Secrets On Building an Employment Brand From the U.S. Military
Leadership looks different across different industries, but one thing stays the same: people.
It seems obvious that you can’t lead without having someone to lead, right?
Leadership is more than just having someone to lead, there has to be a shared purpose everyone believes in. A shared vision and goal. A great leader shows people why they make a difference and how. A great leader can lead during the toughest of times and keep their team focused on what’s important. A great leader asks questions, actively listens, and opens up productive dialogue.
So, what else makes a great leader, well, great?
On this week’s episode of Growing a Fruitful Brand, we are joined by Dr. Rebecca Hannagan from True North Advising Group to discuss secrets from one of the world’s best examples of leadership, the U.S. Military.
Dr. Hannagan is an executive leadership consultant who has worked with business leaders, the United States Government and Military leadership. Listen in for an episode you don’t want to miss, as Dr. Hannagan shares secrets from the U.S. Military on how non-military leaders can build an employment brand and be leaders worth following.
Subscribe to the Growing a Fruitful Brand podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and don’t miss an episode!
Ep.10: Leadership Secrets from the U.S. Military.
Automated Transcript
Raj Lulla:
Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us on the Growing a Fruitful Brand podcast.
Rebecca Hannagan:
I'm super excited to be here. Thank you so much, Raj.
Raj Lulla:
So jumping in here, we talk a lot about growing a fruitful brand, that's what the title of the show is. And a really important part of growing a fruitful brand is having a solid employment brand. Because your employees a lot of times are the face of your company to the world. You can't be everywhere at once talking to every customer, to every leader that you might encounter. So your employees really are the face of your brand a lot of times. And so taking care of them is an extremely important part of your brand.
Rebecca, you come from advising military leaders, government leaders, and executive leaders. You come from that world. And so today I'd love to know what are some secrets that we can learn from the military world, especially, because that's not common to necessarily all of us that would be great for somebody who's building an employment brand to take on? So before we get into any of that, let's just start with how did you get into this? You don't look like you spent a lot of years in a tank or a Humvee or anything. So have you always been adjacent to the military?
Rebecca Hannagan:
No. No, not at all. I personally have never served. I was a university professor in Illinois, minded my own business, doing a very ordinary kind of job. And I applied to do a project for the Marine Corps on a fellowship. And actually, I told them when they interviewed me, "You should hire me. I know nothing about the Marine Corps, and so I can ask good questions and really listen without a filter and bias." And they bought it. And I was like, "Oh, no, now I have to go do this thing." But I literally stumbled into this world, and it was just such a phenomenal experience. I learned so much from young leaders in the Marine Corps and was just so inspired that I ended up going into supporting the Navy and the Marine Corps for a number of years, mainly the Marine Corps, both as a contractor, and consultant. And yeah, the next thing here I am. And if you would've asked me a few years back if this would've been my life. I would've been like, "No way. No.”
Raj Lulla:
So the military to me, they have one of the most important employment brands that exist because they're actually asking people to put their lives on the line for the company. And so they have to really have this buttoned down. And to me, it seems like from the outside that they do, because you just go in, you follow orders, you get the haircut, kind of all of that. What kinds of problems and issues do you see when you're consulting with military leaders or government leaders? Again, from the outside, it looks so buttoned up. What kind of issues do you see crop up there?
Rebecca Hannagan:
It looks so buttoned up, but I'm a social scientist by training so what I bring to any organization is a framework for understanding people. And I would say regardless of organization, civilian, military, government, or nonprofit, we're talking about people. And people are people. So you're going to have the same people challenges in any organization, but the culture of course makes a difference. And so people gravitate to certain brands, as you said. And so there are people who are attracted to that life and want to be a part of that, and that branding resonates with them. It didn't resonate with me, obviously, I never stood there and took the oath and wanted to do that, but some people really do, and that's a powerful mover.
But even once people have been drawn to that and signed up for that, there are still the inherent challenges that come along with leading people, getting people to work together in teams and engagement. We've heard a lot about employee engagement, particularly during COVID. And those things are still challenges, even in an organization where it seems like it should be very clear that everybody wanted to be here, they signed up, and there are clear rules. It's not clear. It's actually incredibly challenging.
Raj Lulla:
One thing that you told me... So Rebecca has been one of our clients with True North Advisory Group. She's amazing. She's doing great work out there in California and across the nation. But in our work together, one of the things you told me that really resonated was that there's nothing magical about the uniform. People don't become easy to lead just because of the uniform. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Rebecca Hannagan:
It's true. There is a power and a cultural thing that happens when people come together for a common cause. And I think the uniform is symbolic of that, shared experiences, shared hardship. The uniform reminds people of that, but it doesn't erase all of the things about being a human that makes it challenging to lead people. And so I think that's what I was probably getting at with it doesn't have magical superpowers. People still have all of the things that come along with being people in organizations.
