Episode 106 – Dave Robinson | retired US Marine Corps colonel – High Performance Leadership​

In this episode I chat with Dave Robinson, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and author of The Substance of Leadership: A Practical Framework for Effectively Leading a High-Performing Team (Per Capita Publishing, Sept. 2021).
Drawing on Dave’s decades of experience in the military, we cover effective leadership strategies, how to influence the culture, getting people on board, and leading in high-pressure situations.

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Transcript

Murray Guest  

So good morning, good evening. David, welcome to the podcast, I’ve just loved our conversation, getting to know you and chatting, and I’m really really super excited to connect with you around leadership and all you’ve got to share. How are you?

Dave Robinson  

Murray, I’m doing well it is evening here. Good morning to you and I really enjoyed getting to know you in the last few minutes here in our conversation, such a privilege to be on your show and it’s an honor. Thank you for having me.

Murray Guest  

Oh, to be honest so I’m going to share with everyone I’ve been reading some of your book that came, came out in September, the substance of leadership, a practical framework for effectively leading a high performing team. It is honestly so full of insights and stories, I feel like there’s a real head and heart connection throughout the whole book, the head giving us some real understanding of the practical tools and the heart through the stories and what you share so I definitely want to talk to you about that. Before we get into that. What’s life like for you now at the moment in October 2021?

Dave Robinson  

Well the book launched in September that was quite a journey 18 months from when I started writing, it had been a decade in the making Murray, but I finally, you know when, when COVID hit I thought what better time but to try to put my thoughts on paper and, you know, ended up, you know, going through the production process over the summer and and launched here last month so October is kind of getting back into the swing of things with some travel, I’ve got a number of clients that I love serving and it’s been great to, you know, reconnect personally with them and a lot of challenges have come out of the last year and a half for a number of reasons and so it’s, it’s great to be a thought partner with them and as their organizations are changing and adapting and and going to the next level. So that’s, that’s what I’ve been up to this month. Yeah.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, well, it’s very similar so a lot of my clients I’ve been working with have been online interactions, online workshops and sessions, but we’re starting to shift back to face to face. And I think people are craving that face to face connection and moving forward. I think there’s going to be a hybrid version with some online some face to face and a bit of travel, not as much as I was doing, and I do like a bit of travel, get to see the country get to meet some people. I like to support the small businesses when I do that which is good. I’ve heard for people that publish a book, and write a book, it can be like having a baby, it’s like this big build up and then you’ve had the baby and now you’ve got to take that baby out in the world. How has that process been for you?

Dave Robinson  

Well that’s a great question. You know, I’ve just started to have the chance to reflect Murray on the process and had a great publishing team, just an amazing editor, you know, you said something a minute ago and we can pull the string on it but I really did have to organize the book with my head and this is the first time that I’ve ever written something that’s not been kind of academically critiqued, you know all of my previous work has been in an academic environment, it was a real challenge for me to organize the book with my head but to write it with my heart which is not something that’s always comfortable for me but I was a great learning process and so it was a real push to to launch on September 21, And I felt like I was crossing the finish line. And then my editor said Dave, you’re actually crossing the starting line of Omicron and so you know I really it’s it’s the long view, and I hope it will have impact for for many people for a long time so that’s the way I’m looking at it, just looking at it from the long view perspective.

Murray Guest  

And sometimes when people write books they write them for themselves to get that out of their system and, but what I’m hearing for you what was important is getting your life, your lessons, your insights out to other people, inspiring them.

Dave Robinson  

I felt like I was really fortunate and blessed Murray to spend, you know, two and a half decades in a great organization, United States Marine Corps with a lot of mentors are invested in me and, and poured great leadership lessons and over the last decade I’ve had a chance to share those with many executives, CEOs in the private sector who are experiencing the burden of leadership, and I realized that no matter where you are, what industry you’re in, leadership is challenging, it’s hard and so it’s just been such a privilege to try to share some of those lessons with people who are experiencing the challenges and the burden of leadership and, you know, I think I’m a teacher at heart and so I really enjoy whatever I can do to help others, I’ll tell you there were times of self doubt when I was writing the book, wondering if anyone would actually read the book I’m glad you’re one of the people that that’s encouraging but you know I always said if this helps one leader out there to lead better than it was all worth it. So, what a journey it’s been.

Murray Guest  

And to distill your insights and experiences through the US Marine Corps, that must have, I felt like you must have had more than one book in you, because you’ve had some experiences, and some time, two and a half decades in the Naval Academy and then in the Marine Corps. How did you get that down to distill it to what you want to put in the book.

