Lessons From the Navy

Mark Brouker: Yes, real quick. It's such a great question. They're all round the world – literally, around the world. We have them in all different countries: army, air force, navy. I think there's about 550 military hospitals in the U.S. military network, and they take care of all the active-duty men and women; they take care of their families and the retirees.

I'm a navy retiree, I did thirty years and I get my healthcare at the hospital here in San Diego. So, it's an expansive network and I think it's at least… It's billions of dollars, I think there's about ten million beneficiaries. So, it may not rival… I think the biggest healthcare system in the United States is the VA – Veterans Administration – but I think second would be the Military Department of Defense.

Rachel Salaman: How well do your lessons from the navy cross over to the corporate world? Do they need much adapting?

Mark Brouker: No! That's what's so amazing. I've done a lot of international work, mostly in Asia, but certainly some in Europe and in South America at different organizations – whether it's a nonprofit, Rachel, or a corporation serving military, it really doesn't matter: if people conclude that you care for their well-being, they'll work really hard for you. And that's it in a nutshell.

And the question then becomes, "OK, that sounds reasonable." And you've heard that in many books. What puts my book apart, at least what people were telling me... and this really was my objective, [it] was to give people practical – I call them the "behaviors" – that you can employ pretty easily that will build that level of caring. And, at the end of the day, it's all about trust.

There's three components of trust, of course: you've got to be competent in your job. No one's going to trust someone who isn't competent in the tactical skill of whatever group they're leading. And you've got to keep your word, you've got to have some level of integrity. Those are, obviously, important for trust.

But the third component is not talked about much. And a chapter of my book's about leading with care and compassion and showing that you care. And that's a huge component of trust and it's just not talked about much.

Rachel Salaman: Now, one of the first tips in your book is to remember that any leadership role comes with some level of intimidation. Could you talk a bit about that and tell us how this insight influenced how you lead?

Mark Brouker: Yes. You know, when you think about it, half of your waking hours – eight hours a day – you're under the influence of a leader. So, by definition, by default, leaders are kind of intimidating because they dictate whether you have a job, frankly, they dictate how much pay you're going to get paid – they have an enormous amount of power over you.

And I think most leaders don't appreciate that level of natural intimidation. So, what I talk about in the book is the opposite of intimidation [which] is being approachable. You have to be proactive to get to that approachable level, otherwise you're just going to default to intimidation.

And intimidation creates fear, and there's either a culture of trust or a culture of fear. Approachable leaders create cultures of trust – great things happen. Intimidating leaders create cultures of fear, and cultures of fear breed bad decisions.

I say intimidating leaders… If you work for intimidating leaders, you're not trying to improve, you're trying not to make a mistake. And that's just no way to maximize your performance.

So, every interaction you have with your team member – every single interaction, whether it's a text or an email or a passing in the hallway or a Zoom call today with the COVID thing – how you react will create either a little bit more trust or create a little bit more fear. And when leaders embrace that, they're more likely to be cognizant of it and act appropriately and actually push towards a level of trust.

Rachel Salaman: Now, you mentioned that your book covers six critical behaviors that show that leaders care. I thought we could start with talking about "showing respect." Because you say that this one is the one that impacts employee engagement more than any other leadership behavior, which might surprise some people. What are some of the ways that you showed respect as a leader in the navy?

Mark Brouker: Yes. I think, again, it is the most impactful by study, and it's not just me thinking this... There was a study done – real quick, Harvard Business Review published it – and someone asked 20,000 employees from around the world – different industries – the question was, "What behavior gets you excited to go to work every day?"

And they gave five choices: "inspiring vision"; the second one was something like, "good pay"; the third one was "opportunities for growth and development"; the fourth was "respect" – respect got more votes than the others, by a long shot.

And, when you think about it, you can be working for someone with a very inspiring vision, but if they treat you terribly, you're not going to stay in that company. Nor should you.

So, respect is the most important piece of this piece, these behaviors. And the one that I would just say is "listening." I guess I learned this when I was… I was something called "a detail"… the bottom line is I was a human resource guy. And my job was, I had 3,000 officers that I was in charge of to make sure they were… The navy moves people on every two or three years, in the U.S. Navy. And that's pretty disruptive to people's families and stuff. So, my job was to match a good job with someone's professional desires, family needs and whatnot.

And what I learned was... My normal conversation, early in that job, was to kind of say, "Hey! Here's what's going on. Here's a good job for you. It'll be great for you and your family, blah, blah, blah." And they had a conversation, they'd say, "Well, I have a child with some pretty significant disease." Which means they couldn't go there. So, what I learned from that job was, "I need to listen to the people's desires and needs, and then try and make them fit for the navy."

