Leadership Transitions

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us at jlc. My name is Ray Jorgensen. I am the founder of jlc. We are a company dedicated to developing ourselves and also those that we are in service to and becoming more and more effective as leaders. Today, I'm excited that you're going to have three people to talk with you and hold a conversation about what it's like to transition from one leadership position to another. These men have stood watch for us while we were all at home taking care of our families, developing our businesses, and being part of communities. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the efforts these gentlemen have given to us without even knowing us.

Now I do know them.

And now I get the opportunity and privilege to introduce three gentlemen that it is an honor to work with. Joe Marshall, Vince Starks, and Terry Moulton. I truly hope you enjoyed this session. Thank you so much. And enjoy my colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. I have three extinguished. Excuse me, distinguished gentlemen that are going to be visiting with us today about something really important. We're starting a whole set of podcasts on change, the essence of change. All of us have gone through changes. So those of you that are listening, I want you to think about and if the most recent is the best, the most recent change that you've gone through could be some shift in families, some shift in your own location, maybe bought a new house, in a new apartment, or have a new job. This one will be a series of conversations with men and women who have gone through transitions. And I'm going to ask my colleagues and friends to talk about their transitions and what did they learn? What was some of their big learnings going through those transitions? So I'll start with you, Vince. Teach us a little bit about a transition that you remember. And always, if we remember them, they had some significance to them. And a little bit about what was that transition. I'm going to ask Terry and Joe to go ahead and ask you questions about your transition from their vantage point. And listeners, I think you're going to love this one. My three friends here, they are so clear about the practices that we use as a JLC team and they really care about each other and that'll come out in the conversation. So going forward, I'm going to just start with you, Vince. You give us an idea of this and let us know where you were at that time. And they'll be introducing themselves as they tell their stories so you'll get to know who they are. So, Vince, which story do you want.

To use so well? Thank you very much, man. It's honored to be here with my colleague who's a distinguished gentleman in their own rights and they'll talk about that. So I'm Vince Starks and I retired from the Navy in 2019. But the transition I really want to talk about is my transition to command. I was moving from the role of being an executive officer, where I was responsible for more and more the day to day operational aspects of what was happening in the organization, to being the commanding officer, where I was now suddenly going to be responsible and accountable for the organization. And to be honest with you, man, I was scared out of my mind because I knew there was a new role. And suddenly I used to be the guy that says if I was ever in charge, I would do X, Y and Z. And then sud. I found myself as the guy who was getting ready to be in charge and I didn't want to fail and I didn't quite know what to do. That was a major transition for me. And I would tell you that I talked to a lot of people, I saw a lot of counseling advice and I remember thinking, I want to get everything right. And a mentor and a leader sat down with me one day and he said, you know what, man? He said, you have three jobs as a co, so number one, you're there to provide focus. Number two, recognition of the people that you're accountable for, and number three, to establish and maintain good order and discipline. And so by slowing down my thinking and helping me to kind of not get so far ahead and think in the weeds and every detail of what I needed to do to be successful, that gave me the space to open my aperture and to slow down my thinking and to really focus on what was important and how to look at these new roles, these new responsibilities. So I'll stop there and see if we have any questions or thoughts.

I'm going to ask my friends and colleagues to extend what you just said. Joe, what are you thinking about what Vince just gave you?

Yeah, I think a lot about in these transitions, Ray. I think a lot about vulnerability and how the fact that many times when you come into command, the human tendency is to be strong, don't show any human weakness, and to portray. Because we feel like we have a Hollywood requirement to demonstrate strength and power somehow. And we believe that that's done through not being vulnerable or showing any kind of human side. And of course the other side, I think, of being in command and what you're thinking about is how do you begin to really connect with people and start making a difference in the organization, both for the people and the organization and the mission. And of course, the shortest distance between those points, I believe, is vulnerability and your ability to demonstrate that in a way that's effective. So as I think back again, I spent 25 years in the line Navy and head command of a ship, then spent about 20 years as a senior executive in the government. So as I think about the many transitions I went through, the thing that that kind of jumps out at me is the fact that in many locations we had cos who were attempting to play that strong character and show no weakness. And those were typically the commands where frankly, you felt the most distance between you and the commanding officer and you felt the most gap between what you were trying to do in the mission of the command, because you didn't feel like there was a human being in charge and you didn't know what that human being would do in any kind of human situation. And in fact, I think if we could go back and have kind of a reunion of some of those groups, it would be great to have a reunion. Only you wouldn't want the CO there because he was never really a meaningful part. He was more of a problem in trying to figure out how do we get to the mission and how do we make things work.

