 Okay, we got a full room. I am really excited to be back on JBLM. It's been a while. It's really neat. I was like, wow, you know, you wake up and you're gonna do good PT. And then you get to see the mountain. So, you know, it's been a while. I do have a great view from my house in DC. I get to see the Lincoln Memorial. I get to see, you know, Washington Monument. And it's about two miles. It's a great run. But it's always good to see Mount Rainier. Whenever you get a chance to see that, you don't know how lucky you are till you come here. So, whoever did that for me this morning, I really appreciate it. So, it's great to be back here. We did good PT. And then we're gonna follow up with a panel. So, I've done this once before. And I'm really excited. Every time we can talk about, this is my squad. So, we got a lot, some great staff sergeants and sergeants. They're gonna tell you a quick story. And then we're gonna get some really great dialogue. But before we do all that, I want to talk about what do I mean? You know, what's this, you know, this is my squad. Like, yeah, you know, we've been talking about this for a while now. Maybe not. But this is a culture, kind of a cultural change. And one of the things I want to think of is I want it to be extremely positive. Because everything you do in your squad is positive. But I also want to define what that means to be in your squad. So, who's in your squad? Sir, like who's in your squad? Do you have a squad? So, who is that? Okay, there you go. It's not necessarily the squad. So, when I said this is my squad, one time somebody said, Sir Major, I'm not in a rifle squad. Okay, you're missing the whole point. You know, the point is everybody's got a team. A team you're close with that recognizes what's going on with you. And it's not necessarily an infantry squad. It could be. But you may be part of different squads. I am. Now, I've got my squad. Part of my squad is the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Secretary of the Army, the Vice Chief of Staff and the Director of the Army Staff, the DAS. That's my squad. But I've got another squad. My wife, my daughters, they're in my squad. And it's okay. You might have more than one. It's great. Because when you think of my squad, you think of something positive that we do every day to take care of each other. And we do that in multiple ways. It's not just about an infantry squad. It's those people that around you that you're going to look out for. You train them. You build a cohesive fit team. And you can do that at your house. You can do that. Yes, I do build a cohesive fit team in my house, too. I mean, daughter's got to go work out. So we do that. And it's not just about an infantry squad. So you have those cohesive teams. And this is the initiative that we all want. This is not just my initiative. This is all of our initiative. So everybody wants a strong cohesive team that is fit and disciplined. And that's how we're going to go forward with the Army. So I'm really proud to be with you today. And I'm proud to be the 16th Sergeant Major of the Army. Good morning. I'm Staff Sergeant Carolina Ruiz. I'm human resource sergeant representing the second ID, the Vardy War Strike. This is my squad. I'm a caring leader. In order to take ownership of my squad, I must know each individual member of my team. Knowing soldiers builds trust and mutual respect. Communicating effectively builds to this trust and mutual respect. Getting to know my soldiers and their families like Sergeant Mejia, who is currently pregnant with their first child, or Specialist Vitus, who has three children. It gets me, it enables me to know my soldiers on a personal level, so that I may better understand their values and their connection to the Army. It demonstrates that they are valuable assets within my team. And that I'm truly invested in their careers and in their lives. Understanding my soldiers' values can encourage good behavior and enable good habits. My squad, in my squad, we value family. We're very family oriented. We conduct monthly potlucks. We get together, talk about our traditions, talk about the dishes within those traditions, and why they're important to us, why they, why we cook them. We share a meal together. Proper training is important for this mutual trust and respect. One size does not fit all. Everyone has a different style of learning, whether it's hands-on, verbal, logic. Identifying the proper styles of learning for these soldiers are very important, so that they have a better understanding of their responsibilities and their duties. I currently have a team leader, Specialist Vitus. She learns through logic. She is in charge of my promotion section. I've established a calendar for her with timelines. She's able better to understand the promotion section and she will follow those timelines. She performs her duty efficiently by communicating with me. I noticed that she's also a problem solver. If she has a problems or any issues, she'll come to me with a problem, but she always has a solution. On the other hand, I have Specialist or PFC Anderson. He's my finance clerk. The style of learning for him is hands-on, so I have to tell him and sit with him and he physically has to go through the motions. Establishing goals within our team is very important, whether it's individual or a team effort. We start with individual goals and then establish our team goals. It brings the team together to work for a common good. It enables the team to work through the weaknesses in our strengths. After all, we're one team, one fight. In the end, I trust that I've given my soldiers the proper tools and training in order for them to trust their abilities, to make risks and accept failures. My soldiers are comfortable with asking questions and they will seek answers by networking. They will find whoever they need to in order to get the answers. I'm Staff Sergeant Alexander Miller, a 12 Bravo Comm engineer with Triple Nickel Engineer Brigade. In my squad, we treat each other like a family. I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of great leadership proponent over me and great team leaders I've been able to lead. And because of this, it allows me to focus on mentoring and developing my squad. The leadership proponent over me has never let me down. They have given me the right tools and guidance so I could be a successful squad leader. I couldn't be successful without my team leaders. They are the first ones to deal with any problem that arise or any situation that may come about. A team leader has a rigorous and difficult job, in my opinion, one of the hardest jobs there is in the Army. They are the first ones to interact with soldiers. They maintain the cohesive bond with the soldiers. And they're able to take time out of their day to talk with the soldiers in a group or one on discussion about unit problems, personal problems, any problem that there is. And because of this, we're able to combine our talents in my squad where one's weakness can overcome, or one strength can overcome one's weakness. The family atmosphere in my squad keeps them motivated so they just don't go through the motions and just do what they're told to do like an NCL tells them to. They actually