Band of Brothers Leadership Lessons

I'm excited about this episode of High Reliability because it centers on a book and miniseries that I consider to be at the top of the book and miniseries chart: Band of Brothers.

Band of Brothers is a 2001 American war drama miniseries based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 non-fiction book of the same name. It was created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who also served as executive producers. The series won Emmy and Golden Globe awards in 2001 for best miniseries. If you have not watched Band of Brothers, put it on your list.

The series is a dramatized account of  E-Company, part of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, assigned to the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Over ten episodes the series details the company's World War II journey.

Starting with jump training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, in 1942, Band of Brothers follows the unit through the American airborne landings in Normandy and Operation Market Garden, then on to the Siege of Bastogne and The Battle of the Bulge, and through war's end in 1945, including taking Eagle's Nest, which was a Third Reich–era building erected atop a mountain summit and used by Hitler.

Band of Brothers chronicles Easy Companies triumphs and tragedies. It shows the men in their humanity. You don't need to have seen Band of Brothers to enjoy this podcast. But if you have seen it, we will apply leadership lessons from WW II to healthcare facilities management in 2021. These leadership lessons are timeless: They are universal.

I would like to thank my three guests for their time and research. Like me, they appreciate American history, warts and all, and the lessons that can be learned from history. My guests are:  

• Thomas Elliott: Director of Facilities, Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, CA
• Geoff Schuller: Owner, GH Schuller Consulting, Mission Viejo, CA.  
• Steve Spaanbroek: CEO, MSL Healthcare Partners

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy it.

Endnote
In addition to the miniseries and the many books chronicling  Easy Company and Major Dick Winters, this YouTube series, Reel History, provides excellent historical context, and when needed, a more accurate picture of the events depicted in Band of Brothers.  As Tom Hanks said," history had to fit into our television screens," meaning a 10-episode series could not completely capture all of the events from 1941-1945. 

Reel History with Professor Jared Frederick is a great companion piece. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:02

I believe I might be able to live through it. So walk carefully. Take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_03: 0:35

I just saw Colonel Sink. He's proud, too. In fact, he's so proud, he wants you to do another patrol across the river tonight. We recovered all the boats, so we'll be setting off from the same place we did last night. We're not changing the plan any, sir. No. The plan's the same. It'll be 0200 hours instead of 0100. Is that clear? Yes, sir. Good, because I want you all to get a full night's sleep tonight. Which means in the morning, you will report to me that you made it across the river into German lines. We're unable to secure any alive prisoners.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27

Welcome to the High Reliability Podcast. We are recording this on Thursday, November 11th, which is Veterans Day. Our thanks to all the veterans who are listening to this podcast, who have served this great country in which we live. We have two veterans who are on this podcast who I will introduce, and we thank them as well for their service. What you just heard, and it ties in to our podcast for today, today we're talking about leadership lessons from the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. For those of you who have watched the series, what we played as a lead-in was Captain Dick Winters. That was the first voice that you heard talking about coming up on the end of the war. We transitioned away from Captain Winters and we pulled some cut from the episode 8 of Band of Brothers, The Last Patrol. You may have recognized Damien Winters' voice, Damien Lewis' voice, excuse me. He plays Captain Dick Winters. In the last patrol, and we thought it was appropriate to kick the episode off as we talk about leadership lessons, there are certainly many, but that was Captain Winters canceling a second mission across the river to go get German prisoners. Colonel Senck wanted German prisoners. They did it once. It was successful. They did lose a man. They wanted them to do it again, but Captain Winters said no. He didn't tell command that he wasn't doing it, but he told his men that he wasn't doing it. So we led in with that. And as I said, today's podcast, High Reliability Podcast, is leadership lessons from Band of Brothers. If you aren't familiar with the show, it's a 2001 American drama. It's a miniseries that was based on Stephen Ambrose's 1992 book of the same title. Band of Brothers. It's created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The series won awards back in 2001 for best miniseries. It was on HBO. You can see it a lot now also on the History Channel. It is a great, great show. It ropes me in every single time. I could watch it every day. Briefly, Band of Brothers, if you haven't watched it before and certainly if you haven't watched it, I would encourage you to still listen to this podcast because you really don't have to have seen it. the show to appreciate this. But Band of Brothers was a dramatized account of E Company or EZ Company. They were part of the 2nd Battalion 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne during World War II. The miniseries is 10 episodes and it follows the company throughout the war. They served in the European theater and were pretty much at every big battle of that theater. They start with jump training at Camp Toccoa in Georgia, the show does. Then it's followed through, they're jumping to Normandy on D-Day, Operation Market Garden, the Siege of Bastogne, the Battle of the Bulge, on to the war's end where they actually take Eagle's Nest, which was a mountain summit, building on a mountain summit used by Adolf Hitler. So it shows them through all their exploits and their tragedies and triumphs during that war. We will apply in this podcast, we will apply those leadership lessons to healthcare facilities management. So I think it's going to be a really great topic. I have three guests who have joined me today. I appreciate them joining me like me. They are people who love American history, are intrigued by history. They've seen the show. They love the show. So they, like me, are very passionate for Band of Brothers. And as I said, if you haven't seen it, I would encourage you to watch it. So who's joining us today? First, I'd like to welcome Thomas, Tom Elliott. Tom is the director of facilities at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, California. Tom is also an Air Force veteran. So Tom, welcome and thank you for your service.

SPEAKER_02: 5:43

Thank you. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

Our second guest is Jeff Shuler. Jeff is the owner and the principal at G.H. Shuler Consulting, Mission Viejo, California. Jeff is a Navy veteran. He was also awarded multiple Navy and Marine Corps commendation medals during his service. Jeff, thank you. Welcome to the show and happy Veterans Day to you as well.

SPEAKER_04: 6:09

Oh, thank you very much. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_00: 6:12

And our final guest is Steve Sponbrook. Steve is the CEO at MSL Healthcare Partners based out of Illinois. Steve lives down in North Carolina. Steve, thank you and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_06: 6:27

Thank you. And it's an honor to be here with a couple of veterans and thank you to all the veterans out there who are listening.

SPEAKER_00: 6:34

Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's jump in. You know, the genesis of this, Tom and I were doing a podcast a couple of months ago, and Tom said offhand, he would love to do a class on leadership lessons from Band of Brothers or something like that. And like any good thief, I wrote that comment down when Tom said, and I thought to myself, that is a really good idea, Tom. And so that is, I got to thank Tom for the genesis. And what I'd like to do is just to kick it off. And, you know, I'd like to kick the first question to Tom as as the person who created this particular podcast. Tom, why do you think the lessons from Band of Brothers, the leadership lessons from Band of Brothers resonate with or are applicable to healthcare, healthcare facilities management today?

SPEAKER_02: 7:24

Well, I think that, you know, that's an interesting question. I think that leadership in general, whether you're leading facilities management, something else in the hospital, something outside of the hospital, the leadership principles are applicable in any realm, right? And in facilities, as we watched, part of the reason when we were discussing this, part of the reason that I thought um, well, I think band of brothers gives some, um, you know, through the series show some good, um, leadership examples, not necessarily of good leadership, but, um, leadership example, the examples that are, um, that are good, uh, is that, you know, there, there's a lot of within the, within the, the series. I think there's a lot of, um, examples of leadership from, um, from not just major winners and Captain Sobel, but also from their leadership, as well as the leadership of the enlisted and those who are really leading from the ground up as well throughout the series. So I think it's very applicable to facilities just as these leadership principles are applicable in any scenario.

SPEAKER_00: 8:57

Is there, for any of you, for the panel, is there a leadership example in the miniseries that sticks out to you? Again, it's 10 episodes. As Tom said, I think the beauty of this miniseries is that, number one, these are real people, and it shows them both as human, triumph and tragedy. And as Tom said, any one of them, and in all the episodes, they're all leaders. But it's difficult to pinpoint one. Is there a leadership example, though, that sticks out to you? to you gentlemen.

