Host Intro (Gene Kim)

Over the years, Admiral John Richardson's name came up over and over again in my conversations with Dr. Steven Spear, and I was so ridiculously excited when I finally got to meet him last year.

I've learned so much from him that I think is so important, not just to every technology leader, but every leader, period.

Just a bit of background to set some context of why. Admiral John Richardson served as Chief of Naval Operations for four years, which is the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy, overseeing the efforts of over 600,000 people.

Before that, he served as director of U.S. Naval Reactors, which is comprehensively responsible for the safe and reliable operation of the U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion program, which Dr. Spear wrote so extensively about in his book The High-Velocity Edge and is so much discussed within this community.

So now that he's retired from the U.S. Navy, he serves on the board of directors of numerous companies, including Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, and Constellation, a Fortune 150 company, which is the country's largest supplier of carbon-free energy.

During the pandemic, he has presented at this conference twice on leader development. Steve and I got to interview him for four hours on the Idealcast, and I've gotten to work with him on so many things, of which Maxwell talked about earlier today. He was such a fantastic coach and advisor.

And so I asked if he'd be willing to share with us in more fidelity and detail about that advice that he gave the team. So I'm so happy that he said yes. Admiral Richardson.

Gene Kim

Okay. Actually, you're in submarines, not aircraft carriers, the pilots.

So I'm so delighted that you're here. You're such a fantastic coach and mentor. We heard that firsthand from Lieutenant Colonel Max Reele on the paper team. My memory of that interaction was a little bit different. I don't think you were nearly as harsh as he described, but no doubt it had a huge impact on how we thought about it.

Could you maybe first talk about why you thought the topic of the paper was important, especially in the context of the DOD?

ADM John Richardson

Thanks, Gene. And before I even begin that, I just want to say how terrific it is to be back live here. With ETLS, you set such a positive atmosphere. You bring everybody together. I think your motto is perfect: coming together and going faster.

So thanks very much for just everything you do. It's not easy to put a conference like this on. It's incredibly hard. So please, every time you see one of the team, make sure you thank them.

And then also, just to set some context, there's been a number of references to that troglodyte senior leader at the top of the organization, and I am that person. So if there's any of that, just bring it on during the conference.

Let me just answer your question, though. Why is this so important, particularly in the national security context? I think this is absolutely important, critically important, existentially important to preserve our nation's place in the world and also, really by extension, our way of life. The stakes could not be higher. You just have to read the news to see that there are other folks with other plans, other nations with other plans, and much different than ours. If there's any sort of motivation that you need, you just have to take a look at the front page.

Just in terms of the magnitude of the problem, what we faced and what we do face in the Defense Department is a system that's really fundamentally tuned to deliver one article about every 15 to 20 years. It was designed to make ships and aircraft and tanks, and the time frame to do that, to design it, build it, test it, deliver it, is about a couple of decades. Since that system was designed in the '50s and the '60s, and it was never very friendly to innovation, we've of course advanced tremendously.

The microprocessor has come online since that time, which doubles every two to five years. And then, of course, while we're here, software. You quote 136,000 deliveries per day at Amazon. So this is the pace of competition. If this is an existential competition that we're in and we're going to win it, we have to move at that pace, which means really re-architecting the entire organization. That's a big task.

Gene Kim

So you actually have part of a story to tell. Max showed that two-by-two diagram, and in that process, as Max mentioned, we talked to and interacted with 30-plus different DOD software efforts. One of the things that really struck us was how different the people who are involved in teams in the upper-right-hand quadrant talked, behaved, felt. It was visceral. In fact, sometimes it was amazing watching Max Reele's body language as he reacted to some of the things that were being said.

One of them was U.S. Navy Overmatch, which you created while you were CNO. Can you talk about how and why you structured Overmatch the way you did, so that it ended up in that upper right hand?

ADM John Richardson

It goes really to the importance of what we set that organization up to do, to help us be a catalyst related to transforming that architecture. If we mean what we say about the importance of the mission, and I think this is important for every organization, then it's going to get a very, very high priority.

So it was clearly messaged that this was going to be a very high-priority target. Therefore, as the head of the Navy, it was going to have my personal attention, my personal whatever I could bring to that, authority, resources, etc.

