Why Connection, Not Command, Is the Real Engine of High Performance | Michael Abrashoff | 649

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest, I'm really, really happy to have my guest today. Not that I'm not on other days, but, but extra happy today. Mike Abrashoff, and I'm gonna actually read the full bio, which I typically don't do. So Mike is at the center of one of the most celebrated success stories in turnaround leadership. At the age of 36, the Navy selected Mike to become commander of the USS Benfold, at the time the most junior commanding officer in the Pacific Fleet. The immediate challenges that faced him were staggering, exceptionally low morale with the unacceptably high turnover. Few thought the ship could improve in many ways. The USS Benfold was actually an extreme example of the same problems facing many organizations today. He recounted the leadership lessons from the turnaround in his book, It's Your Ship, which was a New York Times bestseller, which has sold over 800,000 copies, which if you know anything about the book business, that's kind of like Star Wars if it was a movie. So anyway, welcome aboard, Mike. See what I did there? You like that?

Thanks, Peter. But, um, I've now sold over 1.5 million copies of It's Your Ship.

Ah, we gotta update the bot. Wow. 1.5. Holy cow.

Yeah.

Holy cow. So just to be clear, because the, the average business book sells 2,500 copies. So this is like, I get that. Very, very cool. So, you know, I've worked with and I've spoke with thought leaders that have come from various backgrounds, including the military. So tell me about sort of that, you know, you don't wake up one day and say, today I'm gonna be a thought leader, right? How did this happen? The turnaround story and then deciding to write a book and speaking and like, tell us about that journey.

Actually, it did happen overnight. Um, okay. I took command of one of the, not the worst ship, but in the bottom 5 in the Pacific Fleet. And when my predecessor was leaving the ship for the final time with his family and his wife and, uh, his kids, and as his departure was announced on the public address system, my new crew stood and cheered at the fact that he was leaving. Oh, and in that moment it hit me. Uh, as I came up through the ranks, I wonder how many of my sailors secretly cheered whenever I got transferred. And I didn't know the answer to the question. So that caused me to become more self-aware and to view myself through the eyes of my sailors and try to figure out how to connect with them on a level that would get them to feel like they have just as much at stake in the success as I do. And so that's what caused my journey. And that caused me to interview every sailor on the ship individually, all 310 of them.

And stay there for a minute. I mean, you, you gloss over the interviewing of the 310, like, of course you would do that. And it seems like an obvious thing to do, but how many leaders come into a new role, a new position, a new whatever, and they spend their time isolated with their top 5 or their, you know, where your jokes are funnier and everything you say is smart or whatever, but you You know, literally spent— how much time did that take to talk to 310 people?

I bet you I would spend 2 to 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for the first 4 months.

I mean, that's a commitment. That's not a minor, hey, we're going to town hall and let me tell you my vision and then I'll see— I'll never see you again.

And I had a photo taken of every sailor. I had an index card. I would staple that photo to the index card. And after the interview, I would write down what I learned, what their goals were while they were in the Navy, what their goals were in life, what they were most proud of in their lives, uh, that nobody at work knows anything about. And then whenever I would have a free moment, I would flip through my 310 index cards. And that's how I learned the name of every sailor, their face, their job, what their goals were so that when I see them in the passageway, I can chat them up and ask them how things are going. And you know what, if your people think you care about them, they're gonna follow you into battle. And it's not rocket science, it's just executing on simple things better than anybody else.

But it's also interesting what you say is there are some people that have the gift, you know, and Clinton was known for this as, as an example of they could just connect with people and light them up, or they would remember someone they met 20 years ago and ask how their kid was or whatever. You had to put the effort in like 310 cards. You knew them personally, professionally. Hobbies, passions, whatever, that's a, that's an ongoing commitment to connection. Right.

And I remember them to this day. I can't do math or physics. I enjoyed physics so much at the Naval Academy. I had to take it twice, but I can remember names, faces, people's goals, and to figure out how to connect with them. It's just a gift I may have. I don't know.

That's great. And then what made this ship so terrible before you got there? Because I would imagine it's not the hardware. It wasn't like this was the oldest or the most decrepit or the whatever, right?

It was one of our newest ships packed with the latest technology. It should have been near the top in performance.

Okay.

I don't wanna badmouth my predecessor. He's a brilliant man and one of the most brilliant nuclear trained engineers the Navy has ever produced. And instead of becoming captain of the ship, he became the super chief engineer. Micromanaged the engineers to their death. And as a result, Benfold became the first new construction ship in the history of the Navy to flunk their first engineering certification because the engineers just folded their, folded their arms and said, you do it. And so everything fell apart and the rest of the ship fell apart as well.