want to learn and strive to find out why they're doing something. A lot of this is because of the great models I've had that made me what I am today. I joined the Army in 2013. All the way to present I still have more role models that come in every day of my life. These amazing leaders taught me so many great lessons. One example of that is one of my squad leaders. When I first joined the Army, Staff Sergeant Kentucky, I was a horrible marksman. But I never touched a weapon in my life until I joined the Army. He sat out there at the zero range. It felt for about four or five hours. He showed me from bus stock to barrel how to qualify. Everything about there is everything there is about M4. I took all the good and the bad and created my own style of leadership and how my goal now my goal is to be like him to be like the role models I met. I want to watch my soldiers grow through the ranks as I did and one day train a squad of their own. I take a lot of pride in my squad and if they ever need me day or night on duty or off duty, I'll be there no matter what. And if I have to be recognized from my accomplishments, don't look at the badges, tabs or ribbons I wear. Just look at my squad. Morning. My name is Staff Sergeant Thomas Hahn, and I'm here representing the one two SBCT Ghost Brigade. And the reason I'm sitting before you today on this panel is because of my focus on preparation. As a weapon squad leader, my bread and butter are gun team crew drills. We spend hours taking our 240s from bipod to tripod and then back again. We make sure that our weapons, our tripods, our nods, their PMCS, they're cleaned. We do that both before and after training. And as a result of this preparation, my weapon squad has two fully qualified gunners qualified AGs and all of this is happening the first time goes. They get up onto the lane, they shoot their experts. And then we go home. And when we go to like our live fire ranges and things like that, the more tactical training situations, we go out there, we set up our support by fire positions. And we're able to put effective fires down range so our maneuver elements can move in and seize the objective and meet that commander's intent. And I'm confident that should we end up on a two way range somewhere that they're going to take those same lessons learned and accomplish the mission. And you know, the job of a squad leader, it's a constant cycle of training and mentorship. And if you're a prepared squad, you know that you're never actually done preparing. And that is my squad. Morning, my name is Staff Sergeant Gabriel Christensen. I'm a 15 tango UH 60 Blackhawk repair. And I am here on behalf of 16th Combat Aviation Brigade. I have the honor of speaking with you all today. As I was chosen amongst the pool of my peers by my leadership to represent what leadership qualities I display. I don't believe that I do anything extraordinary though. I do what is right. Let me give you a few examples of that. I made a personal commitment to do what was right as a squad leader as an 18 year old private because that wasn't the kind of squad leader I'd had. I took plenty of notes and constructed in my mind what type of an NCO I would want to be when that day came. Communication is essential to the success of any unit. And I fully believe that alongside of my persistence, my ability to communicate accurately and effectively is primarily why I'm here today. The ability to lead through clear and concise communication is a dying trait in today's NCOs. To drive into your soldiers why you are conducting the mission you are doing, or what it will accomplish for the unit. Or when it comes to their personal problems, allowing them to voice their concerns no matter how large or small the problem. And formulating exactly how you're going to react. The next topics I would like to discuss is having patience and training and mentoring my soldiers. We are the tip of the spear when it comes to accomplishing a unit's mission. And our way of ensuring that is by dedicating effort is by dedicating effort into molding our soldiers into everything we need them to be. I think about how much I'm actually affecting their development. Whether that be in a convoy at a range or an NCO PD. That means taking a moment, pausing for a deep breath and assessing the efficiencies of each and every one of my soldiers. That way I can inform them on how they can improve their performance vastly. An example of how communication and understanding can improve a soldier's performance and form outstanding results is one particular rotation that I had had the Yakama Training Center in 2017. I was assigned as a downed aircraft recovery team NCOIC. And while I had had a highly underman team, I had also not received a proper brief of operations in the area at the time. Thankfully with my knowledge of what is required to recover a downed aircraft, I was able to make up a plan on the fly. The battalion standard for mustering and launching for recovery of an aircraft was 17 minutes or an hour, excuse me, and my team performed it in 17 minutes. From relaxing in cots to an onsite, begin recovering recovery operations. This was all accomplished by explaining to my soldiers the importance of staging go bags, prepping their equipment and readying their weapons. In order to expedite the manifesting and execution, showing them the importance of operating the way that we do and why we do it. I believe that I have the opportunity to speak with you all today because the few leaders who saw potential drove me to grow and develop leadership traits that I saw. I would just like to express a feeling or a thank you, excuse me, to the current command team over in Delta Company 2158 assault helicopter of time. Good morning. I'm Sergeant Shiller McIntyre, a member of Battle Company 117 Infantry Buffalo's second Striker Brigade Combat Team. I've served as a team leader, a squad leader and currently a platoon Sergeant. In the Buffalo Battalion, you will hear the phrase, we are part of the herd. The term herd is the Buffalo's core values. We are honorable, energetic, reliable and disciplined. It is the hallmark of the Buffalo Battalion, how we are recognized and a set of values that helped that have helped my squad be successful. I became a weapon squad leader shortly before deploying to the National Training Center. Through countless repetitions of gun drills, my squad demonstrated its lethality by preventing another platoon from being ambushed. We destroyed two enemy maneuver squads and two enemy personnel transport vehicles. We quickly became the company's weapon squad of choice for a variety of missions. After getting back from NTC, we went straight into the second Striker Brigade Combat Team's expert infantry and expert soldier badge training, which my squad received recognition by the brigade as the best squad for having the highest percentage of candidates earning their coveted badges. Five soldiers in my squad earned their expert infantry badge and one soldier earned his expert soldier badge. We were able to do this by maximizing time on lanes. We always tried to be the first ones on the lanes and the last ones to leave. I am thankful for a squad that was so extraordinarily motivated and eager to