The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 380: Jay Hennessey - How To Build A Learning Organization

Starting point is 00:00:00 I think it comes out to a competitive advantage, right? We're looking to have a competitive advantage where other people aren't. But when you go back to this idea of great teams, you know, if you break down great teaming, the team is learning. And I don't think it's learning just to learn, right? It's we know that the step, if we keep doing what we're doing today, five years, I don't care what your job is, unless you're making widgets, you're going to be irrelevant. Like you got, you have to learn with the technology as things are growing.

Starting point is 00:00:29 But for the individual, nobody wants to stay stagnant. The people that we hire, I should say, the people that we hire are passionate, they're curious people. They want to be best in industry, whatever they're doing. So we've got to give them the tools and the opportunities for their personal growth and development that makes that team better. Are you curious about taking a more proactive approach to your leadership development? Have you thought about the people you are surrounding yourself with? as you strive to get better? If so, the new Learning Leader Academy may be for you. It's been designed to not only provide you with online trading videos. In fact, I filmed 30

Starting point is 00:01:15 of them sitting side by side with the greatest mentor of my life, my dad. But the Learning Leader Academy also gives you the opportunity to interact with an active community of leaders with growth-oriented mindsets. If this sounds like something that you would like to do, check out more details at Ryanhawk.me. That's Ryanhawk. That's Ryanhawk. For the Learning Leader Academy. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer.

Starting point is 00:01:53 I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's featured leader. It's a special one. Jay Hennessy as a Navy seal for more than 25 years. Jay Hennessy has completed numerous overseas deployments in and outside theaters of war throughout the Western Pacific, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Starting point is 00:02:44 In addition to his operational tours, Jay has served in a variety of other assignments involving selecting, training, and qualifying young men to become U.S. Navy SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant Crewman. He currently is the vice president of learning and development with the Cleveland Indians. A few of the topics we discussed. The keys to building a learning organization, including a master class on how adults learn best. And then the importance of experiencing shared adversity as a team and how that builds trust. And then why Jay believes in having a quote, yes and mindset and why you should too. Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to love this one. It's the great Jay Hennessy.

Starting point is 00:03:46 I want to start by talking about a phrase you've used that is important to me that I've experienced in my life and you certainly have experienced it. And that is shared adversity. our mutual friend of Mike DeAndria sent me an email saying one day you have to participate in Jay's MoFo, which is a mandatory optional fitness opportunity. And there is a lot to it. But I would love for you to describe the importance of shared adversity and how mofos come from that. Sure. Well, I guess to back up, the idea is a monster mash. And it's a, it's a weekly workout that in the Navy we would do, you know, on Fridays, it was usually team-based, competitive in nature. And there's just, I don't know, it's part of that secret sauce. It just makes great teams. Just sweat together. You get your adrenaline and endorphins are flowing. So when I transitioned to the Indians, we were at spring training and a couple guys talked about we should do a workout. And I just threw it out there. Hey, let's do. a monster mash and it kind of caught on. Folks were interested.

Starting point is 00:05:02 And then when we came back to Cleveland with the broader organization on the business side, there was folks that were interested as well. And so the mofo is kind of a double entendre. The joke was that these are always optional. And it became the running joke that was like, yeah, mandatory optional. But the other woman in the Indians organization that has kind of been a huge part of this and really probably a bigger part than me is Mary for Kappa. and her nickname is MoFo.

Starting point is 00:05:30 So the mandatory optional, we kind of tacked on the fitness opportunity, and we ended up with the name MoFo, which is this weekly event that we do. We've carried it on through COVID on Zoom. We do a weekly workout. But the shared adversity, you know, I think we talked in person about this. I just think that this is a thing that that's what really creates a foundation for teams. When you do something hard and it doesn't have to be. fitness, right? I mean, it can be, you know, we've talked in our organization how leaders have

Starting point is 00:06:02 worked on a project, whether it's a big arbitration project and they've spent, you know, hours, you know, digging into the data in long days and long nights and maybe even an all-nighter. And after that, you know, that's the thing that's kind of the glue to that taking the relationship to the next level that builds trust and it's just great. So I'm always a big advocate of, you know, I think it's really easy to do in organizations, just find the thing that you could bring people together that has a little bit of a suck factor and it's fun yeah so i would imagine you first felt the power of shared adversity as a navy seal i mean the training just to become a seal is is legendary and then once you become one you still have to maintain that training in order to

Starting point is 00:06:47 prepare yourself for some of the scariest missions in the world and i love for you can you can you share some of your time, maybe earlier as a seal, when you first realized, wait a second, when I look to my left and I look to my right, I have complete trust of my brothers next to me because we went through something tough together. I know they can handle it. And the power of that feeling of, I would imagine, because I experienced this through football workouts, of this feeling of we are invincible. Now, you're actually fighting battles, which is different. So I don't know the mindset there. But for me, I know that led me to build so much confidence in the fact that I felt we

Starting point is 00:07:33 are going to be successful because of what we did in January, June, July, August, all of a sudden, it's October on a Friday night. My brothers are next to me. I know what we're about to do because of what we did leading up to that. And that's what you've experienced as a seal, both preparing to be one. and then after being one for 20 plus years. I love to hear your mindset around that. Yeah, I think your intro is spot on. I mean, really anyone who's listening that has been part of a team has felt this.

Starting point is 00:08:05 It's just the degree to which they felt it. If you've been on a great team, whether that's a sales team or a football team or a SEAL team, you've experienced the same thing. So in SEAL training early on, there's just so many things that are baked into the program that just create this, you know, camaraderie where it's the instructors against the class, right? You've got this class of young trainees and you're, you know, that's all you've got to your left and right is these super motivated hard dudes that want to become Navy SEALs and the instructors who are just crushing you at every, you know, every evolution, everything you do. And just when you think you're doing it right, you know, they tell you to hit the surf or drop down for pushups. but the evolutions are also so team-based.