I love this. So stay there for a minute. So he was clearly technically off the charts. Right. In terms of the, the, the engineering savvy, the, the, all that sort of stuff.

Top 0.001%.

Right. And I've seen this in other spaces, whether it's, you know, the top surgeon becomes the CEO of the hospital and implodes, or the top scientist or the top chemist at, at a pharma company or whatever. And part of it you think about and go, well, that doesn't make sense.

And the other part you go, it makes perfect sense, right?

Like, because now all of a sudden you're thrown into this role. Where, yeah, the technical stuff is important, but it's about the people. And if you've never developed that, you're not going to develop that overnight.

And I've worked with a pharma company in the sales department where they promoted the top salesperson to be head of sales.

Right.

And, uh, no deal could be done unless he was involved in it. And so he got down in the micro, the nitty gritty, instead of looking at the big picture. And focusing on how to position everybody to win. He had to be involved in every detail and everything fell apart.

And again, that makes perfect sense because the greatest salespeople know how to get things across the finish line themselves, right? If you're leading salespeople, your job is to make those other 50, 100, 1,000, whatever number of salespeople as best as they can be as performers and get yourself out of the way, not in the middle of every transaction.

Well, and I used to do what-if scenarios. Figure out what's the worst thing that could happen to us. And then to minimize risk, put training programs in place or processes in place so that we don't get hit by a missile or that we don't hit a mine or don't run aground. And so that's, to me, that's what leaders should be doing is having the time in the day to focus on what-if scenarios and then putting protective measures in place so that it doesn't happen to you, but also so that you can capitalize on it. If it does come your way. To answer your question, I couldn't change anybody out when I took command. It was the same crew that was there previously. They just took ownership. In the interviews, I'd ask them, uh, what do you like most about this ship? What do you like least? What would you change if you were the captain? And I said, I don't care what your age is, and I don't care what your rank is. I don't care how long you've been here. You can come to work every day and challenge every aspect of our operation. And if you have an idea how to improve a process, just 1%, raise your hand and tell me about it. And so we weren't about radical change. I mean, it's the Navy. I've got regulations I have to live within. It was improving 1% a day and having that mindset that we were going to execute better than anybody else. And that's when the crew took pride in themselves, took pride in their work, took accountability, collaborated across the 5 departments. And that's what made us the—

in essence, that's the DNA of that. That's culture, right? If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. I wanna talk a little bit, again, I, I've worked with fighter pilots and helicopter pilots and cybersecurity generals and all that sort of stuff. And sometimes when they go your route, meaning as a thought leader, as a keynote speaker and such into the corporate world. People like the stories, the drama of the stories, the combat, the, the bravery, the, you know, all, you know, the, the courage it takes to be a Navy SEAL or, or, or Green Beret and all that sort of stuff. But you've done a really beautiful job of transitioning and making it so relevant to whatever that be, a pharma company or sales or a technology company or whatever, because people are people are people, right? Like it's not about the, You know, this only applies in high-stakes life and death situations.

And what has made me relevant to corporate audiences is I didn't get to choose our missions and I didn't choose the people I work with. And I couldn't go back and ask for more money to get the job done. So how do you drive performance when there's all these variables that you can't influence? Well, the number one thing you can influence is yourself and having the self-awareness to understand how you're showing up. But also to create that culture by which people wanna be a part and wanna come to work every day, passionate and motivated and wanting to deliver excellence.

Well, and it's interesting that you say that cuz the research shows us that most people, most of the time are motivated more by the intrinsic, yet most organizations are still rewarding based on the extrinsic. And when you think about the extremes of that, you think about it on a barbell. You know, nobody can get more wealthy than a, you know, a techie in the Valley, right? Yet, and that's extrinsic, right? Like, wow, I'm a 28-year-old coder and I'm a superstar and I can make $100 million. But the cultures there tend to be toxic, right? When you think about it. So it's interesting that all these constraints that you say you have, well, I, you know, I, I can't pay them more and I can't do this and I can't do that and I can't do that. It limits the variables to what you can control to the one that makes sense, which is largely intrinsic, right? Treat someone with respect. Is that cost any money, get to know somebody. Does that—

well, as an aside, I don't know if you follow NFL, but Josh Allen, the star quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, just left like $8 million on the table in his contract because he said, I want you to use it to bring in other, other stars. He said, I've got a house, I've got a car, I'm set. I don't need an extra $8 million. It's not going to affect the quality of my life. So anyway, That, that's an example of a, a person looking out for the good of the organization and leaving some on the table to, to bring in greater talent to help them get to the next level of performance.