earn their badges. As a platoon sergeant, I have realized how vital the role of a squad leader is. The squad leader position has the greatest impact on junior enlisted soldiers and has the most influence on culture within a unit. I would like to thank Sergeant First Class Mitchell Birch for developing me into the leader I am today. The lessons he taught me and the level of dedication he gave not to just me, but all of his soldiers is something I hope I show and pass on to all of my soldiers. I'll never forget what he said to me the day I pinned on my stripes. Now be the leader you always wished you had. Thank you for all the advice and mentorship Sergeant First Class Birch. I would also like to thank my wife who was also part of my squad and has shown me support in my career and continuously pushes me to be a better person every day. Thank you. Okay, before we turn it over to questions, let's give them a round of applause. So for those of you that have never sat on a panel, I mean I can't imagine, you know, I'm looking across the sea of really happy faces and you put, you know, stand up Sergeant Major. This guy right here, like seriously stand up turn around face the camera. This is what the staff sergeants have to look at. I mean, I can see why I'm not nervous. You don't scare me. I'm just saying you know right now. But I can imagine what they're thinking. We got the quarter division. You know, we put all the really nice, friendly, happy people in front. So I just, we got captains and majors and lieutenant colonels. I remember I was a staff sergeant, you know, lieutenant colonel and a major. They were like somebody else. Like those are the old people. Now I'm like, man, you guys look really young. It's like little babies. They got battalion commanders. They're awesome. This just means as you like Sergeant Major, you're just old. But hey, I just want to one more time thank staff sergeants and sergeants. I mean, imagine how hard that is. So I really appreciate your candor. And I just wanted to say personally, thank you. And I look forward to your questions, really hard questions. Please direct it kind of to one person instead of all you can direct about me and I'll probably deflect to one and maybe come off the top with a different kind of way to look at things. So please don't open it up for the entire panel because then we can get more questions as opposed to four people answering one question. Okay, over to the crowd or Facebook live or anything else that we got going on today. Okay, the reason we have a you have to talk on the microphone because we are going Facebook live and I just want to make sure they hear what you're asking us. Okay. The question is directed at you but I'd be interested to hear some feedback as we go through this. So one common thing I noticed from the entire panel each one of them speaking was their the reliance on commitment versus compliance. Not once they said they did something because they were told to do it or they had to do it or they were required to do it. Most of the comments were directly related to them wanting to do it. Don't be an inspired them smells. Don't be committed. And many times in the army we think we're doing things because we have to do them. Because we're required while there are things we're required to do the real good units and a real good leaders do things because they're committed to doing it. So I'm interested in your thoughts about compliance versus commitment. Okay, I'll give you a quick thought and then we'll go with Sergeant Miller. You're a follow-up on this. Okay, so I'll give you some time to think about commitment versus compliance. I truly believe great units are committed. And that gives them and when and kind of leads to a different word we hadn't talked about is trust. So if I'm in a very compliant organization I now don't get me wrong I'm a big rule follower. Anybody you know I was a course art major here so you know that I'd like to follow the rules. So but that's not the point. So in a compliance organization you you're not going to go outside the rules. No matter what. So I know because if I don't I don't trust the leaders above me that if I if I did it for all the right reasons whatever that decision was if I didn't do that right I would be fired or I get in trouble. That's compliance. When I'm committed I've been given guidance and I trust that if I actually had to make the decision go left or right that in a committed organization the leadership is going to say why did you do that. And you're going to explain that and they're going to go okay make sense. In a compliance organization you went left I told you go right what happens. You're fired you're out of here I want a new one. So we want to build a committed organization that's founded in a cohesive team that's built in trust. So if you do that for all the right reasons you know you're not going to get this and I'll give you one very quick example. I was in a graph in beer Germany I'm artillery guy and for some reason not for some reason how it's just kept getting flipped as we're doing aerosol. So the the rigging rules were very strict you had to rig it this way and I said well I'm gonna put the gun to cover on the thing and I'm gonna fly it so that the chains don't get wrapped around you know the hand wheel. And in a compliance you know you're fired you didn't follow the rigging rules. In a committed they said hey we understood exactly why you made that decision based off the conditions that you had and it made sense you're trying to prevent something. Does that make sense how you go from a compliance to committed and I had the trust of my leaders that if I kind of did it for all the right reasons I wouldn't gonna be punished for that. Does that explain difference. Okay sir sir Miller. Yes this may I'm gonna do my best answer it on how I saw it. So I see it as like for a medic yearly that to go back and re-sert everything redo with all the medical make sure they're still proficient in it because things change constantly now it keeps doing compliance. So it's for those updated things like before we used to do something by walking straight turn left well we change it right because it makes more sense. So it's those things new things come up and staying compliance is to me someone higher above me found a better way to do something and he's gonna re-teach me through the way. Sorry all over the place right now. I already know that. We got this guy up front he's scaring me a little bit. Compliance is you're going back yearly make sure that you're still within the guidelines that you are given to then commitment are committed you're doing it because it's the right thing not just because the leader told you to he really taught you how to do the right thing and the reasons why you did that why you do that. And I think that's my answer. Okay. Thanks. Right now Ken Irizari says I'd like to hear how one of the sergeants had a difficult situation in their squad and how they resolved it so the first one. Okay we just got to pick on some money certain Christian you got something difficult situation in your squad and how did you resolve that. I have one star major. There was a soldier last year who was a PFC in my squad and every weekend you