Now that's really a nice set of non example that could get us into a funny space. I love your piece on vulnerability, Terry. What are you thinking? This is really good stuff, gang.

Yeah. Yeah. Greetings, everyone. My name is Terry Moulton. I'm a former naval officer myself, 37 years in the Navy, and glad to be participating with my colleagues here. And I go back to, you know, transitions and what Vince was saying and what he was as he was talking, I was thinking about command philosophy, right. As you get ready to go into a leadership position. And I don't think it necessarily has to be a commanding officer position. I think in your early stages in development and being a leader or department head or a director, you really have to figure out what makes you tick because you want to. You want that genuine person coming out with those that you lead and trying to come in a hard nose. Like Joe was saying, you know, that people see through that really, really quickly and that creates the divide. So I think back, or I'm reminded about, you know, the command philosophy development, and it really has to make you tick because when you're in command, you're living it every day, every single moment. Your eyes are open around that command. What is happening in the hallway up on the. In the inpatient wards everywhere. And, you know, my philosophy in command, and I spent a lot of time developing it, talked to a lot of my colleagues as I was going into command. Like Vince was saying, you know, I was about readiness, quality, and caring with compassion. Because I. That's me, right? I care about people. And so I wanted to make sure that as I was going through my transition, that I was prepared to go in with that philosophy and live it. And you could do that at every level of the command.

Restate those three again, please, Terry.

Yeah, my philosophy was readiness. Readiness is job one, quality in everything that we do. And if you're in the healthcare setting, if you're not worried about quality, you're not a healthcare facility. And then caring with compassion. We care. That's why we're in this field. We care. And so caring with compassion was what I was all about.

That's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. There's so much here about finding my personal. Why my personal. What moves me, right. And then transferring that into words so I can share that with other people and then execute on what it is. I say, this is my personal import. This is my personal cause, this is what I'm attempting to do. That big. Why, Vince, what are you thinking?

Yeah, so it's a lot of similarities. You know, we have good leaders and you see great examples. It's easy to emulate those things that work very well. So, you know, as Terry was talking, I was thinking, what was my command philosophy when I was in command? Mine was the three Rs, right. Mine was readiness, reliable readiness. Right. The mission of one, reliability, which was that quality, element and respect. And it was respect about the people. So, you know, slightly different terminology, but when you see the things that work, you know, those are the things that you emulate. And as I also listened to what Joe said, you know, it reminded me of kind of, what do you do to kind of assure that you have those connections in your command to connect with your people. So one of the things I tried to do and I thought was always very important man, was to walk around and be visible. You know, you need to be seen by your people. And probably one of the most important things I did, I tried to do everyday command mail is I tried to smile. I was happy to come to work. And for the privilege I was given to lead people and interact with people. So I needed people to see me, I needed to see them, I needed to ask them questions. But most importantly, I tried to smile every day because I wanted to create an environment where people were happy at work. And so I thought that was very important to listen to my colleagues.

Yeah, that's interesting. There's so much about, in the literature about things like gratefulness, happiness, resilience. If we aren't visualizing what that looks like in my own behavior, you tend not to get it. It's just interesting. Let me kind of go back to Joe around vulnerability and ask you to expand a little bit on that. Joe, this way. Our little company that we all work with, we believe that relationships really matter, that relationship have something to do with results. So Joe, talk about that a little bit in the context I need vulnerability and need to develop the necessary relationships to achieve an end.