Starting point is 00:08:50 You've had Admiral McCraven on, and I think he does a great job talking about paddling the boat. It's such a great analogy, but it's real. Like you can't get through the surf if everybody's not paddling at the same time working together. For anybody that's watched anything on the SEALs or SEAL team training, you'll often see a picture of guys locked arms laying in the surf zone. And I think for most to make it through, like once you're locked arms with guys, you know, guys who yell, you can't hurt us, right? And, you know, they're jackhammer, they're freezing.

Starting point is 00:09:26 But you've got your buddies to your left and right locking arms. And I think that just sets the foundation that as you go through training, whether you're in a seal platoon or in a troop, doing training exercises. And again, the shared adversity, it's part of the, you know, SEAL team training. ritual. The instructor cadres always trying to make it harder, but your fire team or your squad or your platoon is always stepping up to the challenge. So, you know, I think it's a different environment, but it's the exact same thing that you talked about on the football team. How would you take this? And it's something I try to do because I've learned from the value of going through so many challenging workouts. And it was both physical and mental because you had to

Starting point is 00:10:13 have the mentality and this, the mental resilience, I would say, to not only get through it, but to thrive through it and be ready to go when you're done. Now let's translate that to what we, you and I and many people listening are doing where they aren't working in a physical environment. There are military personnel listening to this for sure, but there's a lot of people who work within companies listening to say, well, how could we mimic what Jay did with the seals, what Ryan did on the football field, and do this in our lives, in our businesses, to create shared adversity, to build our culture in order to achieve the levels that we strive to achieve. What are some ideas, maybe some tactics, some things that we could do to implement

Starting point is 00:11:00 that in our businesses? Yeah, that's a great question, Ryan. I think the responsibility of leaders to, one, be clear that this is a thing that they want to achieve. I mean, Great teams don't happen by happenstance. There's a deliberate process. In our organization, we call it teaming, right? We ask folks to think about what was the best team you were on? What happened? We actually go through a process where we write down what our purposes.

Starting point is 00:11:28 What's our mission? What's our vision? What are the norms? What's the culture we want to create? How are we going to work together? So I think there's a part of it as being very deliberate up front. And then I think there's another part of like the language that you use. is pretty important, right? The way you incentivize the organization is pretty important.

Starting point is 00:11:48 I think it's challenging when you want to have a great team, but the language is all about the individual or the eyes versus the whee's. I think in our organization, our leadership does a great job of really being collaborative in how we attack problems. So it's never the individual contributor. It's always bringing the team together to solve the problem. So without really understanding the specific space, I think the first part is being deliberate. And that doesn't have to happen. You know, you don't have to wait until you have to start a new team. You could take your existing team and say, hey, let's get together. Let's talk about who we want to be as a team. And then I think as a leadership team, making sure that you're sending the right signals using the right

Starting point is 00:12:31 language. I sense this because I had the good fortune to meet with you, Josh Gibson, Dan Coyle, and your president, Chris, of the team. And one of the takeaways, I remember I called my wife and I was driving home from Cleveland that day was, she said, you know, what was it like? What were those guys like? And I said, it was incredible to see their curiosity, their desire to learn, the questions they asked,

Starting point is 00:13:02 the fact that they made no assumptions. It was just with this wide open mind. And I sense that when your leaders approach others from outside the organization with that mindset, that has to be inspiring for the entire organization to say, oh, this is the way we do things here. And so I'd love for you to share your thought process with the Cleveland Indians from the leadership, the top down, and how that impacts you when you want to build a learning organization. Sure. You threw out a lot there. For starters, Dan Coyle is like, you know, the ultimate connector. He's actually how I got connected with the Indians. And as I think back to the early conversations, you know, Dan just saying, hey, there's someone you got to you got to talk to. And being a big fan of his book at the time talent code, I was like, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the first conversation I had with leaders in the Indians, I had the same takeaway. It was like, wow, I can't get a question in edgewise because they just keep And what does that look like? And how do you do that? And what does that look like?

Starting point is 00:14:12 And I think you probably felt the same thing. When people are asking you questions, it's super energizing because you're passionate about what you do. I think it's great that we do it. It's probably almost a shortfall at times because, you know, the four of us were ganging up on you. I doubt you got to even ask us a question. But I think there's something there that there really is this. It's not made up. people are really curious.

Starting point is 00:14:38 How do you do what you do? Like share with us what you've learned. I know before you visited, we were all looking at the list of people you've had on your podcast. We're like, oh my gosh, this is like, this is unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:14:51 If we can just get 1% of every conversation you've had. And so I think it's an organization that's just a real thing. And I do think there's a lot to unpack with that. You know, I think if I've heard me share before, I think it's like a, an organizational humility that we're just not on transmits saying, hey, look at us. And I think as an organization, we have a lot to be proud about. But I think it really does demonstrate our curiosity

Starting point is 00:15:17 to learn from others. Can you share more about how you go from being a 25 plus year Navy guy, special forces, training others, travel the world, countless missions, at least I don't know how many, but you know, all over the place. And when you finish, you decide to move your family from beautiful San Diego, which I've learned that you learned and liked to surf, but you move from San Diego to Cleveland, Ohio, to run or to run alongside Josh Gibson, to run learning and development as a senior leader within the organization. How does that happen? Yeah, that's a great question.

Starting point is 00:16:00 We moved, not only from San Diego to Cleveland, but we did it in December. So that means when you're driving through Colorado, your windshield wiper freezes. You know, the connection, as I mentioned, was started with Dan and connecting me with the organization. And, you know, I think all leaders on our journey as we're maturing through our organizations, we're connecting with people and other organizations

Starting point is 00:16:24 because we are curious. And the connection that I made with the Indians or that Dan made, you know, we just found a lot of overlap of interest. You know, people who are, you know, big readers and thinking about leadership and thinking about how do we get, you know, how do we constantly make our organization better? And the job I was in at the time was training Navy SEALs.

