I have recently
returned from Las Vegas after three and a half months. It was all work! It was an intensive, compressed period of data loading about my
company and the UAS/Drone industry. The
last time I was exposed to that type of environment was while I was in the SEAL
teams, working up for deployment or in isolation preparing for a mission. It is amazing how you can obtain higher
levels of ability and understanding during that type of environment!
Then today I
went to the my office for insurance and financial planning and I saw a lack of
focus, everyone one was casual and focused on their own deals, all pertaining
to financial planning but independent of each other. The Senior Marketing Director was doing training and he did it in
a way that it didn’t look like training. I have been around him a lot and know
his pattern and I must say that it is effective but there is another leader in
the organization that regularly hosts a webinar, conference call on Monday
mornings and he is one of those trainers who know the exact effect of the words
and subjects that he is talking about.
I became exposed to that training under Roy Jones Sr. and the Vietnam
vets who mentored me in the SEAL teams.
Then I heard other marketing directors talking to their own team members
and I couldn’t help but notice everyone was on a different level or page.
I have a friend
who is a research scientist at Scripts laboratories and I swear she is going to
win a Nobel Prize one of these days.
She was talking to me about leadership, being direct in your mission at
the same time paying attention to the goals and direction of your team and
tying to the mission. It is amazing how
few leaders actually pay attention to that!
In a perfect world, every leader would blaze the trail and still be able
to drop back in the pack and coach the new members of the team and motivate the
stragglers. When thinking about a
Shepard leading his flock, he doesn’t have to keep running back and pushing and
herding the strays, he has his team of sheep dogs to do that for him. In the SEAL teams, the Master Chief sets the
pace and gives direction and he has his training chiefs and petty officers
pushing everyone along. Then in the
platoon environment everyone is motivated to achieve the next level, Jr.
department heads want to become department heads and department heads want to
become Leading Petty Officers (LPOs) and LPOs are learning to become
chiefs. Everyone is motivated.
In the UAS/Drone
industry the majority of what I do is to educate people on the capabilities,
advantages and savings that can be realized using our UAS/Drone products and
programs. Some times it takes a bit
when some one hasn’t turned their attention to the benefits of the technology
but once you find that person it is like night and day! Last night I was trying to line up two
perspective clients with each other for a joint benefit and I couldn’t get a
hold one of them and I didn’t want to have the weekend start without at least
hooking up one of these prospective clients.
So I had a contact with a civilian flight instructor who I had been
trying to talk to him and his wife about financial planning and college
planning for his baby girl and never could get him and his wife together to
talk about it. I called him up hoping
to get my prospective UAS client a plane ride to get some surveillance video
and when I explained that I was working with a UAS/Drone manufacturing company,
he let me know he has started a course to train UAS/Drone pilots! Now we are getting together Monday afternoon
to talk about our companies cross marketing with each other. He couldn’t line up an appointment fast
enough! It is amazing how easy it is
working for motivated people and the amazing accomplishments that can happen,
fast when you on the same page!
I am thinking of
the perfect working environment, a motivated, focused team with emersion of the
right information and encouragement.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? I
think back on many different situations where my great leaders have been able
to line me up and let me go, give me a push and it didn’t matter how they said
it because I wanted want it was they were directing me to! Fred Fritch told me when I was trying to
decide if I should go to the Olympic trials with the Navy Boxing team or to the
Persian Gulf on my first deployment with my platoon. He was part of the US Olympic bobsled team in 1980, which was
made up of four navy SEALs and one Navy Diver.
He told me “I can’t tell you what to do because nobody could tell me but
if I were to go to combat, you’re the kind of guy I’d want to have next to
me.” That was all he had to say, I made
up my mind! A year an a half later we
were right next to each other on Punta Paitilla airfield in the Republic of
Panama during “Operation Just Cause”.
It is amazing
how he knew what it was that I was actually looking for and it was
respect! Sure I would have gotten
respect going to the Olympics but win or loose but I got more from the group I
was surrounded by for making the sacrifice that I made, from the SEALs I was
around and worked with every day. How
did he know? Because that is what was
important to him! Birds of a feather
flock together. It is so much easier to
communicate with those who come from the same walk of life, which have the same
vision that you do. When you don’t it
is like being a fish out of water. It
is amazing how well things work when you are on the same page as your team and
how fast they get on the team when you talk to them in their language.
