The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#088 Defining Your Leadership Philosophy: Insights from Naval Academy Graduate Eric Dyson
In this episode of the Academy Insider podcast, we dive deep into the art of developing a robust leadership philosophy with Eric Dyson, a 1983 graduate of the United States Naval Academy.
Eric shares invaluable insights from his time as a midshipman, his career as a Naval officer, and his experiences in the civilian world. He breaks down his seven-step leadership philosophy, offering practical advice for aspiring leaders at every stage of their journey.
Key Takeaways:
- The importance of defining and refining your purpose
- Strategies for identifying and nurturing talent within your team
- How to set and maintain a standard of excellence
- The power of recognition and positive reinforcement
- Ways to inspire and motivate those under your command
Highlights from the Discussion:
- Eric's journey from a curious teenager to a submarine officer
- The evolution of leadership philosophy from midshipman to civilian life
- Real-world examples of effective leadership in high-pressure situations
- The critical role of training and providing the right tools for success
- How to balance discipline with encouragement in leadership
Whether you're a current midshipman, a junior officer, or simply interested in honing your leadership skills, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice. Eric's candid stories and hard-earned wisdom provide a roadmap for developing a leadership style that's both effective and authentic.
Eric leaves us with a compelling case for considering a service academy education, emphasizing the unparalleled leadership training and personal growth opportunities it provides. He encourages listeners to reach out and connect with academy graduates to learn more about this unique and rewarding path.
Join us for an engaging conversation that will challenge you to reflect on your own leadership journey and inspire you to make a positive impact on those you lead.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
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Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about leadership and leadership philosophy and leadership development, and so I'm joined by Eric Dyson, who's a class of 83 graduate of the Naval Academy. He has developed over time and built and then refined his leadership philosophy over his years as a naval officer and in the civilian world as well. So we're just going to have a discussion about how it relates to the life of a midshipman, how it relates to the life of a junior officer when it comes to leadership and building your leadership philosophy and what it means and how to uniquely own it yourself, and so it's a fun discussion. We're going to talk and share a lot of sea stories about his time in the Navy and leadership lessons he's learned, how it's developed over time and how he's established and built where he's at today when it comes to leadership, again, these discussions are meant to just provide you information, to provide a baseline, to provide perspectives so you can continue to build, mold and refine your leadership philosophy that works for you. There's not a one size fits all. This is a very unique to you situation, but hearing different perspectives can always help as you mold and find what works for you. So I hope you really enjoy this discussion. If you ever have any questions about anything Naval Academy related, please reach out to me. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the listen. Have a great day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:The Academy Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in, please reach out to me directly at grant at the premier groupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page grant from here and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode. All right, hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy insider podcast, eric. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. For anyone in the Academy Insider audience who may not know you, do you mind just giving a little bit of a background and context about yourself? Where are you from, how you ended up at the Naval Academy, a little bit about your career in the Navy and now currently what you're doing in today's day and age.
Speaker 2:Sure Grant, it is an honor and a privilege to be here and really hope whoever the listening audience is, I can add one or two tidbits for you. So that background is I grew up in a day and age where we actually had an encyclopedia set in our house. Okay, and I know I'm dating myself, but for some reason I gravitated towards the volumes that had the Army, air Force, marine Corps and the Navy in it, right and literally. As a teenager I was fascinated by this and I'm just going to tell it as plain as it is. I thought the idea of being on a big aircraft carrier was a lot safer, in a way to serve my country than being a soldier or a Marine. And so that's what kind of led me to the Naval Academy 1983 graduate.
Speaker 2:So also dating myself. Y'all can see the gray hair here. And then the thing to add on to that I joke, but really not joke about this hey, the aircraft carrier option seems safe. When we went and decided service selection, I decided, hey, submarines, one of their most important jobs is to just hide and be silent and remain undetected. I also thought there was a great option for chickens, all right. So that's what got me to submarine force and hopefully that there was a great option for chickens, all right. So that's what got the submarine for us and hopefully that's enough of a background for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. You can say chickens. I say the mentally tough, because getting trapped in a steel can underneath the ocean for months at a time is not made for the weak. I will tell you that there's certainly something to the mental toughness that you need to survive submarine life, because it's brutal, it can be.
Speaker 1:Not for everybody Not for everyone, but today's episode for everyone listening is really going to be based on a couple of discussions, and I think the premise of where we're going today is all about the creation and refinement of your leadership philosophy. Because, again at the Naval Academy, I think what's super great about being in Annapolis is the density of incredible leaders and wisdom that's on the yard. You're going to be able to talk to senior enlisted leaders. You're going to be able to talk to company officers, who are usually in that 03 to 04 range, but then there's going to be senior staff, there's going to be battalion officers there's a common out there and instructors across the yard. You're going to have the ability to talk to O5s, o6s and potentially flag officers during your time as a midshipman, and you're going to see such a variety of leadership in the way to lead. And so I think this is a really cool aspect, because when you're exposed to so many incredible ways and different, again, philosophies that people have embraced, it's important to create and refine your specific leadership philosophy that works for you right, and so, because of that, I do want to, you know, turn this over to you, because this is what you do, this is what you talk about is your leadership philosophy, and I'm going to kind of outline some of the things that you have published and then we're going to dive and talk about them.
