Transcript
WEBVTT
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A person is purely talented if they have the capability to bring out the hidden talent in another person.
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My guest on this episode of Passing the Torch is an effective leader and communicator, trust and mentor and qualified intelligence professional with over 10 years of recognized superior performance across a variety of positions working in the military industry.
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He has also experienced in advising executive leadership on strategic decisions, program management and leading diverse teams to success.
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Lastly, my guest is someone I met in August of 2022.
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Since that initial introduction, I continue to be amazed by his presence, attitude and overall drive to evolve whatever team he is assigned to.
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Without further ado, passing the Torch with Chevion Jones starts now.
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You have a great smile.
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Thank you, man.
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First and foremost, welcome to the show and thank you for joining me.
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This is awesome.
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I'm so excited.
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Thank you for having me and thank you for that introduction.
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I greatly appreciate it.
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Yeah, I think I did everything right.
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Was that pretty good?
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I mean it sounded good to me, so I will thumbs up on my end.
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No, I told you I stayed up till one in the morning researching you and I don't say that for sympathy, I say that just for how much you mean to me and the positive impact you've had on me and just a bit of context.
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I researched you on LinkedIn and so, if you get any notification, this is one anonymous search.
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It's me.
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Perfect, perfect.
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I showed you my book earlier and I've wanted to have you on my show for quite a while now.
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Man, there's just something about you and I'm going to make a prediction that one day you're going to be a general, and when you are, I'm like I told you, I appreciate that.
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So that's the whole context of why I wanted you on.
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And again, there's just something very magnetic and like.
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I can't imagine anyone not liking you.
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But aside from that, I want to talk to you about talent management, because I think that's a conversation we had, I think last week or maybe two weeks ago, and then it was just like man, that's really interesting.
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But before we get into that, I have one random question.
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Sure Is, please discuss.
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I Could Be.
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I Could Be is pretty much a digital mentoring platform.
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So what it is is you go in, you build a profile as a mentor, you set up how many mentees you can accept and what that does is that connects you with students, usually an underprivileged or disenfranchised communities for you to just kind of work through their personal goals and what things that they want to get involved with either a part of a particular program at their school or what they want to do post high school.
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So it was a cool opportunity.
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You don't have face-to-face opportunities because these are high school students typically, but getting to hear what thoughts, perspectives or what dreams a person under the age of 18, typically that high school range might have for themselves or where they see themselves in the world, was very, very important to me and why I decided to step into that particular mentorship program.
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So I've had a lot of successes in terms of connecting with young, brilliant individuals and just like the personal satisfaction of how do I become a better mentor to these folks?
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Right, it's easy, just in my line of work, to say, hey, I can mentor this type of person, whether it's an enlisted person, a junior officer, et cetera but to work with a whole different ballpark of individuals.
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It was definitely a good challenge that I'm happy to be part of.
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That's very interesting to me, because how old were the kids again, so they're typically high school range.
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Right.
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So you know 16, 17, 18, and, like most kids around that age, like there's a lot of potential, but it's a lot of raw potential.
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What did you learn about talent management or how to evaluate talent?
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Because it's easy for us to evaluate talent now, I think, in the military, or at least there's something to go off Absolutely, but back then I mean that's literally as raw as it can get.
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But yeah, what's something that you learned that you didn't expect to learn with regard to talent management?
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I think that's and it's probably what led to our conversation last week and just kind of where my mind has been, especially as I've progressed right in my own personal career.
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Like you said, 16, 17 is a very raw age to kind of understand what you bring, and I say what you bring being the attributes, what things you're naturally good at, what are the innate abilities that you're going to provide to whatever situation.
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So I think, being able to communicate as a mentor, how to acknowledge, how to support and how to help that individual kind of discover those things, because I mean, we were all in their shoes, right.
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When I look back at my time being 16, 17, I was working part-time job.
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I've been working since I was 15 and a half.
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So my mom likes to joke that I've never been unemployed, not going to wit, but I've been working since I was 16 and a half.