Starting point is 00:16:46 It was, you know, at our schoolhouse. And that was something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. So as I was, you know, going through my transition process and, you know, thinking about the different opportunities that were out there, you know, it was actually reaching out to the Indians organization talking about a different opportunity I had in front of me. and asking essentially some mentorship and advice of how to navigate the process. And that's when Chris was like, well, like walk me through.

Starting point is 00:17:14 Like, what does that job look like? And then they kind of shared how they were looking at an opportunity within the organization. And it just kind of spiraled from there. It started with a discussion of, you know, what would a job like this look like in our organization? And a couple months later, there's an opportunity in front of me and my family and I jumped at it.

Starting point is 00:17:36 Wow. And that was in December 2017? That's right. I think I officially came on board in September, and then we moved the family in December at the midpoint of the school year. So one of the things I know that you are working towards and that you're currently doing

Starting point is 00:17:57 is building and creating a learning organization. And the book, The Fifth Discipline by Peter, Can you pronounce his last name? Sengay, that's how I pronounce it. I'm not sure that's how it's pronounced. I don't know either. S-E-N-G-E. Ryan Holiday said it's always a good thing

Starting point is 00:18:14 when you see people don't fully know how to pronounce certain words because it means you read a lot. So you're always just reading it. But anyway, and I pulled one of his quotes and I want you to talk about it because I've been fortunate to be a part of your team's calls where you collect and gather incredible leaders from all over the world.

Starting point is 00:18:30 A lot of them with a sports background, but not completely. And one of the quotes that Josh shared on one of the calls, Josh Gibson, your colleague of yours and another incredible leader himself, a quote from fifth discipline is the discipline of a team of team learning starts with dialogue, the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions

Starting point is 00:18:51 and enter into a genuine, quote, thinking together. To the Greeks, Dialogos, D-I-A-S-L-O-G-O-G-O-S, dialogueos meant a free-flowing of meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually. It also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction and teams that undermine learning. When you shared that, you guys shared that quote, I thought, this is how great cultures are built. This is how a learning organization is built. When you focus on dialogue and bringing

Starting point is 00:19:26 people together, can you talk more about your overall philosophy on being a leader who brings people together to have dialogue. Yeah, absolutely. And it is an amazing book. It's a heavy one. I'd recommend doing it with a partner because there's a lot to it. But in that chapter and throughout the book, he really compares dialogue versus discussion and discussion where you're coming to table to really, you know, my words, convince

Starting point is 00:19:56 the other person of your beliefs. And dialogue is really about coming. You can have your strong. convictions, but you're willing to listen and learn from the other person. I think Dan Coyle says it best when he says something to the effect of strong convictions loosely held. So you come in armed and educated, but you're really approaching it from, I may be wrong. You know, it happens quite a bit. So what if I'm wrong? So I think that is fundamentally at the heart of how we think about creating a learning organization. And I think it has to do with, I think

Starting point is 00:20:31 there's two things going on here. One is reps. You know, how do you get reps at the thing you're trying to do? So the example, we talk about reading fifth discipline, you can get a rep by reading it by yourself, but you can get exponentially more reps by reading it with another person and sharing what you talked about. Hey, what did you get from that? And I think that's kind of foundational to our model as we look at learning opportunities,

Starting point is 00:20:56 is how do we have the engagement but dialogue where people come together sharing their perspective. I think the other component on the learning organization, I don't know where this concept of just-in-time learning originated. There's some great articles on the web, but Dr. Clint Longnucker out of University of Toledo, his son works in our scouting department. He spoke on our speaker series and just, unbelievable amount of content. But one of the things he talked about was engaging the learner with learning that is just in time,

Starting point is 00:21:34 just for you, or just in case. And we think about it in those three buckets. So when you could have learning that is just in time, right out of the supply chain management idea that you're working, you're in the hiring season. So let's have some content talking about behavioral interviewing. How do you do recruiting? How do you, you know, right now we've got a lot. We're working remotely.

Starting point is 00:22:00 So we've got some just in time learning on remote coaching. What does that look like? So I think the quote you shared is super foundational to how we think about a learning organization. But I also think that really, as we think about creating opportunities, we're really looking for those just in time engagements. Well, maybe the question I should have asked at the beginning of this, Jay, is why is this matter?

Starting point is 00:22:26 I mean, at the end of the day, the Cleveland Indians, I don't know the full goals of ownership, but I know probably the primary goal is to win baseball games and to win a championship. And the goal of a lot of business leaders is to stay in business, provide for their customers, earn a profit, take care of their employees, right? Those types of things.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Why is it important to have people working for the organization whose only jobs are to build a learning organization because Chris, Antonetti, the president of the team is saying, and I assume even above him is saying, it is worth it for us to spend, to invest money into people like you and Josh and others to have a learning organization. And there's someone who may be listening saying, well, should I invest money in my business to have people focused on creating a learning organization? why is that important enough to do it?

Starting point is 00:23:26 What do you think, both from your perspective as well as from the people who have hired you? Sure. And we'll acknowledge the bias up front when you ask the learning and development guy, why learning is important. And the guy who has a show called The Learning Leader, but I think we understand this is why we're friends, but also you're biased here that I think it's the correct answer. But I try to understand that there are skeptics and I want to speak to them too. Sure. We're going to uncork a lot here. So when you look at a, I think it comes out to a competitive advantage, right? We're looking to have a competitive advantage where other people aren't.