Speaker 1:But you talk about this need to define and constantly refine your purpose which I think is a really important discussion here is finding the right people, training them right, giving them the tools they need to do their job, setting a standard for excellence, patting them on the back enough often enough, and then being an inspiration. These seven steps. And so for you, eric, you go back to your time as a midshipman. Where did this start for you? That is your leadership philosophy, those seven steps. But where did it start for you? What things were most important for you then, kind of when you were as a midshipman, and then how has it developed over time?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that it developed over time that one day, actually after I left the Navy, I put this all together. But it's a great question, grant, where does this start? And just a reminder for all the listening audience, especially the parents and those who want to be midshipmen. So your second year at the Naval Academy we call being a youngster and I'm assuming it's the same, but my time you were assigned one plebe, one fourth class, one freshman who you were leading, you were mentoring, and traditionally that role as a youngster, as a sophomore, you weren't the hard-hitting jerk, right? You weren't the one to pressure them, you needed to mentor them and I had the very first one I was given.
Speaker 2:This young man was struggling with his grades, with whether he wanted to be there, right, and I really figured out that it was in my power to either beat this kid down and drive him out or lift him up. And somehow something within me decided hey, we're not here to kick people out, we're here to develop leaders. And just, you know, he did great and one of the greatest things he did was he became a brigade boxer, and I said that when he came to me and told me that, I thought well, you know you're going to learn to take a punch in the face.
Speaker 2:And that's probably what you need to do to learn not just that physically, but learn that mentally. And he was great, he really turned out great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's so cool and, to your point, that still continues today. They've kind of added, you know, more and more with a couple of Marine Corps commandants, they've added some Marine Corps terminology into the brigade, the midshipmen. So normally kind of within the squad you have a fire team leader which is usually that kind of like youngster or second class, but usually youngster, and you have that direct mentorship and much like you're saying, still to this day it very much is like, hey, I know my role as a youngster, having just been a plebe, is more of a guidance, advice, mentorship kind of, a little bit more of the care and uplifting knowing that the second class and the firsties are going to be, you know, a little bit more hard hitting and structured and emphasizing like things that need to get done. So that tradition still continues to today for anyone who's listening. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But we're going to jump straight into your leadership philosophy now, which is again the first one is defining and constantly refining your purpose. In your opinion, why is it so important for these young men and women to continue defining and refining their purpose? And, in your opinion, why is it so important for these young men and women to continue defining and refining their purpose and, in your opinion, where should they be searching for the origin of their purpose? Right, and what does purpose mean to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and let's start out with, no matter what service academy you go to when you graduate, from starting as high as you can get. Your purpose is to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies sworn domestic, and you can say, oh, okay, eric, that's, that's real touchy-feely. That's good stuff here, but now, now let's boil it down to as a junior officer, as a midshipman, wherever you're going, what that means. So the best example I've given a submarine force, probably still true, but in my day there were, there were officers who we referred to them as super nukes. They knew everything about the nuclear propulsion and they did.
Speaker 2:Smartest people on the planet, okay, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but Navy nukes are the smartest people on the planet, but they didn't know how to employ the weapon system very well, right, and I had a Commodore once say to me hey, we are not sending nuclear-powered Rams to sea.
Speaker 2:So my point is, yes, impeccable record of the Navy nuclear power program of safety and self-monitoring. I'm not trying to diminish the importance of that at all, but your purpose in life is to know how to put a weapon on target when you're in the submarine force. Now there's other things that can come into with. You know stealth and things that submarines do, but if you didn't know how to employ the weapon system at least when I was chief engineer, you were going to have a hard time being part of my crew.
Speaker 2:So the question was how do you find your purpose? Now, maybe I need to take that outside the submarine force and take a stab at this. You know, if you're a pilot, outside the submarine force and take a stab at this. You know, if you're a pilot and again I'm guessing here you've got other duties of maintenance and developing your people and just things going on, and I'm not saying those are unimportant, but your number one job as a naval officer, as a Marine Corps officer and let's take it to the other academies is to be able to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to me that meant you better know how to put ordnance on target if you were called to do so.
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely. And when it came to refining, then now, after you get out of the service and you're in the civilian world, how have you refined it in today's day and age? Because I think, again, a lot of these transition stories at times is people who have placed their purpose. The only thing they know what to do is how to operate their systems, their machines, their equipment, and that's what's driven them in life. How was that transition for you into being a civilian? Where do you find your purpose at now in terms of making that shift into the civilian world?
Speaker 2:Well, and I'll keep it job related because I do have. My personal mission is I'm not going to preach people a sermon, but I've got a very strong faith. She didn't come here for a sermon. So in my career and I can just give you a simple example, so for the listening audience I do consulting work in the 401k and pension space with companies Right and just with the environment of risk management and potential litigation and things. A lot of these companies right and just, with the environment of risk management and potential litigation and things.
Speaker 2:A lot of these companies. They are so focused on what I call playing defense. Hey, we don't want to get sued, we want to make sure everything's in order, we want to check all these boxes, but in the end that benefit plan is to help your employees retire with dignity, to save and have a benefit plan. So that purpose is you're taking my experience and say, yes, we have to play defense and just like my example of you need to know the nuclear power plant. But if all you do is play defense, you're not really going on offense and helping these employees save and invest and do what they want. And so a lot of what I do is education. I do a lot of speaking engagements, but my mission statement basically at the end is to transform outcomes for employees for the better.