SPEAKER_06: 9:30

Well, Pete, I'll tell you one, I took advantage of this opportunity to watch the series for the 935th time or something like that. One of the ones that really struck me was when they were in this, I think it's episode two, when they're loading the C-47s for D-Day and major winners. And then he was a captain or a lieutenant, I guess, at that point. And he's helping each one of the folks that are on his aircraft up from their resting position. He looks like he's every man in the eye for a pregnant pause and it's just it's an unspoken i care about you as an individual uh for me that just meant a lot um there's so many i could go on for hours but that one struck me immediately it

SPEAKER_00: 10:15

you know what's funny about that one steve i uh i was listening to a guy who would hang tough. He wrote a book about Winters called Hang Tough. And that's what Winters would always say to his guys, hang tough. And they were talking about what you just described. And Winters said that the guys had over 100 pounds on their backpack. And you notice in the movie, Winters doesn't have his equipment on yet. And he said, in that moment, I realized they couldn't get up unless I helped them up, which is really, Which is really interesting. I mean, just kind of that snap judgment and just a great example of leadership. They can't do it without him. And so he helped every one of those men up.

SPEAKER_06: 10:56

So it was an instinctive reaction on his part,

SPEAKER_00: 10:59

which

SPEAKER_06: 10:59

is what a lot of his leadership, at least through the series and the book seemed to be an instinctive on his part. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 11:07

You know, I think, I think that's a good point to the, the amount that he cared for the team. And I think that can be, there's several contrasts contrasting examples within the uh, within the series. I mean, in episode, you know, we kind of see that, um, we see that in the clip that you played at the beginning when they were on the, um, when he canceled the mission to cross the river, he did that because, um, he valued, he saw that, uh, the risks were greater than what he believed, um, the benefit would be, um, and the risk to their lives would be, uh, greater than the benefit would be to them. But we also see that we can kind of see that contrasted in the, in the very first episode during the training. Um, one, uh, you know, one of the, one of the scenes that stands out to me is when, um, at the end of a, um, intense night march, um, Captain Sobels has everybody dumped their canteens, right? And ordered them not to drink from their canteens, which I think sometimes the movie kind of gives maybe an overly negative perspective of Captain Sobels because in the book, they hated him, but they also attributed a lot of their success to um, how hard he drove them. But when you look at the, um, when you think about the care for, uh, care for your, the people you're leading, you think about that. I mean that to, to go on a long, uh, I think it was a 12 mile March like that, um, without water, uh, is dangerous. Right. And, uh, you know, he was driven by, and you can see where he was driven by more by, uh, the success of the March and the, or, and them following the orders than necessarily their personal health or wellbeing. That's, uh, whereas, and I think that's a contrast to, um, winters where he, you know, he clearly cares about them and cares about their wellbeing.

UNKNOWN: 13:33

Um,

SPEAKER_06: 13:33

Yeah, you know what's interesting about Sobel? I kept thinking about him. He's kind of the villain. or he's painted a little bit as a villain throughout this whole series. And maybe he was. He obviously never met the individual or had an experience with him. But the one note that I made as I was going through this again was I felt like whether it was an intentional act or not, he gave them during training a common enemy, which really banded these guys together in a way before they had to meet the real enemy in Europe. So there were a lot of things that he did that were lessons of how not to be a leader, but there were some other things that he did I think that were positive. So it's just interesting to me that, yeah, I think that contrast is important to understand and that I think a lot of the non-coms and a lot of the, officers underneath him learned a lot of valuable lessons about how not to leave the men in the field from him. You

SPEAKER_04: 14:32

know, it was interesting. You both bring up some great points, you know, that contrast, you know, the last patrol episode that we led this podcast with to the very first episode where, you know, so eloquently has been pointed out that, you know, he really was about making himself look good and the men understood that. And while in the moment, I'm sure they weren't remotely interested in doing what needed to be done, but because they did, they did band together as a team in a united front. And really, if you think about it, that's what a leader does. He causes his people, unfortunately in this example it was done in a negative way, to band together and figure out how to work together as a team. So really he accelerated the stressors of what was going to be seen in war all during their training when they were in Currahee. So he actually did a very good job at preparing them to go into battle.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

What's interesting to me about Sobel, and I think you see the same thing with Norman Dyke in the episode six and seven, kind of a contrast. If you've watched Band of Brothers, Sobel is played by David Schwimmer. And if David Schwimmer does a fantastic job recreating this gentleman and actually what they did during the film I was listening to a podcast. They separated Schwimmer from the cast. They actually segregated the men by command to mimic military. And so Schwimmer was an outsider, not only as Sobel, but in the movie. But the thing that was interesting to me about Sobel, it's almost like he would have been a better number two, right? He was very good at the training part of it. He was very good logistically. But he didn't have that it that Winters had. And you wouldn't follow him into combat. They didn't want to follow him into combat. But I think you guys are right. And that's why I like the show is because it's not black and white. There's layers to these people. And I find myself conflicted with Sobel because he certainly does portray himself. And the men called him petty, commandeering, inflexible. some some sinister so he did have that and the men felt that but you know he was also uh as you said there jeff and steve he you know he developed them and certainly the um you know their their ability and that their endurance um he helped so he's a he's kind of an interesting character who ended up committing suicide many years later in the 70s so a tragic story really in many ways

SPEAKER_06: 17:16

Well, you know, certainly Colonel Sink recognized that he had some positive attributes. And Sink, his leadership's examples are kind of up and down in this. You know, we started with the scene where it's kind of the negative part of Sink's leadership. But, you know, throughout the series, obviously, he was a fairly positive. good leader and most of the lessons are positive. But I think one of the positive ones was he recognized that Sobel was not going to be good in the field. He recognized that because the non-coms were brave enough to come up and say, we don't want to serve underneath this guy anymore. But rather than just, you know, fire him, he found a way to elevate him, help him retain some of his confidence and take advantage of his competence, which was to send him to a training school. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that I think good leaders do as they look at their team and say, you know, I'm going to This is maybe not the best road for them, but there's another road over here where I can really maximize their skills and make them successful.

SPEAKER_04: 18:14

That brings up a great point that if you think about all the team members that are required to operate a hospital, certainly in our field of engineering, there might be quite a few really talented people that are just not performing in the right slot. to support the team at that organization. So really, it comes back to the leader, if you're a new guy coming in or a gal coming in, being able to assess that pretty quickly and find a way for those people to be more effective within the organization. And sometimes, unfortunately, that means they have to go outside the organization as well.

SPEAKER_02: 18:55

You know, I think those are all great points. And, you know, I was thinking this as well during, you know, as we look at, and Jeff, you're absolutely right. We have to, you know, to look at the, you know, build on, you know, build on strength. I think who was it? Our, our job is to another podcaster that I listened to says, you know, our job as leaders is to build on, build on strengths and minimize the, the effect of the weaknesses. Right. But, but, You know, one of the things that I, you know, the contrast for Sobel, I think the other important part of this is that, you know, when you look at facilities leadership and leadership in the civilian world versus a combat situation, I think you're right, putting him, having Sobel as a training partner. as a training leader was effective, because whether it was right, wrong, or indifferent, giving them a common enemy to build them as a team prepared them for the fight ahead. In the book, they said, as I was just kind of looking at the book and comparing to some of the series in the book, he said, when Ambrose asked all the survivors who You know, is it, you know, did you succeed because of Sobel or in spite of him? And most said both. But I think the important thing to keep in mind, though, is that, you know, in a long term, you know, that's good for training, but your training only lasts for so long. What he didn't get, what he didn't build from the team is a level of respect or trust. And I think when you're looking at In training, you bring somebody in, you train them hard, they build a skill set, and then you send them off into the world. However, when we look at facilities leadership and long-term leadership, I've never seen that to be effective long-term because once you're in the field, once you're at you know, in your hospital and you're leading, you're leading this group of people for years. And if you don't have a level of respect or trust from that team, it's going to be very difficult. I think it's going to be, it would be very difficult to lead them.

SPEAKER_04: 21:31

You're absolutely right. I think just to pivot for a moment, you talked about one of the things that Sobel was very good at was drilling down deep and following not the rules necessarily. And so what that contrasts is really what's needed, especially in our field, is that adaptability when you're actually out doing it. You have to have nimbleness to make some decisions on the fly. And what we saw so many examples of was his inability to adjust to the ever-changing field of battle, which of course is exactly what we have to do in our field is adjust to the ever-changing needs of the facilities that we're running. So really it comes back to how do you teach people how to anticipate better, right? Because you have to aim ahead of where you're at because what we know to be true is what you did to get you here where you are today is not what you're going to need to take you where you need to go.