So Ray, I think in many cases we tend to think that demonstrating that you're human or demonstrating vulnerability actually inhibits or somehow will trip up or not allow you to have the success that you. And again, I think it comes again back to stereotypes that many of us may have about how a mission should be done or how you can connect with people in a large organization where you have a big mission. So I think the ability to again, to have that kind of connection with people is really important and provides a very human face onto the challenges that they face. So as Terry said, if you're a healthcare organization and you don't have quality, then you're not a health care organization. And so I think demonstrating that on a day to day basis. So if you're having a problem or if you have new nursing standards or whatever your issue may be that you're talking about, I think in the setting we're talking about, which is really healthcare being able to say, okay, I'm concerned about quality. And I think that perhaps the new standard might really pose some challenges for us on quality. And I'd like to know what this group is thinking about that and what are the challenges and how are you going to address yourself? And so I think opening up the door to that kind of conversation enables people perhaps to let their hair down a little bit and go, okay, so the CO knows that this is hard or this going to be something we're going to have to work at to achieve. And he or she is asking us about, it's not just a directive to, okay, get out of my office and execute, go do something. I've worked for several of those guys had no clue how to do anything, fundamentally how to make something happen. But they knew that you did and they just wanted you to go do it. Whatever it was. So in an effort not to be that kind of commanding officer, I think you have to open up the door and give people an opportunity to tell you what they are struggling with. And to do that in a way that isn't offering judgment but is offering support for what those challenges are.

That's magnificent. And vulnerability, safe space, relationships, they're all one big circle. If we don't have that, we can't even talk about what quality looks like. Because now I'm just going to wait until you tell me what to do. Really well said, Terry. What are you thinking?

Yeah, I was thinking the human face that Joe was talking about, the connecting with people, you really have to be out there. And Vince was talking about management by walking around and how critical that is. Whether you're a department head, a director or commanding officer, you got to be out there with your people. You know, when I was a young patient admin officer, one of the things that we did was we provided the medical records to the beneficiary who is going to the appointment. And so for my staff, I wanted them to know that that was important. So I was handing out records myself. They would come to the front window, I'd pull out the out guide, I'd go to the medical records, I'd get it, deliver it to the patient. So the folks that were working that front desk knew that I knew that I wanted this to be important and I wanted the customer to have a good interface with the command. So I think, you know, being out there, having the face to face, the humanness is very important, no matter what level of the command that you're in.

Yeah. You're both in that very first phase of effective leadership where, which if it is to be, it's up to me how do I model the way forward. So if I want my team to do something significant and have that human connection, I model it. If I want my team to be vulnerable and open and step into a safe space, I model that. I model what a quality relationship looks like. Great. Vince, what are you thinking?

Yeah, so as both my colleagues was talking, I was hearing ask questions, I heard listen to answers, and listen to your staff and to Joe's point in particular. You know, if you are at a meeting and you ask your staff, you know, you'd say, there's a problem here. I need your input. You know, I don't have the answer. Sometimes it's really the smart thing. Say, listen, guys, I don't have the answers. I don't know exactly what to do. I have a table full of experts. I need your input. You have to create that environment, and then once you get those answers, you need to be very mindful and very listen very intentfully. Because once you get the answers and if the feedback is not what you were thinking, you have to be in a space of wondering and not a space of knowing, not having all the answers. We just have. So that really resonated with me. So thanks for that, Joe.

That's beautiful. The sense of curiosity is everything. Joe, you wanted to add something.

I do want to add something about management by walking around. Because I think sometimes people confuse management by walking around with command by walking around. And so when you walk around, you're talking to people and you're discovering, you're gathering information. As Vince just said, sometimes when you. When you're doing that, you're discovering things about yourself, about your policies, about the command, about people in the command. And it may not be particularly good or pleasant information. So there is sometimes a tendency to react on the spot to that information or to react in a way that, frankly, isn't the best. And so, you know, I. In the work that I do now, I talk a little bit about the fact that when you do management by walking around, you gather information, but the chain of command is how you control the organization. So if you were to come upon an instance and somebody is doing something unsafe, certainly that requires immediate action. And you might say, okay, let's just stop what we're doing here right now, and would you please call your boss down here so that he and I, or she and I can have a conversation? You know, that's kind of a timeout thing, but it's more likely that you, you know, you discover something that then you'd later need to take back to your command team and say, okay, I have. I have discovered, or I have heard from various sources that. That at least some people in our command are thinking X or Y. And, you know, I'd like to know more about why the command team thinks.

