Jen Hamilton (00:01.422)
Today my guest is Ron Higgs. I'm so excited and thrilled Ron met you and I get to have this conversation here on the podcast. Thanks for being here.
Ron Higgs (00:12.542)
Thanks for having me. It seems like we have a lot of conversations. We're gonna record this one. This is gonna be great.
Jen Hamilton (00:17.894)
Yeah, we were just talking before we started recording that this will just feel like a normal conversation. We geek out about stuff. so before we get into the geeking out about things, and I'm going to hold off on what the topic is that we're going to dive into, I want to have us get to know you a little bit more. So I've got some superhero related questions. So first, if we pulled back your superhero cape, what's something unexpected we would learn about you?
Ron Higgs (00:46.738)
wow, I don't even know how to answer that. Personally, professionally either. Actually, I would say, you know what? I'm a snowboarder. I don't know if anybody would have guessed, but I've been snowboarding for, let's say over 20 years. And obviously you can't do it all the time, but it's fantastic. And very few people that I've met would guess that.
Jen Hamilton (00:51.256)
however you feel comfortable.
Jen Hamilton (01:10.22)
I knew, but I get privy to knowing you really, really well. But I would have guessed that. I also think what's really fun is you should try snowboarding now with a cape. That is a polite no. Well, let's talk about who you love to work with. So what types of businesses do you love working with and you're excited when they put out that call for help?
Ron Higgs (01:14.792)
Hahaha
Ron Higgs (01:39.72)
Well, I transform process and data driven engineers into effective executive leaders. So I really like working with technical professionals and extend that into people who are running businesses who did not educate themselves to really run a business. So think people who own civil engineering firms.
medical professionals, lawyers, people like that who didn't really go to school to run businesses but end up running businesses anyway. since I have an engineering background, I really enjoy working with technology.
Jen Hamilton (02:16.718)
Well, we're gonna hear a little bit more about your background because it leads into the topic. But one of the things that is really impressive about you is your engineering background. So I love that you work with your kind of people. Let's talk about what's a sneaky villain that always tries to slow progress and that you're trying to fight when you're working with your clients.
Ron Higgs (02:40.06)
I think this is common for everyone and it's even common for me. You're ready? Perfectionism. I think it gets all of us. I have let perfect be the enemy of good. Pretty much through my entire career, I learned to manage it, but I need help. have accountability partners like you and others that help me, that keep me straight. But for my clients, especially the technical folks, perfectionism is the biggest issue.
Part one.
Jen Hamilton (03:10.985)
Yeah. Well, and I can imagine too, as someone who has always been seen as got to get an A, do really well, have to be the top of my class because you can't get into the types of fields and work that you're talking about or the level. If it's a leadership position, you're getting there because you are technically proficient and really an expert, which probably feels like I have to be perfect.
Ron Higgs (03:37.768)
Yes, I think that that's one reason. And again, some engineers, some technical people, have to go to that. You have to get the best grades in school where you start. You have to go to the best school and you have to get the best grades there so you can then go work for the best company. All this, the best, the best type of thing. And it does put you into that kind of perfectionist mindset.
Jen Hamilton (04:07.086)
Let's dig into the topic. So today's topic, we're going to talk about leadership lessons from aviation. So I want to, before we get into more about the topic, I want to have you now reveal a little bit more about your background and where the aviation and leadership comes into play for you.
Ron Higgs (04:25.232)
Okay, so as you know, I started my career in the United States Navy three weeks out of high school. I went to the Naval Academy Prep School, then on to the Naval Academy, and I spent my years in the Navy as a Naval Flight Officer and an aerospace engineer. And I didn't realize until after I got out how much aviation really impacted my thinking about the way I do things and about the way I see the
Jen Hamilton (04:53.326)
Well, we're going to unpack that a lot today. One of the things that I love to say about you, Ron, to my friends is like, I know the real Maverick from Top Gun.
Ron Higgs (05:01.812)
Well, not quite. was Goose. But I did better than Goose did in the movie.
