From Military to Civilian | Special Operations Transition Foundation (Podcast 271)

It should be focused on, hey, you started here and here's where you're at now. But now I'm going to spend the whole rest of my time, the next 50 minutes talking about where they want to go in the organization and then defining the path to get there. Again, it's that alignment of personal goals with organizational needs. If those two are in sync, you know, you've got an employee that's, that's dedicated to the job because they know that the job is dedicated to them.

All right, so you are really going to enjoy this episode. I just got off talking for the last 40 minutes with Josh Johnson, who, who is the Director of Programs for the Special Operators Transition Foundation. I just learned about them recently. One of their graduates of their program is a COO alliance member. And their entire program, they put about 250 people through their program every year, are former senior operations people in the military that they are taking out of the military after their military career is ending. And these are young people, typically 45 to 50 year olds. And then they're transitioning them, helping them transition from the military into the private sector at COO level roles. So, super interesting program. I was just blown away with the actual strengths of military leaders. I had no idea, I had no idea about the real, true operational strengths of these leaders. Josh talks about digging into why things are happening, getting into some of the character attributes that make the best operations leaders, talking about trusting employees and then backing off again. If you're looking for a second in command or even any senior operations people in your company, I really think you have to reach out to this group and talk to them. Talks about how to validate the CEO's vision down at the lowest levels of the organization. And that was super interesting. You'll love that section. And then talking about the professional development and growth of people. Again, I had no idea that in the military they worked to this level of growing the strengths of operations people. And then I even loved a lot of his comments about on the spot feedback. You are going to love this episode. We'll see you on the inside. Make sure that you share this one and listen to a bunch of our others as well. So, Josh, welcome to the Second in Command podcast.

Thanks, Cameron. Thanks for having me on. This is exciting.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to learning from you today and to learning a lot about the organization that you're building. One of our COO alliance members came out of the Special Operators Transition forum that you run. And why don't you tell us very briefly what The SOTF is. And then let's go back into your journey of how you got here.

So the, the Special Operations Transition foundation was designed to take known quantity, right? Known quality, people that have been assessed and selected to have the character attributes that we know are necessary to be successful in special operations. And as they're finishing their time in uniform, taking those same character attributes and sharing them with, you know, the civilian world and corporations that are, that we know are in need of, of that, right? The, the big conversation is, you know, hire for character, train for skill. And if we've got a collection of people with known character that have, that have done, you know, realistic problem solving and, and operations in various environments, you know, with constrained time, constrained times and limited resources, people that, that have been amazing problem solvers that we can then shift from doing it in uniform and help them make that transition to doing it, you know, for corporations. We see that as a big win. And we've, we've been very successful over the lifetime of the, of the program. We've been able to place about 460ish folks. Last year alone we placed 122 and we're growing. Last month we were able to place 12 different individuals. So our numbers are growing pretty heavily and it's pretty exciting to see the process happen and the recognition of what our Special operations veterans can bring.

Well, and from what I know about the program, I mean, I've heard that adage before of higher for attitude training for skill, or higher for character trained for skill. But what you actually have is both. You've got the character, the strong core value, character backing that the military gives them, but then also the skills of being an operator. And then really the only skill you're left with is just, you know, understanding the, maybe the industry. But that's, that's easy at that point.

It's, it kind of easy. I remember when I first, my first role outside of the military was with a home improvement company. And I thought, I mean, how, how hard can this can this be? It's showers, bath doors and windows. And I was blown away at the, at the language differences between, you know, my, my 30 plus years in the military and what this company does. And look, they're a great organization and had some really amazing bosses that, that took the time to say, okay, this is, this is how we say this, and this is what this term means. And, and it was always interesting. You know, the example I like to use is somebody said, hey, have you ever filled out a Gantt chart? I'm like I don't even know what that is. Everyone kind of looked at me crazy and they explained it. I went, oh, an operation sync matrix. Yeah. Filled those out a thousand times. Like language differences that, that happen from within the military and, and outside of the military.

Who has more acronyms? Does the military or the private sector use more acronyms?

Military by far.

That's great.

Military by far. Every everything is an acronym. And so it's, it's kind of funny, you know, you'll, you'll be in an organization for a number of years and then you'll do a, what we call an outside assignment or a grooming assignment and you'll come back and acronyms will have changed. And so it's, it's almost learning a new language every time you come into the unit, even if it's the same unit you've been to. So that's great. Yeah. Live and die by. Live and Die by tlas. Three letter acronyms.