Thinks.

Why they think that's going on in the command, and permit the command team the opportunity to explore that or to unpack it or let you know that maybe you said something somewhere that led people to that conclusion, or that something else happened, or that there's some other word on the street. You can look at the issue in all of its complexity, and then you can provide direction from the top, through the appropriate channels about what needs to be done or how you can correct what's going on.

So, Joe, that's Just elegantly stated, and all of us have experienced this, where somebody in leadership, senior leadership, comes upon an event, reacts, doesn't respond, reacts to the event, and makes a change. That is probably some of the most dangerous behavior for senior leadership to do. And especially, no matter how horrific the event is, if it's not a pattern, it's not a pattern. And we should never treat a pattern like an event or vice versa. So I have watched people on the fly react to something and overstep the hierarchy. It is so dangerous. In fact, I remember in my own coaching, listen to everyone. Listen to everyone. Follow the hierarchy in decision making, otherwise we're in trouble. What a good place to get to it for the end of this. Terry, tell me how you're reacting to that stuff from Joe and I. Yeah.

I think that really good. It just sort of brought me back to command, you know, walking around, seeing what's going on. I would use that as my opportunity to say, or to see how a process was working. Is the information getting out to the command. And like Joe said, you're not to solve it, you're to bring it back to the leadership team and let them solve it. And then one of the things that resonated with me was, you know, I would walk into my executive officer's office, and I would just sit in, sit down and at her. At her chair, and I'd say, xo, what's going on? And she would, you know, tell me what's going on. But afterwards she says, you know, she really appreciated me over that time. Not sort of circumventing the chain of command.

Right.

Even though I was in command, I didn't circumvent it. I let the team do their job. They had to report back to me, but I didn't. I didn't go solve it for them. So I think that really resonated with.

Me from what Joe's saying, Terry, that's magnificent. Never jump over unless it's a 91 1. Never jump over the hierarchy or the command. It just. It gets us in such bad places very quickly, and it also. Notice what you both did there. And I loved it. Curiosity and wondering is everything in leadership to be curious. I don't get this. I don't see. This is not what I expected to see. Help me understand what's going on out there on the deck plate. That's great, guys. Vince, how about you? How's that stuff landing on you?

Yeah, man. So, you know, as I was thinking about it, I took it in a slightly different context. Sometimes when you're in charge, you have certain areas of your organization that are functioning very well. Things are operating very smoothly. You have certain parts of the organization that are struggling.

Right.

And if you're not very careful, you can inadvertently create an us versus them dynamic in the organization. And so sometimes, I'll admit competition can be good, a good thing, but it's powerful, man. And it can also create team dissension, and that will have toxic effects across the organization. And so to Terry's, I mean, to Joe's point, you want to be very mindful of that. And to Terry Morton's point, I can remember having a weekly sit down at my development as I was developing with my co. Every Friday he would sit and he would just say, so tell me about the week xo. And I would tell him about the things I did. But what I also had a chance to do was tell him about the things that I observed him doing that I didn't fully understand. And I go, help me understand why you did that or how you got to that. That time I found extremely valuable and helped me really understand and continue to build. So both gentlemen, as they both told that aspects of the story, my mind was split in thinking about how to approach, how to be careful on both sides. And I thought about us versus them.