Speaker 1:Yep, no, I love that. I love the mission statement there at the end, honestly too, and kind of utilizing your profession to make a positive impact. And I couldn't agree more like what you were saying about the overarching purpose. Right, as someone in the profession of arms, in the military service, like you're there to support and defend the constitution. Right, like that has been assigned and given to you. But even within that right, you talk about being a submarine officer or being a pilot and you have sailors, you have Marines who are looking up to you and that you know.
Speaker 1:I think you're also going to find purpose in your day-to-day life there, like taking care of those individuals and helping them out and making sure they're succeeding and doing what they need to do in life to advance, to promote, to be in a good spot.
Speaker 1:Right, there's going to be real leadership in these situations when you get out to the fleet, which is so cool. But it's also interesting because when we talk about this is that when you get to a boat or you go and you show up at your squadron, whatever the case is, a big aspect of military leadership is that you're just assigned the people that are there. You have no choice over really where you go, who's in your unit, who's your boss and who are your subordinates, which is interesting because, again, part of your leadership philosophy is finding the right people, and in the military you don't really get much of a choice over that right. And so when we talk about finding the right people as a JO in the service or as a midshipman, how can you relate this one to kind of their life and what would you encourage them to think about in terms of leadership when they don't have much choice over kind of who is a part of their unit, especially at a really junior level?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's that's a great question, and I'll extend it to personal life. When you're, when you're a leader in your family, right as a parent or a, you don't get to choose that either, so it applies there. Now, it's true, grant, what you say you don't get much of a choice, but you actually get more of a choice than most people are initially thinking. Okay, and let's go back to your time at the Naval Academy. You can look at your classmates, you can look at your friends, grant, you other people, and you can tell the people that were there to make sure they studied as best they can, and some people struggled just to get their grades right, right, but there were people there that were committed to excellence and there were those that were trying to get by and that's the most they were going to put into it, right? So my point is how do you find the right people?
Speaker 2:When you're a midshipman at the Naval Academy, who you choose to hang out with is a big big deal, okay, so were your friends striving for excellence? Or, and for me, I had the same roommates for three and a half years, and when I say three and a half years, when we became firsties, we had different billets in different rooms, but Ken and Ryan still stay in touch with my roommates. You know that's a bond that will last forever. Well, now let's take it to what you're saying here. Right? 1,083 classmates. I could have chosen a lot of different friends. But you're right, when you get to your first vote and you're assigned a chief and you're assigned a division, you don't get to choose that. But here's what you do get to choose.
Speaker 2:You get to choose who in your division you can count on. You can choose, when you're a watchstander, who you can count on. So if you're the electrical division officer on an aircraft, carrier, surface ship, a submarine, you know which petty officers will get the job done no matter what, and you know which ones will come up with excuses not to get the job done. Your key as a leader is to figure out how to use those ones that aren't quite reliable. Can you develop them? Do you have to do what they can? So I'll give you my specific example.
Speaker 2:I could go with a list of people that I knew to rely on. But as chief engineer and again an explanation for the listing onnings the command master chief is the senior enlisted individual in the command on the ship, whatever, and in the submarine force we call him the chief of the boat Cobb. Well, he wasn't in my chain of command, I wasn't in his chain of command, but boy, he was a resource for me. He and I would have some one-on-one conversations in my state room about where we were going, what the captain was thinking, and we had a great captain too.
Speaker 2:Larry Davis, I'll give you a shout out by name, one of the best commanding officers you would ever serve under. But so, so again, just reminding and I know I'm getting a little long-winded here, Grant, but how do you find the right people? I would say to the command master chief hey, I'm having a problem with chief so-and-so, and he'd give me one or two responses. He'd say, sir, give me two weeks, I'll fix the problem for you. He always did. His other response would be I've had it with him. Go to town, sir, you need to. So the point is, I knew the command master chief was one person that I could rely on and he would give me feedback as a leader.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. I really appreciated that distinction that you kind of put in there, right Is, you know you may not get to pick who is assigned to you, but even within that division, right, there usually is an LPO, a leading petty officer, there's these kind of. As you go down, there's still more leadership billets that can be put in place and you have an ability to kind of pick and choose who is going to fill that role as the LPO, who is going to be kind of the section leader of a watch section. Right, like you have an ability to, like you're saying, count on the people who you know and trust to be able to take care and lead your division or your watch section, kind of in the day-to-day, in the intricate, in the standing watch, et cetera. Right, so there is still that ability to do so, even out in the fleet, which is great.