know you go around for your Oak Tree Councilings you ask your soldiers what they're doing for the weekends how you know what the plan is if they have a plan where they're going out with the ground with the yada yada yada and I had a PFC who looked different than normal you tell there was something off about the presence or how they're acting so I called the soldier over and I asked what was going on or what their plan was for the weekend. I said you know you can play video games you're gonna go out drinking with your friends what's your plan what are you doing and the the soldier looked at me and said sergeant I'm gonna play video games my barracks room I'm not gonna leave for like the next few months I'm just gonna play video games I said that's kind of odd I don't know why you wouldn't leave for a few months what's you are you sick you know you're feeling depressed is there anything you'd like to discuss with me he had explained that he had fallen into a financial scam on online and had been in debt about twenty thousand dollars which obviously that's a huge huge shocker to me but through communication with a few of my other team leaders in the squad I was we were able to to figure out you know who was using his information how he had fallen into the scam and contacted a few banks to figure out how much of the money he could return or what would be the steps moving forward from that we're able to get him he had spent some of the money so we were able to get him alone from that bank to pay off what he had owed and get him back financially responsible and to this day he's doing he's doing very well for himself so I mean I think that's a phenomenal answer one thing I wanted to highlight in that what he said was he looked different you can't you can't get that from a text an email even a phone call and I actually say this all the time you have to look people in the eye I really you know can't make that stuff up I just the way he said that story is there's so many cases where we go oh we didn't see it that's what it means to be in my squad you look people in the eye and you go I don't know what's going on but something's different and a lot of times we're missing that they don't just walk up and tell you but you if you know your squad like you said and you take them out to lunch and dinner you share some time then all sudden something changes you notice that change in your squad that could be your battalion commander could be your star major we all need that and I just want to remind everybody if you don't know your people you're going to miss those things when they look a little different today I think that's a great example thank you yes sir all right we got it we got a cat you know the tenants can ask the really hard questions questions that's Armouries you talk about identifying the shrinks and weaknesses inside your squad and then building that community within them helping the people that have those strengths identifying those weaknesses and putting them over there as you've been doing this do you see your soldiers under you building their own squads and doing the same thing and replicating what you've built and extending out sorry sir oh go ahead not so much building their own squads but they're working well together so like you know I'll pair someone up so I'm gonna talk about I guess I my drill sergeant days I used to have some people just were trainees weren't coordinated a simple left face or a right face they could not do and as much as you sit there and you know go through it I mean it's ten weeks and the train keeps moving and one thing that I noticed about my trainees is they would see the way our drill sergeants work together although yes we were first between or second between as all in the company all the drill sergeants work together so they started seeing that and emulating it within the baton's they will go out to other patons and they would get together and rehearse the left face or a right face you know those soldiers that were really proficient at DNC will team up or even soldiers who were really good at running or doing push-up sit-ups they'll get paired up together and help one another out in the end they're able to graduate which is the end state for them that was their main goal they were all able to graduate but sir I think you know what you said was no but your answer was yes because if in my squad if they emulate you I think your question is are they building more squads like that when they emulate you in my opinion they are going out and building other squads and we we did this one of the time and another panel the only other time we've done this panel and that's what we've seen where the team leader starts emulating what the squad leader is doing and I think if the other drill sergeants or the privates are emulating I think they are building other squads that we want but all right so this isn't directed at the panel but so it's our appreciate your question and if if you heard the question as your commander sir all right so young captain if they're asked what they're how they're training the soldiers and then the soldiers under them are creating your own squad I would just remind all of us we have a responsibility as leaders everybody in this room you can sit down sir in the in the sense of hey we're putting a lot of a lot of stuff on the squalors shoulders right and young team leaders but we have a responsibility to develop them all right and so remember your two levels down all right how are we all right providing oversight for our junior leaders okay it starts with you it starts with me all right your two leaders levels down as well as my so we need to make sure we need to know from you you know what we can do to help you because you don't have all the answers and we've identified a gap right in development and leadership right and we and we did that senior leaders and we've been busy for a lot of years and the star majors started this is my squad pretty important okay but it's not just on you we own this okay and so I think all of us in here have to figure out one what is this what is being like this is my squad me it starts with you you looking in the mirror every day right because you're part of that squad okay so you have to be not just compliant you have to be committed I have to be compliant and committed okay what am I doing every day to make sure our young squad leaders all right are providing sound leadership for our sons and daughters all right and there was some comments up here hey I didn't get I didn't you know I didn't get a timeline I didn't get a brief but I executed right so there's some risk in there so again we own risk leaders I would just tell you as before we ask why leaders what are you doing about it and what are your junior leaders doing remember what our responsibilities are and how we can help build because we talk about teams of teams I was talking about squads of squads and we're all part of a squad multiple squads right whether it's our army right our service squad or our family squad as you talked the SMA talked about and so it's our Christian so I appreciate you guys being here it's really exciting to see how mature you guys are and thanks for what you do so I'm actually gonna ask the hardest