Starting point is 00:24:05 But when you go back to this idea of great teams, you know, if you break down great teaming, the team is learning. And I don't think it's learning just to learn, right? It's we know that the step, if we keep doing what we're doing today, five years, I don't care what your job is, unless you're making widgets, you're going to be irrelevant. You have to learn with the technology as things are growing. But for the individual, nobody wants to stay stagnant. The people that we hire, I should say, the people that we hire are passionate,

Starting point is 00:24:36 they're curious people. They want to be best in industry, whatever they're doing. So we've got to give them the tools and the opportunities for their personal growth and development that makes that team better. But I think internally, the big so what is, we believe that. We believe that if we don't have a deliberate process to think about how we're going to make everyone better in our organization, every process, double loop learning, not just the incremental things, but look, you know, step back and think about the entire process will be irrelevant. We'll be outpaced by the industry. And what are some of the, I guess I could ask you this in the form of day to day operations for you.

Starting point is 00:25:17 What does it actually look like? I know no two days are the same, but if you could walk through some of the things that you do on a daily basis, what does putting this into practice look like? Yeah, I guess for a little bit more context, like, there is no compliance model with learning development in the Cleveland Indians baseball operations. There's no, like, mandatory do your Thursday learning session. That's not how it works. So we are following the interest of the learner, the people that have passion and, to get better. So oftentimes we're responding to people saying, hey, I want to get better at remote

Starting point is 00:25:56 coaching. Hey, I want to get better at behavioral interviewing. I want to get better at filling in the blanks. And we're kind of sitting down with them and being like, okay, what are you thinking about? Have you seen this somewhere else? Let's come up with some ideas. Who else can we loop in? Josh and I, we talk a lot about we rarely are the ones delivering the content. I mean, we may synthesize something from a book or some readings into something digestible. But part of our goal is like, who's best in the industry? You know, with this remote coaching, we work with a former Kipp school leader, Mark Manila and bring Mark in and say, Mark, help us out. And, you know, and then he's looped in other people. So I think the day to day is really trying to understand what are the interest,

Starting point is 00:26:45 What's the interest of people in our organization? Where do they have? Where's the demand signal to get better? And then how can Josh and I be a resource? How could we connect the learner with great content? And, you know, I do think there's times when we've created great opportunities, but we're usually just sitting the table, right? And getting everybody in the right spot and putting the right topic and having the right

Starting point is 00:27:09 resources and then the thing kind of takes off. I guess I would liken it to you've been on our speech. series. You've spoken on our speaker series. We loved it. That's like the perfect example where we bring people on a monthly call and we have a, you know, someone that has a great base of knowledge or experience like yourself. You shared for 25, 30 minutes. Then we tell the group, all right, go break into rooms. What did you learn? What did you talk about? And it's amazing what happens when you, when you provide the opportunity for people who are passionate. Nobody's man. Nobody has to sit in on your call. So everybody who shows up is like, they're into it.

Starting point is 00:27:50 And one key point, and this is something we've talked about, you can't passively attend an Indians team call, teams call. Meaning, if you want to sit and just watch, it's better to not join because you get in the breakout rooms. And I've been in breakout rooms with some people that I've watched play on TV, that I really look up to. And all of a sudden, we're four equals. in this room and you better bring it. You better bring it. I think that's a key part of building teams and you could do this within your company regardless of where you work is, okay, you have the base set of content, whatever it is. You hope that's good and that's what you guys do. You find the best of the best. That's why I'm very honored to have played a role in delivering some of that

Starting point is 00:28:35 content. Then you break it down into the smaller groups and it's time to, for them to do the quick synthesis of that and share some key takeaways and some things that they could then implement. And I think if you're doing this within a, if you're listening to doing this within a business, that is a key point. It's don't just sit there and passively take in a lecture. Actually do it. Actually write down how you're going to implement it or what you think at a minimum and then go to practical application.

Starting point is 00:29:03 That is a key component that people leave your calls with specific takeaways that will make them better and make their organizations better. And it seems that you've found something there that is really powerful. Yeah. So we've done a lot of homework on how adults learn. Like foundational to thinking about learning and development is understanding how people learn. And then the second part is what's the science of learning and teaching? Like what do the best teachers do?

Starting point is 00:29:33 Dougombov has a handful of great books on the topic. One of our favorites is Practice Perfect. But the idea of shifting the cognitive load, right? So I'm stealing all Mark Minowellar quotes, I think, or Doug Lamov, but who's ever doing the talking is doing the learning. So if you're having a person deliver a 45-minute lecture, they're going to know their material better than anyone, and they're going to get the most impact out of it.

Starting point is 00:30:00 But if you can have someone share a little bit and then shift the cognitive load to say, okay, now I want you to either journal or talk in pairs or talking a small group on throw the topic out there and let them have a feeding frenzy on the topic. So I think that's been foundational. As we think about engagements, how do we make it where we're shifting the cognitive load so the person isn't just passively sitting there taking notes?

Starting point is 00:30:29 They have to actually work with the material and ideally struggle with it. There's something that's challenging, that's hard. And on this point, when you can shift who's doing the delivery, right, having to prepare to deliver some of that content, that person's going to get the biggest benefit. Yeah, I found one of the reasons that I've leaned into public speaking and doing a lot of keynotes now, even now more of them are on Zoom, which is another interesting battle to win,

Starting point is 00:31:01 is the process of preparing to deliver, I know you know this, delivering a keynote, is an amazing tool for learning. And then doing it actually where you're a little nervous, you know, if you're on stage in front of hundreds of people, and I always seek feedback and trying to figure out like, what really hit, what didn't,

Starting point is 00:31:21 what should stay in, what should I throw out? And that's why it was helpful after your team's call with the Indians to say, what really landed. What really, I have another one, in fact, today an hour after we're going to hang up,

Starting point is 00:31:33 Jay, where I am going to use the stuff that hit on the Indians call, and I'm going to throw out this stuff. stuff that didn't, or at least that wasn't as spoken about as much. So each time you do it, you should be better and better and better. And I think that's just the mindset I sense that you have, your whole organization has, what you had as a seal is this thought process of each time I go to do something, whether it's be fight a battle, deliver a talk, help somebody else,

Starting point is 00:32:02 is I'm going to be in a better position than I was the last time I did it. Yeah, you know, just reviewing the notes from your talk and, you know, I think we share this a group of us doing a reading group with your book. Your model is, I mean, it breaks it down four simple steps and teaching being a big component of it. Yeah. So we love it. I think, you know, just like you said, with that preparation, that struggle.