Dave Robinson  

That’s a really really insightful question and a tough question I’ll tell you when I transitioned from the Marine Corps 10 years ago to the private sector. We, our family had done 13 moves in 25 years and I had three kids kind of in high school and it was it was time to stabilize the family and be honest Murray I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do and my next career was a risk I was taking but I knew that my passion was really helping leaders succeed, and so that’s what I was focused on, got into management consulting, but I also started doing some speaking on leadership and around the US. One of my very first engagements was with a group of about 300 executives in Los Angeles and what they wanted me to do was talk about how to lead a high performing team in a high pressure environment, all of us are under pressure, whether you’re getting shot at, whether you have, you know, moving targets, sales targets, you know safety issues, whatever the case might be. Everyone is under pressure so that seemed to resonate with the audience. Well I’ve got a number of, you know notebooks of leadership lessons that I have over the years, two and a half decades of experiences and my challenge was they said I had 45 minutes to do this talk and I’m like, How do I synthesize 2.5 decades down into a 45 minute talk but it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, I talk about this in the introduction to the book because it really forced me to focus Murray on what I think matters most, with regard to leading a high performing team. And so I landed on what I call the leadership triad, three areas: culture, people and mission. If you can focus on those three areas, get those three areas right keep them in balance. I think you have a really good chance of being a successful leader. So that was my 45 minute speech and then when I turn that into a book, my first working title was the shortest leadership book you’ll ever read because the thing was only like 50 pages right and so, but over the last decade I’ve had a chance to really grow that framework and find out in the private sector, how to connect those three areas together and then how to apply those in a number of industries with a number of very practical challenges that people are facing. So that’s how it evolved, and I’m, you know, I’ve learned so much in the process.

Murray Guest  

So quite often leadership skills are called soft skills. Hmm. What do you think about that.

Dave Robinson  

Well I think that’s a good way to look at it I mean you know I always feel like one, one of my mantras is that leadership is people centric and management is process centric. I think some of the hard skills fall into the management side of the equation, don’t get me wrong, I think you need both to be a successful leader because management is all about how you get people to work, you know, to get the work done. But leadership is people centric, and people are complicated, and all of us have egos and you know you can call them soft skills you can call them whatever, you know I prefer to think of them as influencing skills and how do we how do we influence people to work together and to set their ego aside for the good of the team under a culture where you have psychological safety and everyone feels like they can trust each other, where people feel like they’re taken care of and we’re all working together toward a common mission. That’s inspiring. And if you can get those three things together, call those soft skills, call them people skills, I think that’s what it’s all about.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, and we’re so aligned David because I think, to be honest I think soft skills is a bit of a misnomer because honestly, it’s hard, it’s hard to engage with people it’s hard to have those conversations as you talk about in your book, building trust, being aware of how you’re showing up as a leader. Let’s go back for a second, the leadership triad, culture, people, and mission. Tell me, when we explore culture and creating culture as leaders. In essence, what’s your message about, how do we do that, how do we create that culture so that everyone is putting aside their ego, and creating that safety, how do you think we can do that.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean I think what I have found is that high performing teams I could describe in one word and the word is trust. People trust each other. You look to your left you look to your right, you know, you have each other’s backs, you’re not always going to be perfect. You’re going to let each other down. But you’re vulnerable enough to trust each other and so that’s really what I think is the what I call the center of gravity of a high performing culture, well the next question Murray from many of the leaders I work with is, Okay how do you develop a high performing culture? I try to simplify it and say look, you know everyone has limited bandwidth and there are many philosophies about leadership, but what I found in a very practical sense, I call them the three C’s. The first is have character as a leader. You know when you have character, primarily integrity, I can trust your intentions that I know that you know if I’m working for Murray and you’re the leader of the team, I can trust that you know you’re always trying to do the right thing and so that I think that’s the starting point that’s, that’s a good foundation. The second C is competence, and that’s all about our core mission and doing our best to be constantly learning and improving in our trade, whatever that might be because when Murray is competent as a leader, I can trust your actions. So now I can trust your intentions, I can trust your actions. The third C for me is composure and all of us will face adversity, that’s where true character shines, but if you can maintain your composure under adversity and see those as opportunities to lead now I can trust your emotions and so when Dave Robinson can trust Murray’s intentions, actions and emotions, I want to do the same and then pretty soon that that permeates into a culture of trust that I’ve seen, to be very effective for successful teams.

