Mis compañeros, amigos, y familiares
Buenos días. Hopefully these notes simply get you thinking about leadership and leadership concepts on a weekly basis. That is the intent for sending this out each week – to at least get you THINKING about your influence on others.
It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving - November is now passed and it is December 1st. The air is crisp and the leaves have fallen. I hope your Thanksgiving was bathed in the spirit of the holiday — that you gave thanks and were given thanks, that you cooked well or, at any rate, ate well, that you got some time to yourself and with those who care about you. In my case, our son Blake was home, we had a couple of Cadets who couldn’t make it all the way home over for dinner, we watched some football and ate too much.
Yesterday Blake and I attended the Army football game - the Army team went 1-0 for the 10th time this year, earning the right to host the American Athletic Conference Championship next Friday night (it will be a little chilly) and an opportunity to go 1-0 again this upcoming week.
Last week I shared some thoughts about gratitude and thanksgiving - thank you to everyone who sent me a note back, I greatly appreciate the exchange and the magnificent friends I have. We don't have to wait for special occasions to convey to people around us that we're grateful for their presence in our lives.
President John F. Kennedy said that the best way to show appreciation “is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
As we celebrated Thanksgiving this past week, it reminds us that we should aspire to incorporate the practice of gratitude into our daily leadership and life. This act alone can begin to leverage the power of the human spirit while giving a more profound perspective to our own experiences. There is always a reason to live in gratitude. We just have to discover it, appreciate it and live it.
No matter how dark a day becomes, the sun will always rise tomorrow. As it does so, may you rise with it as well while counting the blessings of your life and the sacredness of your exhale.
Our family might be called movie junkies. Each year on Independence Day we watch Jaws, Christmas Eve It’s A Wonderful Life. On Thanksgiving Day, besides football, we watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
Today I want to wrestle with lessons from that movie. The day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day in America (and/or it might be today, the Sunday after Thanksgiving). Families come together to celebrate the holiday, using every mode of transportation - planes, trains, and automobiles. The story unfolds as Neal (Steve Martin) and Del (John Candy) navigate a series of travel misadventures, including flight cancellations and breakdowns. Their contrasting personalities collide repeatedly, yet they form an unlikely bond, learning valuable lessons about kindness, friendship, and the true meaning of the holiday season.
I admit my favorite scene is when they are driving the wrong way on the freeway and Neal has a moment when he visualizes Del as the devil as they nearly are killed between 2 semi trucks.
There are some lessons I caught while watching the movie (again):
Patience and Frustration The relentless travel challenges Neal and Del face including delays, discomforts, and disasters, capture the universal frustrations of holiday travel. They are why I don’t like airports and airplanes most of the time anymore (although I like driving). The film humorously shows how patience is tested and how resilience can prevail.
The Power of Positive Attitude. “It's not what you're driving. It's how you're driving it." A reminder that attitude can make all the difference, even in tough situations.
The Importance of Human Connection. The movie emphasizes the value of connecting with others, particularly during tough times. Neal and Del begin as strangers, but through their shared struggles, they develop a genuine friendship that enriches both their lives.
Empathy and Kindness. Despite his quirks, Del demonstrates generosity and compassion. The story highlights the power of understanding and kindness, especially when circumstances are less than ideal. At the same time, it takes Neal a long while to make the connections
Family and the Holiday Spirit. At its heart, the film is about Neal’s determination to return home for Thanksgiving, reminding viewers of the central role family and gratitude play in the holiday season.
Adapt and Overcome. “We’ll just have to get creative." A testament to adaptability and making the best of a challenging situation.
Beyond the absurdity of Del and Neal’s travels, one scene in the movie stood out to me as a relevant lesson for us as leaders regarding effective communication. As the pair travels to St. Louis by Greyhound bus, Del asks if anyone wants to lead a song. Neal begins singing the Frank Sinatra classic “Three Coins in the Fountain.”
The silent passengers turn around and look at him in complete confusion. Del then interjects with The Flintstones theme, and the entire bus excitedly joins in as Neal shakes his head, perplexed.
As leaders, it’s critical that we consider our audience and cater our message and strategy to it. Being knowledgeable and forward-thinking is great, but if those we are leading can’t process and act on our high speed ideas and visions, ultimately, what are we accomplishing?
I think back to my first days as a newly minted tank platoon leader in the 1st Cavalry Division so many years ago. My training on how to create and brief a plan (Operations Order or OPORD) developed first as a Cadet with my West Point classmates and then with the 80 or so new 2LTs during the Armor Officer Basic Course. Note that both he Cadets and the 2LTs were generally peer groups who had similar levels of knowledge and understanding as I did.
When I assumed the leadership role in 3rd Platoon / Delta Company / 1st Battalion, 12th United States Cavalry - we had a great crew of characters, but from lots of different backgrounds and experience levels ranging from my Platoon Sergeant, a tank Master Gunnery with more than 17 years of experience, to our newest Privates with less than a year in the Army.