Starting point is 00:32:27 And then if you can really, you know, even add another layer, imagine if you had to prepare with another person. And that's where we talked about our guys working on a. project, whatever that is, when they're working with that other person and they're building each other up, they're building off of each other's ideas. So pretty cool stuff happens. And that makes me think of, so you've published some really good pieces of writing. I've publicly shared, you have to write a book. I can't wait to read your book. I'll be an early reader if you want. I don't know how helpful I'll be, but I'll be a fan at minimum. And so I want to go through some of the

Starting point is 00:33:04 things that you've written and talk about them a little deeper. Is that cool? Sure. Yeah, that'd be great. So one of your mantras of how to be is someone who has a yes and mindset. And I know this comes from a background and improv, which you've studied some and I've taken some a little myself. But can you share what it means to be a yes and type of a leader?

Starting point is 00:33:31 Absolutely. So it sparked from the book, yes and, I think it's by Second City. And you read the book and they're talking about a foundational element of improv is that you're building off of the other person. And as soon as I read like the first paragraph, I'm like, this is it. This is exactly it. And it's, you know, it's opposite of the, when you think of the best leaders with whom I've served.

Starting point is 00:34:01 They were the ones who were yes and they're, they don't need to get credit for their idea. They're happy to build off of yours, others in the room. They bring energy to the conversation. It's just, it's just the type of people that make it better. And on the opposite,

Starting point is 00:34:19 you know, I always joke and say is Mr. Poopie Pants, the person that you bring the idea and they're like, oh, that'll never work. We tried that already. Well, have you thought about? And they, you know, They throw all the obstacles out there, almost as if they don't want to be successful.

Starting point is 00:34:34 And it's just like, golly, they are de-energizing. How do we not work with them? So I think the yes-hand mindset is really, one, trying to be the best person you can be to build off of others, but also as you think about, you know, how you hire. I think that's foundational to great organizations. One of my mentors, Tom Ogburn, term, me that leaders cannot be energy neutral. you're either going to bring energy to the group to the team or you're going to take it away. You're going to zap it.

Starting point is 00:35:05 And I think that's something for us as leaders. We need to think about the responsibility that we have of am I the type of person who is bringing energy to this group, a yes and mindset? Or am I the type of person who's like, I already tried it. It's done. Yeah, that's that, you know, we do it. Why did we do it this way? Well, that's the way we've always done. This is what we're going to do.

Starting point is 00:35:27 Okay. that type of energy zapper as opposed to the one who's bringing energy to the room of let's have a conscious mindset of bringing that to our groups because I don't know about you. Part of the reason why I enjoy talking to you is because I feel like you bring energy to me. This show, for the most part, I'm pretty picky now about guest is I want to be around others who bring energy to me. That's like the number one quality of my wife. I feel like is she's always bringing this massive positive energy. And I love it. It's so attractive in a person to be around those who are bringing it to the room.

Starting point is 00:36:07 And when you think about that, it's like, well, isn't that the type of person I should be then as a leader? You know? Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think about some people that I know. And when you see him, you're like, hey, what's going on? Like, or you say, hey, how are things? And they're like, great, absolutely great.

Starting point is 00:36:24 And then there's like a chuckle where you're like, oh, man, what's going on? So even like the biggest challenge that they're carrying is a burden. They're still like being positive. Oh, man, I got this issue going on. But there's an ear to ear smile and there's a positivity around it. So I can agree more. Yeah, it doesn't mean you don't live in reality. It doesn't mean you don't have problems.

Starting point is 00:36:46 But it means like you still have a mindset towards like I'm going to approach it with positivity. I can still be real. I understand what's going on. But I believe, like I use the term pro-noia, which I've written about that I've learned from reading Adam Grant and others, is this belief that the world is conspiring to help you. And I like thinking of it that way. I like being surrounded by others who believe in pro-noia that if I just keep at it and consistently doing the work that the world is going to is conspiring to help me be successful, Doesn't mean I don't have, I don't fall down, I don't get knocked out, I don't lose, right? Certainly that happens, but it's just this, this consistent belief that if I keep at it,

Starting point is 00:37:33 things are going to go well. I like that. Go ahead. Were you going to say something? No, just because I love that conspiring to help you. I mean, that's just such a great framework to just approach life. I love it. Yeah, it feels better just to live that way, in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:37:50 Like, that's why a phrase that Miranda and I, my wife say is, without. luck and then you say something really positive. So it just happened this weekend. It was supposed to rain, but we said before it started, we were taking our girls stone outdoor mall. And we said, with our luck, we're going to get beautiful weather, right? And it didn't rain. Now, we didn't will it to not rain, right? We got lucky. It didn't rain. But it's just having that mindset, it's just more enjoyable way to live. So say, use the phrase with our luck and they then say something positive because typically people say, oh, with my luck, and then they say something bad. really enjoy being around people like that. I mean, I will and I am, but I'd rather be around,

Starting point is 00:38:29 I want you, Jay, to say, well, with our luck, we're going to win the pennant or whatever, this monster mash is going to be great on Friday because of X. I think that's a much more enjoyable way to live. And that's a choice. That is a choice we all can make. Okay, so I think a critical skill that excellent leaders possess and that you have figured this out. And I want to ask you how is you have you seem to have a high level of awareness, both of yourself and of people around you of kind of whatever, whether it's body language or just getting a sense. I've sensed this from you, even on Zoom calls as well as in person. I know this is tough, but how have you developed this skill of having a high level of awareness?

Starting point is 00:39:21 So first, thank you. I actually have thought about this. From the standpoint of when you, when anyone transitions from a career after doing, you know, 20 plus years, you're, you start thinking about like, you know, what am I bringing? What kind of helped me? And I think the Navy is unique specifically with junior officers. So you get commissioned or I was commissioned. I went through CLE training. I show up at CEL Team 5 and I'm putting a platoon as the assistant officer in charge.