Jen Hamilton (05:10.09)
Yeah, thank goodness. We're so happy to have you here for that. So let's start to talk about in terms of leadership and the lessons. I know we're going to get into more, but why should a small business, any small business, whether they're engineering or not, why should they be paying attention to this topic as we start to get into it?
Ron Higgs (05:27.624)
because I think there are applicable lessons from anyone where you are. And the overarching theme, if you want me to give this away now, is sort of just to have a plan, but be ready when things don't go according to plan. Because in aviation, there are a lot of variables that are out of your control. Sometimes the condition of the aircraft out of your control, air traffic control, weather.
Jen Hamilton (05:37.42)
Yeah, go ahead.
Ron Higgs (05:54.804)
other aircraft, things like that. And if you're a combat situation in military, certainly the actions of the enemy are outside of your control. So you can have a plan and that plan can all go away with one change. So just have a plan, but be ready if things don't go according to plan. And I believe, I can't remember, maybe it was Roosevelt that said,
Planning is crucial, but plans are worthless. I think it was the other way around. Plans are worthless. Planning is
Jen Hamilton (06:34.712)
The message is clear though. So.
Ron Higgs (06:36.382)
Yeah, I'm not sure if that was Roosevelt or not.
Jen Hamilton (06:39.852)
Love to check. But it's a good point, nevertheless. Ron, I would love for you to dig into, like, you lead me through, what are some of those lessons that we can start to apply to leadership?
Ron Higgs (06:54.526)
Well, the first one is this, understand the mission. In the military in general, we take an oath to the mission, which is support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And the military does a really good job of alignment, meaning I knew the mission of the Navy, the mission of the particular carrier group I was in, the mission of all the other players in the carrier group, the missions of the aircraft carrier.
the mission of my aircraft and what I did when I flew off the aircraft every day, I could map back to how it supported and defended the Constitution of the United States. So I would say the first thing is to really understand the mission because a lot of places that I've gone to and looked at, the first thing I ask is, may I see your mission statement, your vision statement, your values, things like that.
Sometimes they don't have them. They think that's a lot of fluff, but I'm here to tell you it's not because that's really where you get people aligned towards what you're doing. You don't want anybody in your company looking at each other going, what are we doing? I don't really understand what we're doing. That's the last thing you want. understanding the mission is key.
Jen Hamilton (08:11.822)
What I hear and what you're sharing too is it's not just the overall mission, it's your departmental mission, your individual mission, the roles that other people have, what is their mission as it relates to the bigger mission and having it all interconnected and clear.
Ron Higgs (08:27.506)
Absolutely.
Jen Hamilton (08:29.804)
number two.
Ron Higgs (08:31.965)
Well, the second one is, again, a plan. So now that you know the mission, what are your objectives? Have a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be. And in flight planning, we plan a flight. There are checkpoints along the way to make sure that we're on course, where we check our fuel, we check how we're doing, all sorts of things to see if any course adjustments are needed.
And in an emergency situation, we may have to change the destination based on what we're seeing. So planning, again, very important.
Jen Hamilton (09:08.396)
bit more about how that leader who's listening, whether you're owner or you're leading a team or leading just one individual, how did they take responsibility for planning in their role? Let's say they are not the head of the business, but they are in a position that's ahead of a department.
They're not always responsible for the high level planning. So what role can they play and how can they really step up as a leader as it relates to planning when maybe they don't have full control of the whole plan.
Ron Higgs (09:38.984)
But I will say this, I think it's the leader's job to give everyone that context, to understand the big picture and then share the big picture with everyone. I don't think because then you'll have people working in stovepipes and having context to what you're doing I believe is important because then people understand, hey, what's the overall picture? What am I doing? And then now when they run into issues, they can come up with ideas, they can come up with workarounds, they can come up with other things.
Jen Hamilton (09:44.078)
Hmm.