Speaker 1:And then I think a big piece of what we have to do, too right, is at least try and get the least common denominator raised up a little bit. And so I think this fills right into what you're talking about, about train them right, train your people right, like it's not just, hey, yep, I have who I have and that's it and we're going to be done. But you have to train them and I think this is really where there's a lot of control for especially that JO and senior enlisted leader combination and dynamic and partnership in kind of training your division. But why is this so important? And why should men be thinking about training and qualifications now for when they get out into their division, when they get out into the fleet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's first talk about qualification. It's kind of a sidebar from here You're laughing because you probably know where I'm going and I've had let me tell you what Grant. I've had a couple of recent academy grads that I was able to connect with on social media and I gave them a little bit of mentoring conversations and I loved it. They said they loved it, but I loved it more than them. And my point on qualifications is until you're supporting the watch bill, until midshipmen, when you get your commission, commission, until you are supporting the watch bill, you are nothing but a load on the oxygen system and the food system on the ship. So it's important that you get on the watch bill. But let's go to the training part grant.
Speaker 2:I was always always as chief engineer, wanting to run casualty drills and I wanted to get harder and tougher and I wanted my engineering department to be able to handle any casualty under any situation. And let's go back to purpose. I had a discussion with a captain one time and says hey, if there's one day there's a torpedo in the water coming at us and there's a casualty in the engine room, we need to know how to handle that and we need to push ourselves harder. So that's one. But let's go back to the training and qualification part of this Grant, did you ask?
Speaker 2:There are so many things going on at sea and any command and Marine Corps you know in the field, whatever it is sometimes to do some of these training ops that junior petty officers need. Right, this new nuclear trained mechanic needs a very simple drill to qualify. Well, that's pretty important. And where does that fit under support and defend the constitution of the United States? Oh, my gosh, right, we're 10 steps removed. But if I don't continue to lead and say to the captain that, hey, I need these drill sets because I need to qualify more on mechanics and I don't train them to be able to operate the interim under any circumstance, then we're not in a position to support and defend the constitution.
Speaker 1:Yep, no that's so big right and I think it's something that just doesn't even get comprehended is when you get out to sea right, if someone's qualification goes, you know, gets expired or whatever the case is, because they haven't done enough continuous drills or follow up or reinforcements. I'm so far out of the Navy I'm forgetting the actual terminology, but someone's status is like active and qualified can, for lack of better term, expire Right. And if you're not doing enough training and follow up, drills and that needs to get coordinated into the operational plan of a submarine, right. Like a lot of these things have to happen while you're out to sea, while you're underway, and they need to get planned into the overall operational plan, right. And if you're not communicating, if you're not tracking the training that your division needs and communicating that up the chain of command to the captain, you're going to be in a spot where the captain is going to be way more mad because the sailors can't do anything, because they're not qualified to do anything.
Speaker 2:And you get a morale issue right. And I'm going to take this. I don't want to say it's extreme, this is real, alive. But my nuclear mechanics, for some reason, were always my biggest challenge, probably because the most watch stations. But when you looked at schools, when you looked at, they wanted some time off. Let's go to your exact point, grant, let's say somebody, my nuclear welders were the bane of my existence. Trying to keep the quality had to take one to sea with me, right, but let's just go. You know, let's domino this. If we have the right people who are not qualified, that can domino all the way. I have a sailor that I have to say no, I'm sorry, you cannot take leave to go to your sister's wedding. And that's a tough message to say to a sailor because you just couldn't manage the watch bill correctly.
Speaker 1:But it happens, and a big piece of this when it comes to training, and it's in a similar vein, which is why I want to transition to it. Next is this idea of providing sailors with the tools that they need to do their job, which could be quite literally a physical tool, but usually it's not a physical thing. Do you mind elaborating on this piece of your leadership philosophy?
Speaker 2:What does this mean for a divot? To give the sailors the tools that they need to do their job. And you're right, it is not a physical tool. It can be right. If they don't have the physical tools they need to do their job, then literally bad things happen. So I think I'll give an example of what I found to be very successful and it took me way too long to learn this.
Speaker 2:Okay, when you're in an upkeep and this also applies when you're at sea but their schedule, the sailor's schedule to do maintenance, gets very complex when one division wants to do maintenance X and another, vision, wants to do maintenance Y and you cannot do them at the same time, for either safety concerns or just you know we can't shut down half the electric plant because I need the electric plant running for this division to do their job. Well, sometimes what would happen is you go through and you plan this right, and so Wednesday afternoon you plan that's a plan for the morning, but we need the captain's permission to start and the young junior officer, the young department head, waits till the morning to get the captain's permission. And you find out in the morning Cab's got a doctor's appointment and he's not coming in. Okay, so this sounds very silly, but the planning aspects in allowing them to do their job. So what did I do when we were in port, every day 3 pm, there was a meeting of all the chiefs and division officers by the reduction years in the end room.
Speaker 2:Okay, and was it a pain in the neck to drop everything we were doing at 3 pm? Absolutely. But we would talk about what's going on for the rest of the day and what do you need tomorrow. So I would routinely go to the captain around four o'clock and say Captain, here's the three things I want to do tomorrow. And just as an example, he'd say on those two out of three, you have permission to start in the morning. On number three, I will be here, but you need to come and get permission. So a lot of times those tools to do their job are just scheduling. I mean, as simple as that sounds, it can be tough in a complex upkeep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, 100% Scheduling admin. There's so many things that you don't necessarily think of. As you know this of hyper importance in your role as division officer, but it really is, and that's how you can start to build that culture and a standard of excellence when you are being excellent at your job as a JO, to train your sailors, to give them the tools that they need to make sure everything is scheduled appropriately so they can do the jobs that they need to do to stay qualified and proficient right, and so these are the things that matter. And so this is the next piece of your leadership. Philosophy is about setting a standard of excellence, and so how does that relate to a midshipman and how does that relate to a junior officer, like what things need to get done, and how do you go from a large scale of what it means to have a standard of excellence to, quite literally, a daily implementation of what it means, habit-wise, to actually bring that to life?