question is that okay and then hopefully you can get something from online so I'm gonna ask two panel staff starting on where you go down in the end so too so what are you what was your greatest impediment to being the squad leader that you want to be for me so our major out sometimes I have to tend to see to kind of get in my own way a little bit I'll maybe overthink a problem and not kind of see that the solution is is right there in front of my face so for myself personally it'll require just kind of taking a step back from whatever the the situation is and taking a minute to look more clearly on on that situation and then just executing I'll be more I didn't maybe I wasn't specific enough so we got some really great leaders in this room at the appropriate level what could they do to remove some of the impediments to help you be a better squad there I'll let you think about it oh I'm ready so I see that but go ahead go ahead then no don't let me slow your role so the thing that I need as a squad leader from my senior leadership is just presence just kind of be there for me and just kind of be a sounding board because it's you know I know that at my level I don't know everything and I know that people above me they tend to know more so just what I need from my senior leadership is just be there and like listen to me and provide you know feedback okay I totally totally agree with that start hon over here working one level up and now two levels up there's a lot of things that I don't fully understand and I'm trying to learn as I go so having that that senior leader presence that's been there already done that that's a great contributing factor to to helping be successful in that position sorry okay but you can't carry out what what's one impediment I don't let them off the hook you guys don't let me off the hook I mean okay go ahead one impediment one thing if you were king for a day what would you make better and fix and say this would just put it over the top to make me the best staff sergeant platoon sergeant in the world besides giving you seven rank and pay okay I just have to refer back to that the presence sorry major I mean like senior leader presence involvement just making sure that so the implication is that they're not present well I mean they are that's why I'm asking is one thing that's missing that you don't have right now or you say it's perfect that's what I'm saying is that's what I'm trying to look for maybe there's something we need to change or not okay there we go Armouries there you go how are you at two shots brother I got a lot to say sorry major I'm gonna definitely say the mentorship actually sitting down one-on-one and sometimes it's expected of us to know and sometimes we don't know any better you know we get so wrapped up on the day-to-day things that a situation might happen and I might think hey this is the proper way to do it that's me thinking but again is it's that you have senior leaders who have gone through that situation and they've gone about it a different way that worked and just sharing that knowledge that way we don't continue to do the same mistakes over and over again and again just getting that feedback with that mentor sitting down one-on-one and actually talking whether it's job related whether it's my career on a personal level that went on one time major okay now they're all raising their hands okay go ahead so it's a I also kind of feel like the with the ncoer's and things like that a lot of the times it's really it's made to make the soldier look good and it's not it's not necessarily honest so it too many times it's you know and people you know they get promoted on the strength of these ncoer's so it's they're written in such a way to make the soldier look good and just don't provide honest feedback and I think that honest feedback I'm I don't need to know that I'm you know the best squad leader you know on JBLM if I'm not the best squad leader on JBLM if I'm doing something wrong then I want to know that I'm doing something wrong and I think that my ncoer should reflect I think everybody's ncoer should reflect their performance okay before I answer that or talk about that let's go ahead sorry just I guess for myself rewarding that question I guess to be a hindrance would be micro management it's a it's a it's a fine line to take what Staff Sergeant Han said about you know a lack of presence with your soldiers but you can have as much presence as you want but let them do their job but let the squad leaders act as squad leaders let me struggle a little bit and when I need to reach out to you I'll reach out to you if you're there for me and I think there's that fine line of you being there having the knowledge and having your presence and then let seeing me struggle a little bit and then when I lean over and say hey can you give me a hand what is this what do I do with this I've never dealt with you know this divorce or a soldier's death or debt that they're experiencing I need to understand what I can tell my troops that's the fine line that needs to be walked and I think that's the the most hindering thing we experienced our major okay that's those are really good points I'll talk both a little bit just very quickly about the into your arm I'm actually not gonna disagree with you too much now you know before we changed why did we change from the old into your to the one we have now because every into your was what everybody was one-on-one you know everybody was the best squad leader we've ever seen over and over and over and over so we actually that's the reason you have the top 24% it's because of that exact example that everybody was one-on-one and then once upon a time in a former position not the Sarbaige of the army we had a star major that got a two he's all fired up he's just mad and he was you know he came to me and why did I get a two I've always had a one-on one said I looked at him I was giving a little mentorship one-on-one and I said have you ever been at battalion star major before no okay this is the first time you do it's not bad you know you're not kicking you out the army tomorrow so it takes two ways so when people do give you honest feedback be receptive and say how can I be better don't be mad at so that's actually why we change the industry or get top 24% because of some of the things we just kept giving everybody was the best and it was hard for the panel members understand so part of me says yes I think we do need to be honest we need to look people on and say hey you know you're not doing well it's not bad it's not good that we're trying to help you get better that's number one very quickly on the two and then let them struggle a little bit that's the hardest thing for everybody in this room to do and it's hard as a leader you know I'll give you one example I'm not gonna tell you but it was a senior general officer we'll say three or four stars so you won't be able to figure it out so one day we're on an installation and somebody said sir I need coveralls you know for my organization and then that the general officer started talking about his time I remember when we had that problem I was a commander and I went down there and I told that CIF we're gonna give coveralls to my