Join us on an extraordinary journey as we navigate the depths of leadership with former naval officer and founder of Lead With Purpose, Marc Kohler. From the confines of a nuclear submarine to the entrepreneurial world, Marc's experiences have shaped his vision and approach to leadership. Walk with us through his remarkable story, where he reveals life lessons learned, the significance of his San Diego roots, and the transformative power of purpose in his personal and professional life.
As we navigate deeper, we'll uncover the profound impact of a clear mission statement on trust-building, fostering teamwork, and driving employee engagement. Drawing from the wisdom of former Proctor and Gamble CEO, David Taylor, we'll also discuss how rotating meeting responsibilities can enhance collaboration and expand leadership skills. Furthermore, we'll explore the synergy that emerges when personal and company values align, creating a more engaged and fulfilled workforce.
Lastly, we'll charter the waters of decision-making, emphasizing the importance of empowerment and recognition in leadership. Through Marc's insightful experiences in the submarine force, we'll discover how success can be achieved even when making decisions with limited information. We also delve into the principles of Marc’s book "Lead With Purpose" and how they can be implemented for personal and professional growth. So, buckle up for this enlightening voyage; don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Career Club Live for more fascinating discussions!
Join us on an extraordinary journey as we navigate the depths of leadership with former naval officer and founder of Lead With Purpose, Marc Kohler. From the confines of a nuclear submarine to the entrepreneurial world, Marc's experiences have shaped his vision and approach to leadership. Walk with us through his remarkable story, where he reveals life lessons learned, the significance of his San Diego roots, and the transformative power of purpose in his personal and professional life.
As we navigate deeper, we'll uncover the profound impact of a clear mission statement on trust-building, fostering teamwork, and driving employee engagement. Drawing from the wisdom of former Proctor and Gamble CEO, David Taylor, we'll also discuss how rotating meeting responsibilities can enhance collaboration and expand leadership skills. Furthermore, we'll explore the synergy that emerges when personal and company values align, creating a more engaged and fulfilled workforce.
Lastly, we'll charter the waters of decision-making, emphasizing the importance of empowerment and recognition in leadership. Through Marc's insightful experiences in the submarine force, we'll discover how success can be achieved even when making decisions with limited information. We also delve into the principles of Marc’s book "Lead With Purpose" and how they can be implemented for personal and professional growth. So, buckle up for this enlightening voyage; don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Career Club Live for more fascinating discussions!
I know you're gonna find it. You've got to keep on at it. Hey everybody, I am Bob Goodwin, president, founder of Career Club, and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. I'm so glad that you've taken a moment to join us. If you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe and comment and like. It really does help. If you're downloading this on your favorite podcast platform, review, subscribe rate it really does help. If you're a first-time watcher or listener, we'd encourage you to also check out Career Club. That's our website where we're helping people like you find a career that matters to them. We've got tons of free resources available to help you do networking better, answer tough interview questions and how to identify opportunities that maybe you didn't know were available. Again, you can find all of that at Career Club.
Speaker 1:Today's guest I'm very, very excited about he's a former naval officer. My dad went to the Naval Academy and then my older brother was also on a nuclear sub. Our guest today is Mark Kohler. Mark is a former naval officer and on a nuclear submarine. We're gonna talk about that some. He's also a best-selling author and 35 plus years sought after elite leadership expert and founder of the leadership development research firm Lead With Purpose. He's also the author of a book called Lead With Purpose, which we're going to dive into quite a bit Without further ado, mark welcome.
Speaker 2:Oh, bob, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm humbled, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:No, we're humbled to have you. First of all, thank you for your service to the country. I'm always appreciative of our veterans, so thank you for that. Oh, thank you. No, so as is our want to do, and we'll be brief about this. But just, we like to help people get to know you a little bit as just a person. So, very quickly, where were you born and raised?
Speaker 2:Yeah, born in Rochester, new York, raised there, my mom and dad had a hairdressing shop off the end of our house, so I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and had some great upbringing there. I was in a bunch of cornfields all around us. We had 70 people on our town. So just yeah, so from Rochester, new York.
Speaker 1:And where do we find you today? Where do you live now?
Speaker 2:Now I live in San Diego, and the reason I was in San Diego I'm in San Diego still is because I got stationed out here and my mom and dad said, hey, when you coming back? And I said I don't think ever apparently you'll never been to San Diego. Yeah, so yes.
Speaker 1:No, that's awesome. And just to let you mention your mom and dad, but also your, your nuclear family. A little bit about your family there in San Diego.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've been married to my wife, heidi, for 29 years and we live in Oceanside, california, which is north northern California. And then I've raised with my wife. I've raised three daughters. They're 26, 24 and 22. And they're killing it in life. We're excited about them. And I also have a female dog, a husky, that I'm dealing with. So I'm dealing with five different women, so I'm not gonna touch that, I'll let that one just sit.
Speaker 1:So where did you go to college?
Speaker 2:Mark, yeah. So I went to college at State University of New York in Fredonia and what's interesting is I went there for physics. In 1986, a little known movie came out. The movie was Top Gun, and in the first four days of the movie being released I saw it four times and it encouraged me to go into the recruiting office in Buffalo, new York at the time, to be a jet fighter pilot. And what I can share with you is that I went through all the tests that day and at the end of the day the recruiter comes out and says, hey, you passed every test, but we have to have you take one test over. And I said Well, what is it? He said Currently, your thigh bone is three eighths of an inch too long to sit in a jet. And so we retook the test. I got it to within eighth of an inch and but I got disqualified from being a jet fighter.