Murray Guest  

When I think about composure and stressful situations and you overseeing 20,000 combat missions and over 2000 medical evacuations. You must have had that composure tested, time after time.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, I had it tested in fact in the book I’ll tell a quick story for your listeners, you know, one of the things I’ve noticed is, all of us have probably worked for a leader who doesn’t react very well under adversity, especially you try to bring them bad news and they shoot the messenger three times and people just want to not bring any news to the boss right very quickly they get disconnected from the organization. It’s a shame, but when they panic under pressure, it’s really catastrophic, it’s contagious, it can spread like wildfire and you know it’s an emotion, you know, I think that sometimes under pressure, you know, we may sense the urge to panic, but the key is to maintain that composure because it really sets the tone for how our team responds and I learned this firsthand in 2006 I was in charge of all of the air operations in western Iraq, and I was at a base about 100 miles along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad and we had 30,000 soldiers and Marines on the ground and we had about 200 aircraft and I was responsible for orchestrating air support and medical evacuations in an area about twice the size of my state of home state of South Carolina not nearly as big as Australia, I get it but it’s it was a pretty big piece of real estate we were responsible for. Well one afternoon, we had five simultaneous firefights breakout and the casualties were starting to mount, it wasn’t uncommon for one or two but this was five all at once, and then I looked up at the video feed from the drone overhead our base and I could see a large mob starting to form outside the front gate of the of the base and speeding toward that mob along two separate dusty roads were two white sedans, you know, traveling at a high rate of speed, and then as if it couldn’t have gotten worse we started taking mortar fire on the north side of the base where all of our helicopters were parked so I realized that we were under what we called a complex coordinated attack right we had something going on at the front gate. Five firefights in our AOR, mortar fire where all our helicopters were parked, casualties were mounting, people were screaming for air support. They were screaming for medical evacuations. I’ll be honest with you I started to sense the urge to panic. And I had a flashback to three years earlier I was in a classroom, I love learning, I was listening to a retired three star general named Hal Moore, and he wrote a book called We Were Soldiers Once and Young. If you or your readers or your listeners haven’t read it, it was turned into a movie by the same name, Mel Gibson played Hal Moore, and there was one thing Murray I remember he said that day. He said, if you find yourself in a combat situation where lives are on the line and you’re in charge, I can guarantee you, you will begin to feel the urge to panic. It’s human nature. Yeah, when that happens, you need to take a deep breath, remain calm because if you begin to panic, everyone around you will panic and it will only get worse and I realized Murray, I was in that moment that General Moore was talking about three years earlier so I huddled up my air support team. And I said, I just need to say two things very quickly. First of all, this is a bad situation. I need you to think outside the box be as creative as you possibly can use whatever resources you can use to to save as many lives as possible, number one. And number two, whatever you do, take a deep breath before you key the microphone because if they sense that we’re panicking in the command center, it’s going to spread like wildfire out there in the battlespace and I said, whatever you do just keep me informed so I can have your back. Yeah, so they went to work, and it’s just some amazing, creative, high pressure thinking, we had our fixed wing air support director, had an F18 team on final approach with a little bit of extra gas he told them to do a low flyby over the gate. You’ve been at an airshow before you know what an airplane going at 100 feet. Everybody crouches down. The two sedans stop, trying to figure out what’s going on, our quick reaction force found out that it was improvised explosive devices in those vehicles, setting up for a suicide attack but we were able to stop that in time. Then we had our Attack Helicopter, Director, send up two Cobra helicopters over the area where the mortar fire was coming that, that gave us some breathing room that gave you know that stuck for a while. And then one of the most creative things I’ve ever seen, our cargo helicopter controller, she had a forship of CH53 echo helicopters really large cargo helicopters that were carrying a lot of cargo, had them set down in the middle of the desert, unload the cargo, set up a temporary security perimeter and then use those helicopters for, you know medical evacuation missions, and it was just a remarkable response by the team due to their credit, I wish I could tell you that we saved everybody that night I can’t tell you that but I can look at you in this video and I can tell you, we did the best we could given the circumstances that was unfolding I was so proud of that team. And I was so thankful for that advice that General Moore had given me three years earlier.

Murray Guest  

And just to clarify, you just said that at night. So what time was this all happening. 

Dave Robinson  

It was in the evening, it was at dusk, and it was kind of interesting, you know, a lot of the Iraqi’s had day jobs, so to speak and then it was very very hot, you know, it was, you know, late, late spring, and you know as the as the sun started to go down and the cool temperature started to bring the ambient temperature down that’s when the fighting heated up and that’s when people, you know, changed into their fighting uniform so to speak, and that’s when the, that’s when the tough stuff really happened.

Murray Guest  

That simple message of breathing, pausing. And what I take from that too, David, is the ripple effect that we can pass on, as leaders without realizing it, and how important that you pass that on to everyone in your leadership group that in that moment, to make sure that they’re aware of that. In hindsight, how do you think that innovation came out because I’m hearing the innovation. Where did that come from do you think in that moment?