SPEAKER_00: 22:32

Well, you know, you make a great point there and it's contrasted. I mean, you know, Winters, who just seemed to be a natural leader, contrasted to Sobel. And then there was another great example. Jeff, you were talking kind of about that inflexibility. And I think it's at the end of episode three or four, but it's when Malarkey, when they're back over in England, I think, and Malarkey and somebody else, they steal the scooter there and Sobel sees them. And Sobel takes it back from them. And I'm just kind of paraphrasing here. But what was interesting is that before they shipped back to England, they had asked, Malarkey asked Buck Compton. They said, you know, Lieutenant Compton, can we take the scooter back? And Compton said to him, I don't care what you do. He said, if you guys can get it back, then you have it. It's yours. So Compton gave him the go ahead. Yet they get it back, and now here's Sobel taking it from them. So that was his job that, as Sobel said, it's U.S. Army property. But it just shows you the difference in the leadership styles. And I don't know that Sobel was ever able to get away from the book or kind of that straight rule of thumb, which was probably to his detriment.

SPEAKER_04: 23:43

Right. And so what that illustrates is, you know, following the rules, that's all good for, you know, processes. But when you're talking about people, you have to be able to, you know, read what's going on in the moment and make the adjustments required so that, you know, the outcome that's desired by everybody is achieved because, you know, rules are guidelines, right? And sometimes they have, you know, foundation and basis and, you know, some legal aspects, but more often than not, it's just, you know, a better way to to run a facility because everybody needs to have some consistency of understanding of how the facility needs to be run.

SPEAKER_06: 24:22

Yeah, I think it goes back. I mean, he was really good at logistics, right? And logistics are predictable. And predictable works well with proven processes that are strictly adhered to. But in the field, it's much more dynamic. That's where a whole different skill set is necessary. And like Jeff said, being able to look ahead, name ahead, and anticipate things. and be flexible, I think. And that's where, of course, Winters excelled. You know, if you think about it, the two of them really made a pretty good team. Yeah. They probably hated each other. And they're depicted as not liking each other very much. And there's certainly some jealousy on Sobel's part and probably some resentment from Winters' part. And that's all throughout the whole series. And not to take a left turn on here, but I don't want to let this get by without talking about Lipton a little bit, Carver Lipton. It was the sergeant, the non-com, who I think was probably the most natural leader next to winners in the whole company. Just an amazing guy that sort of instinctively knew what his men needed and provided it individually. And that probably is the most apparent during the Battle of the Bulge episode. I can't remember which episode that is, but where he just really did what he had to do to keep those guys together under circumstances that I can't even comprehend.

SPEAKER_00: 25:54

Go

SPEAKER_06: 25:55

ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

No, I was just going to say episode six and seven, Steve. That's what you're talking about. Episode six was Bastogne and then seven was The Breaking Point.

SPEAKER_04: 26:06

Yeah, that's exactly right. I think Lipton had shown all the way throughout from the very first episode to the end that he was not the unofficial leader because certainly he was in leadership positions, but what he did show were the strengths and the weaknesses that all leaders have and that he was vulnerable and how things were happening, but he was also authentic. And so that came through as a way for men to trust what he said that he had their best interest at heart. And so it is true, uh, very well said by the characters in the, in the movie that, you know, there has been somebody there that's been their leader the entire time. And that's often the case when we get into our facilities, you, you, we all see people that are doing what's required, uh, to lead, um, everybody that's, that's there, uh, and, and including in, in, anticipating what needs to be happening in the future.

SPEAKER_06: 27:08

Yeah, sort of the next man up thing, right? Lieutenant Dyke, who was supposed to be leading the company, wasn't very effective. So Lipton really had no choice but to step in and do his job and Dyke's as well and did it. Exactly. Apparently without even noticing it, because the scene you're referring to is when Spears says, tells them, you know, apparently they've had a leader the whole time. And he goes, you have no idea who I'm talking about, do

SPEAKER_02: 27:35

you? You know, the, you know, I think that also highlights just the importance, you know, from my role as a, as a facility director, you know, that, you know, to, I see it's the value and the importance of leadership and, from the frontline staff, from the engineers themselves and facilities. And I have several lead engineers who I lean heavily upon for the technical side and they have a great deal of respect from the entire team. And the successes of the team and the success and the effectiveness of our department is uh i would say mostly uh because of how they lead from their positions from basically leading from the middle right um they're not management um per se so you know they uh but but they know how to but they know how to get things done and you know my and i think that when you look at winners and you, and you looked at, look at Lipton, Lipton, the, how much they, and I think they understand, I think winners understood that. And you saw the support of Lipton as a leader, whether Lipton realized it or not.

SPEAKER_04: 29:04

Yeah, it's absolutely true. The, the, you know, one of the higher you go in an organization, you know, the more you're going to have to rely on relationship skills and, and, what you just talked about, Tom, was how well people are doing that even when they're not considered high up in the organization. But boy, don't we all know that those what would be considered middle-level skills or positions certainly are the most compelling touchpoints within the organization that keep it going simply because of how well other people are leading by doing what they know is the right thing.

SPEAKER_00: 29:44

I was just going to say quickly, you look at a guy like Lipton, you know, we talk about leadership. He's just unassuming, right? He does his job. He does what's ever needed. They all have egos. We all have egos, but his ego is in check. He just does whatever you need. And whether you're playing on a sports team or you're in a healthcare facility, those are the folks that you need and that you count on because it's always about team. It's never about them.

SPEAKER_06: 30:12

And what I was going to chime in there with is the team sort of expands. If you think about how the sergeants like Garnier and Randleman, they were a team. as they led their teams, you know, they were, they were the non-coms, but then you could tell they were very tight. They communicated well. They also did thing, you know, one of the examples that popped out to me was when, I guess it's called the replacements when they were about to jump into Holland and Randleman's, you know, walks up to one of the new guys and starts stripping things off of his pack. And, you know, basically says you know that this is what the books and i'm paraphrasing now because it's unspoken but here's what the book has taught you and what you learned in basic but here's what we've learned from experience and you know uh and he's imparting that to his newer folks um and that was across the board but you know and some of the other scenes were you know some of these ncos speaking with men that reported to other NCOs would support them by saying, you know, for example, Randleman's the smartest guy in the company. Listen to everything he says. Those kinds of things. I mean, that's leadership.

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

Yeah. No, absolutely. Let's pivot a bit because you guys have mentioned it and I think You alluded to it there. Let's talk about training for a second, or maybe even more than a second, however long you guys want it. But I guess training, I mean, if we tie it right now to health care facilities management, we have a lot of departments understaffed. You're losing people, COVID vaccination. So you're losing people. You're trying to find people. And what usually falls by the wayside is probably training. And if you look at Band of Brothers, Under a training perspective, if you start right at episode one, you know, one of the things that they did before they jumped into Normandy was the training and Lieutenant Meehan, the guy who replaces Sobel, they show him talking to the men before they jump in and he says to them, you know, you need to know your mission and you need to know everybody other's mission first. before we jump in and they studied sand tables and they studied topography of normandy so that when they did jump in and when they did get separated they knew where they had to go because they knew that terrain so well now they did have the luxury of time there. And so we look at that great training they got to be able to jump in Normandy, get separated from your unit, and then know where you need to go. You contrast that to the replacement, Steve, that you were just talking about. By episode four, when you're just shipping men across the Atlantic and their training isn't as good, they're getting killed. And you see that in episode four, where the guys who had been there, they didn't want to get close to the replacements because they knew they would die. And they were afraid of that. They didn't have the training. We saw it episode three and then I'll stop with Blythe, the Albert Blythe episode. When Blythe gets shot at the end, I was reading something that Winters wrote. At the very end of that episode, Blythe gets shot in the neck. And Winters said the reason he got shot in the neck, it's when they're approaching, he gets shot by a sniper. He's going up to a house and Winter said that he was trained so well that rather than know that there was a sniper there, Blythe yelled click, which is what they were trained. And that's when he got shot because he fell back on the training and Winters wasn't criticizing him for it. He was like the training said click and that's what he fell back to. So it's he was trained so well. that it impacted them. And I would just say one other thing before I want you guys to talk about training and how we see training very effectively at the beginning and it falls off. This series does a really good job, I think, recreating it. But as Tom Hanks said, we can't take four years and put it into 10 episodes. One of the misses of this series is actually Blythe doesn't die. It says at the end of episode three that Blythe dies in 47 or 48 due to that. Blythe actually went on to live. I think it was 1967, fought over in Korea. So Blythe lived another 21 years. And stayed in the army. So that's an interesting mess. But talk a little bit about training. And you know, you two, Steve, Jeff, and Tom, you were in the military. Talk about training, the importance of training in this episode, and then tying it to what we're what's going on in healthcare facilities today, where, you know, because of money, personnel, a variety of issues, training may not get the importance it needs.