Speaker 2:Well, let's start with from the midshipman. I'll go ahead and say it back when I was a plebe.
Speaker 1:Right after the last real plebe summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Back when I was a plebe, on day one we had to read a message to Garcia. Right? And for those of you not familiar with it, whether you're a parent or you want to be a midshipman, you're applying to Academy. Just go Google message to Garcia and read that, right? And that's what starts with a standard of excellence. Right, I will get the job done no matter what. Ok, and I'll give another quick story. This is for Scott Ward was a Naval Academy grad and he was a fellow native Pittsburgher. But Scott was one of my junior officers and he was the electrical division officer. Well, when I was a division officer, I thought the engineer knew everything. Then I became engineer and realized yeah he didn't really know much either.
Speaker 2:And, scott, when he was a little younger, he would come to me and say, engineer, we have to do this maintenance, and I'd probably never heard of some of them. Right, like, okay, that makes sense, this needs to be done. And he said what do we do? And I would ask him the same question, I mean verbatim, scott, what does the book say? Because the book usually leads you in the right direction. Okay, and here's what it's like to set a standard of excellence. A standard of excellence is when, six months later, that same young officer, scott Ward, comes to me and says, hey, engineer, we got to do this maintenance. And guess what? I looked at the book and it leads us in the right direction. And here's what it says. Here's what we have to do. Right, you train them to do simple things. Okay, and I got another Grant.
Speaker 2:This is one of my favorite stories and it just illustrates this. Okay, my first captain. Okay, I'm a young ensign, right, I'm like I can find the front end of the submarine to the back, right. And the 8 o'clock reports, the 12 o'clock reports and the 20-hundred reports okay, for those of you not aware, but the captain gets this stack of reports you know periodically throughout the day so he can kind of figure out what's going on. As engineer I'd have to sign the fuel oil and water report every morning and he would, you know, say, hey, do we have enough water? Do we have enough water to do everything? But anyways, for my first captain, if that 8 o'clock report came much after 8 o'clock in five seconds, he would blow his cool and at first I thought what is the deal with five seconds? And he turned to me after one of those times where he called the officer of the DAC and read him the riot act. And he looks at me and he says, eric, this ship is only 300 feet long. It means I'm within 300 feet. If people can't find me to deliver some simple reports at 8, 12, and 2,200, there's a whole lot of other things going wrong on this submarine that I just don't know about yet.
Speaker 2:So you asked about daily routines. Now I will, just as a sidebar here. There are some things that don't require excellence. This is good enough and you can move forward and get it done right. The chocolate chip cookies don't come up right on Wednesday. Hey, we want to get that right. We do want excellence in our food. But you figure out what's important enough to set a standard for excellence and you set that standard for excellence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. I love it, and I love how you mentioned like some of this stuff is just so simple and it's another plebe summer thing. We talk about a message to Garcia. It's something that was constantly metaphorically beat into us, which is a brilliance in the basics. Right, there's a true brilliance in the basics. And just doing the very simple things, the very basic things, well and consistently well, right and like those are the things that will build the foundation.
Speaker 2:Well, you bring up a great point, graham. Let's talk about one of the first challenges of plebe summer.
Speaker 1:It's being able to show up at formation on time doing the plebe shuffle because you're right, you're, you're late, but you better get there now, and for us as well.
Speaker 2:I I'm assuming this is true. If you showed up at Formation on time and your roommate was late, there were two of you here about that one, but it's the basics of you do things on time.
Speaker 1:Time time information.
Speaker 2:Wait for no man.
Speaker 1:Time time information wait for no man. And-hmm. Time time information wait for no man. And you only said that a couple hundred times in our life For everyone listening at the end of a chow call. If you're not familiar with what a chow call is, I highly recommend you go and check out the Understanding Plebe Summer videos that we've done to talk about chow calls and what it is. But basically the sign-off at the end of every chow call is quite literally that time time information wait for no man and wait, wait, wait for no one. And then you go and again, like you're saying, beat into us from day one as something that's wildly, wildly important.
Speaker 1:Now I kind of want to talk to you again. This is something that's really interesting because recently we've had on a guest, chowda Call sign Chowda. He's the CEO of the Eisenhower. He's really big on this idea of morale and recognition like public recognition, and one of your leadership philosophies here is you have it as pat them on the back often enough, which I think is a really interesting piece to talk about. Including this verbiage of often enough and kind of think is a really interesting piece to talk about. Including this verbiage of often enough and kind of specifying that. What's the philosophy behind that in your opinion and, kind of, what do you mean in this overarching idea?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's start with why the words often enough, okay, and we'll get back to pat them on the back. You don't have to pat them on the back when they fail. You don't have to pat them on the back when they try really, really hard and come up short. Right now there can be a little bit of encouragement. Hey, I recognize you tried hard, but you know we just didn't get the job done. I mean, there are times when things don't go the way they're supposed to, right, which is why we're setting a standard for excellence right, why we're setting a standard for excellence right. If they don't meet that standard for excellence, you don't have to pat them on the back Now when they're making progress toward that or when they accomplish the job.