Speaker 1:What's your name? Mark?
Speaker 2:I'm six foot five, so you know it isn't the total height, it's the component parts, and so my thigh bone is is pretty long. So but the recruiter I mean probably one of the best sales persons I've ever been connected with, because as I was leaving the recruiting station he's like what about flying helicopters? I mean he must have needed another recruit. And then he said what about? What about the submarine force? And that really started my journey into the nuclear submarine force.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know how good of a sales or how desperate he was to get salesperson, but I think he also recognized quality and talent when it walked into his office. Because this is going to be a lot of what we talk about is your career. But just, do you mind, just kind of very briefly painting a quick picture of life after college and all the way to now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I want to. Then I did the first three years there. I went two years at Clarkson University at a mechanical engineering degree. I went through the entire pipeline of the US nuclear submarine force. What's interesting is that you don't see a submarine for the first two years. We're on land the entire time, and so the onboarding process was a two year process, and so I got stationed out in in San Diego in 1990. And at that time I was 24 years old, helping 110 men drive a billion dollar submarine around a mission critical to national security.
Speaker 2:Fantastic experience as a young person really forged to I am today. One of the things I didn't really love about is we were out at sea over 85% of the year and so that environment that I grew up in, with my mom and dad being home and running a hairdressing business off the end of our shop I just couldn't see myself missing the birth of my child and all of those things. So I got out. I took a quick stop at Honeywell. What I loved about Honeywell was professional training that I got, how to read a profit and law statement, put together big company strategic plans. What I didn't love about Honeywell was it was a big 32,000 person, a lot of hierarchy, red tape, took forever to make a decision.
Speaker 1:Sounds like the military going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, it's interesting that it you know, in the submarine force we have a ton of structure, but we also have a ton of agility to be able to talk.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about that agility. Man. I interrupted you continue, Go ahead. So after Honeywell yeah, no worries.
Speaker 2:So in 2005, when my kids were eight, six and four, I could either climb Honeywell's corporate ladder, I could be at every back to school in my core performance soccer practice. I chose to ladder the two and I started doing strategic management consulting. And, bob, I fell into doing turnaround work. So I come in as the interim turnaround CEO for a company that had lost its way. Typically, the companies had six to nine months of cash. They were going through some type of disruption, transitioning from Johnny senior to Johnny junior. They had, maybe their products were being made in the United States. Now they're being knocked off in China.
Speaker 2:For me it was fantastic because it was some type of puzzle to try to figure out and what I can share with you.
Speaker 2:This took over two decades to really develop, but I initially tried to apply the skills and tools that I learned at Honeywell to these businesses and, frankly, I think I was aware enough to know that I was almost killing them, and so I had to scrap those tools, go back to my time in the submarine force and really analyze how we get a hundred and thirty you know, men Average age 23 years old, operated billion dollar submarine Admissions, critical to national security, life and death situations, and so when I took a look at that it was, it was very revealing for me, and so I just took a bunch of the tools that I learned from the submarine force, started applying them to the turnarounds I was and I was able to take teams that were failing before I was able to take and turn their attitude around about what's most important and how they connect to something bigger themselves.
Speaker 2:And that's why the company is called lead with purpose, because if we can show people how what they do connects to making a difference in the world, and we can have a tremendous impact. And what I would just end with is we created an entire framework. It's called fast attack leadership and it's the five-step framework that US nuclear submarine officers use on top secret missions that anyone can learn, so that they can create and sustain fully aligned, highly adaptable, world-class teams that execute at the highest level.
Speaker 1:We are gonna break that down, because that's exactly what I'm hoping that we can talk about very quickly. When you're not doing all that and speaking and writing and doing podcast interviews and stuff, what do you do for your spare time, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, heidi and I, my wife Heidi and I, we went and empty nest a year ago and so and we and everyone's off the payroll, so so it's interesting, we're really getting to, you know, re-engage with each other and because there's always this you know there's three kids and you're off at soccer practice, you're off at volleyball practice and and so we're reconnecting with each other and it's been, it's been fantastic. We love going for walks on the beach. We live about four miles away from the Pacific Ocean. There's so much that that I had in the Pacific Ocean that I just I just get a lot out of and we get a lot out of. And downtown Oceanside has been transformed over the past five years to be a world-class City and and the new Restaurants and all the stuff that they have. And, bob, when you're in town or anyone's in town, you look me up, I'll take you down to craft coast tacos and beers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, soul, after we'll go to Tory Pines and we'll go do that. So that's my so, so. So let's just, you know, kind of get into it. Lead with purpose, and you and I've gotten to know each other, you know, here recently, and purpose is something that's very Resonates with both of us. Can you talk about Purpose and why it matters, and why it especially matters when you're leading?