SPEAKER_04: 34:38

Yeah, I think, sorry to jump in, but maybe I think this illustrates the point that training is something that occurs from the outside in, right? You show up, you become exposed to concepts or ideas or processes, and you're taught, right? So that's the training aspect of it. But when you really learn something is by actually going and doing it. So, you know, you need to be very and aware that just because somebody's been exposed to something doesn't mean that they've learned it. And what's the difference? As we use the movie in the series to illustrate what we're talking about, you learn by doing. And so while the training was done as well as they could do it without actually being in combat, they were actually practicing ways to do things that actually didn't hurt somebody because when it came down to actually doing it for real, they fell back on how they trained. So there's that old adage that says, you know, you find how you train. And so make sure that you're training the right things and you're accessing the right people and the right resources to do things how it's actually going to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

Great point.

SPEAKER_02: 35:59

No, I think I agree. I think training is so important. And, you know, it's during the run of the mill day to day, you go through your checklist, you do the team, you know, the alarm goes off, they find out why that they figure out why the alarm on the BMS is going off. And that's simple enough. But when those things happen that are out of the normal, right um a few weeks ago we had a two-hour power outage and um in my um for uh and for whatever reason the utility couldn't um took two hours to get us switched to the secondary feed and so we were um and and it never and it seems to and that kind of thing never seems to happen um during the day shift when most of the team's there, right? It always happens, guaranteed. It was on a Sunday evening on the swing shift. And I, of course, ran in and took my role answering phones and walking around with the nursing soup. and checking on the front, the nurse, nursing staff, and making sure that everybody had what they needed. Cause you know, we were, cause we lost network at the same time. And so as we, and telephone too, at the same time. And as we, as we worked through that, I was able, you know, I sat there in the, I sat in our energy center and I sort of started asking questions, Hey, why is, you know, you know, why is, uh, why is this a sequence of operations for the, um, for the ATS is, you know, powers back. Why haven't we switched over here, here and here yet? And, um, and my, my engineer, you know, good engineer, but you know, it's, they don't experience that kind of thing a lot. Right. And it's not in there, the basic normal training. Cause it's a, it's a relatively large campus and it's a central plant. So, uh, you know, and it kind of highlights exactly what you're saying, I think is that, you know, it, you know, you're, you do, we do the training, we show, okay, this is, this is what you do in an emergency, but then when the emergency is happening and the phones are ringing off the hook, and then you've got 10 people walking through the door and you've got all these other things, you can, the training only does so much. So I think that an important aspect of the training is not so much, not just the rote learning of when this happens, do this, but you know, how to think through the problems, right? Yes. And how to get exactly how to manage, how to self manage those changes. Cause you know, you're not going to have, you may not have management on site. You may not have somebody. So you, so this engineer may have to deal with every aspect of it for a period of time. And just making sure that that person has those, as you said, critical thinking skills to manage, to manage the situation without panicking is incredibly important.

SPEAKER_04: 39:20

You know, I think you're exactly right. And I'm curious what Steve's experience has been when he goes in and helps facilities you know, work through the issues that he's here to assist them with, I can tell you that one of the techniques that I use is to ask them, hey, talk to me about a time when something happened out of the norm that went well. And so they, you know, I give them a few minutes to tell me what they experienced. And then I dive down a little bit deeper and ask them why they felt that they responded so well. And then I contrast that and I ask them to tell me the same thing, like, okay, what What was something that happened that didn't go so well? And I'm not so much concerned about that it didn't go well. I'm more concerned about how come they think it didn't go well. And we kind of have that conversation for a little bit longer time and really drive home the point of what you're talking about. It is about how you understand what it is you need to be doing when things are happening quickly and other resources that you have aren't necessarily available. You know, Tom, you had mentioned you lost comms, you lost your phones. Well, that made it a little bit harder to communicate. So, you know, I'm sure Steve's had some of these experiences as well.

SPEAKER_06: 40:45

up and down the line in facilities management as far as I'm concerned. We had an incident a couple of years ago. We're a Sunday morning. Nobody's at the hospital except the swing shift person and lost power. The utility second feed, there was a failure on that switch. And then there was also a switch gear failure, software failure. So we lost power. The second feed didn't take and the generators didn't start. So for 37 minutes, the hospital was dark. Fortunately, there was an electrician there who in many, I think a lot of people would not have thought of this person as a leader within the organization. But he certainly stepped up. One, he was not on call, had no responsibility to be there other than he just chose. He realized something bad was going on and he got in his car and drove to the hospital within a few minutes, had diagnosed the situation and bypassed the software problem and got power back on to some critical areas. It was a real lesson And for me, we spent a lot of time doing the debrief of that and got to interview not only the facility staff, but the clinical staff. And, you know, it was interesting lessons all the way around. I can't go into too much detail without, you know, obviously breaching some confidences, but absolutely, you know, these things happen. And, you know, having the ability, empowering people to learn for one and giving them the opportunity to make decisions within the moment without fearing for their position or other, you know, ramifications, I think is really important.

SPEAKER_04: 42:31

Yeah, I think that also begs the question that as people come to us as leaders and ask questions, a lot of times they're asking questions because they truly don't know. There are other times, which happens, in my opinion, far too often where they're asking for the answers because they don't want to take risk.

UNKNOWN: 42:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 42:51

And part of being a leader is all about taking risk, right? Being vulnerable, reasonably so. And because you don't know what the outcome is going to be, you're uncertain. So if we aren't helping our people learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable and taking appropriate risk at the appropriate time, that's a learned skill that if we just answer questions and send them on their way because it's easier or it's faster or you just don't want to deal with, you know, having to nurture and educate you know, and mentor somebody, we're doing people a disservice.

SPEAKER_06: 43:33

Oh, absolutely. I think when you create a culture, and unfortunately, I think, oh, man, I'm probably going to regret saying this. Pete, you might want to cut it out. But

SPEAKER_01: 43:42

I think

SPEAKER_06: 43:43

the culture in health care. I'm ready. The culture in health care that's pervasive in a way is one that is a little more punitive than it should be. And part of what drives that is the litigious nature of health care and And, you know, we could get into all the kinds of discussions about that and we won't need to get down that road. But, you know, people, whenever you have people who are doing their job from a position of fear of doing something wrong, they are being restrained from doing something really good. And I think if we're ever going to get to the point where we're truly high reliability and we're not having the kind of preventable medical harm rates that we're experiencing today, we're going to have to get beyond that.

SPEAKER_00: 44:32

You guys, and I'd like you to chime in, but as you're talking about this, and Tom, please go next. I didn't mean to jump in. But the idea of the 506th Infantry was always, and you see this a lot in the show, is we stand alone together, right? Isn't that a great mantra? We stand alone together. It's almost what you guys are describing is almost the opposite in many ways of we stand alone together.

SPEAKER_02: 44:57

Yeah, I think that... You know, as we've kind of been discussing this, I think I see some great points there too. I think it does come to a matter of, it goes back to a level of, again, trusting our, you know, being non-punitive and trusting our people to make good decisions along the way. And sometimes that's because of training, but sometimes that's just because they've experienced everything and they've seen it all. I've got engineers who have been with us for 40 some years. So they've seen a lot more out there than I have. And I think that's something that we actually see in Winters in the series as well, where he says, okay, here's our marching orders. Here's what we've got to do. He makes the assignments and then he trusts them to do it. I mean, he holds them accountable. He still follows up to see to it that everything was done, but he trusts the team to do what they're told. I mean, I've had several conversations with quite a few people in the industry lately, and there seems to, and what I've seen is, you know, healthcare and some of the folks I've talked with and Pete, you talk with a lot more people and you guys talk with a lot more people in the industry than I do. But one thing that I've started hearing more of than I thought would be common was that where facilities leaders don't necessarily trust their engineers, there seems to be a division there. They don't trust their engineers to get it done. And or they're not engaged with the frontline, right? And that's something that we see in Winters. He was completely engaged with the team the entire time.