And then I really just gave ownership of that to a really well-regarded leader. He was very senior as well, a two-star admiral. He was in command of a well-known organization, a command, and so he had to do some transformation within that command. But outside, even though they were doing things very, very differently inside, it looked like it was familiar. Here's the senior leader. He's got direct connection to the CEO. His team is something that we recognize. We understand who to call when we have questions.

Then we delegated a tremendous amount of authority and responsibility and resources. Then we put them directly in connection with the mission that they were trying to solve. There were not a lot of bureaucratic layers. They were enabled to coordinate at the edge, like your painters and your movers and furniture guys. Just let them run, and then come back and tell me how it's going.

Gene Kim

I'm hoping that everyone hears that, yes, he's talking about the DOD context, but in the commercial context, you talk about the digital disruption. We heard a great presentation from Fernando about how 50% of revenue can come from, if he doesn't get fired first, e-commerce channels. The commercial relevance should be very, very clear.

ADM John Richardson

There was another thing. For Fernando, that was so compelling. I bought a pair of shoes while you were talking. Just got online and did it.

Gene Kim

Are you a club member now?

There was actually something in the way that you caught our eye. By the way, when I said I enjoyed watching Max Reele's body language, not that I enjoyed seeing him suffer. It was just so interesting to see how he reacted to how people in that upper-right-hand quadrant talked.

One of the things that also caught our attention was the fact that you set it up as a command. In other words, one of the things that came out in many of the programs was they were afraid that they were going to be erased. Can you talk about why you recognized that and what you did?

ADM John Richardson

Listen, we're really out to, like I said, transform the organization. We cannot win, we will not win, at the pace of one delivery every decade or two. It just won't happen. That's sort of the resonant frequency of the system. And from the talks I've attended, which have all been terrific, that's not an uncommon situation, that a lot of particularly organizations with a lot of legacy, you mentioned Adidas with a long past, just operate at a lower frequency of delivery. In years, you're not going to learn fast enough. You're not going to adapt fast enough. You're not going to stay ahead of the problem.

The temptation would be to create this little team. It's like a little Mr. Potato Head thing. You stick this ear on, and good luck. You're just sort of an appendage to the main organization. We had to bring them in and do genetic modification, turn the Mr. Potato Head into something like the Road Runner.

It was not going to happen if we created something that people didn't really recognize, didn't trust, weren't familiar with. That's why we embedded it in this and transformed this one command in the Navy.

Gene Kim

And if I understand correctly, there's no ability to erase that organization, make it go away. That's not going to happen.

ADM John Richardson

Difficult to do. It's got a lot of history. It's there to stay.

Gene Kim

So that's a structure. Another one was the way you verbalized priorities. How did that sound?

ADM John Richardson

It was very clearly communicated across that we were moving out in this. We were going to get into these software factories. We were going to create a communication system that would allow all of our nodes, if you will, ships, aircraft, to connect in together. That was the mission of this team.

We were also going to importantly connect them with the very best in industry. We weren't going to necessarily invent everything on our own, but we were going to see what is the best of breed out there and just as much think of ourselves as investors, sort of venture capitalists into the best of breed out there, and ask them to come in and help us and teach us.

Gene Kim

My understanding is that most in the U.S. Navy know that the top priority is the USS Columbia submarine. And number two, this is the number two priority. Right?

ADM John Richardson

Yeah. If you're listening and you're top five, this is number two.

Gene Kim

That was also astounding to learn.

There was a specific piece of advice that you gave us that made it into the paper. You said to us, your goal should be to have every service chief, so that would be you and your peers in the Air Force, the head of the Army, the head of the Air Force, head of the Marine Corps. You said your goal should be to get them to endorse this paper, which will in turn bring their service CIOs. For me, that was such a clarifying goal.

Can you describe why you said that should be our goal?

ADM John Richardson

I think anything short of that, if your real goal is to transform the organization and you've got this new team, even well-established in a command, even with the leadership and the prioritization, the vision that somebody shared with me is maybe between you and what you want to do and this team that is going to actually do that, there's about 100,000 people with their finger hovering over the no button, just waiting for an excuse to press.