Speaker 2:So my experience in the submarine force. It really taught me a lot about the power of the mission, the power of purpose, and Only when I was able to really reflect upon it, when I was having this challenge as a turnaround CEO, was I able to clearly pull back the layers and see how important it is, and that's why I called the company lead with purpose. So the US nuclear submarine force has had to rely upon, for the last hundred and twenty three years, very young people and people from all over the United States. So we didn't, you know, when we were on the submarine, we didn't get to choose the person who showed up to the submarine. Yeah, so the person who showed up to the submarine, they were going to become part of the team, and whether you were born in South Carolina or State of Washington, whether you had this political belief or that political belief, whether you had this Ethnicity or you had this, didn't matter. And, and so what we had to do is I saw the power of the mission. I saw the power of the mission be able to meld all of that together, because that's what it really became about. It became about and you know, whether you've been on board the submarine for three days. Whether you'd been on board the submarine for three years, could you? When you're walking in machinery to upper level and waters Flowing in at the speed of a bullet would cut you in half, are you going to be able to step in, step up and are you going to be able to be a leader in that situation? That's all we cared about, and they created this tremendous bonds of trust of like Bob, I need to count on you and and you need to count on me, and it was all about the simplicity of the mission.
Speaker 2:I can just share with you one other thing the submarine motto. I'd forgotten about it but when I was doing this analysis. The submarine motto is either we all come to the surface or no one does Think about that. And so when we think about World War two, the culture of the World War two, submarines, 50% of the submarines were lost at sea. Now can you imagine going saying hey, honey, yeah. And so it was this cult, this, this tremendous culture that I was. I was Enveloped in one other thing to make people aware of on an operating submarine which is out at sea over 85% of the year, the entire crew turns over every three years.
Speaker 2:Really people all Rotating in and rotating out. So we talk about like retention and turnover. So so how do you, how do you make that happen? And people come to the submarine Not qualified to run the reactor and not qualified to drive the submarine. You have to train them and then they leave and then you get someone new when you have to do it over again and so so when I, when I really looked at this Bob and I was I was evaluating and going, hey, why aren't these tools from Honeywell working? When I really looked at it, I was like what caught, what helped us to be successful? At the core of it was mission. I'm just gonna share.
Speaker 2:One other thing is when I, when I looked at the tools that helped to really make sure everybody understood the mission. One of the tools we had is we had basically a one-page captains orders. Now at the top of the captains orders was was our mission, what we were gonna do? And and then down below was everyone's role in making it come true of the different departments. So this was a fantastic document because anybody could look at it and say, hey, what's our mission? And then what's my role? And then what's my role in the context of everyone else, yes, and I was like that is a great tool.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, when I'd gone into this first turnaround, I took the team off site for four days. We created this 32 page plan and a binder. We were all excited about it. I was, you know, and and someone in the meeting finally says to me hey, I don't know how this is helping me to run the business, and it was a huge Awakening for me and and I just went back and we created one-page captains plans and that's where I was able to show people how what they did connected to making a difference in the world. And and the Gallup employee engagement statistics were huge and helping Me to define that, because back then they're almost the same as they are today. 70% of people don't understand how what they do today connects to making a difference in the world. And guess what? 70% of people are not living the best version of themselves, not fully engaged in their job.
Speaker 2:And I believe it had to do with with the complexity of the mission statements that we used to have. That were 42 words long, bunch of commas in it. One run long on sentence. No one could repeat it, and so you know, for for people who are listening right now. If you want to know whether your mission statements resonating, go down to the person who just showed up three months ago. Ask them hey, what's our mission statement? And if they can't state it, I think it's the communications tool. And the submarine force taught me make things simple and make things very clear. So, purpose I found getting a great purpose statement, great mission statement that's basically a code word in an image is what helped people to realize hey, what I am doing is making a difference in the world and that's what I saw Forming on land when I was doing these turnarounds.
Speaker 1:So quick question. So on a submarine National Defense, life or death, like I can get around the mission statement pretty easily, right? I mean, like I know why we're here and oh, by the way, I joined the army or the army, I joined the Navy because I wanted to right, because it wasn't inscription. So let's Say, okay, that's go, I get it in that context. But I'm taking over a failing aluminum siding business, right, it's got six to nine months worth of cash left. How do you get people Rallied around and find purpose in that? That seems so much less important, potentially.
Speaker 2:It's a great question, what? I'm gonna just flip it? I'm gonna say a failing wire manufacturing company okay, I'm. I made it a little bit of a siding.
Speaker 1:That's the most random thing I could think of. I.
Speaker 2:Did an aluminum siding, one, two, but I'm gonna share with you the the wire manufacturing Sure. So I go into this wire manufacturing company. The company is manufacturing wire that's very specific to the application. So they are manufacturing wire that goes on the space shuttle, that goes in medical devices. They're not. This isn't wire you buy at home depower loads, yeah, and so very specific applications. When I go in I look at the P&L and it shows that 18% of the wire is being returned by the customer. Doesn't meet the specification 18%.