Raj Lulla:
If it did have superpowers, I think all of us would mandate that just regular employees wear them. It's just like, "I know we're a design company, but go ahead and put on the fatigues anyway, because it will just make everything easier around here." That stood out to me so much when we talked about it, because there is, again, just sort of this perception that because order and regimentation are so key to the success of military operations and military outfits, you sort of just assume that, oh, well, they're just kind of a different kind of people, that for whatever reason, they found all the best 18-year-olds in the world and that can follow orders the first time and pay attention, all of that. Or everybody's just so afraid of the mean drill sergeant or whatever, that everything just falls in line eventually.
But talking to you, it's become clear that the military actually has to work really hard on their employment brand and how they take care of people so that it can create this culture where people are willing to sacrifice their own life, even, for other people. And that takes a lot of work and people like you help them get there.
So let's kind of jump in a little bit then. And so most of our people who are listening aren't leading a military company into battle. And so they're probably wondering, okay, what can I learn from the way that they operate over in the military for my business? And so you talk about this a lot. What's one thing that a leader in an ordinary business, a private sector business, or even a nonprofit or government, what's one thing that they can learn from the military and the things that you've seen work?
Rebecca Hannagan:
That's a great question. For me, it comes down to the way in which you show the people in your organization that they matter every day. So you hear a lot about we're a people-centered organization, or it's all about people, or this is a relationships business or all of those things that can easily become platitudes. I think the non-government, the non-military leaders can learn from military leaders because there are a lot of exemplars of showing every day that people really do matter, and it's profound. And even if the uniform isn't magic, the people sometimes really, really are. And that is one of the things that I have taken away is knowing that, yeah, there's amazing equipment that costs millions of dollars that can do the things that we want it to be able to do to defend our way of life in America. But that's not... I mean, it's people that make all of those things happen, that fly the aircraft, that operate the equipment.
And so it's not a given that people are going to simply come together and work as a team to make that happen, even though the mission is incredibly important. So what the best military leaders I have worked with do is help the people that work for them, help the people they lead, understand what they're supposed to do, how they do it together with their teammates, and how that relates to the larger purpose and really, really reinforcing when it's hard and there are long hours and it's grueling that they matter in that mission. And I think that's a powerful lesson. You can't just assume that because somebody has a sweet office and is paid well, they either know that the work they do matters and that it's collectively moving some mission forward, or that despite difficulties they may be having, they still belong, they're still a part of something. And there's something about the military life that really, really reinforces that for a lot of people. They are part of something and they matter.
Raj Lulla:
I loved what you said about being a human-centric organization, not just being a sort of bumper sticker for your organization. I have hated mission statements for a very long time because they kind of become a joke in a lot of places. When a lot of my clients ask them to help them write their mission statement, one of the things I say is, "Yes, we can do that, but first I want to focus on the problem that you solve for your customers." Because everybody says we make the best widgets in the world or whatever, and they don't. Even the worst company in the world has that mission statement. And so I actually don't really hate mission statements. I hate when mission statements just are not kept. And you make such a great point about that, that if we're going to say it, it really, really has to be true. And that's true for an employment brand that's just true of a regular brand, as we've talked about many times on this show.
So love that. I think that's exactly the kind of spirit that we have around here at Fruitful as well. So diving into that, if a leader wants to truly have a human-centric organization, they want to make sure that people know how they matter, not only to the mission, but that they just matter as people in general, what are some behaviors that we could actually adopt in our businesses, in the meetings that we do, and the coaching that we do of our employees that help people get to that place of understanding what they're supposed to do here, why they matter, that they matter as people? What's your number one thing that leaders should do in those coaching moments or in those meetings to make sure that everybody is on the same page?
Rebecca Hannagan:
This is a thing I've learned from military leaders as well, or I've definitely seen it, and how powerful it can be has been reinforced for me. And I think it's introducing reflection and dialogue in meetings, in informal feedback to employees, in coaching and mentoring sessions. And it's inviting that space for conversation. It's not just the case in the military. In the corporate world for sure, there is this bias for action. We want to figure out what the problem is and we want to take action and get into those action steps and move out. And to make sure that we are spending time thinking through and inviting dialogue is a way to show people that they matter because we are listening. And active listening is a skill inherent in that. And the extent to which leaders do that well, again, creates that strong culture where people can feel like they matter and they have a role to play.