unit and they got coveralls and he goes we're gonna go back and we're gonna talk to you at least we're gonna get you some coveralls I didn't say anything we got the van I said sir is that is that really something you need to do he's like sir major what do you mean I said well the story you gave was the commander the captain you saw that at the company battery troop level not at the four-star general level we kill it I mean I'm telling you this guy says give coveralls that unit they would have had coveralls in 10 minutes that was gonna happen but was that what we needed to do for the goodness of the organization should that should we let the company commander solve that problem that's that's the conversation we had and I think it's sometimes we you know we get really you know I'm kind of the exact same way I want to dive in and it's hard to say I'm not gonna answer that that's the hardest thing in the world as a leader to say I'm not because the person that really needs to answer that is your first order and that takes that comes with risk too right like hey sir major army did you know about that yes I did did you do anything no but I didn't think I needed to and who solved that well this person did okay is that appropriate so I acknowledge there's some risk to letting you do that but I agree to you I agree with you that we may need as a leader we need to take that risk in order for you to grow and I just want to give you that quick example okay yes all right next question from online how do you keep a soldier within your squad who has a negative attitude toward the army from affecting your squad's morale or attitude how do you prevent him or her from damaging the other soldiers perspective of the army okay there are some soldiers out there that do have a negative attitude they came in they just do not want to be there it happens sometimes they just made it and wiggled by but you have to work them you have to sit there with them sit down have that one-on-one conversation do you want to be here and he's going to tell you yes or no most time I've always they always said yes then I had the team leader hand walk them everywhere make sure that attitude kind of changes see if it changes through certain ways of motivation either maybe he's really into PT he likes to get competitive with the other squad members and that motivates my squad at least we're all physically fit and we like to compete with the other squads something that motivates them and kind of changes their attitude around motivation is the biggest thing I believe what do you think sir kristian as I mentioned just as as sir miller had said that upfront questioning of do you want to be here is a good identifier of the situation and then the assessment of each underlying reason of why that soldier responds the way they do yes I do want to be here because I like the fact that we do PT like this every single day or we change it up or whatever it might be or no you don't like being here because excuse me because you're not released for chow the defect at 1129 or whatever whatever it might be that that soldier doesn't like you need to identify those those factors so you can fix what you can and if you can't fix anything identify methods to excuse me um find out what drives that soldier find out find out what what you're doing wrong if you're doing anything wrong and if you're not doing anything wrong what you can do with that person okay and that's fair because it's really hard actually uh at the end you've answered I would say why did you join the army yeah you know at some point in time you know I liked it you know I was with recruiters yesterday I'm nobody had a gun you know they just like you're throwing in the army tomorrow so there's got to be some reason why you were propenced to join the military and find out that why and see if you can motivate them that way but if not you know you keep the biggest thing that you can control in my in my opinion in that situation is your attitude you got to say I mean I said this all the time is you know it's great you know I love you to the day you're leaving the army but it's time for you to leave out of my army but I did I had people you know they separated army and they called me later I said well you're you're gone so but no I really appreciated that I would you know sometimes I'd literally give them a hug and say okay see you later it's time for you to go but it was about controlling my attitude and I think when you control your attitude even then somebody else has a bad attitude you just you can't control that sometimes you ask them why they came in but the bet the only thing that you can do is how you approach it and I think that's probably for me was the most important thing that I went through okay next yeah keep your hands up oh he was in my squad before so there's several people in my room that were in my squad several in this room absolutely so major I strongly believe that mission success is determined is not determined by luck but by deliberate planning and being well rehearsed what are some of you I'll start with Sergeant Ruiz what are some of your TTPs that makes your squad successful I'm gonna say again that goes back to like knowing your soldiers um knowing their strength and weaknesses um so it's pretty much identifying um identify a goal a common goal so if we're for instance we want to be the bestest one in post what do we need to establish to get there how can we get there um what do we need to work on it's just pretty much um ensuring as well as that every soldier within my squad um knows what their roles are know what their duties are and that I've laid out everything and they completely understand um their roles and duties um I would say as well as uh rehearsing so going through it over and over um in seeing the results after action reviews actually talking about hey this is this is our intent this is what was supposed to happen what actually happened what happened and how can we improve what areas do we need to improve okay Sergeant Han we hadn't heard from you in at least 30 seconds so uh for me or what when it's time to train then it's time to train and like appointments don't happen when it's time to train and for example like today it's you know it's Thursday morning and I know that my spot is a sergeant I'm saying it's well my spot has their rucks on anyway okay they're out there training and uh in the tomahawk battalion uh where I'm here from it's you know our leadership makes it a point to protect Thursday mornings for us so we can go out and do training and I think that's that's the most important thing is when it's time to train then it's time to train and everything else stops okay um I'm gonna come up a little differently so deliberate versus luck I believe in one of the themes of in my squad is building a strong cohesive team that's highly disciplined and fit if something outside of what you plan for happens a highly disciplined fit trained at the basics team can adjust very quickly if you don't know your job you're not fit you're not gonna be able to adjust and say okay um remember we used to those runs and you run past the battalion headquarters and then they run another mile yeah a few of us were actually remember those days