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I had my own personal interest, being part of JROTC, obviously school and so you know the things that you have interesting, you know the things that people might gravitate towards, but you usually can't put that into perspective for yourself, especially at that age.
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So to be able to do that and learn how to communicate that from my perspective or how to cultivate.
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That, from my perspective, is probably the biggest thing I learned.
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Again, in the setting that we're in being in the military.
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It's easy to tie that to a specific task or a specific experience you've given them.
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So, with individuals you've never met or never going to meet in person, and just kind of seeing it all through a digital platform, ie words on a screen, it's a little bit more of a what am I reading between the lines?
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Where does this person really see themselves?
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What questions do I ask, to kind of pull that thread out of them.
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So I'll say that's probably the biggest lesson I learned by partaking in.
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I Could Be program.
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I want to tie that into your education background.
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Yeah, I think there's a common thread between your stuff with I Could Be, you know, identifying.
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There's a lot of lessons learned from that time, right, but you have a master's in organizational leadership, a bachelor's in psychology, and so you're probably like, oh my God, no, it works.
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By the way, before I forget, did you ever meet Kawhi Leonard?
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I'm not.
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Because he went to San Diego State the same time as you.
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I'm not.
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I was a terrible student.
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I was trying to focus and be involved in ROTC.
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I know I just saw him graduating the same year or whatever at the same time.
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That's not a hearing or there, but again master's in organizational leadership, bachelor's in psychology.
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How can talent management affect organizational change and promote growth and others to achieve common goals?
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I think, when I look in talent management and I look at your question of how does it help people kind of achieve organizational goals, is people have to see what their purpose is in the workplace.
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People can come, get a paycheck and just kind of produce the widget, right, that's easy, absolutely.
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I can give you a solid paycheck just if you want to come and produce a widget.
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But for you to come into the place and be encouraged or supported to say, hey, you're bringing this specific attribute to this problem set, or I need you on my team because you're looking at it through this lens which may be a lens I'm not familiar with or a lens that I'm necessarily strong in myself that brings a new purpose, right, and that's where people can see themselves in the organization and that seeing themselves in the organization provides longevity to the organization.
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Right, because you're going to want to find a place where you can be your authentic self and I know authenticity is thrown around a lot nowadays, but it really does drive.
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Do I feel like I belong in the organization that we're in?
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Right, being the Air Force, you can make the most of your experience, whether it's the four, eight, 10, 20 years that you're in, but that experience is yours.
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So how long you stay in, how far you will go, what connections you will have, the impact you will make really drives from you saying, hey, this is what I know, I am going to bring part of this big pot of smart brains and brilliant people, this is what I'm going to bring uniquely and this is how I'm going to apply that to whatever problem set you're getting after.
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So I say change can happen from those perspectives and saying hey, there's room for that conversation, there's room for that way of thinking, there's room for that way of action to build a path forward.
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So I think that's where my mind has gone when it comes to talent management excuse me, supporting different attributes of the diverse teams I've had and how I've seen some of the better change management processes take place in the organizations I've been in.
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No, and I want to explore a little bit deeper on that, because we talked about diverse teams and typically, when we say diverse, we're thinking like, hey, you know, we have to have certain races and like a mix of races and genders and ethnic ethnicities.
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But I always think, and that's, that's great, because people are going to have different mindsets and how they different feel or how they feel.
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But I always want to take it a step further.
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Right, so, aside from you know, race and gender, because those are attributes that people look for, right, when building diverse teams, how important?
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Or do you think people shy away from authenticity and I can't, maybe outliers or someone who's for lack of a better term and outcast?
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They're like you know what?
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They don't really fit them, they're not traditional in terms of going with the flow or yeah, but yeah, just yeah again, just to kind of summarize that Do you think people shy away from those attributes when they see, when building a team from people who are authentic and outliers or outcast?
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I?
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can definitely see that right.
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I think a lot of pressure.
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Whatever rank, whatever uniform you're wearing, whether you're part of our civilian contractor or military personnel, there's a certain pressure to perform to that rank or a preconceived notion of what that title, role, rank, position should look like.