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, I don’t want to, I don’t want to take any credit here because all of that came from what General Moore told me to do and a lot of great leaders, but I think it came from a couple of things first of all when you’re a leader everyone is watching you. Yeah, you may not realize that you may not know it, they’re listening to every word, they’re watching you. They’re especially watching you in a crisis under pressure to see how you’re going to respond and they’re going to cue off of that. And so I think, by taking General Moore’s advice, taking a deep breath remaining calm, as uncalm as I was inside that that was, you know, one of the first contributors, but Murray the other thing I think was, I told them what needed to happen but I didn’t micromanage the how, right, I told them, do whatever it takes to use whatever resources you can to save as many lives as possible. You go figure that out, just tell me what you’re doing so I can have your back. They knew I had their back, I was accountable but I was asking them in the heat of the moment, I didn’t have time to micromanage all this because we would have gotten behind, but I had people that were thinking ahead and felt like I had their back, I think those two things are what made the difference.

Murray Guest  

Yeah and I just such a strong, strong link back to what you told me about before, and that center of gravity of a high performing team being trust, you had their trust, they trusted you and empower them, there was so much empowerment in that moment.

Dave Robinson  

Well, I would like to hope so I mean I certainly, that’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned as a leader, as a Junior Leader, it’s, it’s common, it was common for me I learned this the hard way to, to try to tell people what to do and how because it’s, Hey, I’m the leader I should know what I’m doing right so this is what you need to do, when in reality if you’ll just tell people what and let them figure out the how I found that 90% of the time if not more, they had a better solution that I would have come up with.

Murray Guest  

Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing that story I could feel it I had the hair rising up on my arms, and, and, and picturing the that moment that stress and and the, the quick thinking that was needed in that moment. But it’s interesting because what I’m thinking about, as I’m saying that is quick thinking but calm at the same time, and how important that is. I feel like that’s that’s linked beautifully to the leadership triad around culture and people, can we explore mission a little bit? When you talk about mission of a high performing team, what does that look like?

Dave Robinson  

Well, I think, once again I can I can count to three and I’m not sure I can count to much more Murray but at least I can count the three. There are there are three things in the you know, in the triad and then within each of those elements of the triad. There are three things that I think really contribute and move the needle on mission success. The first is prioritization, I mean, we live in a world where, in the last 20 years information saturation, the volume and velocity of information flow is overwhelming, and it’s so easy to get, you know, attention deficit disorder and just you know everything is a priority, but you know what, when everything is a priority as the saying goes, nothing is really a priority. This is one of the most common challenges that that I see leaders and executives wrestle with right now so prioritization I think is really the foundation for mission success. I found that if you have more than three to five priorities, then you need to rethink those because it really starts to distract you know what you’re really focused on and the goal here is to keep the main thing the main thing, otherwise you risk being average at what matters most and that’s not the goal of anybody so you got to figure out what matters most, really prioritize and focus on that I think that’s the foundation.

Murray Guest  

So can I ask David, on that, if, as a leader, you’re listening to this and thinking, You know what I’ve just feel overwhelmed I’ve got, not three to five priorities I’ve got 15 or 20. Once you’re insight to sort of get clear on what are the real priorities right now.

Dave Robinson  

Well I think first of all you need to really understand what your mission is right I mean if you can clearly define your mission, and you know I always recommend trying to put a little clarity on this Murray was something I call it leaders in 10 and you start out on leaders in 10 at a very high level by defining very clearly and succinctly, what do you think your team’s mission is and I think there’s two parts to that. First of all is the task, what we need to accomplish. And then there’s the purpose, that’s the why I think it’s, that’s more important than anything if you can understand your why, I think your prioritization flows from your purpose. And then finally, would be to try to paint a picture of what success looks like, that would be the vision so if you can really focus on your mission and your vision with your prioritization flowing from your, from your purpose, I think that’s a great starting point and I don’t think it hurts to number one, ask your people. What do you think it’s gonna take to achieve this vision right now. And then number two, make sure you’re aligned with your boss, because you can have all the priorities in the world and if you’re not aligned with your boss’s priorities that misalignment is going to be challenging to achieve your mission so love to hear your thoughts that would be my initial reaction.