Unless you get that senior leadership to buy into this, to adopt it, to endorse it, support it in every way that they can, you can have a hard time overcoming that inertia. For all of those folks who are ready to say, "No way," if you can get something signed, as clear a commitment as you can get, like here's the letter that says we're going to do this, it's signed by the CEO, why aren't you on board? How much more clear could it be? It allows you to get through a lot of that inertia.

Gene Kim

This was another thing that we've heard in those people in the upper-right-hand quadrant. In fact, I heard it again when I went to Lieutenant Colonel John Schreiner from Marine Corps, his presentation. I'm going to try to approximate it, but if you could actually say it how you would say it, so you can model what the goal is: if you have any obstacles, use my name to get what you need.

ADM John Richardson

That's right. First of all, to the two-star, if you have any trouble, if you have a shortfall at all, difficulty, just give me a call. Here's my number. Here's my cell phone. Reach out. Just let me know where the pain point is and I'll reach down there and we'll start eliminating these obstacles as quickly as we can.

Gene Kim

Again, to recreate Max Reele's pain when you heard that, I think many of us, when we heard that, were like, oh, that's great, versus the other one was, "Hey, we have daily access to that person, and if we miss a meeting, I'm going to see him or her next week. No big deal," versus "I just spent two months prepping for this meeting, that's briefing, pre-briefing."

ADM John Richardson

And hundreds of pre-briefs.

Gene Kim

Exactly. Awesome.

So these days you're a board member of public companies and private companies. Having spent most of your career in the military, can you talk about what you think the biggest opportunities are for leaders in commercial industry? What advice and lessons learned do you think would be most useful from people with your background?

ADM John Richardson

First of all, I'd like to say it's just been super exciting, this learning journey that I've been on since I retired from the Navy, and to have just become involved in private business, in the private sector, and just some amazing leaders in business. We've heard a lot of stories about those types of leaders here. Very, very focused on the mission, super capable people of high integrity and character, people who care about connecting with their teams. I just want to say how amazing that has been, just to continue to learn there.

Then to the conversations I've had, the conversation has really changed, particularly as we come out of the COVID environment and you hear all of these things about quiet quitting, and everybody wants to work remotely, and all of those things. What is the challenge now to leaders to really create that environment? Certainly, you want your team to add value to the mission, but now there seems to be a responsibility to add value to the lives of your team.

You've got to create an environment where you're not pulling people in. The term psychologically safe, I think, is really important. But let's go above the zero axis on that and get into psychologically encouraging, where you're actually trying to create an environment where people wake up and say, "Wow, of all the things I have to do today, going in and being part of this team physically is one of the things I really want to do."

Kind of taking on the responsibility for their professional joy. You've heard that term a number of times. There's leading with the heart. There's been a number of discussions here about really flipping that on its head. We have that in the armed services, I think, because there's still a little momentum from the conscription attitude where we were drafting people, and we've really got to flip that around.

You mentioned, hey, two teams, one wins, one doesn't. What are the differences? Same on the waterfront. There are six ships tied up to the same pier. One is just vastly higher performing than the others. I think it's that leader who really invests in their people, creates an environment where they see value for them in it, investment in them.

There's an alignment there with the mission. They seem to be working a lot less, enjoying it a lot more, and outperforming everybody else on the waterfront.

Gene Kim

We were talking about this before. One of the incredible things I heard two days ago was, "It's hard to help people when the people helping aren't happy." To what degree does that resonate with your own experiences?

ADM John Richardson

Absolutely. If you're thinking about anything else besides creating an environment where if people look in there, they have a fear of missing out, that's what you want to create, this FOMO environment, where everybody who looks at your team says, "Man, I really want to be part of that. I would sign up for that." If you're doing anything short of that, I think we need to think harder.

Gene Kim

Very good. I am so grateful for everything that you've done to help me, a whole bunch of people on the team for the DOD Organizing for Success paper, and everyone within this community. Thank you so much. Could you give a huge round of applause for Admiral Richardson?

And Jeff Gallimore will announce that you'll be available later today at a time and place of your choosing.

ADM John Richardson

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Gene Kim

All right. Seriously, if you want to get advice from some of the best in the game and one of the best in the game, don't miss out on an opportunity to interact with Admiral Richardson. Thank you.