 Our next briefers passion is taking care of people with a focus on building meaningful connections and relationships formed on trust. Mutual respect, open communication, collaboration, appreciating differences and working together to achieve success. He's an Air Force adjunct contract professor, executive coach, resilient team builder and leadership consultant whose career in Air Force culminated as the command senior enlisted leader for United States transportation command. Chiefs, please rise and give a warm welcome to Jason France. All right, y'all and a good morning to everybody. Can everybody hear me in the back? We're all good. Well, I would like to start with taking just a moment to recognize the greatness in the room. Look around, Chiefs. I know you've heard this before, but congratulations. I wish you all the best on your journey as a chief master sergeant. Really pay attention to the people that you're sharing this experience with because you will be on this journey as a chief master sergeant with this group in the room. Some of you for a very long time. Some of you might not realize where that journey can take you very quickly. And I want to frame this with a story about Chief Master Sergeant Bass and a few of us that served together back in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Pope Air Force Base in the early 2000s. At that time, Tech Sergeant Jason France, Tech Sergeant Joe Bass, Tech Sergeant Khalith Wright, Tech Sergeant CZ Lopez, Tech Sergeant Anthony Green from the Expeditionary Center, Tech Sergeant Terry Green, I'm sorry, Master Sergeant Terry Green, our previous Air Mobility Command Command Chief, Chief Master Sergeant Higginbotham from Defense Intelligence Agency, was a tech sergeant at the time. None of us at that time serving together the same place at the same time would have ever imagined where our journey would take us and the impact that we would have on the lives of so many. And wow, what a ride it has been. Thank you so much, Chief Master Sergeant Air Force, for allowing me this opportunity to come share a perspective as a joint leader. I had the privilege of serving at Joint Special Operations Command as a tech sergeant and a master sergeant at the tactical and strategic level. And what an honor it was to culminate a career serving as the command senior enlisted leader of United States Transportation Command. And that gave me the opportunity to view our service and all services through a different lens. And today I want to share with you some of that experience to help you. Now, I got some notes up here because it's great to go on the last day because I got to wrap up and capture some of the things. I paid very close attention to your questions to try to think where your head's at. And yes, we are going to talk about joint leadership. And yes, I tell stories and I share examples of things that I have experienced. I asked even though many of you, most of you, will not have the opportunity to serve in a joint assignment. This is really about you. This is tying in the things that we talked about this week. This is tying in the things that my brother Todd just talked about. This is tying in great power competition. This is tying in the things that our chief master sergeant of the Air Force and our chief of staff spoke to you about this week. Again, I enjoy telling stories, but I ask you to find yourself in these. I promise you'll be able to find yourself in these and through some of these examples that I'm going to share with you today. Now I'm up here wearing a gray suit. All my suits are blue too. The only reason I am not wearing a blue suit is because I knew Todd was going to go before me. And since I am representing the joint community, I'm not sure I made a wide choice or a wise choice, but I went with purple instead. So thanks brother for wearing that blue suit. I still bleed blue. But today we're going to talk a little bit about the purple. So some of the things I'm also going to talk about today we talk about the why a lot. I'm going to talk about that second why and that third why as we tie in many of the things that we talked about this week for the Air Force. What that means in the joint community when you don't have to worry about service responsibilities and some of the things that I'll talk about what that second the importance of that second and that third why behind some of the things that the Air Force is doing. I am not going to talk about doctrine today. I am not going to talk about theory. We're going to talk about things that hopefully you will get some use out of. We're going to talk about you know the joint senior enlisted leader you some observations some some resources and I hope to have some time for a little bit of discussion. But first we're going to start with your greatest value to the organization and please I see a few feel free to take pictures feel free to you know do whatever you want with this stuff. Your greatest value to the organization and I'm going to start we talk a lot about emotional intelligence but I want to frame this with talking about the things that come before emotional intelligence. That technical intelligence those knowledge skills those things that you did as a young person those things that your airmen and your NCOs do those things that got you here very transactional in nature you do something you're really good at it you get rewarded for that you get promoted for that. Chiefs you don't live there anymore. Some may choose to dip into that from time to time which is good. You still need to understand these things. But we don't live there anymore cognitive intelligence as you progress as we can analyze things when you can make good decisions when you can solve problems. That's also a very important skill but again chiefs you don't live there anymore. Where you live is right here and you're going to have a briefing on emotional intelligence today. I don't want to call it a buzzword or a catch phrase but we talk a lot about it. I hear a lot about it and it's very important that you understand what it is and dig into it because your greatest value to the organization whether that's joint or as a chief master sergeant in the Air Force. That's where you need to live right there. Now when we talk about emotional intelligence sometimes it's a little bit challenging because our comfort zone what got you here is not going to keep you here. You've heard that