Speaker 2:We start to go 18% and they're wondering why they're failing. They're wondering why they're failing. And so when I go into this company, I start really taking a look at the history of the company Now, initially started in the 1960s by the father. The father had created a machine that was the first machine that could put a stripe on a hula hoop. Now, for those of you who don't know, hula hoop didn't have a stripe on it initially, and so people would look 100 yards across the field. They'd just see a person doing this motion, like what are they doing when they put a stripe on it? That's when the hula hoop took off, because people could see it and they're like, oh, they're having fun. And so we had this company that had this tremendous legacy of bringing these great products to life. When there was a wine cork problem, they were the first one to create an artificial wine cork In the 1980s, when there was it. So I had this tremendous legacy when I walked in and I saw what was up on their boards. They had all the HR stuff which is important to pay, and all that stuff, and I was like, where's the legacy of the company? So worked with the leadership team and we came up with a brand purpose, and the brand purpose was really simple, is improving lives. That was it Went through this entire exercise improving lives. We got that out to the leadership team, but one of the things that it wasn't getting out to it wasn't getting out to the manufacturing floor. And so, on the manufacturing floor, I started taking a look at and analyzing what was going on on that floor and what I found was that they didn't have a process, that they were following a common process.
Speaker 2:Now I'm a master black belt in Lean Six Sigma. I'm like well, let's create a process. We're gonna have the head of manufacturing, we're gonna have the leaders of the manufacturing plant. We're gonna create a process. We create this great nine step process. Great nine step process. It's perfect. And after about two months, we see returns drop from 18% down to 16%.
Speaker 2:Now I have to tell you, I'm sitting there in the manufacturing plant arms crossed. I'm just like what is going on? I know the process is correct and as I'm sitting there, I just noticed one of the machines. There's eight machines in the plant. These are big machines that are spanning wire across about 20 feet and I look over and there's the operator doing a bunch of stuff, but I don't see the wire.
Speaker 2:And so I go over to the operator and I say hey, that's wire is really thin, like where is that going? And the operator goes I don't know. I call Armando over, armando, where's that wire going? He takes a look at the box and he's like that wire is going to Terumo heart, that's going in a pacemaker. You know what the operator said. The operator said, oh, and in that moment I think I had enough understanding that I could see the shift in the mindset shift in that operator. And so, because the nine step process wasn't working, I went over to the next machine. I go hey, where's that wire going? You know what the operator says I don't know, Eight wires being coaxed together.
Speaker 2:Armando, where's that going? That's going in the deep submergence vehicle. That's going to go down to the Mariana's trench. Guess what that operator said. Oh, that's cool. Went around to every single one of them. None of them knew where the wire was going. So this was, I was doing a turnaround. The next day I came in, I went around to all eight machines again, four of them knew where the wire was going. Four of them. Four of them didn't the next day. Guess what? All eight of them the wire that they were manufacturing. They knew where it was going, and I did that every day for the next two months.
Speaker 2:Returns dropped from 16% to 3%, because what I was able to do is I was able to connect the wire for people. I was able to take a piece of wire and turn it into a story of how it impacts another human being, and so you can do this with any, any process. You can keep saying where does it go, find it all the way to, then Aluminum siding. You can do the same exact thing, but telling stories. We were naturally built to tell stories. Humans are storytelling machines, and when we put it in that aspect, that's what happens. Now there's one step that I changed in the nine step process. It's the first step and it turned it into a 10 step process, so I made the process longer. But can you guess what the first step was before the operator started doing anything on manufacturing wire? What was the first step?
Speaker 1:Find out where's this going. Who's this for?
Speaker 2:That's it. It's that simple, and so I would encourage people, make sure that you know improving lives was really important. But then you, if you can attach stories to it and you can do this within any, any product, any service, any component, take it to where it impacts a human being.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. I really really appreciate how you're helping people at Career Club. You know we're helping people. Our mission is helping people find a career that matters to them, so finding something where they find purpose, where they can find meaning and that can be different for everybody, right, but you know that's just such a.
Speaker 1:It's such a great thing to just kind of keep plumbing and keep double clicking on, but where ultimately does this impact another human? How does this make another person's life better, improving lives that you can find the purpose if you're looking for it. I wanna move to the other keyword in the book's title, which is leading. So this is a little bit of a trick question, which you'll smile is so is this only for people that have, like, a leadership title? Is that the only people that this would apply to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:The leadership mindset the mindset shift that all people need to take in a company and it's what we had on the submarine force and it's what I had and what helped to do the turnarounds is the mindset shift that all leaders need to have is that every person, every employee in your company, you have to consider them a leader. You have to tell them that and they have to expect that they are a leader, whether they've been there for three days or that they've been there for 30 years, and so it's not about a title and a role. If you have 5,000 people at your company and you have 10 people on the top leadership team, there's not 10 leaders in your company. You have to think about that. You have 5,000 leaders in your company, and when you make that shift because I know you do this too when you make that shift, it sets up to say, hey, how am I gonna get that person to be a leader? And then you start looking at personal development plans and all of these different things. So, yes, leadership is everybody at the company.