Ron Higgs (10:09.352)
that can help and move things forward and maybe even come up with a better idea than you. But if they don't have the overall context, i.e. understanding the mission and what their part is in it, they're not able to do that. So I think as a leader, you have to give them the tools to see the big picture so that you can drive better out.
Jen Hamilton (10:31.456)
Yeah, so clarity into the plan, not just creating the plan. That's great. That's great. I also heard to you talking about there's consistency in following the plan. We have a checklist. We need to look at these things. I would imagine there's value in being very, very clear on the expectations around the plan as well.
Ron Higgs (10:53.742)
Yes, there are. There are there are plans and then there are times where you have to rigidly adhere to the plan in times that you don't. And you have to know the difference between those times. So in other words, we have emergency procedures in an aircraft. Some of them you have to memorize. Some of them we have, we carry around a book in the aircraft, we open it and that'll tell us what to do. But if your engine's on fire,
You don't necessarily have time to break out that checklist and sort of read through what to do. Or if you, for whatever reason, have an emergency on landing or takeoff or things like that, you do not have time to do this. So there's some things you have to remember to do and you have to do that immediately. Then you can figure out. Now there are minor emergencies where you can break out a checklist, read it.
figure out, it's like, okay, well, in this situation, it doesn't make sense to do this right now. So this is a better course of action. So there's room. So there's not such rigidity that you have to do everything by the book. You do get some opportunities for independent thought based on the situation.
Jen Hamilton (12:12.494)
How would a leader be able to help clarify to their team what's an emergency and what's an independent thought moment?
Ron Higgs (12:21.586)
I think that I use, if you're familiar with the Eisenhower matrix, that's the urgent and important thing. And figure out what's urgent, figure out what's important. The thing is, for that to work, everyone has to have the same definition of urgent and important. So then, once you clarify those definitions of urgent and important, then you go through that checklist. Is this urgent and important?
This is a priority. This is urgent and not important, so forth. You go through that. But I think if you start with those definitions, then you again allow that independent thought and growth. Sometimes people won't make the same decision as you, but that's okay. And here's why it's okay. You as a leader may be considering variables of which they are not aware because you're screening them from a lot of things.
You're screening the team from a lot of things as a leader. So when you make a decision, you may be considering other variables that they're not. So if they make a different decision, you can work with them and go, okay, that's a good decision. Now, have you considered these other two things? Because here are the other two things that I'm considering that you're not necessarily considering where you are. And so that goes all with working with people, helping people grow.
Jen Hamilton (13:47.566)
things that I find too with leaders is that you are right. There is a lot that they're processing and screening through and thinking of, and that's hard to get your team to understand. So while some things are obvious, if the engine is on fire, that isn't urgent and important, but some things aren't. So one of the things I like to do is I encourage leaders to put their thought process on loud speaker to really talk through with their team member.
Ron Higgs (14:03.105)
Hahaha!
Jen Hamilton (14:16.706)
here's what I was thinking and those filters and all those other things come out when they have to share it. But I also think it works the other way too. Being really curious about what your team member's thinking, if they're making a different decision from you, as you said, you can learn something from them too. Asking their thought process, walk me through, what did you look at? What were you thinking through when you came up with this decision?
Do you have any other tips or tricks around just trying to get them to get on the same page around what to put their filters through?
Ron Higgs (14:52.308)
Well, I think that if you focus on outcomes, and so this may be a different part of the conversation, but this is the outcome that you need. And a lot of us, especially those driven to perfection, which are a lot of technical folks that I work with, I need X. Let me show you my way to do X. And my way to do X is the best way to do it. And it's the only way to do it. Well, in actuality, there are several ways.
to do x to get to the particular end state. So if you focus on those end states and getting people to outcomes, this is the outcome that I want. However you do it, great. And that's when you learn stuff from other people. And it's OK to show, hey, this is how I do that. But if you've got a better method, please show me. Better for everyone. And so I think staying focused on outcomes and not specific ways to do things
is one way to do it.