SPEAKER_00: 46:57

Well, and you know what I think is really interesting about Winters? And it kind of shows the evolution from... Even from, sure, you guys in your career journey, your leadership journey, if you look at episode one, and as you guys said, I mean, Winters rockets through, you know, from promotions. I mean, he's a lieutenant, comes captain major. He does it all very quickly. But yet you see his evolution as a leader, right? By episode, what is it, episode four or five after Crossroads, now he's being promoted. And he's not that handy. He never fires his gun again. after Crossroads where he takes out the German SS troops. But yet you see him having to let go with Boos Heiliger when Easy Company goes in and rescues those English paratroopers who were behind enemy lines. And you see it in the movie where he's got to grapple with, okay, Moose is leading this. I'm not leading this. I'm writing reports. He didn't like it, but you see it. Then you see it again with Dyke. And that's another area where I think that the show does a little bit. If you remember in the show, when we're talking about the breaking point right before Winters turns to Spears and says, listen, you get out there, replaces Dyke. In the show, it's Colonel Sink pulling Winters back. In reality, I guess what happened was Winters pulled himself back. Winters was going to go and then And he's like, no, I can't do that. But anyways, that's an evolution, right? And that's, Tom, what you get to with the trust. Some directors don't trust their people. They try to go out there and do it for them. But you see that evolution in Winters, and it's probably why he was such a great leader. I mean, here's a guy who wants to be out there in the field, wants to be with his guys. But he realizes, I can't be. I'm in a different leadership position now.

SPEAKER_04: 48:44

You know, what's interesting is as we're listening to this and all the great Thoughts are coming out and actual truths that we know about leadership is that at some point there does need to be some sense of humbleness in leaders. And that comes out in understanding that you're often not the smartest guy in the room. about whatever the topic happens to be. So do you have the ability to recognize that? And more importantly, do you have the ability to show your staff and the people that you work with that you trust what they're going to do? Because there's usually more than one way to do something. And are you okay with it not being the way you would do it? And so that really comes down to being able to more– more reflection on your part when it's not in a crisis situation. But when you do have time to reflect, which is something that all leaders do, they take time that's scheduled out of their day or week and they reflect, hey, what went well? What didn't go as well? What do I want to get better at? How can I help the team get better? And when you find out what those answers are, it creates the opportunity for other people to bring to the front their skills and letting them go forward and it, and it feels different to them when you do that. Um, when you run in and say, no, we got to do this. Well, okay. That, that could be true. Um, however, like we said, often you aren't the smartest guy in the room. And for people that, that recognize that those truly tend to be, uh, people that have a better, um, leadership experience.

UNKNOWN: 50:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 50:30

I think that, you know, that exactly. And I think that there's also, you know, I think that's something we talked about training for the front line, but also as we train future facilities leaders, I think this is an important point that, you know, that needs to be addressed. really taught. I mean, if we have leaders growing up, um, through facilities and, um, up from the, uh, from the trades or engine, um, as engineers to, uh, managers and directors, you know, those, those, um, team members typically because they've been through it, they tend to be more hands-on and, and that's, it's hard. Sometimes I had a manager once, uh, he, he, he would get frustrated oftentimes because, you know, he was, As an engineer, he was used to being able to do something, complete it, stand back and say, look, a job well done. And then he was dragged into management. And then he would do something and not see results for years. And that's something that a lot of, I think that from that, when we bring leaders up from that direction, but then we also have a situation now, I think now, and Pete could probably speak, would definitely be able to speak more to this, I'm sure the it's getting harder to find experienced facilities leadership these days, right? And so we're starting to see healthcare facilities leaders being pulled from other industries and folks coming in from without necessarily healthcare experience. And for them, they have to trust the teams under them because they literally don't know Right. I,

SPEAKER_00: 52:17

you know, what's a little more troubling and you're exactly right there, Tom, like we knew that the baby boomers were going to retire and COVID probably put some of that off in a way, you know, folks hung around and tried to see their facilities through. But what's a little more troubling to me is the people who are not baby boomers, not retiring, but they're leaving the industry to go to other industries. And I'm seeing a little bit more of that. And I hope that doesn't become a trend, but more and more they're going to, whether it be education environments or manufacturing environments. And I think as an industry, we really need to be cognizant of that because you guys know this, I'm sure there are tons of people right now approaching that burnout phase. and they can go you know these are transferable skills in health care if you've done it at a hospital you know then you can you can take a step back and do it in other industries and so you know it's not the point of this but you know actually to tie it into another leadership lesson remember getting guys off that front line right winter says that to malarkey uh in the last patrol after malarkey sees his two best buddies blown up in the foxhole and he did say it's like malarkey you want to get off the front line because winter's understood i mean i he said and jeff you would know this better. He said, even two hours off of a frontline can do a man good. And I think we're at that point in healthcare where you've been through 22 months of all out, straight out. It might be time to pull some of these people off the frontline and to a work-life balance. Because I think a lot of people are approaching that. Sorry, Jeff, go right ahead.

SPEAKER_04: 53:57

No, no, that was a great point that you made. And it is critical to just getting even an hour of time where you're not feeling the pressure. And whatever pressure you happen to be under, it all applies and works on you the same way, right? Stress, your brain processes stress the exact same way it processes pain. So it is very cognitively the same. So we need to make sure that when we see people undergoing continuous and consistent stressors in their life, and it could be professional and personal or whatever it happens to be, that we're able to afford them the opportunity to maybe decompress a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 54:50

Yeah, I think we're definitely at that point. One of the other things I want to mention, you talked about the leader being selfless, is ego. I think there's a, you know, putting the recruiting hat on again for another second, taking the Cisco and eBird hat off. You know, there are directors, and I know you guys have dealt with folks like this before, who are removed because they can't control their ego. You know, it's all about them. And, you know, that's another area where I think as far as leadership is concerned, we don't talk about ego a lot, but keeping that ego in check is pivotal and important.

SPEAKER_02: 55:25

No, I think you're right. And just as we've said, it's interesting, just as we saw in the, again, in the first episode with how the... NCOs approached the, you know, approached Colonel Sink about their struggles with Captain Sobel. I think, you know, I've seen that in facilities where, you know, if the manager's ego, I've seen manager's egos over, you know, really, you know, take over there. And in the end, the team doesn't abide it. And unlike the military, when you have organizations without necessarily the chain of command and the structure that they have in the military, most, you know, what I've seen is most of the time, those, those leaders in, in the civilian side don't last because the employees have another, have other ways of dealing with them. So. Yeah,

SPEAKER_06: 56:36

that's illustrated really well. And a band of brothers in this, the first episode when they're in the field with Sobel training and Lutz does, imitates Colonel Sink when they're, come up against that barbed wire fence. That's hilarious. Basically, that was the breaking point for Sobel, I think. That was one of the funnier parts of the series, but you're right. People sense that and typically they have a way of dealing with that.

SPEAKER_00: 57:06

When you were talking about punitive, I know a couple of you guys were mentioning directors or leaders who were punitive. Certainly, SYNC could have been punitive to those NCOs who you know, went into his office and said, listen, we're not going to battle with, with, with Sobel. Um, he did have the hammer. Now you might say, well, they're preparing for an invasion. He can't get rid of his NCOs, but nevertheless, he, he could have, he could have disciplined them and he didn't. Yeah. Well, you know, he busted one of them

SPEAKER_06: 57:33

to, he got rid of one, busted one in private and then he kept the rest of them. And I think that was very calculated. I mean, obviously it's calculated as it could be in the, in the moment. Um, you know, he set the example, but then he also realized, he needed that, that team. And I think he also recognized that it took a tremendous amount of courage for those guys to do that. And hopefully if we're leaders in healthcare, that when, when, you know, the, the supervisors, the, the world come and go over someone's head, they realize that takes significant courage. It's not an easy thing to do. And typically it's not done out of, you know, some kind of need to just make someone look bad.