Yeah, that's what we used to call them as well. I used to be in the house painting industry and we actually had a three letter acronym for a rag like to wipe off paint. They called it an epr. It was your ever present rag because you always had to have like that's ridiculous. So we have a three letter acronym for a three letter word. Tell me about how does the model work of this Special Operators Transition Foundation? How does it work? How do you guys make your money? How do clients use you that side of it?

Okay, we're a 501C3, so we're, we're a nonprofit entity whose sole desire is to, is to take and to assist the special operators as they make arguably the toughest thing that they've ever done in the military. Leave it. Right. You know, you've got guys that have been on, you know, dozens of deployments and have gone on multiple targets and have done all these things, but it's all something that they've trained for. And getting ready to leave the military and start a whole new life is just not something that, that is heavily invested in. It's getting better. The military has seen that requirement and it's starting to get better, but it's nowhere near where it needs to be. So ideally we grab someone right about 12 months before their transition and bring them into the program and we run them through three phases. Phase one is all about assessment, figuring out who they are and what value proposition they can bring to an organization. We've contracted with a couple of really good executive coaches, Melda Holiday and the Atlantic Leadership group and then Abigail Manning and the Abigail Manning Organization. And, you know, we run our, we run our folks through about eight weeks of executive coaching that really helps them kind of clarify and define who they are and what they bring. We do some psychometric testing with, with fascinate and disc. And do we do a really deep analysis. You know, we explain the fact that many corporations are using psychometric testing to, to make sure that they're hiring people for the right role. Right. You don't take an introvert and put them into sales. You don't take, you know, somebody who's very extroverted and put them in front of a spreadsheet. Neither one of those are going to work. And so we do some analysis and help people understand where their strengths and weaknesses are and how they're going to be able to use those. Yeah. So we start branding the individual through this. And when they leave phase one, they've got a personal anthem, they've got a value proposition statement, and we've had them define four or five different stories from their career that validate what that value proposition statement is. Wow. We then move them into the execution phase, or, pardon me, the exploration phase. And there's two parts to this part. One is continuing on that branding. So now we work with them to rate, to write a really good base document resume, and then we teach them how to shift that resume to specific industries or specific roles that they're looking at. We go in depth on, on training people how to do networking. It's not just meeting people, but it's engaging and creating conversations and building relationships that you can then leverage in order to open up their professional network and eventually find that role that's going to be best suited for you. We do interview preparation training and we teach them how to, how to go in and evaluate industries that might be of interest to them and how to evaluate corporations that, that, that they're targeting so that they're going into this with, with, you know, some, some knowledge that, that they, you know, when you're in the military, you really, you know what your next job is going to be. You may not know exactly where it's going to be. Yeah. But it's going to be doing the exact same thing. Yeah. So as our, as our folks are leaving, leaving the military, it's wide open, really helping them define kind of three things. Right. Number one, where do you want to live? Which is something they really have not had a choice. Number two, functionally, what it is that they want to do. And then three, the, the industry that they want to do that in. And those things all go hand in hand. And I tell people this all the time, look, if you want to be a rocket scientist and live in Montana, that's not going to work. Right. You need to go to Huntsville, Alabama, need to go to Florida, Cape Canavel, or you need to go to, you know, the JPL out in California. So understanding how all three of those tie in helps somebody make that decision. And oftentimes we'll get folks that are like, hey, look, I'm wide open. I've moved my whole career. I'm not tied to anyone one place, so I'll go wherever that needs to be. Okay, that's great. You've got other folks that have been like, hey, I spent 30 years in the military. I finally got my, my forever home, my kids are in school, and you know, I've got a community. I'm staying in this town. Okay, now we need to start looking functionally what you want to do and industries that are in the area that you can do that in. Wow. We really, really work with them to, to kind of define what that means. And the other half to the exploration phase is getting in front of people that are doing the things that they have interest in. So we've got a large alumni population plus a ton of business partners where somebody comes in and says, hey, look, I'm interested in project management. Okay, great. I've got, you know, a dozen project managers on the phone right now that I'm going to introduce you to. You can start having conversations. So now we've got folks that are saying, okay, project management in, in the, you know, commercial construction looks like this. Project management in manufacturing looks like this. You know, and so they've got this that, you know, a group of people that can go out and say, look, I know what project management