What The Air Force Taught Me About Leadership Readiness and Elite Teams

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

Welcome to the show.

Henry Miller: Awesome. Thank you for having me, Dr. Jim. Really happy to be here. Hopefully I can add a lot of value.

Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation, Henry. And I think before we dive into the meat of the discussion, flush out that intro and tell us a little bit more about who you are, the work that you've done so that the audience gets a feel for your style and your background.

this, a greater lens. When I [: 00:01:00

But I get to work in all types of different communities working in the training development sphere, as well as the human resources functions of the Air Force. So it gave me just a really great perspective. And that's when I decided to retire, why I ended up in the human resource and learning development.

Sphere. And since I've retired, I've been able to do quite a few different things. In the consulting side whether it's the banking side, the finance side and it's just been really awesome to build training development programs as well as lead HR functions and help build from the ground up, which is something that I love to do.

I also like consulting for organizations because it allows for somebody on the outside to give them a different look at their organization. And that's always a good perspective to have.

d into your L& D work and HR [: 00:02:00

That's going to offer a unique lens when we look at the audience that we're looking to serve. Typically the folks that we have tuning in are going to be leaders and members of HR teams, usually small HR teams, less than 10 people working at organizations that are much larger. So we're talking midsize organizations.

to: 2000

Let's talk a little bit about what's that best practice that was a game changer for you in your career. So tell us a little bit about what that was and how you fell into that best practice.

Henry Miller: I think that some of the best practices I've learned, like when I was in the military.

itary to lead others, right? [: 00:03:00

But it's a six week course, right? So you teach that for four years. And you get really good at hearing the perspective of new supervisors. And then you also get really good at hearing what they've experienced in the past. So I take that, those nuggets with me, along with all the people that have supervised with me into the human resource function.

So when you're coaching business leaders and you're coaching managers and directors, the biggest thing I think that I always take away is if you had the ideal situation. I would be training people before they assume a management and leadership position. And the reason being is I consider that a best practice is because oftentimes leaders are appointed and they're learning as they go.

ver managed people? All they [: 00:04:00

So nine times out of 10, all they do is project that onto their team wrong, or indifferent, right? Could be great, could not be so great. And everybody's trying to learn and all these missteps happen. What I've learned anyways, is that if you can take a step back and give them some tools.

It doesn't have to be a large elaborate program if you're not a large organization. It's just giving them small tools, right? It can be a few business skills courses. It can be, learning something like through the Gallup strength finders learning a little bit about themselves so they can digest and learn to be a little more intrinsic when they manage people because that's something I take away as a best practice.

Train leaders before they have to lead otherwise your business kind of pays the price.

Dr. Jim: I really love that observation and I want you to expand on that a little bit. You know as well as I do, when we're talking about small to midsize organizations you have a lot of people that are going to be wearing a lot of hats and the specific use case that you mentioned is you want to be in the practice of training managers before they become managers because you don't want them learning on the fly.

[: 00:05:00

Henry Miller: A lot of things can go awry. But what I will say is a couple of things suffer, right? I do believe honestly, that most people want to do a good job. They want to manage well, they want to be successful.

They want their teams to be successful and they want to be productive. But what happens is if you don't understand. Yourself and you don't understand others. What you find is there'll always be a communication breakdown. And in every organization, I think if you went anywhere, it doesn't matter what organization, what size.

nd of push and pull, they're [: 00:06:00

They're all trying to be successful, but no one's listening to each other. So by training somebody on listening, letting it all sink in before you talk, if you're managing people can be worth its weight in gold. Like I always tell people, if you just learn to actively listen and you work on that and really digest things.

So a good manager and a good leader can always go back and say, Hey, I think I may have overstepped on that one, or, Hey, I may have come across wrong. Here was my intention. Did you take it this way? Or did I just think you did always go into being transparent about conversations? And I get that we all have many hats, you were in smaller business.

Startups, everybody wears multiple hats. You hire people that are jack of all trades, so to speak, but being able to do that will help your team row in the same direction. It lets them know you care because people really don't care what you say. They care about what you do every day, right? They care about how your decisions you're making.

Are you willing to listen to [: 00:07:00

Have to be learned, not everybody is a natural people person, as I always say, not everybody's a natural to sit down and just hear somebody out or not. Everybody's a natural relator to people, right? And sometimes your best technicians get promoted and they're not the best managers. They're the best technician.

They're the best person at the job, but they're not the best at leading people. They need some work. And there's always the vice versa aspect of, I would say there's. People that are great leaders that are just okay technicians, they understand conceptually how to do something, but they're better at getting people and arranging things to maximize performance and the teams like them in the process.

n I've done something wrong, [: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: There's a lot that we can dig into, but there's one particular area that I want to pull on. And. It's this whole idea of you have to practice all of these skills and you have to get people ready for the opportunity to lead others. So let's take a look at how, as an organization, you can do this effectively.

If there's an organization that doesn't have this leadership development muscle built out, what's the one pitfall that they need to watch out for ?