SPEAKER_04: 58:15

You know, it's interesting. You're exactly right. And what's interesting is by the time you get to the point where you have to make the decision that Colonel Sink did about what to do with Sobel, that already in and of itself is a failure of the process that's allowed ego to go unchecked, right? And so whether it's somebody that is junior talking to a senior to not challenge for the sake of challenging authority, but challenged out of care and concern, really giving that person an opportunity to understand what's going on. Clearly in the series, the illustration of Sobel was going to say that he was unwilling to self-assess whether it really was his ego or did he have his men's best interest at heart. it's going to daylight itself pretty quickly when you start asking questions like that.

SPEAKER_02: 59:10

Yeah. You know, that, you know, that brings up a thought in my mind and really a question for you guys is, you know, what's your, maybe your thoughts on this, but the effect of subordinates on leaders. For instance, you know, we, we talk about Captain Sobels, but, and how the men reacted to him and acted toward him. When you, when you, but as you, we go through that episode, you see that it seems to, it almost, it seems to make him worse, right? Because he sees the disrespect. So he's, so Sobel works harder to try to enforce that respect, you know? And I've seen, and I, if I may finish just real quick, you know, and I, and I've honestly, and I've seen this where I've seen where, you know, like for instance, I've seen young administrators, you know, basically get trained in a way by very difficult directors under them, right? Where they are almost trained not to be trusting because of how the subordinate acts towards them. What do you think about, how do you think about that dynamic?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:27

You know, it's interesting. What we know to be true is that Everybody reacts differently to different people. But what's also true is that if it really is about your ability to be seen as the leader and successful, then you're going to fail. And you're not going to fail a little bit. You're going to fail grandly. And because what happens is you tend to fail by overuse of a strength. So if you think about that and put it in perspective, we all have strengths that we bring to the table. And what we tend to do when we start getting stressed is we start relying on that strength. And it quickly becomes a detriment. So what we need to do is to step back and be patient with ourselves and then try and understand what's going on. However, the ego gets in the way, right? And we just can't abide by being shown that we didn't know, we weren't smart enough, we didn't make the right decision because that's humiliating to people that have to be right. So there's an internal struggle that's going on there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:44

Yeah, you know, it's funny. You could, the more we talk about Sobel, you could just do, I'm sure they have, you know, classes on it. But I think fundamentally, at least for Sobel, getting back to the, you know, the show, he probably saw, I mean, he was going up against the homecoming queen, right? And his jumpiness in the field and his inability to translate to the field, I wonder if he knew, I wonder if he saw the writing on the wall for him. That he would never gain the respect of the men, that they would never trust him because inside he couldn't do it. And I don't mean that as a criticism. I don't know that I couldn't do it either. But I'm wondering how much of that battle Sobel waged internally. I

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:29

think he must have sensed some of that. It's hard to tell from... He had a brothers, but, you know, he was clearly an intelligent guy with a lot of experience. And, you know, some of the, I'm thinking through some of the scenes where he showed his ineptitude, like, you know, having him leave a defended position only to get ambushed. And then, you know, the one that I already mentioned where he let him, you know, he was off a whole grid on the map and those things he had to, those moments know, wow, this is, you know, I'm really screwing

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:03

up here. You know, What's interesting about that is that what that illustrates, I think, is that people are less concerned about the fact that you make mistakes. They're more concerned about whether you accept it, own it, and then show them that you want to learn from it. Now, that takes an incredible amount of humility in order to be able to do that, especially if your success is wrapped up in your ability to be seen as the guy in charge.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:31

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 1:03:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:32

Jeff, you love this analogy, I think would have, best examples of that, of how the blue angels debrief every single flight, right? Exactly. You know, it doesn't matter what your rank is or what your position is. You know, the first thing they do is they admit their mistakes and then they say, I'm going to fix it. And that's their, you know, their routine and their contract. But it's also, I think when you've seen it play out in the 75 year history of the team, that when there's people that don't fit into that, they end up not filling their full tour,

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:03

you know, and To a bigger point, that really talks to your point earlier about culture. Really, what's the culture that we're all in, depending upon what facility we're working for? Does it support that type of process and openness, or doesn't it? Is it a toxic environment that's going to not allow that to become reality?

SPEAKER_06: 1:04:28

Yeah. And I mean, I think ultimately cultures are shifting over time as, as the generations are moving along and, you know, the pathway to, to facilities engineering positions has changed and the, Gosh, I hate to even say this, 30 years that I've been doing this now. Right. Wow, I feel old in the moment. But, I mean, it was a change dramatically from, you know, someone who's been in the boiler house and proven to be a competent mechanic and understanding all of the, you know, technical parts of engineering and then they become a manager and, you know, kind of get sort of the Peter principle, not Peter Martin, but the principle. It could be, Steve, it could be. Yeah, I resemble that remark, right? You know, but you see that. And in fact, early in my career, that's kind of what we did was we helped people who kind of got to that point in their careers and needed, you know, help with getting ready for joint commission and making sure we're compliant with OSHA and the state and everything else. And we kind of filled that that void for them. That's how I got my start in the industry. But now, you know, the entry is, is not typically that way. And that, and I think it's in itself is shipped in the culture a little bit because the people who are entering the industry or someone were coming from outside and others are coming from college and that sort of thing have a different, you know, background.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:00

You know, just one last question. thing on Sobel because we've spent so much time on him. And then I want to shift to another type of question. What we do know about Sobel, as we said, post-war, the poor man, I mean, he did try to commit suicide, failed. He was blind. He had strained relationships with his kids. So if you read up on him a little bit post-war, whatever happened there, it did affect him. And it wasn't for the good. I mean, I know that, you know, they used to do reunions, that easy company would do reunions and they said we would invite him and he wouldn't go. And so he was a man and we all have failings, but you know that whatever it was, it did impact him for the rest of his life. And it doesn't sound like he could ever, you know, run from it. So it's kind of a sad story in many ways. And as we've said, I mean, he did have his strengths. So let me talk, you know, we've talked about leaders. You mentioned Lipton, Obviously, Winters is there. We've talked about Sobel. And there are leaders throughout, as you said, in this episode, in this show, Tom. But are there any other leaders that stick out to you for either emulation or avoidance? Other leaders in Band of Brothers who you think are influential?

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:25

Well, I think, you know, Buck showed some incredible leadership skills, you know, all throughout the series and that we were exposed to clearly. And I think that, you know, it came about in a different way. His way of showing leadership was to, you know, become one of the guys, right? Yeah, yeah. To blend in. And that was his way of gaining trust. That's what he knew. So, you know, it was well balanced when Winters had to tell him, hey, never put yourself in a position to take from these guys. That's a great line. I love that line. And that really is important because, you know, you do hold that position of authority, that position of power. So make sure that there's never any doubt that you have their best interest in mind. And, you know, Buck shows that all along because he's willing to be out there with his guys doing, quote, the dirty work, you know, that typically he didn't have to. to do, but it was certainly part of how he led and going out and checking up on his guys and making sure that they had what they needed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:40

Agreed. I think that Buck was a good example of that leader who's just really down to earth, respected by the team, but also saw himself as one of them. I think you could also look at Lieutenant Dyke. If Sobel was the toxic leader, I think Dyke could be easily cast as the disengaged leader. Very good, Tom. Again, the movie doesn't give... Unfortunately, you have to... to make a movie successful or any story successful, you have to have, you have to have your, um, your protagonists and your antagonists. But, um, another thing that I was, I forget if it was a video I watched or, uh, something I read, but you know, uh, the dyke had previously been injured and that's something they didn't really, uh, in battle. And they didn't, um, say anything about that in the, you know, that wasn't brought up in the movie. They just really highlighted his, uh, how he napped, you know, he was always yawning and taking naps and going away and then culminating in his indecisiveness under fire. Right. But, but you can see from, you know, you know, the importance of engagement because I mean, even if he, even if he, if he would have not even shown the last piece of that, the last battle where he was removed from command during that battle. If you take that out of it and just look at his engagement, he was friendly to the team. He asked the question, but because it was so surface and it really didn't bring any level of respect from the team.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:41