looks like in the military because I've done this for the last couple of decade. But what does it look like for what you do? And that it's through these conversations and opening our professional network for them to start building their own professional network is how most of our people end up getting placed. Unbelievable model. Yeah, it's pretty good. So finally phase three is our execution phase. And when our fellows are about 120 days out from their available hire date, we shift into execution. So now they really have defined, hey, I'm interested in living in this place functionally. I. This is what I want to do. And these are probably two or three industries that I'm really targeting. So now we start, we Dig into our business partners who we know are looking for folks in that or we help them, you know, develop some of those networks that they have created or some of those contacts that they've created and we shift into actual, you know, employment interviews. And then once there's, you know, once our fellows are successful in, in secure in a role and really that's what we promise, right? We promise you that we are going to make you very prepared in order to secure a role. We're not a placement agency. We don't guarantee work, we don't guarantee a role, but we do a pretty good job of making sure that our folks get there 94, 95% right around there of all of our fellows end up getting, getting placement. So once they, once they've, once they've secured a role, we then work with them on a couple of different things. Number one, we're going to help them, you know, negotiate that employee contract, make sure the wage is fair, make sure they understand it. Because there's a lot of things that, you know, ghost equity and, and you know, understanding how, you know, being given stock options and things that just we did not have in the military that, that our guys may not, our guys and gals may not necessarily understand. So we help them through that, through that process and then we shift into what we call an overwatch phase and we start that by, by giving them a, hey, here's your best practices for success for the first 90 days in, in the organization. You know, here's. Here are the top five priorities that you need to focus on as you're gaining traction in the new role that you're in. You know, figure out what the strategic intent of the organization is. Figure out what the intent of your boss is. Define who your team is and define who the, you know, those key personalities or key roles that are going to work, that you're going to have to work with frequently understand, you know, what we call the customer's journey. You know, how, how the, how the organization markets and sells and onboards and, you know, manufactures and delivers and, and whatever, you know, customer services on the backside and then figure out where you fit in there so that you can have, you know, a clear understanding of, of who is feeding you for your part and then who you're going to feed within that customer's journey. So when they, when our fellows, you know, can define that in, in that, you know, first 30 to 60 days, well, now they can start looking at, okay, clarifying the intent and understanding, not necessarily just what we do, but why we do that, you know, because understanding the why, you know, everyone knows this. If you understand the why, then you've got buy in. If you've got buy in, you can then start looking for improvements. Yeah. So we really, you know, push people to understand the, the, the why things are happening and look for some of those early wins. You know, we're not, we're not asking someone to make a grand slam the first 30 days. We're saying, hey, what are those things that you can do to get recognized in the right way so that, so that, that, that you're, you're contributing to the organization and growing your, your reputation and growing, you know, your, you know, validating that, that value proposition statement that, that you said, you know, just making sure that, that they're set up for success for the long, for the long term. Once they've got traction and they're, they understand, you know, what their role is, well, then we're going to reach back out to them and say, hey, we're, we're, we're super happy for you. We're excited that, that you're one of our success stories. Are you willing to now be a mentor to somebody else coming through the organization? And this is where our alumni are so important to the organization. And I've yet to have someone go, no, I'm too busy for that. Everyone's like, absolutely. What can I do? Have somebody call me. I'm going to walk them through. And there's a couple of really good benefits from this. Right. We talked earlier about that language. Well, now I've got somebody that speaks the language of our fellow and the language of the organization that they're working and they can help make that translation. The other half to this is we've got fellows that are in an organization. Why would they not want to be surrounded by the people that they've worked with for, you know, a couple of decades in the military? So they're hearing about a role and they're reaching out constantly, saying, hey, you know, I'm, I'm over at this organization. We're looking for, you know, a couple of project managers. Here's the role description. So now our alumni are becoming that force of gravity pulling Othello through the program. It's, it's, it's a great model. It's with absolute professionals within the organization.

Well, how do you guys, how do you guys make your money? Who's paying for all this?

So all donor dollars. We've got a director of engagement, I'm sorry, a director of development, Bobby Payne. Robert Payne. And his sole job is to go out and find, you know, patriotic Americans that recognize the sacrifice that our fellows gave to be in the service and collect donations off of that.

Unbelievable.