Speaker 2:You know, grant, let's go back to purpose Purpose and patting them on the back go together and I want to paint this picture for Mitch Shipp and the young officers is, you know, on a prolonged deployment, as chief engineer, you have a department of 55 people that see the inside of the engine room for almost six months. They're not looking out the periscope, they're not sure if they have a purpose right, they're making steam, they're making water and they're they're, for the most part, right Doing, okay, but they need to know what their purpose is. Okay, and so patting them on the back and I've've got another silly example is that field day there's a word that makes people cringe right, but field day was not a party, it was not a picnic, right, we didn't have balloons and three-legged races, and that it was when you deep cleaned the ship. Everybody up at Friday morning for the morning and I would go back and I would get on the 2MC, which is the announcing system that goes throughout the engine room, and I would try to encourage them as to why this was important. And some days I felt like I was just this talking head in the microphone and nobody's paying attention and they're thinking, oh, here goes the engineer again, he's trying to make us feel like this is important and all we're doing is getting grease and dirty on us. But I was having a rough morning one time for field day and just decided to skip my 2mc announcement and I had about a half a dozen say they say, hey, where's the ringing cheery announcement about why we're doing field day? So patting them on the back.
Speaker 2:So so back to you. I'm sorry. Who was the eisen CEO, if you could repeat that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, chowder, chowder, captain Hill 100%.
Speaker 2:You have got to be encouraging to these folks. And you asked about what I learned at the Naval Academy and I remember this from Admiral Waller talking about when we go on midshipman cruise, and it stuck with me. So, as I'm walking around as chief engineer and division officers, you need to realize this as well. You're going to have a sailor stop you, or you need to do this when they're in the middle of getting their hands dirty for some maintenance item. And I had a couple say hey, engineer, let me show you something, and in most cases I really didn't have time for it, but I made time because really, what that sailor was saying to me was I want to show you how important I am. I want to show you what I know. I want to show you how I'm integral to making this entire engine room work. I am integral to allowing this ship to go to sea and be a warfighting vessel. And as much as I could, I would spend about, you know, two minutes, right, not a whole lot, but I would let them share with me and I would always learn something out of it. So there's a gazillion ways to pat them on the back and, grant, I got one more, I think, this sea story. I wish I'd have learned this long before I did.
Speaker 2:But I was in my last couple months of being on active duty and one of the nuclear mechanics was getting out of the Navy and I just kind of did a personal checkout interview with him and he said you know, engineer, we get these letters from the captain, we get this letter of accommodation from the admiral or the commodore, and they take you all two, three months to edit them and go back and forth. He says, and it's OK, I appreciate it, but wouldn't it be a whole lot easier for the captain just to spend five minutes out of his day, walk back to the engine room and say good job, thanks for what you did? And I thought wow, man, I wish I would have grasped that sooner. And junior officers, that's something you take. Go to your department head, depending on how big the command is Right. Ask somebody to just pat another sailor on the back. Hey, I heard what you did and great job, we're proud of you.
Speaker 1:No, 100 percent. I feel like, again, more and more, it's just clear that it's just, it's just being a human being. People want to be seen, they want to be understood, they want to be acknowledged for what they're contributing to the overall purpose of the, of the mission. Right, and you know, sometimes that's that's tough, but again, it's just a great reminder to us to do that right To like, truly see, to truly understand, to truly acknowledge. Go out of our way, make the extra effort to acknowledge individuals when they're like you're saying, when they're maintaining and continuing to set the bar of that standard of excellence right and doing those things. So couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:Transitioning to the last piece of excellence right and doing those things. So couldn't be couldn't agree more. Transitioning to the last piece of this leadership philosophy, number seven, which is the idea of being inspiration. Now, obviously this is a topic that stretches across a lot of different realms, but when we talk about being an inspiration, what does this mean to you and for the young midshipmen that are out there? How can they be an inspiration to their sailors that they'll stand in front of soon enough?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Grant, we talked.
Speaker 2:It's very broad reaching and I don't want to say nebulous, but there are a number of ways that you can do that. But let me start with this. If you take everything else in my leadership philosophy the other six right Define your purpose, find the right people, train them right, give them the tools they need to do their job, pat them on the back often enough and set a standard for excellence. You don't even have to show up to do any of those, barely right. I can appoint somebody else to do the training and if I'm not around, if I just decide to delegate and disappear, I'm not really being an inspiration, right. And I think the best example I have of that is I listened real hard. So Captain Dennis Jones, and he became a two-star, maybe a three-star admiral, but Denny Jones, I worked for him a while and when he was before his change of command he got us all together. He's a little teary-eyed and a really good speech, one of the best naval officers I ever served under. But he said you know, I come in day to day and I look at you guys and I say there, I come in day to day and I look at you guys and I say there go my people. And I got to catch up to them because I'm their leader and that was inspiring, that he empowered us to go do our jobs without micromanaging us, and he just really did that. So back to Larry Davis, my captain. He and I just exchanged a few notes because I was hunting with some shipmates and they were both enlisted shipmates, but they referred to Captain Larry Davis as the best one ever. Okay, and I sent him a note. I said hey, you need to know that Dave and Stacy are referring to you as the best one ever. And he inspired us because he trusted us and it was hey, here's the list of things that I trust you to do. Oh, by the way, here's a short list of things that I need to put my fingerprint on, and those were pretty clear. But I also tell the story that there were a hand I was allowed to disagree with him openly, right, not in front of the troops, but I was free to come to him and say, hey, I don't see eye to eye with you on this one. And I also jokingly say, probably about 80% of the time the captain was right and I was wrong. Well, I was captain. But we did that. But he inspired me. He patted me on the back and he set that standard for excellence right, which now I passed down and I set that.