Speaker 1:Can you share with people the example that you shared with me in a previous conversation we were having about rotating meeting responsibilities and who's running the meeting?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you wanna make any of your meetings better, we have a certain agenda that we think is really great. But if you wanna make any of your meetings better, just do this one thing you can keep the same exact agenda, just rotate the person who's leading the meeting. So, bob, if we're having a meeting, and every single time it's your meeting, I am coming to your meeting, and what you do is, when you do this simple act of rotating the meeting leader is, the next time it becomes the meeting the way I wanna run it. And what happens is it starts building these bonds of trust between each other, because when you're running the meeting, I wanna make you look really good, because the next time I run the meeting, I want you to reciprocate back. So that happens. The other thing that we do is we teach people how to lead others, how to be a leader, but then it's just important is how do we learn how to be a great follower?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's funny to say something that is near and dear to my heart go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we talk about daily meetings and weekly meetings and we talk about the daily meeting rotating it One of the great things we got back from company and has over 700 employees worldwide retail organization. The senior VP of HR said hey, you helped increase engagement across our entire company 6% and but what we really appreciate is that you helped move our DEIB program forward and frankly, we don't position ourselves as a DEIB program. But I asked her why and she said because you give everyone your program, gives everyone the opportunity to have their voice heard and we've seen the impact that that's made. And that's all sub-marine force, that's all from the submarine force.
Speaker 1:So so. So I've been a terrible host. I interrupted you just in terms of teaching people how to be great followers. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, when we talk about how we need to organize success, you know, we have the old traditional framework where we have hierarchy and we look at an organizational chart and we have people who are at the top, who are making decisions, and what you have to do is you have to shift to a matrix framework. So think about a matrix with a bunch of nodes on the outside and lines going between everyone, and when there's a challenge, what has to happen is you not everyone needs to be in that meeting, so only the people who have the expertise really need to be in that meeting. And so say, for example, it's not about your title. If you're the CEO of the company, if there's someone in your company who has an expertise in a certain area, they actually lead the meeting and you are subservient to them and you have to be the person who's asking them questions.
Speaker 2:What have you tried already? What are the things that you have worked? What hasn't worked? Are there any resources that you need from me? So the ability to form and then unform teams. We call it a matrixed environment the ability to be able to do that. You need to learn how to be a great follower and a lot of leaders. Their biggest challenge is like hey, I should know every answer. I need to be at the top and when you can release that and let that go, that you're just an organizer of talent, talent to solve that specific situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that's really really good. And so, and I think that this idea of, like, rotating the leadership of the meeting also creates empathy, as when you're not the leader, in supporting the person who's trying to lead the meeting, because you know what that feels like, right, but you're also in participation, engagement and learning how to be a really good follower. Like I would love to do just a completely separate episode, because so much gets put on leaving. Well, if you don't have followers, you're not leaving, you're just out walking by yourself. And so you know, learning how to be a great follower, which does require, you said, subservient, but it does require a level of humility, humility.
Speaker 2:I probably shouldn't use that word.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just saying, but, like I'm going to see control, I'm going to actually see my ego right now to allow you to use your gifts, your strengths, and I want to follow you rather than, like you say, somehow competing for power, which is a very unhealthy dynamic. So I just really appreciate what you're sharing.
Speaker 2:I want to add one other thing here. For people you think about rotating the meeting leader, you might be going, oh geez, like how's that going to turn out? People step up, they love it. The other thing that you get from it If I always run the meeting the way I run it and I only have a certain set of skills and tools, we never get to see your skills and tools. So, like what I get out of it when other people run the meeting, I go like I love, I love how Bob handled that. I'm actually going to take that as part of my tool kit. And you get to. You're actually doing leadership training when you're doing that also. So I want to add that.
Speaker 1:Here's a very quote for you. We got from a previous podcast interview with the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble, David Taylor, and we were talking about this being the wizard in a meeting and you're the CEO of one of the largest public companies in the world with all these iconic brands, how do you create that environment where people don't just like, oh gosh, that's a CEO. And for him it was very simple. I just want All I'm there to do is facilitate, because this is such a great line. None of us is better than all of us. I love it, Isn't that great?
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:None of us is better than all of us, and I can tell you, mark, even since we've been interacting, I've been like this meeting rotation thing. It's a brilliant idea. I mean, it's so implementable, it costs $0. You can do it today and all the benefits that you're describing. We're already seeing a career club, so it's very, very cool.
Speaker 2:I'm going to add this. Our phases are if you engage people and you open up their heart and show them how what they do connects to making a difference in the world, they're going to go above and beyond on their own. Then you can push decision making down responsibly. And once you do that, then you can encourage people. What happens, bob, is if you're always running the meeting, when you say, hey, I'm going to give up control of the meeting because I think that you guys can run the meeting better than I can, when you do that you empower them. They go like, wow, bob, trust me, guess what that does? When you empower people, it re-engages them to want to do more and want to do better. So there's so many benefits. Like you said, simple costs, nothing to implement.
Speaker 1:No, I love it. So in fast attack leadership there's a five step framework. I'd be completely remiss if you didn't share what those five steps were.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it might be a surprise to you Connect people to the mission as pillar number one. So connect them to the mission, that's the most important thing. A lot of people say, hey, I've gotten my mission statement really refined and what you'll find is that people are either going to be really attracted to that or they're not going to be attracted to it. And so a lot of times, what it's done is help to have a conversation of. I always say to people hey, if you're not happy here, like eight to 10 hours, 12 hours a day, let's find you a place where you can be really happy. So you get clarity around that. That's connecting the mission. The second is take the shot. How do we give people the skills, the tools in this dynamically changing, disruptive, constant world of flux? How do we give them a set of basic tools so that they can be successful? And we've talked about this before how do they have agency?
Speaker 1:Yes, how do they have?