Starting point is 00:39:56 I was probably the second youngest guy in the platoon, by far the most junior in tenure, but with military rank, you're the second in charge. So you could imagine you've got a bunch of hairy chest and frogmen who are looking at the new ensign. So I think early on you learned to show up with a level of humility and you're trying to say, where do I add value? And I think you're, at least the people who are successful, they are listening very intently on what are the signals around me? Am I walking the right path?

Starting point is 00:40:34 For those that are a little slow on the uptake, and we all were, we have senior enlisted in every military unit. And I could think of every senior enlisted leader with whom I've served, from my leading petty officers to my chief body officers, who were pretty blunt about telling you if you were stepping off the path, hey, sir, you can't do that. Or, hey, you're being a knucklehead. And I think there's, knowing that you had this kind of built-in mentor at every single

Starting point is 00:41:03 job you had, you know, you'll always hear officers say, you know, hit yourself to a strong chief and you'll be okay. So you learn early on to speak with a senior analyst advisor and ask for his help. Hey, you've got more time on planet, more time in the. the teams, I want to be successful. And the best ones, man, they want you to be successful too. So they're trying to lead coach and mentor you to be a successful junior officer and senior officer.

Starting point is 00:41:31 So I think the Navy really, I've benefited from being surrounded by great leaders and then, you know, other great peers that kind of give you a smack on the back of the head if you're off step. So it sounds like you understood. realized early that surrounding yourself with quality people who cared about you, who were willing to give you honest, critical feedback played a big role in the development of your self-awareness? Yeah, I think so. I mean, if we're being frank, if you go back to the SEAL teams 30 years ago, if you stepped off track, if you made a buffoon error, it wasn't just like, hey, you're being a dumbass,

Starting point is 00:42:18 you're probably going to get hazed, right? So there was like, you want to be successful. You want to be a great leader or else, you know, there's no missing words. So part of it, part of it is, and I think this can be powerful. I don't know how this works in the business world. So maybe there is no translation. But for me, Jay, I remember I played as a freshman on our varsity team and I was scared to death of the older guys, scared both physically because you could get like,

Starting point is 00:42:48 There were no red jerseys for the quarterback in practice. You could get literally pounded, scared to let them down, scared to be the weak link. All I really cared about was not letting them down. And that fear led to this an amazing amount of over-preparation, of getting as many reps as it took to feel comfortable executing our offense. And if I didn't feel comfortable, I would just do more and just do as much as I needed until I felt like, okay, I think I know what I'm doing to not let these guys down. And I sense that that's part of it too, where there's some fear, there's some physical abuse,

Starting point is 00:43:28 perhaps. There's, in your case, potential death once you actually get on the battlefield. How does that play a role and to you developing awareness? Yeah. I should say, like, it was a great environment. It was just like if you were, if you stepped off, you were going to get it. Guys are going to let you know. I'm not sure if it was, I understand fear and I just don't want people to miss, like,

Starting point is 00:43:55 I don't think young leaders are fearful in the Navy. But I think there is this like strong burden of pressure that like, I want to add value. I want to, I want to contribute to this team and not let anyone down. I love how you said, you didn't want to let these upperclassmen down. I think that's it. And initially, like, you know, starting your first day of high school, everybody's a little bit nervous. Then you get in your groove, but you're constantly looking like, okay, how do I add value as a leader? And having folks around you that are going to help you navigate that was powerful.

Starting point is 00:44:26 Yeah. One of the other aspects, I think, of being a seal and that we can take into all aspects of our life is this mentality to stay ready. And you've said in every aspect of your life, no one cares what you used to be able to do. They care what you can do today. And this is in line with I learned from previous guests, Andrew Brand, a never peak mantra, meaning I always want to have this trajectory where I'm, it's slightly upward so that there's never really a peak. This is why I don't do crazy diets or dramatically change my workouts.

Starting point is 00:44:59 I don't want to lose 50 pounds or something. I want to have a steady increase in my performance. And physical is a big thing for me. It leads to mental. So for you, can you share about the stay ready? mindset, this, no one really cares what you used to be able to do. They care what you, what you can do today. Yeah, I love that, never peak. It's just such a great, you know, catchy phrase, you get it instantly. You know, I think when I've jotted some of my notes and put pen to paper,

Starting point is 00:45:32 working in the training schoolhouse, you're speaking to students a lot and you're, to be honest, it's just a lot of interaction with students. You're always trying to distill down like, okay, if this 18 to 21 year old is going to remember one thing, what's it going to be? So I remember writing that down, thinking about my time and the teams when, you know, you're in a training cycle or maybe you just come back from deployment. But you know that you can get called back. So it was this idea of like, hey, there's no excuses. Like if the old man calls us back in here and says something's brewing, we can't tell them that we need two weeks, right?

Starting point is 00:46:06 Like we've got to be ready to go. and I think the best leaders with whom I've served always had that mentality, whether it was on downtime or on a Saturday, you still see guys showing up at work, still going into the jibs, still working on their gear and their cage, at some commands even still going to the range. You know, Saturday morning they're still grabbing their guns, going down, getting a half hour or an hour of range time.