And the reflection part is really critical as well. And here's a tool and a tactic that anybody can use right now, and that is to create a marker and a technique following those kind of interactions where you say, "So I just provided some positive feedback, something I observed about what you're doing that's really great, that's moving our mission forward. How did that land for you?" And ask people to just reflect on what just happened. Same with a staff meeting. In the last three minutes, "Hey, can we just go around the horn and everybody shares a little bit about what they learned, insights they're taking away."
And it doesn't just have to be about what we talked about. It could be, "Hey, I didn't know that Joe has been struggling so hard with getting somebody hired on his team. We can cover that gap. We're got things down. We can help out." And then we get to the we. We're a we when you do that, as opposed to everybody living in silos and feeling like, well, I've got to go do my job and then I've got to show everybody that I'm doing my job. And it becomes this isolating grind. And again, leaders, simple techniques, reflection and dialogue, and bringing that into almost everything you do, even in little tiny simple ways, can have a ripple effect and a powerful impact on how people feel about what they're doing in the work.
Raj Lulla:
That is so interesting because I know as a leader, for me, it's impressed a lot of times with, you have to be clear with your people what you're doing. You have to talk, talk, talk. You have to communicate. And you're actually kind of flipping the tables there, flipping the script and saying, actually, one of the things we do, yes, we need to talk, we need to communicate those things. But in order to make sure that it's received, we have to make time and effort for that reflection and understanding. That's huge. I can already see how if we incorporated that into our meetings, that we probably would have to say things maybe 30% as many times, that we wouldn't have to repeat it two or three times to make sure that it's sinking in. But if we ask in the room, "Hey, is this sinking in? How are you reflecting? What did you learn?" Then that would be really huge, and I could see that adding some efficiency.
So for a leader who wants to do this, like, okay, Rebecca, I agree with you. I need to incorporate reflection into our operations here. How can they ask the right kinds of questions? You gave a couple of examples, but you've impressed me how important it is to ask the right questions. Yeah, can you give some examples of more questions or what to think about when you're coming up with those questions?
Rebecca Hannagan:
Sure. I think how and what questions are great questions to ask employees. You're learning how they think. You're inviting them to reflect on their process and their ability to articulate that, as opposed to why questions, which puts people in a point where they feel like they have to defend where they're coming from or their reasoning. So I would say as kind of a basic framework, stay away from asking why questions and gravitate more to how and what. And that kind of empowers people to show up as you maybe didn't give explicit... You told us to do this thing, but you didn't tell us how to do it, so I'm going to explain to you how I do it. And then there can be that space for dialogue. So and what questions and open-ended questions as opposed to the kind of questions that could be answered with a very simple yes, no. Those feel like stump the chump.
And so as a leader, the only time you ever ask anybody anything is when they can say, "Yes, I did that," or, "No, I didn't do that," or, "Yes, I thought of that," or, "No, I didn't think of that." It really cuts off that ability to have something like trust and confidence and buy-in and all of those things that you really want to get that flywheel moving to create a sense of shared mission, shared purpose, and getting that buy-in.
Raj Lulla:
I work with a company who, one of their major clients is based overseas. And he was telling me that in countries especially that have been colonialized, people are just so naturally kind of culturalized to say yes, even when they mean no. It's like, "Can you get the report to me by Thursday?" And it's like, "Yes." And what the person really means is, "I have no idea how to do that, but I can't say no to you because of the power dynamic here." And while that's kind of obvious sometimes when you're working across cultures, again, especially in places that have suffered from colonialism, that sort of thing, it also happens a lot here in the US where there is a power dynamic and a boss asks you for something. I'm guilty of this as an employer, just saying, "Hey, can you get this done?" And then coming back two weeks later and going, "Why isn't this done?" And again, both of sides of that, I ask a yes or no question and then ask a why question. And it puts the person kind of in a no-win situation.
One of the things I learned from my wife and I took a parenting class during the pandemic, and the teacher gave this really great tool that matches perfectly with what you're talking about, which was to start a question with, "I wonder." And employers don't even necessarily need to do that, but if they think it in their head before they do it... You often wouldn't say, "I wonder why you didn't do this," because you're not really wondering. It's just more just, "Hey, you didn't do this and I'm upset about it." But if you were to ask instead, "I wonder what you need in order to do this." You don't have to say the I wonder part, especially if it feels patronizing or whatever, but if you think it, I wonder, and you actually approach it with a sense of curiosity about your employees, what they need in order to do their job or to feel good about doing their job, then you just come out with that question. "What do you need in order to do this well?" How do you feel about this?