Murray Guest  

Well I think the thing that jumps out to me is in the busyness and as you were talking about the information overload and, and having so many priorities that people just keep going on what they’re doing, and taking the time out to pause and reset and ask. Get clarity with the team with your manager with the rest of the leadership team, you might be a part of. And let’s have that conversation let’s get clear, let’s not just keep doing what we’re doing. I think there’s a link back to you know, in your story before about pausing and pausing here to actually to actually take the time to go, What are our priorities right now and let’s get absolutely clear on that, let’s not just keep charging ahead.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, I think that is really insightful I mean I’ll tell you in the military, it’s common for your boss to tell you that everything’s a priority, just get it done right, yeah, I, when I wrote what my final assignment was here in South Carolina, I had a Marine Air Group with about 2500 people, 100 aircraft or so, I was coming here from the Pentagon and I was developing my leaders intent, and when I added up all of the kind of priorities that the organization had there were about 50 things Murray, there was a stack of books about eight feet high, was taller than me. And I’m thinking to myself, Is this realistic so as a leader, the first question is, Is this even realistic? So I’m kind of a math geek, I did a little analysis and I added up all the time requirements in that eight feet of, you know, instruct military and divided that by the number of people in the air group it came out to 26 hours per day and that didn’t include eating or sleeping. So I went with my, I went to my boss and said this is literally impossible right so as a leader, you know, we need to give our people time to find balance, work life balance they have other priorities personal priorities family priorities. So maybe just start by doing the drill on about how long do you think it would take you to do all these priorities and if it doesn’t fit into an acceptable workday, then you need to start whittling it down and make some hard calls.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, that’s so, so powerful and I think when you’ve got that data to actually just let’s let’s get really clear whether you need to do the full Excel spreadsheet on that one or you can do a postage stamp or back of the envelope type analysis but let’s get clear on what are the numbers telling us, do we have the people and the time to do what we’re trying to do.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, do we have the resources to get done what we think we can get done, otherwise we just frustrate people and set ourselves up for failure.

Murray Guest  

And and I think David 2020 2021 has highlight of this even more with the situation’s we’ve had with COVID and working from home and not working from home and different arrangements and people’s priorities, I think it’s just highlighted this even more.

Dave Robinson  

No doubt, I’ve seen some of my consulting teams, it’s amazing that you get used to, you know 12,14 hours of back to back to back zooms right with no breaks in between. And now that we’re traveling again they’re like well what, why don’t you join the meeting and you’re like well I was 35,000 feet, you know, we just don’t, we don’t process the reality of time and space and so that’s that’s a challenge.

Murray Guest  

So three keys to mission. Focus prioritization was number one.

Dave Robinson  

It’s the foundation yeah I think preparation is the is the second, and that is, as leaders, always, always encouraged us to think, What are we doing today to prepare for tomorrow’s opportunity so that we’re more proactive and not so reactive and so I think we have the foundation of prioritization and then preparation is really what forms mission success. And then the third P that I talked about Murray is passion for excellence and that’s all about setting high standards. As a leader, holding ourselves to an equal or higher standard to inspire people to try to achieve that standard, and then coaching and developing our people to achieve that standard and you know I think people really want to be coached and developed if it’s done in the right way to achieve that high standard and I’ve always found that people really want to be a part of something that’s larger than themselves and that’s that’s a challenge for them as long as they’re given the opportunity to grow and develop into that role.

Murray Guest  

In the Naval Academy or in the Marine Corps, where you’ve got people that aren’t passionate about the work. Is that a coaching conversation, or is that more direction around I’m just going to tell you what needs to happen like how is there a bit of situational leadership do you think that’s at play there at times or how you developing that passion for people in that type of organization.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, what I found was, you know, I think, when you say in the military I think if we were to rewind the clock 30 years my answer might be a little different but, you know, with the information revolution, information is being democratized people have access to information, people sometimes know more than I did about what was going on and so what I found was that, you know, do this because I told you so, doesn’t work anymore. I’m not sure if it ever worked but we at least we thought it did. And so now what I find is that if you can get people to understand the importance the why behind what you’re asking them to do to get them on board with the mission. That’s where I find the light bulb come on, so to speak in terms of inspiring them so that they can actually understand why it’s important and then step two is to help show them where they fit into that big picture where they are direct contributor into that mission and so now if Dave Robinson can connect my daily contributions to where it’s going to make an impact, I’m a lot more passionate about achieving that standard than if Murray just says Dave go do this because.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, 100%, and we were talking before we started the conversation on the podcast about my cousins that are in the Navy as well and one of them has been in there for, I think 35 years. Glenn I have I get that right. And then he talks about the journey that he’s seen around that shift in leadership and developing that passion and that engagement through coaching versus a direct delegation. That said, there’s time for that, you know, in different situations where, you know if it’s, you know, we’re in a practice and in a drill and we need to actually be very direct in our communication that’s needed in that time. Yeah. And I think that’s where there’s a link around with leadership is being aware of, you know the different styles of communication that’s needed in different times to engage into, and to communicate.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, Murray, for sure, you know, I mean there been many crises that I’ve been involved in where I had to get into direction mode and, you know, you don’t have time to really seek input, coach and develop people but you know, preceding that there was an opportunity to earn trust, why because you actually coached and develop people because they knew you had their best interests at heart. They knew the why. They also knew how they fit into the big picture. And so when those crises came up and you, in the interest of time, you just had to make, you know, tough decisions in a very quick manner, then people were willing to get on board and do it.

Murray Guest  

When you reflect on your journey was there a leadership lesson David that you feel like that, you just kept on learning, like it kept on coming up for you.