uh used to it was a very common occurrence but because we were disciplined and fit it didn't matter if we ran another mile but if you weren't fit and then you know mentally you just were crushed you know and you how many times did you see all the people fall out when you run past the headquarters you all in this room know exact that those were grounded they weren't highly trained they weren't disciplined and fit because mentally they couldn't adjust because of those other deliberate actions that they had done over and over and over and then all of a sudden when something else came up they're like okay well that's not exactly what we trained for but we're really good at this we did a quick shift um but if you're not grounded in those fundamentals uh it's really hard to shift from that it's just like well i didn't know how to do this so i definitely don't know how to do that i mean it's just you know it's just that hard uh that's just my opinion that uh i agree that through repetition and discipline over time um builds cohesive teams that can be adaptive um and not go well i hope that my cardio is going to be good enough when i run past the headquarters i hope i can make the run um which leads to a question that people kept asking me said how do you you know it was really up front how do you become the serge major of the army and i actually had to think about this for a little bit and it's like you know was it luck or was was it being highly trained in discipline and fit for 32 years when when nobody was watching did i get up and do pt when everybody else left the motor pool when i was a staff sergeant and they said hey we'll meet you at the headquarters did i march everybody when i was a drill sergeant i took the at4 uh to the defact when i was a first sergeant the only way getting out of cozevo where you're going to run two uh two times laps around bond still that happened to be about 11 miles um was it all those years and then doing that consistently day in and day out at the fundamentals reminding myself that i'm going to be a soldier i'm going to take the pt test and qualify my weapon and doing that every day for 32 years i think that's what gets you to be the serge major army and that's discipline and you take a little bit of luck out of it does that answer your question that's good because he used to be in my squad too all right we've got a question from online it's pretty pointed as a squad leader how do you deal with a team leader a sergeant that has more time and service and thinks they are a better squad leader ooh does anybody have that before probably the the young sergeant on the end i have actually dealt with that it's kind of tricky because i mean if you're the same rank you kind of view each other as peers but at the end of the day if you're in that position you have to own that position and either by knowing your soldiers like even if he's a peer you just have to know what motivates them and at the end of the day let him know where he stands with you like i am your squad leader we might be peers we might be you know same time in service but i've been chosen for this position for a reason you know it's no hard feelings man but like this is what we have to do and at the end of the day they just have to realize that it it's just we're just trying to help the unit here you know so it's complete the next mission Sergeant Christensen have you run into that it looks like you're shaking your head Sergeant Major i was going off with Sergeant McIntyre said when i came to JBLM i came to a battalion that was redeployed from Afghanistan so it was during pcs season a lot of people were leaving so a lot of slots were open through my my resume on who where i was going no one really had any idea but there was a position that opened for a staff sergeant but i was an e5 a sergeant so when i ended up filling that role i had there's a there's my counterpart who is also another staff sergeant who was missing from that platoon so essentially i had to take over supervising four other sergeants as a sergeant and as Sergeant McIntyre said that was a that was a conversation you have to have with them so they understand what position is um you know there's a lot of there's a lot of dude and man and why are you doing this to me man and dude and they need to understand that it's nothing personal to your peers you're in a position because you were selected for that by your higher ups whether whatever that was for because you can run 30 seconds faster than the other sergeant or whatever it was that you were in that position for they needed to understand that you're not exactly peers in that situation um so that is that's a hard that's a very hard thing to deal with i'm sorry i imagine that was that was something he explained very well it kind of happens when you're a specialist and you first pin on the strikes uh stripes um so you have you know other fellow specialists and you're used to going out um you're used to interacting with them you know they're your buddies and now you are a sergeant and in charge of them and how do we separate that you know it's literally i had to have a talk with one of my specialists because we were close and i had to draw the line like i'm responsible for you i am your nco now and just having that talk with him so that he understands like i'm your supervisor i am your leader you know i'm responsible for you and you know now you know it's like simple as military bearings customs and courtesy is like going to pray rest going to um attention when speaking to officer you know the simple things that we do and it and i told them and it's going to speak highly of you because when others see this they see a disciplined soldier you know so having to address that and actually sitting down with the soldier yeah i think um in my career that's probably one of the hardest things i've dealt with is having someone that had a lot more time in service and time in grade than you did and you're the section chief first sergeant i don't know battalion csm brigade csm it's really difficult and i think you've explained it real well but one specific example is i was a drill sergeant and i had you know there's no honor mountains fees with drill sergeants right you know so your drill sergeant is a drill sergeant is a drill sergeant but one day privacy is something that messed up and then the other drill sergeant rolled up the gun on and then told the platoon guard to march him to chow and for those of you that have forgotten what basic training was like when you when you roll up the gun on you don't get to march yourselves to chow that's the drill sergeant's job so i'd run upstairs i run down and they're gone i go where'd the platoon go and the drill sergeant goes well i told him to go march on i said well why'd you roll up the gun and he goes why you know i've been in the army oh you can't tell me i said hey i really appreciate your time and service and time and grade but for in in the herd it's about honor and discipline of the organization and it's not about you and how much time and service you got and that's what i explained to that drill sergeant is that it's not about my rank and how long i've been in and you're older and all this other stuff it's about the