I don't envy Bobby and what he does, but he does it really, really well. And we're. We've got some amazing, you know, kind of legacy donors that, that, that. That work well. Our board of directors each have a responsibility to. To make sure that there's. They're bringing in. They're bringing in some. Some funds as well. We. We get engaged in. Just last week, we went down to. To Fort Lauderdale where we participated in two different donor drives. Both of them at. It was the South Florida charity Classics. It was a big golf tournament. It was a rough day at the office where they had to go, you know, golf. But, you know, it's just. It's getting out there talking to people that. That. That, you know, don't necessarily know what's happening. Briefing them up just like I. I did with you, and explaining what it is and why we're doing it and then asking them if. If they're willing to do it. So it cost us. It's about $6,000 to run a fellow through the program.

And you keep saying fellow. Is it only men?

No, a fellow. A fellow represents anyone that. That's. That's within. Within the fellowship to sort of. And so we refer to them as fellows. You know, I. My time in special operations within Army Special Forces as Greenberry. We didn't have females as operators. And so I tend to go the gents or the boys or the. Or, you know, the guys. But I do. I. I've caught myself. Or. I've taught myself to go and ladies. Because it's. It's far more prevalent. And in some of the other units, you know, Silver at 160th pilots, we've got females coming to that. We've got.

Yeah. I think it would become something that's gonna become more emerging than current. Right. Like it's gonna be something. It's. It's super fascinating that you're able to fund this completely off donations. So what's your annual budget?

I intentionally try to stay away from the. From the money side of it because.

Ballpark.

Yeah. I, I want to say we're at 1.4, 1.5 million in order to. To manage the whole process. Maybe a little high.

It seems so small. It doesn't seem like enough money to make this all work. It's like your program is really strong.

Yeah. So you figure on average. Well, we've grown it. So currently we've got 225 current fellows within the organization and you know, $6,000 a piece for that. And we're trying to grow that, trying to grow our capacity to be able to manage about 300 at any given time. You know, as the military is drawing down from some of the operations, we're seeing an increased number of folks, you know, doing their time and then coming out or retiring, coming out. So our capacity has had to increase to meet that. And so we're, we're finding ways to, to, to increase that, you know, that, that cash requirements as well. And again, I, I don't envy Bobby and, and what he does, but he does a great job at it.

Super interesting. Yeah, it almost seems irresponsible for companies not to attempt to hire some of these people. Like, it just seems like it's a, a hidden gem, like a diamond in the rough that when you find out about it you're like, whoa, this is like built in. Incredible talent. Solid core values, Solar systems, like they know their, I would sense the loyalty is quite strong for them with companies as well. They're not job hopping, are they?

No, no. Typically they'll get in and hold on to a job for three to five years until they, you know, if an organization has upward growth potential, you'll see folks that, that, that will stay in that organization. It's, it's when organizations kind of cap out and there, and there's no way to move forward. That's when we'll see our, our fellows, you know, take that next step and move into the, move into another role. The good news about it is, you know, they're conditioned to make sure that they, that they are grooming their replacement because it's just something that's been ingrained in us the entire time, you know, in the military. The longest you're going to be out of the organization is three years. And so, you know, and you'll, you probably do two jobs, two separate jobs within that three years. And so you're going to spend your first third, you know, perfecting the role and then you're going to spend the next two thirds of your time grooming your replacement because it's a known thing, it's just going to happen. You are moving out. So, you know, employee engagement and employee development is really strong in our fellows. They understand that, they understand the need. You know, it's always, it's always been build your replacement so that you can, you can move into that next role. And that's that I'm a, I'm a big fan of that attribute with our, with all of our fellows, when they move into an organization, they get that it's not about just me, it's about the team. And not only is it about the team, it's about developing the team to be able to take the next roles. Right. If I'm always trying to develop somebody for that growth potential, then we've always got somebody to, to assume that makes sense.

I, I've got one more question just around the whole Special Operators Transition foundation and then I want to go into some of your background and experience as well because to draw on what you've learned in the military and kind of that second in command type role. How does a company connect with, with you guys to start hiring some of these people or what do they do? Do they go through a search firm? Do they work with you directly?