Yeah, I love that a lot. There's a place for competition. Typically that can create some negative, unintended consequences inside of a team that you're trying to develop that wants to move forward and accomplish a goal. Beautifully stated. We're just about out of time, so I'm going to lay one more provocation on the table for you three to react to. And those of you listening, God, I love these men. And if you want to connect with them, give us a call. We'll get you connected and they can talk with you about your own transitions, what you're working on. But here's one. I did alert them to this so they kind of had a little time to think about it. So, men, I'd like you to make believe somebody's going to take your job over your last big job. And somebody you really, really cared about, somebody. This is somebody as a man or woman, I think is wonderful. I'm so glad they're going to take my spot. And I would like to give them one thing, one thing they need to remember in order for them to be successful. Just one, because my belief is you've got a truckload, but this is a human being. You just, by the way, won the lottery. You're gone Tomorrow. And what is one thing you're going to say to this person moving forward? I'll start with you, Terry.

Well, that was, you know, as you were saying that, and, you know, Vince comes to mind, and he's a people person. And anybody coming in to take over from me, I would say take care of the people. Rule number one. All the other things that happen, you can react and plan accordingly. But as you come in and take over this role, the people are the most important thing. So take care of them. That's the one thing I would leave them with.

Excellent. Thank you, Vincent. She called you out on that one. What's the one thing you would tell.

So I'm not trying to. I want to add. I want to build on to what he said, because I absolutely agree. But I guess if I really had to add onto that, I would say value your signature. When you sign something, no matter what it is, man, you are making an absolute statement of validity to whatever that is. And that's the greatest value commodity that you have. When I go to that remote and say my name is on it, he sees my name. He needs to know that if my name and my signature is on it, that has value to what I'm. Whatever I'm asking. So I would say people. Yes. And I would say to the leaders, value your signature. Be very careful at how you use.

That's really good.

Thank you, Vince. Joe, what resonated with you when that thing unfolded?

Yeah, so I would say the most important tool. A most important tool is to close the loop. So when. So in the Navy and driving a ship, for example, you know, baked into the procedures that you use in driving the ship is. Or for any other major evolution on the ship, there is a repeat back of orders. So if you say rightful rudder, the helmsman, the guy driving the ship, will say, rightful rudder, you know, so that. So that if he did not hear it correctly or understand it correctly, that the officer giving the order has the opportunity to change it or correct it. And then, of course, in the way that the Navy has learned these lessons, you know, the officer responds to the helmsman to say, you know, aye, aye or correct or yes, right full rudder. So again, that simple premise that orders of execution have to be clearly and exactly understood carries over into every other aspect where when you say something, although we don't use standard terminology, when we communicate daily in human beings, the only way we have to assure that someone heard what we intended is to ask them, what did you hear me say? How does that land on you? And give people an opportunity to say, I didn't hear you because I was thinking about something else or it doesn't land on me. Well, because I can't do that.

And.

Then be able to unpack what those issues are.

That's great. So this ability to close the loop, that is language we use at jlc. It's to assure, ensure that you heard correctly. I'm a private pilot. I was heading into Tampa one time, and the controller, I was under control, coming into the airport, told me to turn right two seven zero and I had to go. Cannot comply. Told me again, turn right 270, said, cannot comply. And he said, why can't you comply? It says there's an airplane there. So a lot of times we give a command or a direction and we're not the person that's looking outbound. Joe, that was great. Terry. It's a people business. You know, it's. You know, one of my favorite speakers is Simon Sinek. I love the way he talks about things. And he always says, take care of the people in your care. You know, you're not in charge of that. Take care of the people that have that. You've been put in charge of a whole different mindset on folds and then the personalization of me as a leader. Vince, I was beautiful. I put my signature on something. I promise, I promise that this thing has been looked at, taken care of. That's such a big deal. Those of you listening, I'm sure you got a lot out of this one. I am so grateful to know these men. They have enriched my life and they've taught me so much about what it means to lead, and I'm grateful to be in their Presence. We are JLC and you can find us@gojlc.com Please hop in if you'd like a conversation with these men. They're all wonderful people. They will all provide coaching and service to you if necessary. If you'd like them, they're just. They're there for you if you need them. Give us a ring, hop on the website and we'll see you soon. Thank you so much for being with us today. Good leading, good luck in your transitions. Thank you.

Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.