of the cage, and still the animal doesn't try to get out of that learned helplessness. And I think there can be that that that's.
Sort of a learned.
Bad egg attitude, right, just because of what had happened. But is there a value in going into an organization where you know that there has been previous poor leadership? Is their value in getting the people together and letting them vent and letting them.
Be heard and go through a cathartic process and take on and their point of view and then explicitly act early on some of their things so that they actually go, Hey, this person.
I think that you know I mentioned connection. You want them to believe that you understand what they went through right as best you can.
And and so.
I think it's very helpful to to open up to that and to be willing to listen. And but then you know, you better do something right and and you may or may not agree with what they think is the path forward, but you need to take action. And if you're not going to respond directly to what they suggested or recommended, then you explain why and you just you just be open with them. Look, I know you wanted you thought we should go this way, but look,
we're going to go this way because of this. And and then they need to be big enough to appreciate the fact that you were honest with them and that you know, you you kept them in the loop and let them know right.
Yeah yeah, now see seege advice as all of this has been seedge advice George So and so for people who want to get your birth. I think leaders aspiring leaders, and it actually sounds to me like anybody who wants to have good relationships in their personal life because that that trust, high trust.
And you know, you could.
Almost take out the word leadership and put high trust relationships and write a new book, right, And so where can they go with ticket? It's available in all good bookstores. The name I believe it's high trust Leadership Building, and it's.
Available Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and that's where they.
All bookstores, as we say, all good bookstores.
And then if people, if organizations want to book you to come in and talk to their team to do some work with their leaders.
And my website is George Doom dot com and imagine that going on, so they can see you what it's about, and it can easily contact me. And I'd love to come in and help out because that's what that's what I'm trying to do. That's my mission now after after the military, is to help companies thrive.
And we all need we all need another mission to do with George.
Absolutely, And I'm going to ask you one last question unrelated to this. Every time I'm in the States, I am blown away by the level of respect given to current and past military personnel, right, and you know, it's boarding on aircrafts.
You know.
I've been in talks for the somebody's been in the military, everybody stands up and applauds them.
It's just and it's mind boggling for me.
And having been in the British military and now being in Australia and have worked with the Australian military, you do not see that at all in in Britain and in the in in Australia.
Where does that come from? Do you know where that?
You know, I'm not really sure. It's a wonderful question. I think some of it comes from a sense of guilt about how veterans were treated coming back from Vietnam. Yeah, they were really treated badly and so forth, and I think the American public and now once the norm is set, it just keeps being passed down, you know. So I think that is the genesis of it, because, as I mentioned back at the beginning of this conversation, you know, when I was growing up during Vietnam, I mean, nobody
wanted to go in the military. But we we bounced back from that. And it's interesting because you know, it's a very low percentage of our population, or actually have served used to be many more. And yeah, you know, and that's a little bit of a challenge for us. Also is to make sure the American pusably continues to remain connected to the amazing work that's being done by other men and women in uniform.
Yeah, absolutely, George, And this has been awesome.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you all the best of luck alow you won't need it in your.
Thanks very much, my pleasure. I really enjoyed it, great conversation.