Do they. So we've got a, we've got a couple of avenues. We do that. Number one, we've got the website, sotif.org or pardon me. Yeah, yeah, sotif.org and there's a link in there to be a business partner, a link in there to be a donor, and then a link in there for fellows to apply for the program. So if anybody has a strong interest in, in getting engaged with the Special Operations Transition, Transition foundation, you know, my LinkedIn's up, you can automatically call me. We'll start having those conversations. But go to the website, say hey, this is the company that I own or the company that I work for. We're, we absolutely are looking for, you know, the premier veteran talent that's coming out of the organization. How do we get involved? And we'll, we'll immediately get back in touch with them. That's super. We've got a strong network of, of, of business partners but we're always looking to, to increase that because we have fellows that have, you know, that they come in and they, some of them know specifically what they, that what they want to do in the industries, they want to work that in. And so we're always trying to find opportunities for them.

Okay, let's go back, go back in time. Walk through kind of your experience. What got you to here and what were the kind of leadership skills or leadership roles that you were playing.

I grew up, you know, I'm enlisted, right, which is how I ended up becoming that senior enlisted advisor. And in the military it's a steady growth. You know, the next position you're going to get into. Right. First time you become a non commissioned officer, you become a team leader. So you've got a small team, two to three people. You spend two or three years kind of mastering that, that level of supervision and then it's constant growth. You move into a squad leader, so two to three teams underneath you. You move into a platoon sergeant, three or four squads underneath you. First sergeant. So now you're, you're the, you know, the, the HR and operations and, and compliance and standards. And then eventually you move into, into that senior enlisted advisor, the sergeant major role where you've got, you know, some, some pretty big responsibilities. We talked about them earlier, which are, you know, you are the advocate for the commander. You're as, let me rephrase that. You were the voice of the commander making sure that their intent and vision is understood and complied with through the organization. So as a senior enlisted advisor, you're constantly working down and in, which allows that commander to work up and out, right? So a commander will come in and say, you know, here's, here's what I plan to do in the next 12 months or here's what we're dealing with this operation. The operations officer, the S3, the, the S3 officer will take it and begin that. You know the nuts and bolts to it. The executive officer is always managing the budget and whatnot. But that sergeant Major is making sure that that vision and mission is understood and at every level and being, being that person that can go down and say, all right, you tell me what the commander means. Right? Okay. That's not it at all. Let me, let me, let me get you up to speed so that you understand it, so that you've got total buy in. And it's, it's important that, that, that role is, does that because it's the continuity of thought and continuity of understanding throughout the entire organization. The other half to this is the senior enlisted advisor has to be the one that can go to the commander and say, hey, your capabilities, you know, the capability of your organization can or cannot meet what your vision is. If we can't meet it, here's the training process in order to get there or if we can meet it, hey, sir or ma', am, you're not stretching us far enough. Let's, let's increase this operation. So it's the, it's the voice for the workforce and that sounding board for that, for that commander or that, that CEO to make decisions and have somebody that can go, hey, look, great idea or that's an ugly baby. We can't we can't do that one. So you know it. The other half to that is the senior enlisted advisor. The sergeant major is responsible for the professional growth and development for, you know, for the enlisted leaders and that, you know, so formally they, they manage the enlisted side, but informally that sergeant major also has a responsibility to work with those junior officers and train and educate them on how to work with their enlisted and how to work within the organization. Oftentimes ser Major is, you know, is the, it's the. He's the continuity. He or she is the continuity of the organization because they've been there a lot longer. Typically an officer will come in, they'll do two, two or three years as a lieutenant and then they'll go out to a broadening assignment. Then they'll come back as a, as a captain and they'll spend two or three years and then they'll go out to a broadening assignment. Then they'll come back as a staff officer and you know, potentially, you know, a battalion level commander. And then again they go back out. Those enlisted typically stay within that organization or like organizations. They don't do as many broadening assignments as the officers as, as officers will do. And so that being said, they've, they're, they're the keeper of all that knowledge and the understanding of those capabilities. Continuity of information.

I never would have guessed that you're focusing in the military and in that role on professional growth and development of people.

Yeah. But number one responsibility outside of, outside of advising the commander is the professional growth and development of the force.

It's incredible. It's stuff that we just don't. In the private sector. We just don't have any exposure to this. Right. Like we don't know, all we see is what we see in the movies and we think you guys run around on tracks carrying your backpacks, singing song like we don't know what you're getting. We don't know. Nobody's telling us. This is interesting. I also really love so, so what kind of professional growth? Like what? Give us a few core areas that you're working with people on.