Dave Robinson  

Well I mean I think that there was a there was a really long learning process of what I call as a leader, as a senior leader of listening first and speaking last. It wasn’t a light switch, it was a rheostat for me, it was, it was, you know, early on trying to assert my credibility and speak first with my team because I needed to be the one that knew what the right answer was, And then I would find some trusted individuals who I would go have a bad conversation with and ask their opinion and pretty soon, toward the end of my career, I got to the point where I’d be at a conference table with 12 other very, you know, successful executives that reported to me and I would go around and say here’s the issue. What do you think, what is your opinion, because as soon as I spoke that almost started to stifle innovation. All of us have a hard time opposing the boss but I encourage them to disagree, I rewarded people who would disagree. It took me some time to become confident enough as a leader that I was able to be humble enough to accept disagreement and and really encourage that debate, but once the decision was made we all got behind it to support it and that’s really the challenge and so that journey was something that I continue to learn over and over and I’m still learning.

Murray Guest  

Me too, I mean, I hear you totally on that one. And that means such a strong link back to what you’re talking before about ego and and creating a culture where that ego, we can set that aside. Because when you’re the first to talk you know how much of that has been driven by ego versus, as you said, I want to sit back and listen. It’s not about me it’s about the collective and about what’s the best solution.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah for sure and I mean, many, many studies done another thing I learned what you know the neuro chemistry behind leadership, I learned a lot when I was researching my book and you know just the idea of a psychologically safe space where the leader not only sits back and listens but also, you know, is able to compliment people for wow I had never thought of that, that was not my perspective but you know, credit to you for bringing that up and just where people feel comfortable sharing their honest opinions without feeling like they’re going to be ridiculed or any type of condescending comments, that’s where the power of innovation and high performance decision making really starts to blossom. And you know one of the things I learned even more than that Murray is, as a leader, sometimes it’s important for us to tee up differing opinions and actually insert some conflict into the discussion that you may not agree with just to get your team thinking about it from a different perspective. And even if Murray is dead set that this is my opinion I might even ask you to play your own devil’s advocate just to get you thinking from the other side of the coin, so to speak. So just getting people to think creatively without fear of any type of retribution, was something that was really a powerful lesson.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, and of course you can’t do that without creating that culture of psychological safety can you. 

Dave Robinson  

No you can’t, it just doesn’t work.

Murray Guest  

No, not at all. I’ve got a few more questions for you, David. And this one we haven’t rehearsed or prepared and I just want to throw it out there for you and it’s one that just popped in my head because I feel like you’ve got so much value to share for leaders and, honestly, I’ll make sure there’s a link to your book in the show notes for that so I can reach out and grab a copy of it. But my question is actually I want to see if you could distill that down, your leadership message. If I gave you a billboard on the side of the highway. And every car was going to drive past that billboard. So everyone’s going to see your message on that billboard. What do you want to have written on that billboard?

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, that’s a great question, Murray, that’s a tough question. I think I think I would maybe, maybe we’ll coin it here I don’t know, I, it’s something around what I call the leadership paradox and it’s a little bit along that journey that I just described to you of what I learned over my three decades, three decades of leadership journey and learning and experience. I think it might be something around, let go, you know, as a leader, we want to hold on. Yeah, we want to maintain control. We want to keep our hands on the wheel. I’ve flown 3000 flights in my career I’ve trained hundreds of pilots and I’m in the backseat, there was a stick back there for a reason. When you’re training a new pilot right yeah sometimes I had my hand on the stick, sometimes I didn’t but at some point if they’re ever gonna solo, you have to let go, and it’s something around what I call the leadership paradox because what I found is the more you let go and give to your people. As a leader, the more you get from them in return in terms of high performance, and you know there are two ways that I found to really let go and give to your team. The first is to focus on what you need to do, but let your people figure out the How. Get your hands off the wheel, tell them what needs to be done, let them figure out the how, right let go of the wheel there. And the second piece is letting go of yourself. In many ways it’s about taking care of your people so that they know beyond a doubt that you care more about their welfare than you care about your own. If you can let go of yourself let go of your ego and serve your people, they will do anything, anything, anything to take care of your mission, and so I think that’s what the billboard would say let go and I hope somebody would go and google that.

Murray Guest  

Ah, David, I love that so much. That is so powerful. And I love the two elements of the let go. Let go for others and let go for yourself as well. Yeah. And so, tell me what is it like when you are training someone to fly. Can you just talk us there for a moment. And, you know that there’s got to be so much trust in that moment of, or in those moments of, as you said handing over control to this person that’s that’s taking control of an aircraft. What’s that like?