You know, the takeaway I have from the Dyke episode is you were talking about culture of taking risk and allowing that. And there's a line, you know, it's when the character who plays Carver Lipton is narrating and, you know, kind of wrapping up the episode where he says, Lieutenant Dyke wasn't a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions. And that stuck with me because, you know, I think, Good people will forgive a bad decision made by a leader if they're honest, admit it, and recognize it. But having... The inability, whether it's because of the culture that exists in the organization or whatever, just not making decisions at all is unacceptable to people that are required to follow.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:32

Yeah, that decision paralysis or getting vapor lock where you can't decide what to do because you just don't want to make the wrong decision is actually the worst thing that you can do at all because you can't correct something that you don't do. And so you have to have an action in order to be able to adjust if it wasn't the best decision. And by making no decision, you're really... you know, it's the worst thing that you can do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:03

That's a great line, Jeff. I like that. You can't correct something you don't do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:09

Yep. That is a good

SPEAKER_06: 1:12:10

line. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:12

One of the other things that I think we, we might've overlooked is that, you know, we haven't talked at all about Nixon very much. And I, I think it, it, you know, warrants some, some thought that he really was a very good leader, even though he was never put in a position to, you know, be responsible for, you know, the troops immediately underneath them. But if you think about it, you know, he's, he's He did exhibit many good leadership characteristics and traits just from the support that he was giving and the effort that he was providing at a different level in a different way. And if you bring that back to what we're doing in our facilities and people are doing all around the world, there are many, quote, unsung heroes. And so I think it behooves us all to recognize that you don't have to have You know, people that are responsible to you to be a good leader. You can be a good leader by doing the things that are going to help the organization and certainly the people that you work with.

SPEAKER_06: 1:13:26

Well, he certainly was a confidant of winners, right? And he supported him. And I think one of the things that he did that was great leadership was when he got plucked to go over back home to sell war bonds and realized there was a leadership problem within the company that couldn't be solved easily. He basically gave that away to someone else to help make sure that the men didn't Below winners had a good, competent leader. At least it solved one of their problems. I mean, that's a pretty extreme sacrifice. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:01

Especially with a guy like him from a station in life, right? I mean, he was well off. His family owned the company, and he wanted to stay. He did not leave. So he's an interesting guy. He's an interesting character. It's almost like, and as somebody who loves history, I always wonder this. If you were to dig into just any story, would you be able to find that these people were almost made for this moment in time? If you look at the folks from Band of Brothers, and I think, again, there's some inaccuracies in it, but they've done a tremendous job staying true to the story. It almost seems like each of these folks was plucked from a period where... They were specially made for this moment, and that sounds a little bit corny, but you've got winters coming out of the farmlands of Pennsylvania, unassuming, athletic. You've got Nixon from New Jersey. You've got Lipton from Alabama. It seems like they were perfectly scripted, and they hit almost every big event across Europe from D-Day until V-E Day.

SPEAKER_06: 1:15:06

Absolutely. I completely agree with that, Pete. In fact, I had that thought when I was watching it. And a lot of teams are like that. Being a student of history or somewhat a student of history, I read a book called The Admirals a while back about the major admirals of World War II. And those guys were so different, but different. their separate skill sets combined essentially resulted in us winning the war in the Pacific and to not no smaller part in Europe. And, you know, had those individuals not been there at the right time in the right way with the right skills that complimented each other, filled each other's voids. I don't, I think we'd be having a different podcast right now or no podcast at all. So yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:00

You know. I think you're right, Steve. I do. I absolutely think you're right. What I wanted

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:07

to do. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:08

And just hold that for one sec, Jeff. We've gone a little long, which is good. So if you don't want to listen, you can hang up and not listen. But we're going to keep going for a little bit longer before we have a hard break. And I just want to, again, it's been a little bit of time. I just want to thank our three guests for high reliability today. Steve Sponbrook, Tom Elliott, Jeff Shuler. We're talking leadership lessons from Band of Brothers. Jeff, go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:32

No. I was just trying to relate what Steve was talking about. And he triggered something in me that made me think, you know, we as leaders in the facilities departments and the engineering departments around the world, we really do need to be cognizant of the fact that it does take a diverse group of individuals to create the best circumstances for positive outcomes. And so, you know, so often, you know, us engineers get together and who do we want to be around? Other engineers. They think like us. They walk like us. We have the same thought process. We laugh at the same jokes. And so, you know, it really is uncomfortable at times to bring in people or include people that think differently than we do, especially for us. Because in our world, things tend to be so black and white, right? And really, you know, we need people that are going to live in the gray a little bit to help us inform better decisions that we need to make about what's going on with the facilities.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:41

Can I jump in for a sec? Living in the gray? Because I want to get to this guy before we have to hang up. And I think living in the gray, it's almost like you were teed up for that, Jeff. I think the one guy who lives in the gray. And he's actually become my favorite person or most intriguing person in this miniseries is Spears. He is. So, you know, if you've seen it, you know who he is. But Spears, you know, you just dig into some of this. And so one quick story and then I'll get to a point I'm lumbering here. But when I Ambrose wrote this book. So back early, he published 1992. I was listening to an interview that Winters gave. So Ambrose writes the book. It goes to the publisher and the publisher reviews it. And the publisher says to Ambrose, we're going to have problems with this. And the problems they were talking about are relative to Ronald Spears. In the miniseries, you see him shooting unarmed German soldiers in the second episode. And there's actually, there's no proof that that did happen, though he did, and he made no bones about it, though he did, you know, and again, put yourself in the time, they weren't taking prisoners, though that did occur, that specific episode, we don't think that's historically accurate, or they don't think That's historically accurate. But anyways, Ambrose calls Winters, again, early 90s. Ambrose says, we're going to have a problem. They're afraid that they're going to get sued. And so Winters, and I heard him recounting the story, and you can find it. It's out on the internet. Winters says, don't worry about it. Winters calls Spears, and they remained close friends throughout their lives. And Winters tells Spears what's going on. Spears is like, nope, not a problem. Go with it. And they did. And again, Spears lived in that gray. And I think for me, he's the most intriguing guy in that he's mysterious. He didn't smoke was another thing I learned. And that, you talk about that second episode where he mows down the German soldiers. Cigarettes are a big part of that, right? He gives them cigarettes, then he supposedly shoots them, Captain Spears. But he was a non-smoker. So anyways, we could... spend a lot of time on Spears, but at least for me, he's the most intriguing guy in the whole show because he lives in that gray and he's a tremendous leader. What do you guys think about Spears?

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:21

Well, I, it's, you know, it's, uh, I think, I think I also agree. Spears is one of the more, uh, one of the most interesting characters in the, uh, in the series. I think it, he's, uh, you know, living in the gray, we're often, you know, we're always asked to live in the gray because unfortunately we do not live in a world where everything can be just clearly laid out in black and white and certainly applies in healthcare facilities just as much, if not more than a lot of other places. But, you know, I think it's for spirits, it's also knowing what uh an understanding in his leadership knowing when to live in the gray and how far in the gray to live and work right that's good um because you know it's like we you know that there was always i my understanding is he you know uh he ne he never he never said he didn't do those things uh to the to the arm german soldiers right never um You know, he just kind of let the legend live on. But I think one thing that's telling is at the end, or, you know, one of the later, I'm trying to find it in the notes, you know, later on, on one of the last episodes where... Oh,

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:45

yeah. Episode 10, Tom?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:50

Yeah, I think so, where one of them was killed. Yes. And I watched a couple of clips along with the movie. I watched a couple of clips where it shows him. He was visibly moved. And just at that point, everybody steps back. To the detail of the movie or the episode, the direction of the acting, the tension was palpable. as he held the, um, as he held a pistol to the, um, to the guy's head. Right. Everybody kind of steps, he pulls out his pistol, holds it to the guy's head and everybody steps back. Um, stop chewing, um, the gum chewing stops, close their eyes. Right. And I mean, he could have easily, he could have, you know, and it looked like he was really split and, you know, ready to pull the trigger. Um, and probably nobody would have blamed him for it. Um, But he made the decision to put the gun down and walk away and leave it to the MPs. But it really is because how often are we asked to say, because oftentimes we're given a choice between two evils, right? We're given facilities where it's like we're given choice. In order to continue operating, you have a choice between two things, both of which aren't exactly to code, but you got to pick one. Those are the only choices you have, right? And if you don't pick those, if you pick neither of them, then you basically come out with indecision, as was discussed earlier. So yeah, I think that plays a really important role in that. and illustrates that well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:43