Jen Hamilton (15:53.742)
What I hear is have them focus on the what and probably the why going back to the mission. Let them figure out the how. If they're an expert in the how, let them be the expert in the how.
Ron Higgs (15:58.429)
Right.
Ron Higgs (16:04.678)
Right, and different people as you start to, as you should, build a relationship with the members of your team and know what their strengths and weaknesses are, you have some people that are visionaries as we know, right? And they will come up with these brilliant ideas like, wow, how did you even think of that? That's brilliant. And then there are other people who are process-driven people who will just say, yeah, what's the process for this?
Because I don't want to make it up every time I want to do it. I want to make sure that I'm doing it right. And those people are the people who are good at coming up with repeatable processes. So what are you doing? OK, hey, I need a repeatable process for this. Visionary might be the right person to come up with a specific process because they can figure out, and that's kind of what they do, is figure out 1,000 ways to solve a problem.
And what you need here is the process-driven person to make this repeatable in some process that everyone can follow. And vice versa. There's times when you need somebody who's visionary, times when you need other people who are process and data-driven. And you, as a leader, can figure out when you need those people and when to bring in the right people based on the problem you're solving.
Jen Hamilton (17:27.246)
Yeah, I will put in a small plug for what you do. Part of your work as an executive coach, especially being the COO mind that you bring and the engineer mind that you bring, you have some great tools that people can reach out to you to help them figure out if they have a visionary, if they have a processor or the other types, and that's something we can have you help them figure out if they can't figure it out. Is that true?
Ron Higgs (17:52.552)
Yes, I use a business system called Predictable Success to help me with that. And it is a, there's two parts to it. One of them is that businesses have a life cycle stage. Businesses go through stages of growth and decline just like people do. And so there's a peak. And then when they start to sort of become a bureaucracy. So you've got startups that are in one stage and it goes through a bunch of other stages. The other part is
It's very intuitive where you have visionaries. We all know what visionaries are because of our work with EOS. You've got task-driven people, you've got process-driven people, and then you've got people-centered people. And it's a combination of all of those folks that will help you get through whatever stage that you're in. So like I mentioned before, it's ideal to know where someone leans.
and when to bring them in based on what you're doing. That's as quick as an overview as I can give you. A lot more to it, obviously, as you know, but it's very, very helpful.
Jen Hamilton (19:00.814)
It is very powerful tool, very helpful for leaders like you said to understand who they are so that they can actually get the best results out of it. Let's go back to any other lessons for leaders around aviation that we might have missed.
Ron Higgs (19:18.356)
Well, there are a few. I don't know how much time we got. But one of them is setting priorities. And for instance, one of the very first things we learned in flight school is something called Aviate Navigate Communicate. And those are your priorities, which means when you're in the airplane, those are always your priorities. And the priorities matter, especially when things don't go according to plan, let's say, or if you have an emergency. Well, Aviate means we'll keep the airplane in the air.
That's your priority at the moment. Navigate, which means, well, you keep it in the air, but don't fly it no mountain. And try to get to your destination, appropriate destination, and then communicate with people. So if you're struggling, those are the orders, the priorities. And so you can apply those to your life. You can apply those to business. I think there was one company I worked with. They're like, people, planet, profits.
Jen Hamilton (19:48.781)
Yes.
Ron Higgs (20:14.802)
those were their priorities. So when faced with any kind of a question or situation or issue, you can look back at those priorities and it will guide you along and your mission, of course, and it will guide you to make the right decision along with your values. One of the other things that we did for flying was we always brief a flight. Every flight has three
Well, let's say four elements. We're going to focus on three. The four elements are planning, brief, fly, debrief. So let's start with the three. We just don't planning. We just don't go out and fly. We always have a purpose. But a brief is, hey, we ought to get together to talk about what we're going to do and go over the plan. Then we fly, and then we come back. After every single flight, no matter what, no matter what we did, even if we're
moving your aircraft from point A to point B, excuse me, we debrief that flight, which means we talked about what went well, what did not go well, what we could have done better. And what that does is it gets us into this feedback cycle because the debrief is really where you learned. And there's an art to the debrief and it was not assignment of blame, especially when things did not go wrong, but.