Listening is the ultimate way to show respect because you're conveying that, "I value what you have to say. I may not agree, we may not go in that direction. But I'm going to listen, I'm going to analyze it, and I'm going to value what you have to say." So, it's extremely powerful.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. And you have to listen in a certain way as well, don't you? You have to really listen, not just look like you're listening.

Mark Brouker: Yes. I mean, that's exactly right, Rachel, you're spot on. And there's listening that'll put a check in the box, which is disrespectful, frankly. And there's listening with your heart and earnestly trying to figure out what this person… what thoughts they're conveying to you. And that takes energy: it takes focus, discipline, but it's so powerful.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. And I also really like your tips for respecting other people's time. And you say, in your book, "Remember that no one is going to tell the boss to stop talking." And then you also say that, before we speak, we should think of the acronym WAIT, short for, "Why Am I Talking?"

Mark Brouker: Yes. And, frankly, years ago, I worked for someone who was a really good leader – a very, very effective leader – smart, and all this other stuff, but what happened is this leader would come into my office later in the day and just kind of kvetch, if you will.

And that was… Initially, I knew his heart was in the right place but this would go on 30, 35 minutes. I had a young family, I want to get home. Sometimes forty-five minutes. And just the timing wasn't good and I would try to do little tips to give him hints that, "Hey, I want to go home."

And, at the end of the day, I said, I could either be more blunt with him and say, "Hey! I want to go home. We've got to cut this short." Or I just suck it up and move on because he had a lot of control over my life: he dictated if I'm going to get promoted. And I decided just to suck it up and listen. But I learned that… Again, I was intimidated to tell him that. So just be mindful that… Again, it's respecting people's time, is really when you put it down under the "respect" umbrella. But a lot of leaders will forget that, and people would seem riveted by your daughter's piano playing and your son's soccer but, in fact, they're thinking, "How can I get out of here without dissing the boss?"

Rachel Salaman: And this links to another critical behavior, which is to know your staff. And you offer lots of tips for this. One of them is asking people to tell their stories. I wondered if you could share one of your own stories about how and why this is good practice.

Mark Brouker: Yes. So, in a nutshell, I was about, I guess, 21 years into my navy career. I went to a leaders' development workshop the navy put on for C-suite leaders, and I was going into a Chief Operating Officer position.

The one tip I learned in that seminar was "know your staff." So, I go off… It was actually in Rota, Spain where I was a COO: beautiful, southern part of Spain, just absolutely gorgeous, south of Sevilla. I had a young officer in my office, and he was a doctor. And he looked a little haggard, he'd just got off the plane.

He'd moved to Spain and, obviously, it's a lot of moving parts and a lot of people get stressed. And he'd been in the country about two days. And, at the end of our 30 minutes of getting to know him, I'd learned that he had a couple of kids and whatnot. But his foot was tapping, kind of nervously. And I said to him, "Is there anything bothering you?" And he said, "No, sir, you're really busy. You don't need to have to bother with this." I said, "Seriously, is there anything?"

And he said, "Well, sir, there is something but I kind of feel silly even telling you." I said, "What is it?" He goes, "Well, here's the deal, sir. I came through Madrid with my family. I got a flight from Madrid down to Rota. But our dog was on the second leg of the flight. So, it's been two days, our dog is somewhere in the airport in Madrid. We don't speak Spanish. We don't know what to do. And my family’s pretty upset about this." I told him, I said, "Man, that's kind of a big deal."

And so, I brought him into the hall and introduced him to one of our senior listed, who was really smart. And she had a lot of connections with the embassy in Rota, up in Madrid.

So, the bottom line is, I told her the story, she called me that night and she said, "Sir, the dog's on the next flight tomorrow morning. We found the dog. Everything's good." And I was thrilled with that.

About three weeks later, I'm in the grocery store on the base and I see the officer and his two young children and his wife, and he leans down and says, "Hey! That's Captain Brouker right there. That's Captain Brouker. He's the guy who got our dog out of Madrid, that's him!" And the kids come running up and grab my legs and… It was kind of a tearful moment. And I looked at the officer's eyes, I looked at his wife's eyes, and I knew that they were going to be a loyal part of the command because… I didn't do anything. I turned it over to someone who was much smarter than I am. And they did turn out to be tremendous supporters of our command. He turned out to be a very, very good officer.