I think it's as Winter said. Winter said you need lethal soldiers, and Spears was a lethal soldier.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:49

True, true. I think one of the points that Tom illustrates is that often we get confronted with problems in our industry, and we often think about it in terms of what we need as opposed to looking at them uh, the solutions, uh, with respect to what we have, um, because it doesn't matter what you need. You have what you have. So you figure it out. And that's really that, that critical thinking that Steve was talking about earlier that, you know, everybody has, you know, just that we've been afforded ourselves the opportunity to, to, you know, take a step back, pause for a moment and okay, this is how we're going to do this. And, you know, solicit some advice from people that are there, you know, obviously have some experience in this area.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:36

no that's a that's a great point um because i can you know it's like uh i often tell my team you know they say well it should be this way it's like well um just eliminate the word should from your vocabulary because should shouldn't exist because it's not about what should be it is it's about what is um you know my mind goes to a completely different movie that we probably that we can maybe attack later on Apollo 13. Oh, I was just

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:02

thinking that

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:05

same thing. I'm glad you brought it up because I was about to.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:09

Stay focused. Stay focused.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:11

That'll be our next one, Pete.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:13

Okay. We got

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:16

it. The classic line in there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:17

Make your point though. Yeah. You got to make your point. Don't leave us hanging.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:22

Oh no, that was a point. It was just, I was, you know, you've, So often, even from our leadership, and this is about leading both up and down, and I think which is something Spears also did very well, leading both up and down the chain and across, right, was the fact that he lived by what is and not what should be or what he wished would be. So I thought that was a good point.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:58

I've often, you know, relative to the Spears thing and what you just described there, Tom, I mean, they asked him afterwards, why didn't he? And he said, I must have had a little bit of doubt that this was the guy. It was the guy. But I also wonder too, at that point, and we talked about this with COVID fatigue. I wonder if that point of the war and who could have, you know, who could have said otherwise, he was just tired of the killing. You know, he just didn't want, he didn't want to do it anymore. He had done it and done it so effectively, but you know, Sink in the aftermath said you should have shot the SOB. You

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:31

know, that's a difference between people that live in the gray and people that are black and white, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:35

Yeah. Oh, exactly. Yeah. That's really good. Yep. Steve, did you want to say anything about Spears or?

SPEAKER_06: 1:26:41

I think you guys covered it well. I mean, he was one of my favorite characters in there too. I mean, I think he, he certainly led by example. He was not risk averse at all. And, but, and I think he, he, he recognized the fact that, you know, respect was earned and, and he was in the right place at the right time. And, and for all of his faults, he was a great leader.

UNKNOWN: 1:27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:09

You know, one of the things I wanted to make sure we discussed here for a brief moment was a phrase that we've used maybe or certainly talked about, and that's leading up, right? How do you deal with your boss? And from that perspective, you know, managing or dealing with your boss is one of the most important things that you have to know how to do. And we see it all throughout the entire series between Spears and, you know, the– The people that he reports to and the enlisted guys and who they report to, and then, you know, all the way up to, you know, how, you know, Colonel Sink is handled. Because, you know, really, if you think about it, your job is with respect to this topic, your job is to make your boss effective. Right. And so you have to, you know, in order to do that, you have to be sensitive to their unique styles and what they're bringing. Right. And to that, you need to be able to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are, because what we know to be true is that, you know, I think Tom said it earlier, you know, you really want to, you know, increase your strength to the point that it makes your weaknesses irrelevant. And so to make sure that your boss understands um, understands what can be expected of you is very, very important. So those conversations have to be had in order for them to understand how you're going to help them. Right. Because your job is to always stay ahead of the boss and what they're doing. So, so that they're never asking for something that you don't anticipate that they're going to need, that they always have it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:49

All right. Um, You know, final thoughts, gentlemen, we're coming up to the end and I know you've done some research. Jeff, you just talked about something that you want to get. Is there any, you know, as we close, any thoughts or anything that we didn't get to that you just want to touch upon relative to healthcare facilities, leadership, Band of Brothers, anything that you just want to, you know, get out there because we just didn't have an opportunity because we went to so many different topics areas. Open floor for topics we didn't get to.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:18

I just think it's a great series full of positive and negative leadership examples that anyone can learn from. I know it's entertaining, but it's also, you know, I reflect on Tony Dungy's book, Quiet Strength, which I read probably 15 years ago. I mean, he talks about what shaped him as a coach was both the negative and the positive experiences he had in his career as a player and as coach. And he assimilated all those into his style. And I think all of that's laid out here in Band of Brothers. And so, you know, be entertained and learn.

UNKNOWN: 1:29:56

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:56

For, you know, for me, I think as I look through it, you know, go through this series and look at the leadership examples, I think one thing that does stand out and what's been mentioned in a couple of, from a couple of different perspectives throughout this, throughout our time together here is, you know, that leaders are, that first and foremost, leaders are human and, you know, and it, it almost historically, it almost seems the greater, the leader, the greater, you know, you look at leaders of the history and in the series and, uh, great leaders also have great weaknesses to that contrast their own great strengths. The, the series itself didn't really highlight any of, um, and understandably from a, from a movie perspective, um, uh, winters, any of really winters is, uh, uh, weaknesses but we know we have them right um and you know that it you know the movie worked hard on developing those contrasts but the fact is that um as we lead and as we build ex i think as in facilities or any in any frame we're leading in that the that we help those who work for us and work with us to understand that we are we are human and we are um into um, points that were made earlier that, you know, say, Hey, you know, I, I screwed this up. You know, I made a bad, I made this bad decision. We should have gone this other way. Lesson learned. Let's move on and help build that expectation that, Hey, we're all human beings making the best of it, but also carry that on to our own leadership. Um, uh, those over us to see them in the same light, knowing that, you know, as frustrating as maybe, um, a leader in an organization may be at times, you know, focus on their focus on the strengths, understand that there will be weaknesses.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:07

Um, you know, I thinking about what, uh, you know, both Steve and Tom have said, it's, it's, it's kind of, um, pivoting on the same topics, but in a different, different manner. And that, you know, while people, um, And while everybody has different strengths, I think it really does come down to understanding that do we allow the space for people to recover within themselves from a mistake that they're just not letting themselves up from? And so, you know, are you going to show that empathy or compassion in the appropriate way that allows them to see, you know, the fact that you made a mistake isn't really the issue. The fact that you're still the one in charge and you still have a responsibility to lead, that's the issue. And so to the point that you're spending all the effort and energy on trying to recover or what often happens overcompensate for that mistake really is going to breed additional mistakes. So let's really deal with the ability for you to understand that you don't have to be perfect because perfect isn't the requirement. Striving to be perfect is That's what the goal is because we all know that we're going to fail, right? And to take risks is really the key, you know, calculated risks, informed risks, but that's really the key to being successful and that's what leaders do, right? Because if you're going to take risks, you're going to know failure, right? And it isn't that you're going to accept the possibility of it. It's that you're going to know it. So really, how comfortable are you with understanding that that's going to happen? And are you still going to be able to get in the arena and do your job? That's a great, great point.

SPEAKER_06: 1:34:08

Yeah, very good point.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:10

Well, gentlemen, I have nothing further to add. I appreciate your time. So I want to, again, thank my guests who joined me for a lot of time today. It was a great discussion. I think we could have gone on, but we have jobs to do as well. My guests, Tom Elliott, Director of Facilities, Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, California. Jeff Shuler, Owner, GH Shuler Consulting, Mission Viejo, California. and Steve Sponbrook, CEO, MSL Healthcare Partners. Gentlemen, thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:40

Pleasure. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:44

I did as well. I am Peter Martin from Gosselin Martin Associates. You've been listening to the High Reliability Podcast. Thank you for listening, and we will be back again with an episode, a new episode, and once more, happy Veterans Day to Tom and Jeff, and happy Veterans Day to all of the veterans listening to this podcast. I think it's a great podcast. to have on Veterans Day. Take care.