It's just a way to learn. And I learned the most and became a better aviator because of that process, that deep flight plan. No, I'm sorry, brief fly deep.
Jen Hamilton (21:52.792)
There's something I think where leaders get worried about giving feedback and yet this is such a powerful approach that you have a plan, you are getting on the same page of what they're gonna do for that plan, they go do the plan and a lot of times they are afraid to do the feedback, whether it went well or not. But that's where the learning is. And so I appreciate you saying this because this is definitely something.
we can do, especially when you have a project-based team, but even at just an ongoing, if there is something that's kind of going off the rails, because humans draft, they might be doing it fine, but having that time to say, let's debrief and give feedback to get back into the brief, essentially, and plan, like what is it that we are aligned around?
And what is the plan then why we're working towards this plan? So I think there's real value in that, but a lot of people are concerned, especially in that perfectionist world of like, I don't want to say the wrong thing or upset them or I'll just do it myself because they're afraid of doing that debrief, that feedback or holding people accountable to what is expected. Any tips around that?
Ron Higgs (23:06.568)
Yeah, I did not understand that. In fact, that was one of the most difficult parts of my transition when I left the military and joined you in the corporate world. I used to think, why aren't we talking about this? We do this project. Why aren't we talking about how it went so we can record our lessons learned for next time so we don't make the same mistakes again? How do we ensure that we didn't make the big mistake that we did last time? Who's responsible for it? And there wasn't anything like that.
As a COO of one company, I insisted that we do, I walked in, it's like, can we do a debrief of this project? Let's just take a look and see how we did. mean, everything. Turns out what we were able to find out is that the company had charged the client $15,000 for that project. And we spent internally $45,000.
getting a project done. So we could not, you can't keep doing business like that. Right? And it wasn't about assigning blame. was, let's figure out where we went wrong. Was it the proposal? Was it the estimating the amount of work? Was it scope creep that we didn't do a change order for? Anything. Let's figure that out so that now we can put some controls around things.
so that we don't make the same mistake again. And that one exercise showed them the value of it. But I didn't understand how a company that had been around for about 10 years had never done anything like that.
Jen Hamilton (24:41.39)
Yeah, it's crazy how fearful let's call it, us civilians are around accountability. I do see that as a big challenge. And I'm grateful that you shared this point because I think it's so important, especially with this example of this company, you don't want to have those kinds of losses because that's where you end up losing the entire business and nobody wins. The clients don't win, the team doesn't win.
The owners don't win. So it's that valuable that you take this time to do the debrief. Any other aviation lessons that we might be missing?
Ron Higgs (25:15.568)
Absolutely.
Ron Higgs (25:19.272)
Well, let's wrap up this other one because there's two points to what we're just talking about. That's the focus on continuous learning and making feedback a part of that loop. So with the feedback and with the constant feedback, there's continuous learning. So there's two elements of that. And that's what makes us better. Because remember, in the military, you're in a unit for a finite amount of time. And you are actually training someone to replace you. And we depend on each other for our lives.
Jen Hamilton (25:26.19)
Mmm.
Ron Higgs (25:47.772)
So you want that person to be the best that they can be. And after a little bit of time, you, once you come in, are now training others to replace you. You're definitely going to be replaced. There's nobody sitting around going, I don't want that person to take my job. Somebody's definitely taking your job and you're going to take somebody else's job because that's the way it works. And so we are highly focused on the success of the unit and making everyone the best that they can be. Because again, we're, we depend on each other for our lives.
And so, not necessarily in the corporate world, but I just want people to be better. I always, and maybe it did come from aviation as I sought the continuous improvement, but the feedback is necessary for that continuous.