And the true curiosity, the true wonder about those things, instead of just, "I wonder why you're such a pain to me," or that sort of thing, it does, it invites that reflection and dialogue. That's so great. So we've talked about how we need that room for reflection and dialogue and that a big part of that is asking great questions. If a leader's still not finding traction and if they feel like they're asking the right questions, they feel like they're leaving room for that, what else might be going on, maybe with the leader personally, that a good leader should be paying attention to?
Rebecca Hannagan:
That's a great question. The wondering out loud, that's one of my favorite techniques, and I'm glad you shared that. There was a Marine leader who shared that technique with me when he was talking about building his team and what that was like. And he said he used to, with his direct reports, do this. I wonder how we could solve the problem. And he's like, I totally knew what I wanted to do, but by wondering out loud, it was inviting that space for thinking. And this was also the Marine who shared with me that it was absolutely critical when he got to a certain point in his career that he had what he called a mirror, and that was a person who would tell him the truth and reflect back to him what he was doing, what he wasn't doing, what was missing. And so to your question of when leaders feel like they're kind of stuck, it's possible, because of corporate culture or pace of the work environment or personalities, that a leader just isn't getting feedback in a way that is useful for their own growth.
It doesn't mean you're failing, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong. But if we're all in this to grow and we actually really want that from our employees as well, how are we doing that for ourselves as leaders? And so back to the wisdom of this particular Marine, he was the CEO, it was his sergeant major, and they just had this kind of relationship where the sergeant major could, in a totally loving and respectful way, say, "Hey, you're all jacked up. This is a thing you're doing. You're not seeing that it's having this kind of effect. Let's talk through that. Let's have that." And maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your coach, maybe it's your best friend, but to have somebody in your life that you can have that reflection.
And then we also learned in the last few years, there's all kinds of self-focused upskilling things out there for leaders. And any of that self-directed learning can be useful or can be helpful, but there's really no substitute for the human dynamic, especially for someone who your mirror is someone who knows you really well and sees you in action. But you got to be ready for that. You got to be to be open, right? Like, "I wonder, I'm curious about." You have to be that with yourself or ego gets in the way and you know won't be able to hear it and you won't be able to improve from it.
Raj Lulla:
So that opens up an interesting question because I think a lot of leaders are open to some kind of feedback, but I feel like the market can be so difficult. We're going through some economic turbulence right now. You get rejected in sales sometimes, and so there is this sort of natural tendency to have your defenses up. And so leaders want to improve, especially good ones, but it can be difficult to be vulnerable, especially about their own performance. What are some questions that leaders can ask to that mirror or even to determine if somebody is a good mirror for them? What are the types of things they could ask to get constructive feedback, but in a way that they could receive it?
Rebecca Hannagan:
That's a great question. From my experience, having a very intentional time and space where you're asking for that feedback and that's the nature of this conversation, and you kind of bracket it, that feels more comfortable than, "Hey, I want you to tell me when I'm screwing up." In the course of a very stressful day, you don't want somebody popping in. You've got meetings, meetings, meetings, and oh, by the way, there's stuff on the home front, and this is when somebody's going to pop in and be like, "Hey, by the way." That way you talk about [inaudible 00:25:15], that can't happen. That's like throwing grenades into an already stressful situation.
So I think the way to do that is to make sure... kind of the inviting reflection. You just got this little technique, it's a three-minute thing, you're going to invite that. So whether it's a certain day a week, or whether it is once a month, and you come in... And this was another technique I learned. This was a chief of police. When he was going to have his mirror come in, his deputy, he would light a candle and put it on the conference table. And for him it was just this little symbolic reminder that I'm calm, I'm not going to get defensive, I want to listen. I'm doing this because I've invited it. And they would have a conversation, and he'd feel good about it. And then the meeting would be over. He'd blow out the candle and go back to his day.
So there are amazing things that leaders have done to just, "We're going to bracket this. We're putting it here so that I can really listen and hear and take it and have it change me for the good," without it having to disrupt the flow of and the emotion. I mean, emotions run high. Leaders are faced with crazy levels of stress and the dynamics of other people's emotions all day long. So to take care of yourself, I think, and create those rituals and those bounded spaces to do that and be really intentional about it, is a good first step.