So number one, really understanding employee engagement, you know, we, we just call it, you know, you know, development. But hey, you've got a brand new soldier. How are you going to assimilate them into the unit? How are you going to assimilate them into their, into the culture? And you've got broad military culture, which, you know, basic training does that, but then you've got specific, you know, microcultures within the organization. So, you know, everyone goes for basic training and they understand how to be in the army, but suddenly you're in a, in a special operation unit that works in Asia. Well, that's going to be way different than a special operation unit that works in Europe or Central or South America. There's going to be similarities and there's going to be crossovers, but understanding culturally how it's completely different. We used to have this conversation all the time. 5th Special Forces Group primarily operates in the Middle east, and they've got a very unique way in which they do operations. 1st Special Forces Group, the one that I came out of, their typical area of operations is Asia. And so being able to take understanding, okay, you know, the cultural differences of working with Koreans and people from Taiwan and Philippines and Thailand and Bangladesh and India and being able to go, okay, all of those different cultures, I've got to be able to understand and work within. Wow, then I can take that cultural understanding and apply it to, you know, the mission set in, in, in the Middle East. Wow. Whereas fifth group is, hey, look, we, you know, we have to understand Sunnis and we have to understand Shiites, and we have to understand, you know, you know, these minor differences between, you know, religious based.

Wow.

And some cultural in between the, the, the countries, but it's just not as, as, as broad. Right. Whereas, you know, you work with, with, with Koreans and then you go work with people from the Philippines. It's two entirely different worlds and just being able to, to kind of shift that mindset. So that being said, when we're developing soldiers for whatever unit that we're in, there's a lot of cultural assimilation, assimilation that has to happen. So, you know, that's a big part of it, but it's teaching people, hey, you know, how do you effectively counsel, you know, do employee engagement? We call it counseling within the military. Right. Are you just talking about things that they've screwed up? You know, 30 days ago, no value. Right. You should have addressed that on the spot. Are you going to talk about, hey, here's, you know, what is it that you want to do in the military? All right, here are the roles that we need to get, get you into to make sure that you can do that, that growth. So I'm going to try and align your personal goals with my unit responsibilities, if I can align both of those. Well, now both, both needs are being met and we've got this functional unit because, you know, what needs to happen for the organization and why it's important that you're involved in that. So if I can teach someone from, you know, hey, you're going to do this with two people as a team leader, then you're going to do this with eight people or seven people as a squad leader, then you're going to do this with 30 people as a, as a platoon sergeant or 120 people as a first one. So if I can teach people how to be leaders at every level, then moving into that next level of leadership is just an expansion of what they already know. Incredible.

I launched a program two years ago called Invest in your leaders for exactly that reason of giving people the core skills to continue to grow as leaders. And so many people stall in their career. The crossover between military and the level that you're working at and the private sector with best practices in businesses is so staggeringly incredible. I just didn't know. I even love that you use the Fascination Advantage by Sally Hogshead. She and I have hung out together in ice or in Antarctica and we've been in a couple of mastermind communities together. Her work is brilliant. But the one that you just hit me on yesterday, I was asked by a coo, he said, what do you think about quarterly reviews? I said, I hate them. I love on the spot reviews. If you tell them right away and tell them how to improve and if they do something great, tell them right away, that's amazing. And tell them what you saw and like coach. It's like coaching your kids. You don't, you don't wait till the end of the year to give your kids an annual review. You coach them every minute of every day. Right?

Exactly. Right. Yeah. Because if they, you know, if they screw something up in January and you don't talk to them about it until April, you missed, they, they've just continued to do the same thing. Right. So I'm a, I'm a big fan of, you know, if I've got a one hour review with somebody, I'm going to spend about 10 minutes talking about what they've done in the last 90 days and it should be, it should be focused on, hey, you started here, and, and here's where you're at now. Right. But now I'm going to spend the whole rest of my time, the next 50 minutes talking about where they want to go in the organization and then defining the path to get there again. It's that alignment of personal goals with organizational needs. If those two are in sync, you've got an employee that's, you know, you've got an employee that's, that's dedicated to the job because they know that the job is dedicated to them. Yeah, I know right now I'm asking you to do this job, and it's terrible. I get that. But if you can master this, then we're going to take that and we're going to move that skill set into this. So if you can, if you can dig in for the next little bit, I promise you it's going to pay off. And now we're going to work into that. Now they go, okay, you're not just using me to knock out, you know, whatever mundane task it is, is. You're, you're refining my skill set so that I can supervise the next person that has to do that. This is great.