Jen Hamilton (26:34.294)
You shared a story with me once about the Blue Angels and how their team is constantly rotating. And I think that where people can get stuck, although it's changing a little bit as people are a little more transient with their positions, but you still see a lot of people think, well, they're just going to be here forever, or I don't want them to take my job. And I actually love what I learned from you about the Blue Angels and going more into what you were just saying. It's intentional.
to have rotations.
Ron Higgs (27:05.332)
Absolutely, and what you're talking about, and this is with any military unit, but I used the Blamesless as an example because it's so public. Everybody sees it and everybody loves it. Well, there's a small subset of people that don't, but we won't talk about it. Right? So if you look at that, that's a three-year tour. And in that unit, know, the pilots, everyone, the maintenance people, everyone is there for three years. So that means every year, one third of that entire organization turns over.
Jen Hamilton (27:13.251)
Yes.
Jen Hamilton (27:18.638)
think they're amazing.
Ron Higgs (27:32.884)
And three years from now, there will not be one person in that organization that's in it right now. But to the public, it's exactly the same. You see exactly the same. You look at the Blue Angels and you go, I mean, I do every time I see them. And there's that state of turnover. So how do you keep everything going that well under that kind of turnover?
in terms of continuous learning, the Blue Angels, again, they start their season, those airplanes are 36 inches apart when they start. And by the end of the season, they work it closer and closer to their 18 inches apart. So why do you do that? You're taking people who could be sometimes referred to as the best of the best, right? You people who fly airplanes off of aircraft carriers, now they're Blue Angels. How do you get those people?
that are representing the best to even become better. Big challenge. yeah, as you can see, I could talk.
Jen Hamilton (28:41.27)
It's such an incredible analogy and I want to challenge our listeners to look at where can we act as if we've got a three year rotation and a third of our organization is going to be changing because it is a different look and approach to how do I make sure that to the public, to your clients, your customers, to the outside that we have that precision and we are constantly still improving. If you run your organization like that as a leader,
Holy moly, will you be able to really weather all storms too? Because a lot of times it's more shaking when somebody leaves instead of we are prepared for this and everyone is getting better along the way.
Ron Higgs (29:25.844)
Absolutely.
Jen Hamilton (29:27.424)
an incredible way to look at leadership too is that one of the things that I like to think of is that it's a sign of a good leader if you create leaders who then create leaders so that your just job isn't just to do what you have to do or get other people to do what you have to do it's to get them to rise up other people to be their best.
Ron Higgs (29:51.87)
That is absolutely true. And recently, a colleague of mine is working on a book. And one of the chapters of that book is leaders create other leaders. And that is the chapter of the book that resonated the most with me because of exactly what you just said.
Jen Hamilton (30:08.141)
Well, thank you. You're giving a preview into my book coming out. So I appreciate that Ron. It's a passion of mine too, because it's a different look into leadership. It is a different job of leadership. Instead of you are to get a team done, it's you are to grow leaders. And we both align with that. And there's nothing more rewarding than seeing someone that you've poured into, give them the opportunity to figure out the how.
Ron Higgs (30:11.356)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Jen Hamilton (30:37.006)
to do the planning, to stay aligned with the mission, everything you're talking about, to grow from the feedback, let them step in and do the same with their team. It's so rewarding.
Ron Higgs (30:48.222)
Well, that was ingrained into my DNA as a young adult at the United States Naval.
Jen Hamilton (30:53.688)
Good job.
Ron Higgs (30:55.124)
Ha
Jen Hamilton (30:56.546)
And you paid attention, not everyone would.
Ron Higgs (30:58.942)
Well, most of the time.
Jen Hamilton (31:00.782)
We'll say you did. Any other lessons that we should be learning before we wrap up?
Ron Higgs (31:06.836)
I will. There's one that served me well too, which was managing risk. It's fairly easy to learn how to fly an airplane. Most of the time we spent in flight school was learning what to do during emergencies. OK, yeah, you got to fly and stuff down. Now let's go for the real stuff. It's like, what are you going to do if you lose your engine here? What if you're to use it if you
Jen Hamilton (31:13.454)
Mmm.