Starting point is 00:46:32 And it's just this idea of like, we can't take off our pact. It's a phrase in the military about, you know, when you take your pack off, you just rest and so you can't take off your pack. I'm pulling some of this from a letter that you've written to yourself, to your earlier self. And one of the key aspects of leadership is actually writing it down. And I love to hear your process of how you've synthesized these ideas, the importance. of writing it down, why you've decided to publish these, even though you kind of hide your website, but you published these out there that I could find it and I could read them and I love them. That's why I'm pushing you write a book. But why that you've chosen to do that and the value

Starting point is 00:47:22 you see in it from a leadership perspective? Yeah. So, I mean, the vast majority of what I do is based on being a father of four kids, being married to my wife or my time in the Navy. And I think this idea of writing things down just comes on a, you know, I think the Navy or the military does a lot of great stuff. And one of them is really getting leaders to think deeply about every next level of leadership. So when you are about to take command, become a commanding officer, you go off to school for a week or two. And one of the things they would encourage to do is write your command philosophy. And at its best, the leader will write their command philosophy and it's published at their

Starting point is 00:48:07 command and it's something they refer back to. For me, it was really less about this document that you had published, but it was about being deliberate, thinking, okay, I'm going to take time to think about what I need to do in command. What is my approach going to be? So I never cared if anybody read my philosophy. and I doubt many people did, but it was so important to understand, like, where I was at the end of that journey with writing my command philosophy. So as I transitioned out of the Navy, it's coming to the Indians, it just became a thing where I was like, I got to be deliberate. What is my leadership philosophy?

Starting point is 00:48:44 Like, how do I want to show up? And I'm not sure how great it is, but I'll be honest with it, I'd probably knock that thing out in about 10 minutes. It was just a simple brainstorm. to be like, who do I want to be? I was going to say, what are some of the, so somebody listening who wants to write their command philosophy, we can get tactical here for a second, Jay. What are some of the prompts? I'm a prompt driven writer.

Starting point is 00:49:07 I don't know about you. And it sounds like this is kind of a, there are some prompts here. When I say that I mean, when I was writing my book, I would sit with partners and others to help me and they would just toss questions and I would either write or type and then go back by myself and really go deeper on each of those ideas. But the prompts were very critical, really helpful in my process. What are some prompts for people if they say, oh, I haven't written that. I haven't written my command philosophy.

Starting point is 00:49:34 What are some things they could answer to help get them started? That's a great question. I wish I had printed out. We actually lead a workshop with our organization of helping folks do this. But it's really questions to make people reflect. One of them is who are five leaders? you've been really impressed about in your career? You know, what was it that they did? We've often asked, you know, who are five leaders in history that you've even been impressed by?

Starting point is 00:50:05 What was it that they did? We've borrowed a values exercise from Case Western University. We went through their coaching program. And I've seen other places, but it's essentially, you know, 150 values and you kind of circle the 15 that resonate with you and then you prioritize the top 10 and then you break it down to the five. And boy, when you can only have five out of this list of 150, it's hard. But it gets you, it gets you thinking at a level that you otherwise would not. And there's a few other things about, you know, like, what would your mission statement be? What would your, what's your vision? What do you want to be in 10 years? So I think there's a few of those. The one that I wrote is kind of intertwined my personal and professional life,

Starting point is 00:50:51 which I don't think you can, you know, we've talked about this whole work-life balance. I don't think I can't separate the two. It's like I show up, this is who I am. You know, married, father of four, work in the Cleveland Indians. Used to be a Navy guy. Like, this is me. So I think the prompts I'm thinking about leaders with whom you most respect, what your values really are.

Starting point is 00:51:14 And, you know, at your best, you know, it's kind of aspirational. Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up? One of the other aspects I think of that I found in common with great leaders is they have a knack for connecting amazing people. Jason Gaynard calls himself a talent scout. He's always scouting talent and then finding connections for them. And I've heard and I've personally seen you do this really well. And I heard that this is something that you've you've been doing for many years, including when you're in the Navy as a seal.

Starting point is 00:51:48 can you share your thoughts and philosophy on being a connector of people and why that's important to you? Yeah. Like the idea of networking, I think for many just has like a negative connotation. I don't know. It just feels like you're passing up business cards. But connecting is like, you know, you're trying to find someone that you can help out. You can connect them with someone else. You guys have similar interests.

Starting point is 00:52:16 or maybe someone that you want to partner with because you're just so curious about what they do, the book that they wrote, like you've got to know more. So I think throughout my career, this has become a bigger thing. And probably when I was working at the CEL Training Center, really thinking about how do adults learn and got interested in the book Make It Stick by Rodger and Brown. and thinking about, you know, deliberate practice, you know, kind of read Dan Coyle's book Talent Code, thinking about deliberate practice and went to the author, Andrews Erickson, Peek. So, started thinking, like, how do we get those leaders to come to the Naval Special Warfare

Starting point is 00:52:59 Center and share what they learn? And, you know, the first time you ask someone and they say, sure, we'd love to come visit, you're like, whoa, all I had to do was ask. So I think that has, you know, specifically engaging with Mr. Rodger made me realize that, you know, when you reach out to someone and see you're curious about their work or curious about what they do, they're often very willing to help. And I think that it's just kind of spiraled through my career. And when when people are willing to do that with you, then you know, you want to share as well. So I think it becomes this like it just grows exponentially. Everybody's looking to connect, hey, you know who you should talk to. And I think it's just super powerful for the organization. As a connector,

Starting point is 00:53:45 one of the, I think, aspects of you that probably has a kind of a magnetic force is this level of confidence, I sense, as well as a comfort in your own skin. I said the same thing to recent guest Jack Butcher. And I think you exude this as well, that people, I mean, I know I do. I'll speak for myself. I like being around others who you sense a comfort in their skin. You sense a confidence that's been built through work, through achievement, through helping others. When you reflect on this, how do you sense that you have built up this comfort in your skin of who you are, fully understanding yourself, as well as the confidence that you've built over the, you. years. That's a great question. You know, I think I go back to the Navy on all this stuff. I think when you show up at seal training, you know, there's just this model of these tasks to get incrementally harder and harder and harder and harder. You know, when you show up, you have to tie knots underwater and the next thing, your hands and feet are tied and you have to do things underwater and

Starting point is 00:55:03 it's a swim underwater 50 meters and next thing you're in Hell Week and it progresses through training, which I think creates, you know, to sound super nerdy, this self-efficacy model where you get these challenges and you learn that if you follow the training and you work hard, you can achieve it. And inevitably, you know, there's a few people that probably go through seal a train without failing something, but I wasn't one of them. So you learn that it's okay to fail. Like you've pushed your edge, you failed. They have a program to help you figure out how to pass it and then you overcome it. And it's pretty cool to learn. man, I could push myself and fail and then I can work at it and pass.