Speaker 2:So here's another quick story of how I inspired one junior officer, mark Michelet, probably one of the best junior officers I've ever served with. Mark came into officer's call one morning. I don't know whether he was feeling well, but he just had an attitude that I'd never seen and I put a stop to officer's call and I says, captain, excuse me, and I looked at Mark, called him out into the passageway outside officer's call and I said, look. I said I don't know what got into you today, but I never want to see it again. So there were a few F-bombs. Probably let's just talk there with some sign language, but this is not like you. I never want to see you like this ever again.
Speaker 2:And Mark was a guy who set a standard for excellence and when he fell short of that I called him out on it. But I hope, hopefully I inspired him. Just, you're right, grant. I'm kind of rambling now because it is such a broad topic. Let me throw that back at you. I love when I have on my podcast people throw questions back at me. How would you answer that question for these young junior officers in the gym and how do they inspire others?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in my opinion, it's all in the power of presence, right. And so for me, what it means to be an inspiration more or less right is when the people who are in your division again for my sailors, whatever it is they knew that I was going to be there, I was going to mentally and attention-wise actually be there, I was going to physically be there and I was going to mentally be there to take like, to be involved in their lives and that, as a result of all that, I was going to see them, acknowledge them, care for them and then help them. Kind of like back to your piece, which is, give them the tools that they need. That was a big thing for me because I think a lot of times you know where a jail can potentially separate themselves is by being an advocate for a sailor in the command. Right Is being able to work with your chief to develop a plan, knowing that, hey, we're going to cover down the watch bill, we're going to kind of put down everything that we need so that we can give Sailor X a chance to go to a school to get a new NEC that may help them advance or get a billet that they want.
Speaker 1:Right, like these are the things to be around enough to know that this sailor wants this thing to progress in their career or to progress in their life, and then, on top of that, actually take the effort to put everything in place to give that sailor that opportunity, right.
Speaker 1:And so for me, this, this idea of being an inspiration, is just being someone that that cares for them genuinely and that that means actually taking action to support the things that they want to see happen in their life.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:And so those are the things to me that I've, you know, I really appreciated from from my time in the service, because, again, what's funny is, a lot of times the things that are most important to you are the things that other people did for you and you realize how big of an impact it was in your life, right, and I had a couple of, you know, department heads in my world that advocated on my behalf to give me really cool opportunities in the Navy as well that otherwise I might not have gotten, and I realized how much that mattered to me and how important that was to me and how cool that was Right, and so, from a lot of those different aspects, you know, I would say that's kind of what inspired a lot of people is they knew that if they continue to do their job, they continue to set that standard of excellence, that when they needed something that you were, you were going to be that champion for them to get it across the finish line right, or at least advocate on their behalf in a really positive way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it brings another C story to mind and being an inspiration them knowing that you have your back or that you have their back. That will inspire them. And there were only a couple times this ever happened. We had a saying that when the engineer had a tool in his hand in the engine room, things were not going well. And the quick story is during startup there was a valve in the wrong position. Somebody did not shut down a piece of machinery correctly and this valve was not easy to tell the position. Long story short, it should have been shut and it was open.
Speaker 2:We're trying to open it to start up the engine room and we're tight. We're making it more open and we're jamming it against and stop and nobody can figure out what's going on. And we're trying to get the ship underway. We're potentially going to look bad. So we put a torque wrench on it and we decided we're going to make the assumption that it's the wrong position and we're going to force it in the opposite direction. My point is this I looked to all the mechanics. I said give me the wrench. And they said why? I said because if we break this thing, y'all are going down, including me. There's no reason you have to go down. I'll take the fall if we break this thing, and there was a lot of equity, a lot of respect that I was willing to take the fall.
Speaker 2:It was my decision right, so I was the only one that needed to get in trouble with it, and I know I got a lot of respect for that decision out of the troops 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate it. I appreciate your rundown on all these different aspects and for again, potentially a high school student out there that's trying to learn about the Navy and the Naval Academy that may be listening and considering a service academy, give us your best recruiting pitch and kind of final thoughts. What do you want to leave the audience with about why young men and women should consider a service academy for their collegiate education?