Speaker 2:personal agency. So when something happens and there's an opportunity that's in front of them or a disruption, can they take action on that? That's one If they can't take action on themselves, how do they get into this matrixed team and go collective? How do we collectively then tap into that? So take the shot is a set of tools and skills that allows people to be able to make decisions. So that's pillar number two is take the shot. Number three is empower jam dives. Jam dive is a story that I take people through, but anyways, empower people.
Speaker 2:What does the leader then need to do to responsibly push decision making down? And we get asked this a lot hey, how do I do this? One of the biggest things if you have taught your kid how to ride a bike, if you've been taught how to drive a car, you start off very simply, start off with really simple things. You don't put your kid on a 10 speed on a downhill. Actually, they have restraining wheels, they're running behind, and there's a lot of confidence that comes in when people make decisions and then you say, hey, that was a great decision. So it's what the leader needs to do to responsibly empower people to make decisions at every layer of the organization. So that's number three.
Speaker 2:Number four is people are doing fantastic work and you have to define your bravo zulu. Bravo zulu is a term in the Navy that means good job, and so it's about recognizing your employees. Everyone says, oh yeah, we have a recognition program. I say, what is it? We recognize people for being here for a year and three years, and you have to be able to do that. 85% of employees they want a simple verbal recognition, and we're not doing a great job here. Simple verbal recognition, bob, same thing as rotating the meeting leader costs nothing, costs nothing, and 82% of employees today say they're not receiving enough recognition at work.
Speaker 2:So it's about defining your bravo zulu. And then the fifth thing is we call it steady, as she goes. The leadership pieces that we teach are simple. They're easy to implement. They're powerful, not in that you did it once. They're powerful and that you're doing it consistently, day after day after day. And so that's what I want to make sure people understand. We complicate leadership, and what I was taught in the submarine force was it's about the simple things done, excellent, done on a daily basis, that are going to help you to get the best results. So those are the five pillars of fast attack leadership.
Speaker 1:No, I mean really, really powerful stuff. I love the fact that there's a focus on simplicity in this, that this isn't a seminar that we go to on one day and then we kind of forget it, but it's simple things done with excellence, consistently. And what do you find, see, that appeals to me. But I can also see where somebody would be going like, particularly if I'm running out of cash, like dude, that all sounds great. I need a magic wand, like I need like that sounds like building a forest and I ain't got time for a forest. How do you respond to somebody that's looking for a quick fix when that may not feel quick?
Speaker 2:It's pretty quick. We have an entire exercise people go through and it's really simple, just start off with. If you get your purpose set first, just like the Connect the Wire story, we had the best process in the world I mean world class. Again, I'm not trying to, you know, pat myself on the back but I'm a master black belt and lean six sigma and the one thing that was missing was this first piece. And a lot of people say well, I got to go through four days off site and everything. You can do this in 90 minutes.
Speaker 2:You can go through an exercise and basically what you do is you put your products and services down at the bottom of what you offer and you just keep asking why, why does that matter? Why does it matter to our clients? And you get all the way to the top. Then do it with your employees. What are the things that employees get? They get paycheck, they get some benefits. Why is that important? Why is that important? And you'll find that there's a common message that's up there.
Speaker 2:I would share with you that I have a master master's equivalent of a master's in nuclear engineering, so I'm not a marketing person, but you can take what comes out of that and you can create a first code word and it's extremely powerful, so it doesn't take very long to do. I would not jump over that step and come back to it later, because if you have 70% of your people not fully engaged I mean 50% are quiet, quitting. You're not getting the best from them. You can turn those pretty quickly and Gallup has shown that you can turn those pretty quickly and one of the key things you can do is show them how what they do connects to making a difference in the world. That does not take very long to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so maybe that's a good opportunity to come back to something that you were saying a little while ago, which is let's get you somewhere where you can be happy, somewhere, and that may be at a place not at this address, right, yes, so I think we talked about this in a previous conversation. But the difference between a skeptic and a cynic a skeptic doesn't understand yet. They don't believe comma yet, but they're open to it. They just need more information, a little bit of soap time to get there. A cynic is like I don't care what you say, I'm never gonna believe, and it's the cynic that needs to go. The skeptic, ironically, can end up being your greatest advocate because they've had all the doubts and they've had their doubts addressed. So when they meet somebody who's doubting, it's kind of the. I understand how you feel. In fact, I felt the same way. What I found was it's like it's empathetic and it's very effective. But a cynic is this is an overused word these days but it's toxic to trying to drive change because you don't want to believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I'll share with you. In the turnarounds that I've done, we've worked with over 500 companies. Also, what I found is when we go into organizations and we ask the CEO, hey, tell us about your mission statement, and they do this, they do this, they go, let me get the binder, let me get the binder and let me read it to you, and I'm like no, no, you can't have a binder. And then when people say, hey, yeah, it's really strong, and because it's up on the wall, and they just read it off the wall, I go hey, you wanna go outside? Let's go ask some people. We go ask some people and no one knows anything about it. And so I think it's really important. When we go in, we find that there's a huge gray area and a lot of people are stepping into that gray area when they want to and they step out of it when they don't want to. And so what you do is you get really clear hey, this is who we are, this is why we exist. And I would say with you, a lot of people go oh, I didn't know that that wire did that, or that aluminum siding did that, or my law firm did that and how it impacted a person on the other side what I can share with you. It's very powerful, too, to drive that conversation where the person who is gonna be the cynic gonna stay the cynic guess what? They stick out even more. And it's not to have them stick out and have them be like, hey, you're a bad human being, but it helps to have that conversation.