He may have been a good officer without this distraction but it's a great story of how you can get to know your people and understand what their problems are and where you can help stop some of this stuff. So, a very, very powerful behavior is to spend a little time and get to know your people.

Rachel Salaman: That is a great story. And it also illustrates another point you make in the book, which is that leaders can get drawn into personal problems as they try to build trust. And you say, in the book, that you should try to facilitate a resolution rather than taking ownership of the issue. And that sounds like that's exactly what you did in this situation.

Mark Brouker: Yes. When I was overseas somewhere and someone – I think I told that story, actually – and they raised their hands and said, "Basically, what you're telling me is you've got to get involved with people's issues." And it was a great question. And you can see that would be their natural inclination.

And I said, "No, no. That's not what I'm saying." Because you can't take ownership of the issue, but you can understand what's going on and offer tools and resources to help them. And it's up to them to take the tools and resources, but you can't take these things on, you'll burn out pretty quick – but you've got to be aware of them and help if you can, when you can, without taking on ownership of it.

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Rachel Salaman: "Being visible" is another critical behavior. And it's related, I suppose, to getting to know your people. You say that leaders should schedule time to interact with employees. Roughly what proportion of our time should we devote to this? Or does it depend on the circumstances?

Mark Brouker: I get nervous about saying you've got to walk around 25 percent of the time because it becomes a check-in-the-box. And you really want to avoid a check-in-the-box.

For me, truthfully, I get energy by walking around and talking to people and engaging with people and finding out really what's going on, because that's the whole… that's the mystery! The dirty little secret is, the higher up you get in an organization, the more difficult it is to find what's really going on. And one way to do this is walking around.

And there's so many stories I have of how I unearthed things – again, no one's trying to keep things from you, the communication links are just not as solid as they are: people are busy and whatnot. But you want to find out what's going on and that's a great way to do it – to walk around.

And there's a study done – actually, in The British Medical Journal, interestingly enough, Rachel, in your backyard, in England. I know the author pretty well, actually, I worked for him, I do some work for him. Great guy. And what he found out is, when you walk around… He tested, basically, morale, under three circumstances of walking around.

One, you just walk around and say, "Hi." The second one, you walk around and you say, "Hey! How are you doing? What issues do you have?" And the third one, you walk around and say, "Hi," ask them what issues [they have] but you go back a couple of days later and say, "Here's what we did to resolve the issue."

Under all three of those, morale went up. But, under that third one, when you got back with them and you said, "OK, we understand (for instance, in hospitals right now) PPE is still sometimes an issue." But, whatever it is, you get back with them and you say, "Here's the situation: we can't fix it right now but here's what we're going to do to resolve it." Burnout goes down, morale goes up. So, walking around is important, but what you do when you walk around – the behaviors you employ when you walk around – is even more important.

Rachel Salaman: Absolutely. And you actually have a list of dos and don'ts in the section on walking around, in your book. Can you tell us a few more of those?

Mark Brouker: What I tell people – and I still do teach commanding officers, which is the highest level, but at every level – [is] just enjoy being a leader. Have fun, relax.

If you're wringing your hands and you're not enjoying the ride, you probably shouldn't be a leader, because when you convey those things, the studies showed – and Gallup has done a lot of work with this – what you do as a leader is emulated.

You're a contagion. When you're wringing your hands, six out of 10 people on average are going to start wringing their hands. So, walking around… Some of the dos and don'ts is smile, have fun, relax, ask, engage. What you don't want to do is walk around, saying, "Hey! What's my mission, vision, guiding principles?" People have an idea what that is but that's just causing more intimidation.

Just engage with your people – find out what's going on. I just say do three things: smile, thank them for what they do, and ask how you can help. And that's it. You do those three things and, if you follow up, that's even better, according to, again, that British Medical Journal article.

It's not an inspection. That's not what you're walking around for – you're trying to become approachable and not become intimidating.

Rachel Salaman: Another critical behavior in your book is to recognize good and bad performance. What should we do about middling performance? Because, I guess that's where a lot of people are.

Mark Brouker: I guess it depends on how much you have on your plate, because you only have so much energy. You won't solve world hunger when you get in there – you've got to tackle the most important [things].

But, in a perfect world, you get to the point where… At the end of the day, you want people to perform at their highest level. And, if you have someone who's trying their best – earnestly trying their best – and it's just not where everyone else is, that's fine. Not everyone's wired to produce 10 wickets an hour, some people are going to make eight wickets an hour, and that's just the way it is.