Ron Higgs (31:35.73)
lose your navigation source here and you're in the clouds. What if the engine's on fire? What if you have to land right now? Where are you going to land? I mean, throughout the whole flight. there's this managed risk part. What if the airplane gets hit by a bird? What if it gets struck by lightning? That's actually no big deal because airplanes get struck by lightning all the time. But you know what I mean. So in terms of this, what I ended up bringing back to me, the corporate world, was a bunch of what ifs, especially as a COO. So I would look around and go, hmm, let's look at our customer concentration.
and go, well, what if we lost this customer? What if we lost this top salesperson and they took their relationships with them? What if this happens? What if that happens? So there's a lot of what if scenarios. And just to think about it, you could either go really into this with some contingency planning, or at least just think about it. COVID showed us that you cannot think of everything. However, if you do some risk management and some planning for risk, COVID
it would have been ready for COVID. Here's something that's completely unpredictable. This just happened. What are we going to do? And instead of shutting down, you start going, okay, let's do this, this and that. And so I think that that managing risk gets you to the point where you can really start, where you can really act when things don't go according to plan because they almost never do. And so...
What are you going to do? How are you going to react? Sometimes it's like, OK, I thought about this. I had an issue here. So here's a place to land. And so we've got an issue. We're going to land right there. I know that they have the facilities that we need. I know that the runway is long enough for me to land and take off again. And I know that we could get some people in there with some equipment to help fix the airplane. So things like that. And that managing risk portion.
I believe it's very important. And so overall, to wrap it up again, sort of be ready when things go according to plan and have some comfort with uncertainty. Because whether you realize it or not, when you take off in an airplane, you're plan to land somewhere, so you're not really sure where you're going to land. And there was one time I took off of the carrier and we ended up, something happened.
Ron Higgs (34:00.104)
And we had to land in an all something happened to the carrier, actually. And we had to land all the aircraft that were airborne had to land in a different spot. And that was the last time I flew without my hat or my wallet. So because now here we are and we're on a military base that we landed at that because we were in the North Atlantic. We're on a military base, but add nothing. So again, just.
Be ready, then things go according to plan and be comfortable with some amount of uncertainty because nothing is certain.
Jen Hamilton (34:37.516)
Yeah. You said it really well as a COO, one of our biggest jobs is risk management and we can in those times of uncertainty then bring calm and confidence and clarity even when maybe we're not clear when we practice that. I believe that's a skill for all leaders to learn as well, which is great that you brought it up, especially because when we are working with visionaries and different ideas, it's we need that calm and
someone who can say, yes, and this could happen or let's adjust for this possible risk and be prepared for landing in a military base instead of on the carrier, whatever version that is in yours. Well, Ron, as we wrap up, as much as I hate to do that because it's always so fast, I love your stories, I would love to have our audience here. What's some action step they can take in what you shared in the next week? What's one thing they can maybe?
Ron Higgs (35:17.716)
you
Jen Hamilton (35:35.438)
put into place in their own teams and their own businesses.
Ron Higgs (35:40.424)
Well, let's go back to feedback. I think feedback is gold. so ask, ask. You've got people that work beside you, depending on where you are in an organization, there may be people whom you work for, know, people below your organization, you have peers, you have other stakeholders, ask them, ask them for their feedback. How's things going? What can you do better? I used to do something
where I worked as an engineering manager called stop, start, continue. What is it that we're doing that we should stop doing? What is it that we're not doing that we should start doing? And what is it that we're doing well that we should continue doing? And I focused on the new people in the organization. So I gave folks about 60 days to get assimilate, you know, to get comfortable in their job. And sometime between their...
60th day and their 90th day, they had to lead that discussion in a team meeting because you're capturing the, capturing the perspectives of new people only last for so long. And I wanted to take advantage of that. But again, if you can do anything, just ask for some feedback from someone, some of those people. And I think you'll be surprised or maybe ask from some feedback from somebody you don't hear from. Hey, you know, we don't hear from so and so.