Speaker 2:I mean other than I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. That's not the best recruiting pitch. Right, because it says it was right for me, right? First of all, you have to have a heart to want to serve your country. Okay, that's it. You will get the best education bar none. Okay, we can set aside whether it's a service academy or not. We can set aside those US News and World Report rankings which always have the service academies at the top, and you will get the best education bar none. You will get leadership skills that will carry you forward into life. These are skills that are, I won't say, not taught in any other university. Certainly, you could join an ROTC program, but you're just not going to get the leadership skills that you get at those academies anywhere else. And if you're still on the fence after this marginal recruiting pitch, find somebody locally to talk to I think the blue and gold officers, or that's their job to kind of help people get down that road. But go talk to another service academy graduate. Okay, if you want to reach out to me on social media, eric Dyson, find me on Facebook, find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:I'd be happy to have a conversation. I mean literally anybody out there who's considering, I'd be happy to have a conversation with you. The last thing I would say you need to want it for yourself. I had one plebe that was assigned to me that he was there for all the wrong reasons. He was there because his parents wanted him to be there. His father was a high profile admiral and I just said to him one day you need to decide whether you want to be here or not. And he made up his mind. He did want to be there. It's not the right choice for some people, but for those that you would write, it is the best experience we're out there for, not college 100%.
Speaker 1:We talk about this idea of being an inspiration. Do you have someone or a story of a difference maker, an impact maker in your life, an inspiration during your Naval Academy journey, someone that you want to highlight that really bettered your Naval Academy experience?
Speaker 2:At the.
Speaker 1:Naval Academy, naval academy or, or the fleet.
Speaker 2:Either one let me get I I can. Yeah, commander munger, he was an o5 at the time. He taught the introduction to naval systems, okay, and the funny thing is I bumped into him about six months after I graduated. I saw him in an elevator during my temporary duty in was DC, and that time he's Captain Munger. I said Captain Munger, and he looked at me and I said hey, I need to thank you. He has no idea where this is coming from.
Speaker 2:The first quiz I ever took at the Naval Academy, I got a D plus on it. Yeah, and, grant, I remember back when you were starting the Academy Insider, I was trying to remind parents that, hey, your sons and daughters about to go from being top 10 percent in their class to be an average Very quickly, very quickly. Not only did I get a D plus, but it had a note that said see me. And I thought, oh, you know how did this go down here I am already in trouble.
Speaker 2:And he had me come to his office for what were office hours for the professors? He said to me tell me about how you study. And I told him he says let me guess you rarely studied in high school. Everything came relatively easy for you. You cracked the book open every now and then just to refresh yourself or test, but you've never really had to study. And I said, yes, sir, you're right. He said you have no idea how to study and if you don't fix that, you're not going to make it here. And in 20 minutes he taught me how to study. And Grant had that O5, that commander not taking the time for one student in his class to say come see me and teach me how to study.
Speaker 1:I would not have made it academically come see me and teach me how to study, I would not have made it academically. Yeah, 100%. Again, my biggest thing about the Naval Academy is how much the staff are there for not just their job of the academic teaching but the whole person development. Right, and knowing that, again, this is more than just the class material. This is about learning how to study. This is about learning how to build the right habits. Right, I tell my story in my first naval history paper that I wrote and changed the size of the font to my periods where that ended up not going very well in my favor.
Speaker 1:But it was a very clear and a very immediate correction about this idea that you have to maintain an extremely high standard of excellence in everything that you do. And it's habitual, right, it's not about this paper, it's about this idea that, like, you have to build habits to do everything the right way, right, consistently, and do it all the time. And so it's, it's one of the beauties of you know, the Naval Academy experience, the service Academy experience. So absolutely love it. Eric, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Is there anything you want to leave the Academy Insider audience with before we wrap up today?
Speaker 2:I would just encourage you all to keep, especially the parents and those of you that are considering the Service Academy. Grant's got a great thing going on here. If you've not already listened, there's just a lot of things to help you manage your expectations. I guess this is the one other thing Grant I would leave is that when I showed up on I-Day right first day and went through plebe summer, my expectation was it was going to be more of a physical battle of calisthenics and running us around compared to the mental struggle. Right, of calisthenics and running us around compared to the mental struggle. I quickly found out oh my gosh, this is more of a mental memorization and just knowing things and showing up. The mental stress was much more than the physical. I mean physical was there? Sure, mental stress was much higher than the physical stress were. Now, I survived and I'm not trying to paint an ugly picture, but that's what you have to prep yourself for 100%.
Speaker 1:I think that's phenomenal advice In general. Again, I think, like you're saying, a lot of times, people just assume the physical is the hard part. But again, when you're an 18-year-old young man or woman going across for the first time, again there's homesickness, there's extreme mental stress, there's for the first time, again there's homesickness. There's extreme like mental stress, there's physical stress, Like you're just in this constant state of discomfort that really pushes the mental like an emotional toughness that you need to have, and it's again, but it's that way for a reason, right, and it builds the foundation of what you need to kind of embrace all the challenges at the academy and in the fleet and all the above. So I really appreciate it. Well, Eric, thank you so much again for taking the time to join us today and share your sea stories, your opinion and philosophy when it comes to leadership, and it's really greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks Grant.
Speaker 1:Of course, the Academy Insider audience again reach out to Eric any point you can reach out to me. I, of course, the Academy Insider audience Again reach out to Eric at any point you can reach out to me. I'll also put you in touch with him if you'd like. Otherwise, I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the listen and I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