But, if you think you can get them to 10, by all means get to the root cause of what's in there. [What] I would say is, "Help me understand why you're making eight wickets and do you think you can get to 10? What can I do to help you get there?" And, if ever you're stuck for a way, you can help people. Because, at the end of the day, as a leader, you just want everyone to enjoy what they're doing and work at the highest level they can.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. Now, sometimes, when people are not performing at their best, you need to have a difficult conversation with them. What are some of your tips for that?

Mark Brouker: Again, all interaction is impact, trust. This is a huge one.

Let's be honest – you've got someone who's not performing well, this is not a middling performer; it's someone who's not performing well, so it's a different ball game. And I'll share with you – I did not do a good job with this early on in my career. I just didn't. I would tend to ignore it, hoping it went away. I just didn't like having these difficult conversations.

And, interestingly enough, on data which support that, the most stressful piece of being a leader amongst leaders is doing exactly this: having a difficult conversation.

What I stress to people is if you don't address the issue, you're accepting a lower level of performance. I said in the book, I think, something along the lines of, "Performance of a team is not dictated by what you say, it's dictated by what you tolerate." And, if you have someone who, maybe comes in late, you need to address it because, if you don't, it's going to spread.

And a couple of things. One, I guess the most important one, I would say, is this. (This is not Mark Brouker's tip, this is Stephen Covey from his tremendous book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm sure everyone – not everyone – but many people on this podcast have read that. I encourage you to read it again because it's such a rich book.) One of his habits is to seek first to understand. And what that means is, again, if someone's coming in late, you would sit them down and just say, "Help me understand why you can't seem to get here by eight o'clock (or whatever time it is)."

And then let it sit. Don't yammer on and just be respectful. You're trying to get to the root cause of what's going on. And when I started doing that, and just, literally, using those words – seven out of 10, on average, it was something going on in their life: their husband or wife was having cancer treatment or something was going on that was significant. And, once you understand what's going on, you can work around it. And talk[ing] about building trust is when you can understand why people are not performing at the level they should be and help them get there. It's a very, very powerful interaction and builds huge trust.

Rachel Salaman: Again, it's about listening properly, isn't it?

Mark Brouker: It is, it is. And at a time when you're really listening… And it's OK to have silence in the room. I mean, I don't like silence, but this is a time when you just let it sit and it's up to them. At the end of the day, it's up to them – the employee – to change their behaviors and you're trying to facilitate that. That's it.

Rachel Salaman: Well, the fifth behavior in your book is to "be optimistic." And it's clear that you think it's really important for leaders to avoid pessimism. But how do you also avoid being a Pollyanna – ignoring difficult realities – which can also be damaging?

Mark Brouker: That is a conundrum. And, actually, Jim Collins wrote a book called "Stockdale Paradox." We have an American war hero, General Stockdale, who is seven years in the Hanoi Hilton, during the Vietnam War. And he learned that you must maintain hope, even if the situation looks pretty dire. And anyone who knows about the Hanoi Hilton knows it was about as bad as it gets.

But he maintained hope, he spread hope to those around him. Actually, Napoleon said, "A leader needs to be a dealer in hope." But you can't be Pollyannaish, like you said – you've got to address the issue without having that become the elephant in the room.

The best example I could give – it's kind of a silly example but I think it brings it home – I gave a talk once at the Bethesda in Washington, D.C., in the big naval hospital there, and someone in the room… I gave the talk about optimism. And someone said, "Well, I'm here at the hospital and parking here is a mess. You can't find a parking spot. It's just a terrible mess. And how do you put a smile on your face on that? People newly onboard here, they can't find a parking spot." And I said, "Well, here's what I would say, is, 'Welcome on board the naval hospital Bethesda. We have a great team here; we work with the army; the Harvard president comes here; the congressmen and women come here. Great case mix complexity. The bad news is – parking's terrible! You're going to have to get here early, put on a good pair of shoes and get an umbrella, and just get here early and call it a little physical fitness for you." But that's it.

So, address the elephant in the room, but don't let it hijack and take over the conversation because, at the end of the day, you've got to give people hope that their efforts are worth the effort.

Rachel Salaman: In the book, you say that work/life balance is important for people at all levels of the organization and especially leaders. How did you and your people try to get that balance in the navy?

Mark Brouker: Yes. Sometimes, like all jobs – but certainly the military – sometimes, you are going to be working some very, very long hours. And sometimes you deploy and are working very, very long hours: 20-hour days and whatnot. But that's not sustainable. You can't do that for a 30-year career. And I didn't do that for a 30-year career: I worked long hours when I needed to, and when I didn't need to, I didn't.