All right, how about you? As a leader over the years, I'm sure that you didn't have all the skills you've got today when you were starting out. So what do you think were the most formative or transformative skills that you learned or worked on yourself to get to where you are today?

You know, I, I tell this story all the time, and it was such a, such a minute and lame kind of conversation, but it stuck with me for the longest time. It still sticks with me. We were getting ready to move some equipment to a training area, and I leaned over to one of my guys. This is when I was in Special Forces. I leaned over to one of my guys and said, hey, man, run over the warehouse and grab us a pallet so we can do this. And then I went, make sure it's a good one. And he just paused and he looked at me and he goes, what makes you think I wouldn't want a good one? And it clicked on me like it was just this, this massive light bulb went off in my head over the dumbest conversation about a palette of hey, your employees are pretty smart people, and they've got, they've got the, the right desire to go and, and do the, the things the correct way. Truly trust your employees and back off. I, you know, I, I, I, My first role out of the military was I was a director of training and leadership development. And then I got, I moved over and became, I stood up a leadership development consulting wing for, for another organization. And I tell people all the time that oftentimes leadership is the fine art of shutting up. Hey, here's the intent, here's why. Go make it happen. Right here's end state. Here's why. This is what I need to accomplish. Here's what it needs to look like when you're Done. Here's why it's important. Go do it and get out of the way and let people get out of their way. And you know, when I was younger, I was very much hands on and I've got to be there and you know, I'm the boss, so I'm responsible for this. And I was, I was really. That's a bit of a micromanager, right, and learning how to back off from that. And, and okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend time investing in training my people so that I don't have to spend all my time managing my people, right? There's that continuity of, of management, right? New person, new task, whole bunch of supervision. Veteran, veteran employee with a routine task, very little supervision. I don't need to be involved in that. I can spend all my time, you know, working with that new person. Now. Veteran employee with a brand new task that neither of you know, now we've got to collaborate and figure out how we're going to do this and we're going to figure out what my lane is, what your lane is, where I need to back off and where I need to be involved. And so that becomes that conversation of how to do that. And that was probably the biggest thing. You know, when, when I'm doing leadership development, I'm training people, it's understand that level of supervision for the individual that you're working on and it's that level of supervision is based on them, not on you.

It's all situational. Right? Situational leadership is such a core skill for leaders to learn. All right, let's go Back to the 21, 22 year old Josh Johnson. He's just kind of getting started in his career. What advice would you give yourself back then that you know to be true today?

Dig into why things are happening. You know, when you're early, it's just what's happening. But when you start understanding why things are happening, you then understand, you know, what that process is for. And, and this is where I see this as, as the most important, right. Earlier we were talking about, you know, assimilated into an organization and figuring out where you fit in that, you know, how, in that, in that workflow within an organization. So if I'm receiving something from somebody and I don't like it, I'm like, man, this is like, if they only did it this way, it would be so much easier. We'll go and have that conversation and say, hey, why are you handing it to me this way? And it may be that they just don't know, hey, we can easily do that. Great. If, if we do it this way and hand it to you, your job's so much easier. Fantastic. Or hey, we can't do it because of and now I understand why that doesn't work. Now my focus is entirely different. Hey, this is my problem set and there's a reason it's my problem set. So if I understand the why behind everything, then I can get, I can start looking for, okay, I know what we're doing, I know why we're doing it. Now I can look for ways to improve that. But if it's just what we're doing, you're never going to find that level of improvement. So if I went back and talked to a young me, it's really focus in on why things are happening so that you can. So you've got that clarity of the process and then you can look for ways to improve. I love it.

Josh Johnson, the Director of Programs at the Special Operators Transition foundation, thanks very much for sharing with us on the Second Command podcast.

Absolutely. Thanks, Cameron.

Really appreciate it.

At any given time throughout your career, you don't have all the answers. And many people feel like they need to just put their head down, figure it out. And if they don't figure it out on their own, they're a failure. And quite frankly, they're the failure when they don't raise their hand and ask for help. Because now we haven't been given that opportunity to step in and give the assistance that I think is required of leadership.