Dave Robinson  

That’s a, that’s a great question. I love talking about it you know it really depends. Let me caveat it first of all, it depends on what level of the person you’re training so I’ve trained everyone from the commanding officer of a squadron of an F 18 training squadron where we literally had brand new aviators that had just gotten their wings of gold, but they had never flown the F18 team before and we had nine months to transform them from a basic aviator in jet aircraft to someone who could fly off of aircraft carriers and deploy in combat, you know, nine months later, so that was, that was one level the other level was as a Top Gun instructor where you have the best of the best that are going through a very demanding course and these are really talented experienced aviators, and so the two skill sets are very different but there are a lot of things that, that, that are in common. The first is tremendous, tremendous preparation, I mean simulators after academics after test after you name it before they even hop in the aircraft. Yep, once they hop in the aircraft, it’s two seats right there’s an instructor in the back and there’s a student in the front, and there are a number of of standardized procedures and things that they need to do right that’s on the on the on the Aviators that are just learning to fly the airplane, but at Top Gun, it’s, it’s very similar in the sense that preparation is it’s so intense and so robust, and then when you get out there, you always have a wingman and so you’re always flying with each other and mutual support, not in the backseat but you know when, you know, side by side. Yeah, and if you always start with a what we call a demo do, whether you’re trading brand new aviators or whether you’re training Top Gun pilots, watch me do it. And then we’re gonna let you do it. And so setting the example, and being credible that goes back to that, you know, to that second seed that we talked about was competence right, setting the example, showing them the way, and then teaching empathetically I found were really the key for what it’s like to be an effective instructor training people to fly the airplane and that is, I’ve probably made more mistakes in my career than, than you will ever make, but I understand how hard this is. Let me try to tell you some things I’ve learned the hard way. Whatever you do, don’t do this, and everything will, you know, should work out, but at the same time, Murray, there’s some very high standards that you have to hold people to and the hardest thing to do is to fail people on a flight and, quite frankly, the hardest thing I’ve ever done was to have to fail someone out of the squadron and they couldn’t fly anymore just because of safety issues, and we just couldn’t take that risk and so it’s, it’s gut wrenching in that regard but what a rewarding opportunity to that’s the thing I enjoy doing most was taking new aviators in a very demanding dynamic environment, pouring my heart into them and then watching them succeed and see the light bulb come on it just doesn’t get much better than that.

Murray Guest  

Can we just explore something for a minute, David. So, you know, with the leaders I work with, you know, there’s times where they need to have the tough conversation, the genuine conversation, like you’ve had to where you’ve failed someone out of that squadron where they haven’t passed. What’s your insight about how we can have those conversations in a real genuine authentic way so that people can move forward from that situation.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, well I think a few things come to mind Murray that I’d love to get your thoughts with your experience here. I think first of all, it has to be the conversation needs to be founded on and started with trust. I think if I’m having a difficult conversation with you for whatever reason, it’s important for me to make sure you understand before we talk about anything else that I know you’re doing the best you can and I trust your intentions, it’s not like you intentionally went up there to make a mistake and do a bad job right, yeah. Second. Second, I want to make sure you understand that I’m empathetic. I know how hard this is. I know how challenging it is. And I’m probably going to share a story or two about some of the mistakes that I’ve made that are worse than what the mistakes that you just made you might have failed a flight, but I’m going to share some stories about some flights that I failed because now you know that I have your back, have your best interests at heart, you know that I’ve been there, I know how it feels, and now I’m going to start to unpack, in a way that tries to deep personalize it, what happened from a performance perspective, and then close the book so to speak with, how can we work together to get you to the next level. Failing flights was one of the least favorite things that I ever did, the most humiliating things I’ve ever experienced. But when I had an instructor that was like, Look, we’re gonna get through this, it’s important to get it right because there’s a lot, a lot at stake here a lot of lives on the line, and we want to make sure you’re the best you can be. I responded very well to that. What do you think.

Murray Guest  

Oh we’re so aligned, David, honestly, I think about explaining the intent, talking with empathy, a foundation of trust. I would add not rushing the process, I think that can be a trap that leaders can slip into where I’ve just got to get this conversation done. Yeah, where I can definitely hear in your style as a leader and the insight you share it’s about, let’s take time for our people make, let’s not rush these conversations because I think that’s so important. And as you said, Well, what’s next, how do we work forward, how do I continue to support this person for success beyond this moment, whatever that may look like for them or for, for you collectively or as a partnership because I think that’s important. So, doesn’t leave it hanging like there’s a, Okay, so where do we go to from here.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, I love that I love the not rushing aspect and I’m going to build on one, one more thing when you said that what’s next and that is, I found it effective to try to not tell them what’s next, but to ask them what they think is next. Yeah, yes, questions you get them to come to their own recommended solutions, you problem solve with them, you come to an agreement and align on that and then they own that improvement right and so they feel like that they, they are really the one driving their own improvement.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, definitely. That’s a it’s such a valid point such a great point, David. So, right now your company Vertical Performance Enterprises is working with a range of companies. Who do you love to work with now.