A couple of tips I give people is, I just draw boundaries. And one boundary for me is… And I didn't do this all the time, I've got to think back, there were times I didn't do this, but I tried. If my kids called me or my wife called me, I would take the call – unless the place was on fire, which usually wasn't the case. I would leave a meeting and, if my wife called me, I would take that call. As best I could: again, I didn't do it all the time. But just try to draw some boundaries for yourself to maintain that work/life balance because, at the end of the day, you're going to leave that job, one way or the other, and you don't want to go home to a family that doesn't know who you are, whatever that family unit is. Just really, really important.

And the other thing I just say is this, is, if you continue to work very, very long hours... What I say in the book about optimism is either be optimistic, fake it – or don't show up. Take a day off.

It's really hard to fake optimism when you're bitter: you're working many, many long hours, consistently, over a period of time, missing your family events – maybe your kid playing sports – you're going to get bitter. And it's very hard to be optimistic when you're bitter. So, it's not only good for your family, but it's good for you as a leader to try and find that work/life balance.

Rachel Salaman: The last behavior in your book is to continuously learn the art of leadership. How do you practice this behavior now?

Mark Brouker: Yes. Well, it's easier now because I have a lot more time! I just continuously read. I just have a curiosity about this leadership thing. I guess I just read that article this week – The British Medical Journal – which is just so profound. Myself, I have an intellectual curiosity about this thing.

But I think, for folks who are just, again, they are working hard, they've got a family, or whatever – why this is so important and why I added it as the last chapter of the book (it's a short chapter but it's extremely important chapter) is this: everything in my book and everything we just talked about, Rachel, is really common sense. There's no, "It's the first time I've heard this." Maybe a couple of them. Maybe, "Why am I talking?" a couple of nuggets in there. But most of this stuff is pretty common sense.

And people who have listened to this podcast, I'm convinced that, when they get to their office or whatever what's going on, if they get bad news, they're going to be more likely to not get angry. They'll be more likely to address a performer who's either middling or not performing well, because they listened to this and they're more aware and more mindful of their powers as a leader, and influence as a leader.

But six, nine, 12, 15 months from now, if you don't remind yourself of these things, you can slip easily into those bad habits again.

So, what I'd like to say is, continuously relearn the art of leadership – books, audiobooks. There' so many ways to do it efficiently today. I just think it's really important for leaders to continuously learn this art of leadership.

Rachel Salaman: Well, just finally then, Mark, you include a chapter on leading in times of crisis. If you had to pick out one tip for leaders who are struggling through the pandemic, what would it be?

Mark Brouker: Yes. You know, that's a… I added that. It's interesting. COVID hit, of course, in March and the manuscript was interrupted, big time, because of that. Obviously New York got hit pretty hard.

So, I had two-and-a-half months. I remember, basically, the book was done, but I was working really hard with a lot of different leaders around the country when the COVID thing hit. And I just started researching leading in a crisis. And I did have a lot – well, not a lot, but a fair amount – of experience in the military. I really didn't think of it much. But I decided to add that because it seemed that's where the people were just so crying for that information.

I guess there's two that I would say: you asked me for one but I'll give you two. One is, in a crisis, people want to see the leader. And, obviously, in COVID, it's Zoom calls and things like that or even a phone call – they want to see their leader. So, in a crisis, you need to be visible, that's the point. And when you're there, be honest, be calm – it's absolutely critical that you're calm. I mean, be optimistic: again, don't be Pollyannaish, as you said, Rachel, very wisely. Address the situation but give people hope that we're going to get through this thing.

I guess the last thing I did say, as I mentioned: interactions. Every interaction impacts, whether you're going to have a culture of trust or fear – well that's on steroids during a crisis. When you get it right – and I'm sure most people will get this right – I mean, the trust in you as a leader is enormous. And, obviously, in the other direction, you can lose trust pretty quickly if you don't get it right. So, get in front of your people, be calm, be honest, be optimistic, and you'll do great stuff.

Rachel Salaman: Captain Mark Brouker, thanks very much for joining us today.

Mark Brouker: Thank you, Rachel. I really appreciate it.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Mark's book again is "Lessons from the Navy: How to Earn Trust, Lead Teams and Achieve Organizational Excellence."

And you can find out more about him at his website, broukerleadershipsolutions.com. And "Brouker" is spelt B-R-O-U-K-E-R. I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.