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I know when I was young and I tell my junior officer today I remember when I came in and I thought, hey, Lieutenant Jones has to perform like this because this is what a lieutenant should do and this is how a lieutenant should act, should be, etc.
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And to some degree there are going to be some standards right of what we expect of just folks within the service.
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But then there also comes a piece to say, well, I'm going to have this rank and I'm going to do good work and I'm going to have these certain roles.
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So I'm going to make whatever Lieutenant Captain Major Jones be is, whatever I'm going to bring to the table Right, because that's where I'm going to find success at, that's what's going to be natural to me.
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So I think when I look at that and say, do those outliers fit in?
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I can absolutely see those outliers feeling like they don't have a place in.
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But then that comes the piece of mentorship that comes.
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Sponsors come into play.
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Someone's going to kind of look at them and say, hey, like you have something.
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I know you don't think that this is providing value to this, but this is where I can see this bringing success to the team, or this is that missing piece that we might not have, and I think that's why it's important to on both ends right, whether it's the junior person or the more senior person, to both come to a mutual agreement and say, hey, like I'm going to tap into those and I'm going to bring those into the spaces that you feel like they typically would not be accepted.
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In what patterns have you noticed in the successful talent you have ended up selecting?
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Or what patterns, if you were selected as part of like a high performing team, like hey, this is.
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I could see like we look different or may seem different, but I could see like why we're all in the.
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I think a lot of it comes with the self awareness right.
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So that's good, I think, in the.
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So now I'm at a point where I'm leading small teams right To have large impacts, I have to be self aware of myself to kind of say, hey, these are things I'm bringing to his table.
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But to use myself as an example, I know I'm not a task person Like I can do small tasks, but I know that's just not where I'm comfortable.
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I can think big thoughts, I can have pine sky dreams, I can whiteboard all day, but I'm not the person to be able to sit down and work on the smaller task.
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I'm not that that's a bad thing, but having the ability to have that self awareness and also look at, okay, who in the room does that, is that naturally coming to?
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Do I have someone in the room where we're able to just meld, mesh and meld minds and I'm able to have them kind of execute some of what I'm thinking right, or vice versa.
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Hey, ma'am, I know that you are very task oriented.
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I want to be your height man, I want to go out, I want to champion this, I want to take this the full 10 yards or a hundred yards right.
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I think, having that self awareness to say, okay, like what is missing in the room, what are the things I bring and what are the things that are going to compliment me or this team for us to find success I think that's what I've seen in successful teams is that perfect blend, or close to perfect blend, of the different skill sets that people are bringing to that fold?
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Who would be your?
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height man.
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Who would be my height man?
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Oh, that's a great question.
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I have a recommendation in case you don't.
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I would love to hear your recommendation.
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Mo love Absolutely.
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I like him a lot and he just cracks me up like he's, because he says what needs to be said and but it hits, it's like, and he's not shy about it, but it's one of the things no pun intended, because he's like six, seven, but I do look up to him Absolutely.
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And I think I think it's funny that you bring up Mo love, because that's one of the folks who I look closely to as a mentor, right, I think?
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Because you know, both of us our personalities are different, right, we just look at leadership very, not very differently, but differently in how we operate from.
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But to have Mo love, and what I'm very thankful for is I'm able to come to him and bounce off my ideas and able to kind of put a frame around some of the pine disguise ideas of like, hey, this isn't just going to be a large goal that's not obtainable, but you're able to give me that realistic perspective and be the hype person, say, ok, tj, this is what, how it can look, or what it can look like.
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I want to help support you but, like, let's put a frame around that so it can actually become an executable thing.
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So that just is a perfect case study, right?
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I don't know if it led to your next question of how that diverse train of thought can lead to success from a mentee perspective in my shoes to a mentor perspective.
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So same for me.
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I got the chance to know him over the past year before he left, and at some point he and I are going to do a podcast about.
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He has this thing about a topic called decision fatigue, oh yeah, and so that's going to be a good one, so I'm super excited.
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By the way, haley Hartstein would be mine.
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I feel like she.
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That would be awesome.
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And it's funny you mentioned decision fatigue because I was a lesson made then major love taught young Captain Jones when I was exec at the group level.