organization he wasn't very happy with that but i really stuck with my answer and i said we are not going to do that and that's really hard when it's someone that's got more time and time of grade but my advice to you is stick to what you believe in and don't come off that you know it's it's really powerful when you can do that and if you don't if you falter one time that's it it's almost like you could never go back it's like they'll keep doing it forever i'm older and it doesn't matter it's about the organization so i i really like your answer but but the only thing is stick to it you know don't back down and i know it's hard yes i think we have one more okay this question is for staff sergeant christensen so how do you balance compassion for your soldier and adherence to standards when something may happen in that soldier's life that is completely out of their control but is absolutely impacting their work performance i'm glad you asked him that question on me that's an outstanding question so i had a platoon sergeant when i did get to jvlm that i was going through a divorce during pcs as well so i had a lot of a lot of stress on my plate and then on top of that feeling of position that was higher than what i was used to i couldn't i was overwhelmed at all at all times throughout the day and so the compassion came from my platoon sergeant to where he was able to say i see that you're competent i see that you can do your job and as a soldier you've got that part of your life established but there's there's something missing from your total soldier concept right your mind is not there from your personal experiences and i need you to find that balance so he would find ways to give me time throughout the day to where if i had to go to the court for paperwork or what have you whatever was with my personal relationship he would dismiss me to take care of that knowing full well that i would come back ready to focus on work he figured out how i could put small amounts into each and every section and balance myself to that that way i could get myself back on my feet so i guess what i would wrap that up with is is there is a very specific talent that it takes to understand each and every one of your soldiers and have that compassion for them but also understand the fact that they have a job to do you have a job to do and you need to find out how you can get yourselves right to find that balance to perform your your your best i think that's a very good answer and it's difficult right you know you got a job to do but you you know here's here's kind of what i've learned is that we can get through those times if we understand you know our people okay exactly what he said and sometimes we we just make these crazy rules i'll use one as i was of course our major and here and my staff started outside says hey i really like to be a i want to be a recruiter and i said okay well you go next week you uh he needed to raise his gt score because if it's our major we i'm it is like you know army of one i said we'll figure it out and you know we will there's plenty of people around us i didn't have to bring anybody else and do anything but it was good for that person in that organization and sometimes we all in a cohesive team we may have to give a team member some time in order to bring them back into the team and say oh it's not the good time and the chief of staff has got a great chart if you haven't seen it says work-life balance and that's where i would say to you if if soldiers are going through a hard time that may be a one-time event and we may need to take some time to let them have that one-time event no matter where you're at over here on the one side of it says war and other side says daily on the bottom it kind of shows that to you so are you at war you may not you got to stay there but if you're not something less than war is that a one-time event that could be one of those things he's going through i'm hoping that's a lifetime only one to worse maybe not two or three but those are something that you may need to focus in on that time to bring those back would he be here today if we would say i don't care what you're going through we're gonna go do this right would you be here today so we got to recognize that and do exactly what his students are and did so i i think that's a great question to stand on okay let's give him a round of applause one more time right you know i'm really honored to be here today and this is my second panel and uh this is my squad and what i'd ask everybody in this room is to take take a quick note look down and you know a couple times and think about what it means to be in your squad and then how do you take this out of this room and back to your organization do you sit down and talk with your squads whoever those squads are did you spend time with them um i got i got the great joy of spending some time with a person of my squad the secretary of the army as we were going up to alaska um did you go take time and you walked in and you just had lunch together there was no agenda and you just said hey how's it going or tell me a little bit about tell me something you've never told me before what's your hidden talent if you ever had lunch with me you know during a session i always ask what's your hobbies or your hidden talent and that's the goal is to understand the people that are around you because you're you're going to be amazed by what they're going to say it's going to be completely amazing you're going to find out something about the person sitting next to you that you never knew by saying that one question what's your hobby what's your hidden talent that's what it means to be in my squad so we know each other so anything looks different we know because we're i mean i was sitting there talking to him the other day and he said man i love violins and you do you love violins yeah he's has a violin and he plays the violin then all sudden you know start major trips says i'm selling my violin i'm done wait a minute you just told me you love violins you know what's going on but if you never knew that he loves this violin so much you know now it's on facebook that you're going to love you love your violin so um if you didn't know that he says hey i'm selling my violin you're just like okay how much are you getting for it you see that's that's what it means to be in your squad and then when you walk out of here how do you how do you set the example you know as a commander as a platoon leader as a platoon sergeant as a first sergeant as a star major that we take time with the people in our squad remember that could be your family that could be your battalion commander brigade commander you've already commander it could be your first sergeant but it also could be your platoon sergeants um and that's the positive aspects of being in my squad i'm really proud of all of you think i want to thank the team sergeant klutz and uh i think the serge major here and all the people in the back for putting this together um i'll stick around for a couple minutes uh not on facebook live to answer any questions that you may have i'm really proud to be your 16th serge major army not the serge major of the army i'm yours our major army i'm proud to be that thank you