But that's an extreme example of self-sacrifice. What I'm saying is the tools that you had to turn the ship around, right? Like, so if I, if I take that parallel and say, oh, let's pick a company that's, you know, not doing great, like whatever, and we're gonna bring in the turnaround CEO. Well, they're gonna figure out who the best people are and how do we compensate them more. And if you get us to this sales goal and this, you'll make another whatever. It usually doesn't start with interviewing 310 people, say, tell me about you. What would you change? What would you do differently? They, they literally bring in the turnaround specialist that by very definition, there's an assumption that, well, everybody here knows nothing, right? So we're bringing in these outsiders that know everything. And I think that's That creates separation, not connection.

And they bring things that worked at their past job, not knowing whether it's going to work in this particular organization. And they end up breaking things that are already working instead of, you know, focusing on the things that aren't working. But when I took command, we had an 8% retention rate. And the Admiral said to me, Mike, you can't do anything about it because they're leaving because of our low pay. Well, I did exit surveys. Why are you leaving? Pay was important. It was number 5 on the list of reasons why they were walking out the door. Number 1 was they didn't feel like they were being treated with respect in the workplace. 2, they didn't feel like they were being listened to. 3, they didn't feel like they were getting the training they needed to do a great job. And 4, they didn't feel like they were being groomed for increased positions of responsibility. And you remember 2022, you know, the year of the great resignation when— Yeah. Seems everybody was changing jobs. McKinsey comes out with a landmark study, top 5 reasons why people were leaving that year. Same top 5 reasons that I figured out 25 years ago, just by interviewing our people and finding out.

You could have started a consultancy and charged companies $100 million to give them an obvious answer, right?

Right. It's just common sense. I'm not peddling.

Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody common sense or you'll The McKinsey people will not be happy with that. I want to shift a little bit to the business side of thought leadership. So you've been at this for how long now? As we speak, how many—

25 years.

25 years. So you've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. You've seen lots of different things as a thought leader. So let me sort of throw this at you. My belief, and feel free to punch holes in it, is that there's pieces of everyone's thought leadership that's evergreen. Regardless of who's in the White House and are we in a recession or a thriving economy or what's going on in the world. And then there are elements of your intellectual property, of your thought leadership that become more relevant due to external pieces, right? So for example, early COVID, probably around that 2022 Great Resignation time, psychological safety, that's all everybody talked about. Well, that wasn't a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. Amy Edmondson came out with the book amongst others. And now what happened was we were talking about it. It became part of the vocabulary, part of what is now acceptable to embrace in the corporate world. So if you were in that space, you made the connection. So gimme a sense of the pieces of your thought leadership that are true regardless of what the weather or the temperature is and the things that get spiky. Because you've been around long enough to see 2008 and, you know, different, different cycles in the business cycle.

So, uh, what's interesting is it's not the bad companies that bring me in. The people that bring me in are the good companies wanting to get to the next higher level.

So I expect that to be the case, right? Those— so if you, if you had your druthers, you'd say who should hire you and who does, there's, that's two different lists. That's interesting.

It is interesting. But you're right in that I think my story, I've been told that my story is an evergreen story because at the end of the day, we're all in the people business and whether you're in the military, whether you're at a bank or whatever, or boilermaker, I've spoken to boilermakers in this country.

So, wait, not the cocktail that people actually make the boilers? Because I've spoken to a boilermaker or two as a cocktail.

It's not the cocktail. Yeah. The carpenters union brings me in just about every other year to speak to carpenters. And so what I think what's important and what and why the story endures is, as I said, the things I couldn't influence during the great financial crisis, you know, I did just as many speeches as I did in good economic times. So I can tailor the message on Resilience and how do you fight through adversity. I can talk about safety because when I took command, in addition to poor morale, poor retention, lousy culture, lousy performance, we also had a high, a high accident rate. And just by getting people engaged and getting them to take ownership, they tend to comply more with the standards that we set for them. And in my last year, we came in number 2 for the Navy Safety Award.

So it sounds like the safety outcome was almost a byproduct of the other stuff. It wasn't necessarily the primary objective is to make the ship a safer ship. It was part of the overall turnaround.

What drove me every day was not my next promotion. It was never having to write the parents of any of my sailors telling them that their sons or daughters aren't coming home because we didn't give it our best. And ships, as you can imagine, are very dangerous places to work. And on average, in a commanding officer's 2-year tour, one sailor will get killed or one sailor will get seriously injured. So it's serious business. And if you don't have a culture that values safety and that, that gets people to not to look out, not only for themselves, but also for their shipmates, um, that's, that's how you drive safety. In my opinion.

I love it. I love it. This has been great, Mike. I really appreciate your time and your effort and your energy. And thank you. For your service.

You got it, Peter.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for having me.

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