Speaker 2:I'll just share one story. It was a company that I was at got really clear on the mission statement. One of the people was very ordinary and drove a conversation and the woman's name was Lisa. And Lisa says hey, I don't know, I don't feel comfortable here. So what is it? She goes I don't know, I just the culture is. It's not really who I am and, as you know, bob, we talked about, if your personal values don't align with the company values, there can be a lot of strain. So I said well, what do you wanna do? She said I think I wanna look for another opportunity. What I did is I said okay, fantastic, I'm gonna help you. Guess what? Every person is watching you as you're helping this person and serving this person.
Speaker 2:So she went off to another job and literally two years later she calls me. She's on the phone. It's Lisa, and I'm sitting there going like, oh my gosh, is she on the street? Like what's happening? Answer the phone, lisa, what's going on? And she goes. Hey, I just wanna thank you and I said, well, how's things going? What's going on? And she goes. You know what?
Speaker 2:I stopped off at this other job, but in the back of my mind was still the conversation that we were having. And she goes. Right now I'm back at I'm back, what I love and what I wanted to do. I said, well, what is it she goes. I went to school to be a middle school teacher and I'm teaching middle school math right now and I'm the happiest I've ever been, and it's because of the conversation that we had. That would have never happened had we had a huge gray area again. She might still be sitting, I might still be sitting in that position right now, and so I think it's really important that we have clarity on this to make sure that we can take the skeptics and show them clearly how what they do makes a difference. But then it also helps the cynics to you to have that conversation.
Speaker 1:Now, clarity is a beautiful thing, right? And then you're helping drive and you're safe right 20 or 40. 20 or 40. But it's grounded in convictions, which is my word for purpose, so I want to be mindful of the time. There's another concept and I think that a lot of viewers and listeners will relate to this kind of the environment that we find ourselves in and I think just sort of what the future holds, which is this idea of agility and adversity. Can you start to unpack that a little bit for folks?
Speaker 2:Yes, what we say is the companies that are gonna win and you can apply this to sports teams, you can apply this to any team the ones that are gonna win are the ones that make the most smart decisions the fastest Say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the most smart decisions, the fastest, most smart decisions, the fastest, most smart. It's not two of these three things, it's, over the long run, the most smart decisions, the fastest. And so what's happened is McKinsey put out a report that said when COVID hit in three months, it accelerated us five years into the future work. And so what happened was we had an entire organizational framework set up for a certain number of decisions that needed to be made, and if your internal organization could make decisions faster than the external environment was changing, you're gonna be successful. Well, guess what? The external environment didn't just continue to increase, it stepped jump forward. Where now the organizational framework that we have, where there's hierarchy and there's structure and all the decisions need to go up the chain of command and they need to come back down, all of that needs to be changed. And so that's the stress that a lot of companies are under right now and the highest levels of burnout are happening at the management layer, and it just makes sense because they're stuck in this old organizational framework where decisions need to go up and down the chain, but the pipe to take those decisions up and down the chain is only built for 10 decisions a day and it needs to make 50. And so what you have to do is you have to make a shift, and the mindset shift that the leaders have to take is the most smart decisions, the fastest isn't you at the top making every single decision. The most smart decisions, the fastest is everyone in the company being a leader and everyone in every layer making those great decisions.
Speaker 2:The key component of it is, if you think of a hierarchy or chart, right, we got people on top of each other as you go up their status. Those lines in there represent hey, the higher you up, the higher up you are in that, the more control you have, the more decisions you make. That's what it's really based on. What you have to shift to now is more of a matrix framework and think about a matrix where you got, you know, seven dots on the outside and you got lines going between each one of those. Those lines are not represented by control and command and control and decision making. Those lines are represented by trust. Those lines are represented by purpose, by values, by collaboration, and when you can establish that, then then you can increase the agility and the adaptability of your company. And it takes time to do If you're typically used to command and control. It might take you eight months, 12 months, 16 months really shift this, but so does that hit the mark.
Speaker 1:No very much, because I'm just relating it back to, like your captain's orders. If I understand what the mission is and now something has changed there's a variable that I wasn't anticipating. We'll call that adversity. But I understand what we're trying to do. Then I've got the ability particularly if it's been in an environment that is what'd you say pushed down responsibly and used the word responsibly twice, which I think is interesting. So, but if it's been pushed down responsibly, then it's like I know what to do. I know that this is for a pacemaker, I know this isn't gonna work for the pacemaker. I know that I can go make this adjustment. I don't need to ask Armando what to do and shut the machine down for two hours while Armando's away, and I know what to do and I can go do it now. That is a good, better decision, faster than having to wait. For I love Hcribe too.
Speaker 1:The old model allows for 10 decisions a day and now you need 50 decisions. The pipe just doesn't support the volume flow trying to go through it and I just think it's really, really an important idea of seeding some of this hierarchical control, looking at it more in matrixy like you're describing. But it's not chaos, it's just organized, controlled activity. There's a lot more activity happening, but that's being done by more people more often, so that it's not just all shunting up to one lady that's making the decision or one guy that's making the decision and we've talked about this before too.