Starting point is 00:55:43 And then through my career, I've had a ton of times when I failed. And at the time, feeling like, oh, my gosh, this is insurmountable. But then, you know what, you've got this team, you come together and you overcome it. So I think there's a track record of, you know, solving problems with a great team of people, being part of something bigger than you, that maybe you get to a point, at least where I am more, I know I don't have it all figured out, but I know I've got great people that are on the left and right of me. And I'm sure we can figure it out. So there ways we could, this is, this kind of ties it back to the shared adversity, but are there ways that we could for, let's

Starting point is 00:56:26 say a company, I work with a company that most of their hires are 23 and their whole, the whole model, and this is a big company, their whole model is just to promote from within for every job, rarely hire externally so that they need to really develop their people because one day those people are going to be leading their businesses and their business. How would we take from what the Navy SEALs do and implement that into a place like that where those people are just graduating college? And maybe they have a background that they've done some, they've played sports or some military or there are other things that create shared adversity,

Starting point is 00:57:09 but what are ways we could put that into play in the business world? You know, I think there's something powerful about when folks see other people stumble and then recover. I think when leaders share when they screwed something up, it's a powerful message. You know, I love in Dan Coyle's book, when he talks about the restaurant in New York, I'm going to screw up the story, but the point of it was, you know, this person is going to be the matri-D that day, and she's never done it before. And he says, hey, if you don't come and ask for help at least 10 times today, this is going to go horribly wrong. So, like, how cool is that? You're the boss and you're sending the signal to your employee that, hey, I know you don't have it figured out.

Starting point is 00:57:58 I trust you because we've done all the right things. We've powered you. You're trained. You're empowered. But you're going to need help. And we're here to help you. So, you know, it goes back to what we talked about before with teaming. I think leaders of organization need to figure out, how are they going to do this?

Starting point is 00:58:15 You know, when people in their organization have done this well, what happened there and having a deliberate plan that focuses on it? I think it's great. I love it. And I have a feeling, I have a sense of what you might say, but you know from being a long-time listener, which I'm very grateful for. you and your organization that I study people who sustain excellence and I'm fascinated by the makeup of those types of individuals and the stories behind people who do that.

Starting point is 00:58:51 So when you take a moment and think about others in your life who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what have you found those individuals have in common? Yeah, I love when you ask this question. And I think everyone, you know, when they give their answers, I'm always in agreement, you know, exactly. I guess when I think about it, but I do the both, like the best and worst leaders with whom I've served, I think it comes down to humility. And the humility is the enabler for curiosity.

Starting point is 00:59:24 It's the enabler for giving praise and gratitude to someone else, you know, not having to be the center of a. or not having to, you know, everybody can be good, not just, not just that person. And at its worst, you know, people without humility, you know, they don't want to change your mind or ideas aren't as good if it's not theirs. And so anyway, very long answer. I think it's humility. So I want to unpack that a bit because humility comes before curiosity.

Starting point is 00:59:56 Explain what you mean by that. Well, I think we all agree. like curiosity is this attribute that we want from people. But it's really easy when you're a 21-year-old ensign. I'm curious all day long because I don't really know anything. But when you're 26 years in the Navy as a Master Chief or as a Navy captain, can you stay curious? Can you still ask the questions?

Starting point is 01:00:22 When you're the general manager of a baseball team, can you still ask your staff, what am I missing? Hey, what are you seeing that I'm not? I don't think I have this right. Help me understand what you're seeing. Not everybody can do that. There's a lot of people to get to a level in their career where they think they haven't figured out.

Starting point is 01:00:42 And I think that could be debilitating for a leader. Man, that's such a great example or way to describe what a learning leader is, in my opinion. And I love that you distinguish between why humility needs to come first. in order to enable, your quote, humility is the enabler for curiosity. I love that. I'm going to use that.

Starting point is 01:01:05 Jay, thanks so much, man. I'm so grateful for your friendship and from our times, getting to talk and hang out. I look forward to many more in the future, but thank you so much for being here today, man. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Starting point is 01:01:20 I'm looking forward to when we could have you and your girls up here to catch a game in person. I can't wait, man. I can't wait. Is there anywhere you'd like to send people to learn more about you online? line. No, but thank you for asking. I knew what you're going to say. All right. Thanks so much, man. We'll talk soon. All right, man. What a joy to have conversations with Jay Hennessy. I could literally do it for hours. Every time I walk away, feeling better about myself, feeling energized, and feeling lucky, quite frankly, that he shares knowledge with me. A few of the key

Starting point is 01:01:56 takeaways, quote, great teams aren't created through happenstance. You must be deliberate up front. The language you use is so important. It reminds me of a great Bill Walsh quote in regards to building championship cultures. He said the actions and behaviors precede the championships. They don't just happen. You must act like a champion before you become one. And then building a learning organization creates a competitive advantage and quote nobody we hire here wants to be stagnant think about your organization and your teams and why building an learning organization could be a competitive advantage for you and it's worth the investment to do so and then whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning when meeting with your teams set it up so that all members

Starting point is 01:02:56 are encouraged to contribute. That time teaching is when so much learning is taken place. And when you know as a member of the meeting that you are going to be asked your opinion, asked to speak up or ask to present, you're going to come to the meeting better prepared. And through that process of preparing is when so much learning takes place. Once again, I want to say thank you to the loyal listener, for continuing to spread the word, to tell a friend or two, hey, this one with Jay Hennessey,

Starting point is 01:03:33 it's so good, it's very useful, it could help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 380: Jay Hennessey - How To Build A Learning Organization

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