Let me ask them what they think, how things go on. Sometimes you'll be surprised at your answer.
Jen Hamilton (37:09.07)
That's a perfect example of leading by example because if your team is a little afraid of getting the feedback and you're going out and asking for it, you're making it safe. You're making it a place where this is okay, I want to learn. And you're showing them that that's something they can do too.
Ron Higgs (37:25.044)
Well, don't fish for compliments. got to be telling them exactly what you're doing. Because I'm sure we all do this. You go somewhere and you get some immediate feedback. Tell us what a great job we did. And they're not necessarily asking for real feedback. They just want to validate that. They just want you to tell them they're doing a good job. So there has to be a difference. There has to be a genuine, genuinely seek feedback.
Jen Hamilton (37:30.136)
That's a great distinction.
Ron Higgs (37:54.43)
because you're looking to continuously.
Jen Hamilton (37:57.57)
Yeah, good distinction. Okay, now it's time to turn the mic around. You get to ask me a question and I don't know if it's personal, professional or what, so you get to surprise me.
Ron Higgs (38:10.01)
I will just ask you this, of all the things that we just discussed, what resonated the most with you?
Jen Hamilton (38:17.144)
Hmm. This is a good question because it also shows that I was paying attention. I hate choosing favorites. That's one thing you can learn about me.
Ron Higgs (38:25.812)
Doesn't have to be a favorite, just something that resonated the most because this helps me as well. It helps me become a better coach.
Jen Hamilton (38:29.036)
Yeah. Yeah!
Jen Hamilton (38:34.722)
The thing that really, I believe resonates most with me is, and we both love it, but is that idea of feedback being in the debrief and how it connects to the continuous learning and just causing it to happen, making it a intentional part of your work. Like you had said, every flight or every time, there's a system to that feedback. There's a system to it instead of it being so random.
That really resonated with me because that's actually how you're to move forward faster. And in today's very fast pace changing world, you do need to stop and pause and make intentional feedback. One of the things that I do each week, for example, with my executive assistant is before we start our Monday meeting, of course, after we just do the, was your weekend type of thing, we reflect on the work she did for the last week.
And I found that we have a much better working relationship because we've got a systematic way to debrief on what just happened. And so that truly resonated with me. Thank you for asking. All right, Ron. So as we are having our listeners here, okay, gosh, you I would love to find out more about Ron, how I can work with him, whether it's figuring out what type of leaders do I have from that visionary process operator.
Ron Higgs (39:43.922)
Awesome.
Jen Hamilton (40:01.868)
synergist type of environment, but also let's say you're in a tech company, you've got engineers all around you, you know they're a little bit of a perfectionist, you need them to leave, you need them to understand business, essentially, not just engineering. How can we find you? How can they reach out to you?
Ron Higgs (40:20.06)
LinkedIn is the best place to find me. I also have a website, which you will find on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is it. Read some of my posts on LinkedIn, engage, like them. Every Tuesday, I do a post called Leadership Lessons from Aviation. there's some good lessons, I think, that you'll see there. And lately, I've been doing some keynote speaking. I actually provided a keynote speech for a engineering conference in
Phoenix, Arizona back in October and it was called from cockpit to corner office, leadership lessons from aviation was really accepted very well and I am looking forward to finding more audiences to provide that.
Jen Hamilton (41:04.654)
Well, we just got a little taste of it today and it's exciting to hear your stories and to make that connection. It really brings it to life. I appreciate so much being here. If you want someone like Ron in your life, another COO, a brain that can help you, of course at Himmels & Co. we love to connect you not just through our podcast, but how can someone extraordinary like Ron be able to support you and your leaders and being even their best?
Thanks so much for joining us, Ron, and we'll have to have you back. We'll have some more conversations.
Ron Higgs (41:37.822)
Thank you for having me, Jen. I appreciate it. And I will come back and chat with you any time.
Jen Hamilton (41:44.674)
Thanks, Ron.
Ron Higgs (41:46.078)
Thank you.