Speaker 1:Mark, today is the slowest day for the rest of our lives. It is right. I mean, it's sort of like Moore's Law applied to life. Today is the slowest day it's ever going to be, and it just keeps accelerating. And so if you don't have it built into the DNA of your cultural model of how we're going to create the skills to be able to execute in this environment, then guaranteed your competition who is figuring this out is going to make more, better decisions faster than you are, and you're going to be in their wake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, yeah, I just thought I'd shared two tools that are very simple, that people can use. If you're wondering, hey, how do I start this journey? Yes, One of them is any question that you get asked. You have the same answer back for every question you get asked. So, Bob, someone asks you, hey, should we go into Asia and should we start setting up offices there? Or they say, hey, should we sponsor this speaking event? Every single answer that you have back to that person is what do you think?
Speaker 2:It's that simple and this has been shown to take, even though you know the answer to it. It's been shown to take something of a lecture, which is 5% retention after 24 hours, just asking that one question back and engaging the person. It takes it up to 50%. That's by the national training in Bethel in Maine. So just a simple one question back and then you get to understand what it looks like and say, for example, I said, hey, should we go with A and B? You would say to me, well, what do you think? And if I go like this, I go A, what does that tell you? That tells you, hey, he's not real confident in that.
Speaker 2:So the next question you would ask me is what are the factors you took into account to say A? And if you know that there's four, and I only know three, you would say hey, those three are good. What if you added this one to the mix? You wouldn't say that's why it's A. What you would say is adding that one to the mix, mark, what do you think the decision is? And then I would say A. And then you would say Mark, that's a great decision. You're not making the decision. I made the decision. You give me a recognition for making that decision. And then the next time you might say hey, mark, when that comes up in the future here's the boundary on it, if it's less than $5,000, you make that decision and you go on.
Speaker 2:The challenge that all leaders are having right now is we don't have enough people in our business. So there's this concept of time working in the business versus on the business, and more leaders are spending more time in the business. What you need to do that conversation? It would have been much easier for you just to say Mark, it's A. But the next time that that comes up again, I won't know the reason behind it. What you need is you need time. So simple thing that you can do cost nothing. Just ask a question back, why? One other thing is your next decision is not your final decision.
Speaker 2:On the submarine force, we were encouraged to make a decision If, with the information that we had, we thought we were going to be above 40%, correct, and if we waited till above 70%, we waited too long, yeah. So how does it feel to make a decision when you're only 40% probability is going to be correct? It feels really uncomfortable, and that's the point of it, with all the changing variables that are happening. And so the science behind this and this is by the late general Colin Powell, the science behind this is we discount ourselves 30%. So when you're at 40%, you're actually at 70. When you're at 70, you're actually at 100. And so this is a really powerful tool that you can use in a group setting, and if the conversation, anybody in the group, thinks that the conversation is above 40%, you just ask this question are we above 40? Let's make the next step it's not our final step and then let's course correct it to success.
Speaker 2:In the submarine force, I made eight decisions in three minutes. The first seven were totally wrong, but those seven allowed me to get the eighth one right and we had to be OK with that. So that's about 95% of decisions that are being made in a company today. Are those decisions? Now, if you're doing the load-bearing calculations on a multifamily housing architect, you can't go hey, the design's 40% correct. I think it's OK. There are certain decisions that need to be made. So those two tools are super powerful if you want to start empowering and pushing decision-making down.
Speaker 1:That is phenomenal. Well, I appreciate it. I always have a very strong bias for so what do I do with this? What can I do now? How can I actually go implement something? So thank you so much for sharing two extremely practical and powerful things that, as we've said now for the third time, they're free. You can go do them right now and you'll see immediate impact. So that's awesome. So, mark, what are different ways that you engage with companies and how do people find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have. So leadwithpurposecom is the company that was started. The program's called Fast Attack Leadership, so you can go to leadwithpurposecom and also professional speaking Mark Kohler speaks and I'm on the professional speaking circuit and making a difference there and then we'll share with you. Kim will share my marketing director. We'll share with you the URLs for the social media channels.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So we could go for three more hours, no problem, because I know we have barely touched the surface on just a number of really, really important topics. But I would love to encourage listeners to get Mark's book Lead With Purpose. Visit the website If you're looking for a keynote speaker for a company event or any type of a motivational event. You can tell already that Mark would be a wonderful, wonderful speaker for that. Mark, I've really just benefited so much in the not too long of time that we've known each other because there's a depth yeah, there's a depth, to the principles that you're teaching people that are enduring that work and that elevate the human spirit.
Speaker 1:I think, above all things and that is a very worthy mission that you guys have taken on and I appreciate everything that you're doing, not just to make companies better, but to make people better- oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:That was one of the unexpected benefits too, as people are taking this to the other areas of their life, and I know that's what Career Club does too, so we share that comment on it.
Speaker 1:No, that's awesome. So thank you Mark, thank you everybody for listening. As Mark said, we'll have the URLs available in the video version of this and in the show notes as well, and we thank you again. And if you're watching, please subscribe like comment on YouTube, and would love for you to subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcast platforms. So with that, Mark, thank you very much and I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Thank you, I know you're going to find it. You've got all you need, so just keep going.