I prepared my first tactical operations order (OPORD) and I can remember creating what I thought was a great plan for my platoon - complex but aggressive - I had no doubt would result in defeating our enemy. Hell we had a platoon of M1A1 tanks - we were unstoppable as long as we worked together.
When I briefed the OPORD to the platoon, they did all the right things and took out their little green notebooks and took notes. My NCOs had some good questions but I was pretty confident it was a great plan. I ended the OPORD briefing by asking the members of the platoon some questions to ensure understanding and even my youngest Soldiers could answer these ’stump the chump’ questions from their notes.
We followed that with a rehearsal on a terrain board attended by the whole platoon, but really it was the 4 tank commanders (SFC Garcia - my PSG, SSG Corbin - his wingman, SGT Harris - my wingman, and myself) who did all the talking.
When it came time to execute, it didn’t go so great. I couldn’t lead my platoon the way I envisioned, because I had to micromanage my own tank driver. Why? While he could read back the mission statement from his notes, he didn’t really understand what we needed to do. During my OPORD, I had talked over his head and while he nodded his head a lot and answered my check on learning brief back ok - he didn’t truly understand my expectations because I didn’t tailor my plan and communication to my audience.
I learned then and there to ensure I communicated to all audiences so they could understand, including PFC Reppo, my tank driver with a year or less Army experience. I didn’t need to prove to him I was a smart dude. He trusted me when I cared enough to ensure he understood the plan and his critical role in its accomplishment.
Over time as I gave Company, Battalion, and Brigade OPORDS each had different audiences and I could tailor my messages to each. For example a Brigade OPORD is attended primarily by folks with 10 or more years experience in the Army - Majors, Lieutenant Colonels, and Senior NCOs. Naturally this audience is different than my tank platoon.
A similar problem occurs when someone walks in and does everything they can to try and project they are the smartest person in the room and everyone else is somehow lesser. They might purposefully try to quote the latest theory or use a vocabulary that isn’t tailored to the audience they are engaging. It often happens when the person has formal education, but lacks the experiences to match theoretical knowledge so they want to quote a bunch of theories and authors they have read, but they haven’t ever needed to apply them in their own lives or organizations to make it meaningful.
Leaders must understand the audiences they are engaging. Young 2LT Boberg adapted quickly - learning to effectively communicate each time I engaged with various audiences and then I applied those lessons becoming a better communicator and leader. The key was to consistently apply lessons from not only my formal learning but my leadership experiences.
If I think of sports - too often, we as coaches might put in a sophisticated offense, but it’s just too tricky for our current personnel. I am not a businessman, but I have seen enough to visualize that a manager might implement advanced business metrics, but employees have a tough time processing these if they are not communicated in their language. I see that in higher education - since we have decided to assess everything, we can sometimes use outcomes or measures (get those key performance indicators ready) that we forget our real purpose and drive the assessment plan away from what we are truly trying to acheive. We teach with an adapted strategy that worked somewhere else or some theory we read, but our students just aren’t grasping the lessons the same way.
As a mentor has taught me, key performance indicators generate activity, but not necessarily the activity that leads to the accomplishment of the organization’s purpose.
We must remember that the most effective leader isn’t the one with the trickiest schemes or most advanced ideas. It’s the one who can get his/her team to fully process the purpose and what in Army speak we call the commander’s intent (expanded purpose, key tasks, and future end state) then empower the entire organization to get after it. That requires keeping it simple and actionable.
If we’re struggling to unite our teams or are not obtaining the results we’d hoped for, we might want to revert back to the basics and simplify our strategies. I learned over the years a simple plan executed extremely well is much much better than a complex one that not everyone understands or can visualize their role in attaining the purpose.
“Three Coins in the Fountain” is one of the great songs by one of the best singers of all time, but it wasn’t appropriate for that particular audience, so it fell on deaf ears.
Occasionally, we might just want to run the dive instead of the flea flicker or my favorite, the halfback pass. In the case of Del and Neal’s bus ride - just stick to “The Flintstones”.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
This Week I Will:
Listen more than I speak and recognize my audience so I can effectively communicate
Not just talk or think about it - I’ll do it
Prioritize intentional quiet time
Release the fear of the unknown
Seek to go 1-0 today making each day my masterpiece
Fight for the right things - Fight Hard - Fight on to Victory!
Go Army - Beat Tulane!
Dewey
I reflect each Sunday morning on what I have been learning - I encourage you to reflect daily or weekly as well. I share these notes just to get you thinking about topics related to leadership and character. If you would like to continue the conversation, add someone, or if you would like to be dropped from the distribution list - please just send me an email at Marc.Boberg@gmail.com - Do great things this week!