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He taught me how to take care of my commander's time through, because decision fatigue is a thing.
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Right, I think we think to just throw a bunch of things on our bosses calendar and say you have to accomplish all these things, but we're human.
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So I'm very excited for that taping.
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I'm going to go back to your the last question and he talked about like, hey, recognizing I'm not good at this or I'm not, you know, I'm good at it, I'm.
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You know it's not my strongest suit, right, and I'm best here, so I need to put my energy and focus here.
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Let's pick someone who's ideal for this role but we do all have, whether it's an unconscious bias or whatever.
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But what's what's an example of when your personal grip has been a bit too tight around your own beliefs.
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Oh, that's a great question.
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Thanks, by the way, like I, that was a 1245 question.
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Personal grip around my own beliefs.
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I would say, probably the times where I feel crunch for time and I feel like I I'm not making this space or the room for people to offer their insight, and I feel like, hey, this is the idea of where we need to go and we're just going to execute.
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And I understand, as a leader, sometimes that's pertinent and that's necessary, but I, in a normal situation, I should understand, hey, I'm not getting all the information, so why am I not taking the step back and saying like, hey, I need to actually console other people and say let's execute this.
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That's where I would probably say what comes to mind when I think of like my own personal grip around my beliefs, whether it is if I feel like I've already come to the decision from an emotional standpoint or from an information standpoint and that I don't need other avenues or other injects into that, which obviously you can probably imagine what the result that came to right.
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Or even if it was excess, there were the secondary and tertiary effects that aren't things that I would have today version me would have said, yeah, this is how I would have wanted that to go.
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I have a great interviewer.
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No, again I was joking around about.
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I say I research you.
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That's the professional way of saying I stalked you these days.
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I was researching for my podcast.
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It's like wife is like what are you doing?
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Like at two o'clock in the morning, like here's this random picture, right Exactly.
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When you said talent management, like that, just I knew I've wanted to have you in my podcast but I couldn't quite find like there's so many things I want to talk about and in my mind I think TJ, right.
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But I was like I want to talk to the TJ about this, that, but there's so many different things.
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But when you said talent management, I was like that's it right there.
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I was like to me you're someone I'd want on the team because you're like if there's a room full of 100 people, you're one of those 10.
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That's a key stakeholder or a key influencer, right.
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Like people are going to follow, so I love that.
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So that's why I was like when you said talent management, and then when I saw that your education background and then your volunteer mentorship background, I'm like oh man, this stuff is flowing.
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It's like Dr Dre just writing down the lyrics and stuff.
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That's a perfect and timely happy 50 years to hip hop.
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Is it really?
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Yeah, it is, it is man, because it's still.
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It doesn't seem like it's 50 years.
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Exactly Because music is timeless.
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That's great.
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Yeah, you're right, maybe talent management is timeless, but I, you know, listening to all that stuff.
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We were talking beforehand about what I listened to in the 90s growing up and it was still fresh, and we're not here to talk about my music preference or my failed boy bands.
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That's dreams.
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So something I heard in a podcast earlier this year and I've had, and I started saying it in some staff meetings and I know we're in a lot of meetings together, so maybe you heard me say this, but you know I'm always talking about the importance of critical thinking and the significance of like that should be part of when we say culture, like hey, we need to build a culture, and like critical thinking has to be a part of that.
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Part of the good thinking is how we think and ask questions.
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So, specifically earlier this year in another podcast that I listened to and it was a podcast about finances, but it was something that stuck with me but he said the quality of our lives depends so much on the questions that we ask right and more than that, not just the quality of the questions.
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Like you have to ask the right question to the right person at the right time in the right order, because you can have great questions, but if it's not pertinent to the subject or in the context, or no one asked that follow-up question how to ask a question?
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Sometimes people blurt out questions in a random meeting and I'm like cool, that's a great question, it has nothing to do, like there's a whole separate meeting on Thursday for that.
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But what's one high signal question that you have found particularly useful when trying to determine the quality of anyone, from a salesperson to an athlete or as just as generic things, right?