Henry Miller: That's a hard one. What I'll say is that if you don't have a leadership development program, most organizations don't write smaller organizations typically don't.

do it for you periodically. [: 00:09:00

Or, you look at your human resource department and you look at people that have operational lenses and people, maybe even who have a military background or have led large departments. And here's why, because you can build small little micro courses. They can lead to big results. And in HR departments have to be more for in the front.

Because sometimes, in HR, I get this a lot. You're a different type of HR person because you're out and about and you're willing to take time to talk to people when they're trying to pick your brain on something. We have to be able to do that because sometimes you lead to a better conclusion. But a good example of this, I think would be is when somebody asks you. comes to you straight out and says, Hey, I'm having trouble with this person. I'm really irritated with their performance. I really want to let them go. And I always say, Does that person know that you're irritated about their performance?

t talked to them, so they're [: 00:10:00

And sometimes you find that there's just once again, back to communication. Maybe they didn't want to ask you. Maybe you seem like you were too busy and then vice versa. Maybe you saw that they would look really busy. So you didn't talk to them. So it's really just taking it down and dialing it down a notch.

But the one thing that I would take away is that either a, you can try to outsource it and do quarterly things for your whole company, right? So everybody's getting the same language or you implement something like the Clifton Strength Finders. And what that really does, is it allows you to see your natural top five strengths.

There's 34 strengths you have, but it tells you what your top five are, that's your natural inclination. So what it does is it just allows you to have the same language. When Henry talks, he's a natural strategic thinker. If I'm talking to somebody who's analytical, it falls under the strategic umbrella, by the way, but it's a different version of that.

o go and dial into the exact [: 00:11:00

That can frustrate you too, so you can get into this miscommunication, but you're trying to do the same thing. So you can go, you know what? When I talk to him, I need to think big picture. When I talk to her, I need to think about how they just want to get the job done. So I need to focus on what speaks to them.

This is how it's going to help you do the job better. Versus, we just start talking our own languages and then we're frustrated with each other. Even at the C level it happens, and you're really trying to accomplish the exact same thing.

Dr. Jim: There's a couple of points that I want to pull out of what you just said. One I think is especially relevant for small to midsize organizations because they can fall into this trap. Of trying to reinvent the wheel. So I love that you called out, Hey, maybe you should look for external help to bring in voices or expertise that has done this in large scales.

wheel because time is money [: 00:12:00

The value of a lot of those instruments is you mentioned earlier in the conversation, number one, you have to know yourself. Number two, you have to know others. And I would say if you are building a leadership effectiveness competency.

Both of those are critically important, so that at least gives you a foundation of learning where you fit and how that, how you need to interpret how others are acting and respond to that. So those are really strong call outs. Before we wrap up when you think about building elite organizations, what's the critical takeaway that listeners need to think about?

need diverse people in your [: 00:13:00

And then that's one piece of it, right? Because if you get everybody, that's a like thinker. You're going to get the same result every time, right? Because it's going to be five people to think alike, and they're all going to say the same thing, and they're all going to do the same thing wrong, and different.

But with diverse sets of people, diverse sets of skill sets, you get people from all different types of backgrounds and different things. And what that allows your organization to do is have different lenses. I've lived all over the globe, right? I have a different lens than somebody who's never left their home state.

So you have to think about having a diverse set and understanding yourself is why I always say this is important. So I know what gaps I need to fill on my team. My number two is context. My number one is strategic. If I know I need somebody who's more of an activator, okay. I need an activator.

going to help the team grow [: 00:14:00

So I always ask managers and leaders not to hire themselves. Please try not to do that because what happens is you're really hiring your personality versus hiring somebody who can help grow your company and help them put the foundations in and help them. Lead differently better, right? I always say you got to be the change you want to see.

That starts with hiring diverse sets of people, hiring people with different backgrounds, and even on paper they can look different. Veterans look different on paper. But in most cases, once they learn the business, the possibilities are limitless in that sense of they're able to just, okay, I can relate to people, I can do these things, and you need people like that in your organization long term, but it always starts with you.

You got to know yourself and you got to get, I would say, get pretty with yourself because that's where it's really made at is look yourself in the mirror and really dial into who you are, what you're about, and no, you don't know all the answers.

Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff, Henry. If we're summarizing that, know yourself, Know others.

ifferent and offer different [: 00:15:00

Henry Miller: You can find me in a couple of places. You can find me on LinkedIn. So it's just Henry Miller on LinkedIn.

You can find me there. I have a website, limitlessconsultingsolution. com. Or you can find me on TikTok or Instagram at the real HR dude. So I'm there. I do leadership development as well. I'm always fair across the board when I do those kind of mastermind courses. So I don't try to overprice people or price gouge on that type of stuff.

And if you just want an opinion, I answer people's opinions all the time. If they just give me a situation, ask me to, Hey, what do you think? Based on what I know, here's what I think. I'm always there to help. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. That's my main platform.

So I'm always there.

teams who are leading small [: 00:16:00

To build elite teams and engaged workforces