Raj Lulla:
That reminds me of I've had the opportunity to, somewhat unfortunately, walk with people through seasons of grief before in my other career and just another seasons of life. And one thing that I've found with grief counseling is that people are thinking about their grief all the time after they've experienced a significant loss. And one of the reasons why it's helpful to go to a grief group or grief counseling is because I described it as making an appointment with your grief. So instead of just letting it be there in the background the whole time, that you make that appointment and then you say, "Hey, it's going to be there, and that's fine, I'm going to carry it around. But I'm going to go deal with it Monday at 3:00 PM at St. Roberts Church or wherever, and there's going to be a whole group of us who are there for that purpose."
I think very similarly here, what you're talking about is making an appointment for feedback. And so I love that idea of changing the environment in some way, whether it's the lighting, even what room you're in. Maybe you don't do it in your office, you do it in the conference room instead. You do those things to say, "Hey, this is what this time is for." And then as soon as that candle goes out, or as soon as we leave the conference room, or as soon as we change the environment back, it's back to business mode. It's back to that armor up. I do need to be tough to take on the challenges of this environment, but I have to make appointments for that growth. For that feedback.
You are absolutely right that getting that kind of feedback in the midst of a stressful situation is the worst because everybody pretty much already knows when they're failing or when something's not going the way that they want it to. And then to have somebody who even lovingly and well intentioned comes along and says, "Hey, you're being a jerk," in the middle of all this. It's like, "Yeah, but I'm also failing." So it doesn't help performance there.
Rebecca Hannagan:
And I would say, you don't even have to have an appointment for this kind of thing if something isn't going well or if you're failing. The seeking a mirror and feedback may just be because you've gotten to a point where you want to grow and you're not sure how. And you don't have to be doing anything wrong or bad to want to know how it's going. And I think that's the other thing about asking great questions and being dialed into what's going on with your people.
Back to what military leaders I think can teach people in the civilian world, there doesn't have to be a catastrophic failure or anything wrong for you to want to know what's going on with your people. Why? Because you can't have breakage. You can't have people falling out when it's really, really critical. So to make sure that what's going on and you're tuning things up, it's the same with yourself. You don't want to burn out. And so how do you make sure you don't? You don't have to wait until failure to ask yourself the good questions and do that reflection and dialogue internally to... I mean, it's a resilience thing, really.
Raj Lulla:
I would argue that it's more important for leaders to have self-reflection during times that aren't crises because that's when you actually have the capacity to change and grow. It's just like counseling. It's better if you go when you're not in the middle of some kind of crisis, because when you go during a crisis, and it's important then too, but it's about relief. It's about trying to come down from anxiety, depression, whatever. But if you go when you're healthy, that's when you can learn the skills and the tools to prevent those kinds of flareups and moments that there could be failure or crisis or to weather those things, because we don't always have control of them, to weather those things with the skills that we've developed. I love that idea of we can't wait for breakage. We can't wait for failure because in the military case, it costs lives. It causes missions to fail and those things are critically important. So yeah, that's such a great way of thinking of it.
At the end of every Growing a Fruitful Brand episode, we like to invite people to put action to their learning. We don't want this to just be good academic, "Oh, I'll think about that a little bit." What's something that a leader could do with what we've talked about today and asking great questions, incorporating reflection and dialogue into their organization, and then for themselves, being aware of themselves, inviting room for that personal feedback, especially when they're not currently in a crisis? What's one step that they could take to start doing these things immediately, move in the right direction?
Rebecca Hannagan:
You asked for one, and because I'm extra, I'm going to give you two. The first would be in terms of asking great questions, focus on how and what questions of your employees and your teams as opposed to why or closed-ended questions. And I loved your contribution, Raj, of, I'm curious about those kind of techniques can be really powerful. Play around with that and see how much that changes the dynamic in those conversations. And then the reflection and dialogue in all of the interactions you have, ask more questions, talk less as a leader, and then also create those spaces for reflection because that is what can have that ripple effect. People, if invited to reflect in the moment and then share that reflection, it's that they have said what they've learned. You didn't tell them what they've learned. They have told themselves what they learned, and that's the superpower. That's what they're going to take into the rest of their day, and that's going to really, really be a mover for behavior change, which is what we want.
Raj Lulla:
Absolutely. Rebecca, I have told you this many times before. You are one of our favorite people to work with. And anybody who needs leadership coaching and wants to upskill themselves, I love that picture, please do reach out to Rebecca. We'll make sure to include her link in the show notes and around wherever you're receiving this podcast or video. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us on Growing a Fruitful Brand and look forward to the next time we get to talk.
Rebecca Hannagan:
Thank you so much, Raj. As always, totally amazing to spend time with you.
Ben Lueders:
Thanks for joining us today on Growing a Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it. If you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding website or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website, fruitful.design. So until next time, don't forget to grow something good.