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But yeah, what's one high quality question when you're evaluating someone like that, you like to ask and for me just to kind of show you my example what leads to your happiest times and best performance at work.
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What's something that you found like your go-to?
00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:49.548
I think typically and it's an interesting question I don't know if it's my high level questions, I'll probably have to get back to you on this but in my feedbacks that I have and I've done this for a couple of years I asked my team like describe to me your perfect Saturday If you had nothing on your calendar and you were able to just spend time from 8 am to 8 pm.
00:20:49.548 --> 00:20:50.403
Like, what would you do?
00:20:50.403 --> 00:20:54.465
Cause I think that gets into the person of where they spend their time.
00:20:54.465 --> 00:20:56.106
What things do they prioritize?
00:20:56.106 --> 00:21:05.007
How do they look at life, the pace at which they operate, right, cause if someone has a GMPAC schedule in that day, they're probably gonna be a fast-paced person.
00:21:05.007 --> 00:21:14.527
But if someone likes leisure, or if someone likes to sit and read or relax or take in the day, they're probably gonna operate at slower pace.
00:21:14.527 --> 00:21:20.365
And for me as a leader, that kind of that helps me understand how I should engage with them, how I should approach them right.
00:21:21.503 --> 00:21:33.429
I know, just because of my energy I can come very big, but if you're a person who likes a slower pace or you like to relax or leisure, you probably don't want that high-level 10 energy coming to you with a question.
00:21:33.429 --> 00:21:43.066
So I have to meet you at a different place and I think the responses I've gotten to that has been fairly interesting, because we don't ever sit and think about what we would do with just a free day.
00:21:43.066 --> 00:21:46.467
I know we typically say, hey, I'm happy that we get Friday off.
00:21:46.467 --> 00:21:49.586
Okay, here are all the tasks I have to do, here are all the things I have to catch up on.
00:21:49.586 --> 00:21:57.306
But like if no one gave you any sort of calendar or plans for that day, how would you spend that time throughout the day?
00:21:57.306 --> 00:22:03.405
I think has been probably the high-level question, at least from my level, that found the most interesting.
00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:13.923
Following up with your going back to your education background, your experiences in the military, and then absent the systems and the frameworks you have honed over time.
00:22:13.923 --> 00:22:25.165
What has made you a good talent hunter and a talent evaluator at such a young age and you are young, I know how old you are More than that you look younger than you are.
00:22:25.165 --> 00:22:29.645
Thank you, you look like you're in grad school at Southern New Hampshire.
00:22:29.665 --> 00:22:33.784
This is You've done your research.
00:22:33.844 --> 00:22:34.244
I love it.
00:22:34.244 --> 00:22:34.948
I love it.
00:22:36.403 --> 00:22:54.528
Yes and H-U, I was saying I'm still developing it, right, I'm still developing the teams and I think the and I say I'm still developing it because I feel like you move into a phase where you're good at identifying the talent, but then it forces you to grow as a leader, officer, mentor of how do you continue to cultivate that talent?
00:22:54.528 --> 00:22:58.945
Right, because the skills that work for our captain Jones are not what works for major Jones.
00:22:58.945 --> 00:23:00.685
So how do I continue?
00:23:00.685 --> 00:23:02.306
Okay, I'm bringing in this good talent.
00:23:02.306 --> 00:23:04.026
How do I give them feedback?
00:23:04.026 --> 00:23:07.986
How do I continue to support that in a more elevated way?
00:23:07.986 --> 00:23:10.528
So I would say I'm still developing it.
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:35.847
I would say a lot of my mentors that I've gotten through life and just through my career have really encouraged a lot of that within myself, and I think that's why I've taken such a like, I guess, love for it in terms of, hey, your first line supervisor right from my officers, which is me, the major, is not giving me feedback or not giving you like that mentorship.
00:23:35.847 --> 00:23:37.144
I'm not worth my salt, right?
00:23:37.144 --> 00:23:45.367
It's nice to have the squadron commander be able to provide that as well, but if you're a captain, you're not gonna be a lieutenant colonel for quite some time.