Dave Robinson  

Well you know I’ve worked with a lot of Fortune 500 companies and I it was, it was a great education. I transitioned out of the military a decade ago, and boy that was just such a great education for me and a number of industries because leadership, you know, spans every single industry right and I do a little bit of risk management work and some, some, some operations and some strategy work but my passion is all around how leadership can be a force multiplier for helping you achieve your strategic and operational goals and how as a leader, we can help lead our organization through the change that we need to get to from where we are now to where we want to be and so that’s, that’s really where my passion is but when I found Murray was, I got introduced to a CEO of a biotechnology company up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a sister company Moderna, and we know how important that is right now with COVID. And I found that I really love startup and midsize companies because leadership in many ways, is their ceiling. You know they have tremendous brilliant technical expertise, particularly in tech and biotech companies, in order to get to the next level, they have to grow and scale, in order to grow and scale you have to have leaders that you can develop and delegate to. And so that’s where I’ve really found great enjoyment with startup and midsize companies really helping those executive teams work together as a high performing team and then coach and develop other young leaders to be all that they can be as well.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, wow. And so needed, and I love what you explaining they’re about the ceiling because they’ll get to certain points they’ve been relying on that technical expertise in whatever field it is. And, like going back to what we’re talking about before about how important trust is building that foundation of trust in all that they do, and even shifting and letting go, letting go, like you talked about before, to help them move forward. David, this has been absolutely wonderful. I really appreciate your time so much, so many leadership lessons, insights, and real practical tips for leaders. I really encourage everyone to check out The Substance of Leadership, A Practical Framework for Effectively Leading a High Performing Team. It’s a fantastic book so many things that David talks about that we’ve touched on today but in a much more detailed way to give you strategies to help you with your team and have those conversations and build that culture. So I’ll make sure there’s a link to that in the, in the show notes and check that out. And what have you got planned David just to change topic for a little bit here, what are your plans for the rest of the year.

Dave Robinson  

Well rest of the year, I’ve got some really exciting clients that I’m just starting some projects with, I’ve got the the holidays coming up. I’ve got three kids who are grown adults, they’re going to be home for the holidays, to some extent between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Really looking forward to that because you know that that’s something we haven’t had the opportunity to do as much as we would have liked to over the last 18 months so that’s what I’m most excited about and I’m excited about 2022 and, you know, just, just continue to help leaders take their teams to the next level. So that’s, that’s exciting in and of itself.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, I hear you totally. And I honestly David I’m surprised at how fast this year has gone. Doesn’t it feel like it’s just gone like that.

Dave Robinson  

Absolutely, I can’t believe that it’s it’s almost November.

Murray Guest  

Yeah, it’s gone super quick but yeah very similar we’re starting to make some plans for the end of the year and early next year. The challenge is everyone else’s making plans. So, trying to get some accommodation plans or some travel plans just like now when everything’s opening up everyone’s starting to book things so we’ve got to make sure we get on top of that.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, I got to come Down Under in 2022 though so I need to put that on my agenda.

Murray Guest  

Ah, well you would you would love it, and people would love to hear from you so we’ll make sure we talk about that. I do ask a question from everyone on the podcast, and it is the inspired energy podcast, and I feel like I’ve got it today in this conversation with you, but I would love to know David, what is your definition of inspired energy.

Dave Robinson  

Oh boy, I should have I should have prepared for this. Inspired energy you know I have a chapter in the book as you know where I talk about inspiring and empowering teams, and I’ve thought long and hard Murray about really what it means to be inspired and to have that energy and I think inspired energy for me is really around being emotionally invested in your mission, and having a passion for excellence around that mission so the emotional investment is the inspired part and the passion for excellence is the energy part, you put those two together, Murray, I think the sky’s the limit.

Murray Guest  

Ah, David, that is just fantastic and it was such a great way to end this conversation, I can feel that. And this is the thing when we talk about inspired energy it’s not just in the head, it’s in the in the body and I can feel that one so I love that definition, thanks again so much for your time. If people want to find out more about you where’s the best place to find you online.

Dave Robinson  

Yeah, go to my website, verticalperformance.us. And I have a thing on there called the performance pressure test if you want to take five minutes and find out if you’re leading a high performing team, it might give you some things to think about, based on your answers to that. And you talked about my book already so, but that’s where they can, they can find me and learn more. 

Murray Guest  

Yeah, great. All right, we’ll make sure I’ve got a link to that and definitely check out that pressure test because that will give you some insights as to the culture of your team as well. David that’s a great thing for people to do. Again thank you so much, David, for your time. It’s been such a wonderful conversation, really appreciate it.

Dave Robinson  

Thank you, Murray. This was so much fun, really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.

Murray Guest  

Thank you.