00:23:45.367 --> 00:23:48.182
The first boat you're gonna hit is being a major and being a DO.
00:23:48.182 --> 00:23:51.009
So how do I give you feedback from my perspective?
00:23:51.009 --> 00:24:10.703
Introduce you to the spaces I'm in so you have that exposure and that understanding and that's why I've gotten throughout my career and through my life so it's kind of like the payback is why I feel like I'm good at understanding that talent, but also that I want to continue to develop that as I bring these highly talented individuals within my circle.
00:24:11.059 --> 00:24:23.944
Okay, so you just mentioned about bringing highly talented people within your circle, and what ways have others helped you surface your hidden assumptions and what's your advice on how a coach or a leader can do the same for other people?
00:24:24.299 --> 00:24:25.506
Offering that transparency right.
00:24:25.506 --> 00:24:33.747
So I have made my office, the people's office, essentially right.
00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:39.443
So a lot of the picture of the rock in there Exactly exactly Nice reference.
00:24:40.099 --> 00:24:41.886
A lot of people will say they have an open door policy.
00:24:41.886 --> 00:24:50.601
Sure right, especially when you move into, like a professional setting, that open door policy may not always be what you want it to be Before.
00:24:50.601 --> 00:24:57.963
At least the folks I directly supervise, right, and even a layer below that is coming to my office and we can talk about anything.
00:24:57.963 --> 00:25:04.066
I also give the transparency to the fact of I'm not tied to it.
00:25:04.066 --> 00:25:10.119
Obviously, if it's a concept or idea that must be executed absolutely, but I'm not tied to anything.
00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:17.007
I'm always open to feedback and if you want to come in the office and, behind closed doors, say, hey, sorry, I don't think we're moving in the right direction.
00:25:17.007 --> 00:25:34.806
I don't think this is applicable because of X, y and Z, we can absolutely have that conversation and I think more people, at least in some of the spaces, right, that you had mentioned, have to be open to that, to saying, hey, your idea is just not the greatest idea for where we're at in time right now.
00:25:34.806 --> 00:25:45.749
Hopefully you're doing that research as a leader, but you have to be open to hearing hey, sir, hey, ma'am, like this is just not where we're going, this is not where we're at or the people are not moving in this mindset.
00:25:45.749 --> 00:25:55.744
Maybe we need to communicate more, build more foundational elements for them to operate in, or just take a step back and say, okay, let me put this on the back burner and pass it on to someone else.
00:25:56.819 --> 00:26:11.108
I was listening to a podcast a couple days ago and the advice that the individual I gave into the students in the room was hey, just as much as you want a mentor or senior leader's attention, they want your attention.
00:26:11.108 --> 00:26:14.189
So I speak now, even though I'm fairly young.
00:26:14.189 --> 00:26:19.467
I speak to the folks that I lead because they're typically younger than myself, like I also want to learn from them.
00:26:19.467 --> 00:26:25.647
So I don't want it to feel like, hey, major Jones's thought is the only thought, or that's the thought that we're all present for with.
00:26:25.647 --> 00:26:34.046
I want to hear your feedback and I want to have that transparency to say, okay, I'm looking at it through a different lens or through a different perspective.
00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:35.284
What's the name of the podcast?
00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:38.148
So it was actually Rethinking by Adam Grant.
00:26:38.148 --> 00:26:39.799
So he, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:39.799 --> 00:26:44.008
So he interviewed Carla Harris, who is vice chairman of Morgan Stanley.
00:26:44.008 --> 00:26:53.865
I think she might've moved from that position, but their interview was from a live session they had at the Wharton School of Business, so you can find it on YouTube as well.
00:26:53.865 --> 00:27:06.566
But that was just kind of one of her elements of like hey, like when you're looking at mentorship, sponsorship, which is the theme of that particular episode, she was like as much as you want their attention, they want your attention because they want you part of their team.
00:27:06.566 --> 00:27:09.827
Being senior leaders to junior leaders, they want you part of their team.
00:27:09.827 --> 00:27:16.873
They want your ideas, they want your loyalty right to the concept, to the organization.