before. You've also heard I don't know how many times that as a chief you're going to have to think about things a little bit differently. Well this is true. When we talk about the importance of emotional intelligence it's about that connection with the people that are doing the mission. It's about those relationships. Not really to get things done for you but to get things done for your airmen and most importantly to affect mission outcomes. Now sometimes we correlate those between serving at the tactical level the operational level and the strategic level. Well you all are going to be serving at all of those different positions. Some of you will have the opportunity to serve at the strategic level but that doesn't mean you can't be a leader that leverages their emotional intelligence in most of the things that you do. Part of being an emotionally intelligent leader is also understanding that you probably are no longer the best person in the room at many things. Now our young people they are typically the best at those things. Chiefs you need to get used to be in the second best the third best the fourth best at things but knowing who to go to and who is the best to do that and keep yourself up here in that level. Now the important piece as a leader with this is also your people need to see you operating at that level. You've heard many examples about time about our great power competition about 2029 I'm sorry about 2030 and 2049. All right those tech sergeants right now are going to be those chiefs in 2030. Fifth graders are going to be the chiefs of 2049. Those young people our young airmen our tech sergeants right now need to see you operating at that particular level. All right now some opportunities we're going to talk about development you need to grow this. You need to build up that emotional intelligence capacity and again you guys are going to have a briefing on that. You are the ones that are responsible for this growth. No one is going to give that to you. You need to know yourself. You need to know what triggers you chiefs as an emotionally as a leader that's operating at EI. It's not going to serve you well to go old school chief style. Lean in on somebody and give him that knife hand. It is simply not going to work. Chiefs at this point if you have not already done so it's a good idea to identify what those triggers are and what might get you fired up. Now I will go against what general Brown said. If you're a two in this area don't give up. Keep on building that up. This is one of those things that you don't want to give up on as far as that knowing what your triggers are knowing what sets you off. And sometimes that's hard to control and I'll give you an example of where emotional intelligence help me out when what I really wanted to do is kind of lose my cool. All right. So when I first took the position at United States Transportation Command one of the first things I did was take it up to the Pentagon and sit down with all the service senior enlisted advisors. Most of them have rotated out except one our Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. But as I went around and spent time with them one in particular I had some pretty significant differences with and I knew that we were going to have a stressed and challenging relationship during our time together. He has since retired and there's a new one in the seat and the relationship was great. But when I walked in he looked at me a certain type of way because I was an airman and I know this. He said Jay when I go out and you and I spend some time on the road I might show a little bit of emotion if we share a stage. I might actually yell at you a little bit because it's important for me to send that message to my soldiers. Oops I just messed up and said who it was. And my initial reaction was to fight back a little bit because of the way he was viewing me because of my service and what United States Transportation Command did. As a service provider some might say. And I was like well you know that that is one approach and inside I was I was pretty fired up. But I made the decision to keep my cool and said hey how do you think that your people are going to view you. When you take that approach. And I remain calm on stage and I out maneuver you in the emotional intelligence space by providing facts and data. And keeping a cool head. And sharing information that is valuable to them without losing my cool or showing some emotion that is absolutely unnecessary to see two senior leaders in the Department of Defense treat each other like that. And you know our relationship stayed what it was. But I hope and I believe you know it's a it caused a little bit of time for pause and reflection. And I was so pretty fired up about it. But when I walked out of there I realized how important it was and where it could have gone if I would not have taken that approach. Chiefs you will have opportunities like that. Maybe not in the joint world. Maybe not serving it. A level of you know to combat and command or some of the other positions that you might fill. But that is important when you think about the people that you represent in some of these positions whether joined or not. How will you handle disagreement and criticism as a chief master sergeant in the Air Force or in the joint community. You're not going to be delivering all good news. You could be in the public spotlight and you could have to answer some very emotional questions about some emotional topics and how you choose to respond to those is very very important. Understanding those things and how you're going to deal with that before you get there will serve you well. All right. Now let's talk a little bit about understanding the operating environment. Now when we talk about guidance you've heard a lot about reading the national defense strategy the national military strategy understanding doctrine understanding the plans that you support when you go into a joint organization really not that much different than when you take an organization as a senior enlisted leader as a chief in the United States Air Force but also taking that guidance and understanding interpreting what it means to you what most importantly what it means to your people and what you're going to do with it. Not just reading it for the sake of reading it but looking at it and seeing what you need to do to shape the environment where your people thrive as a leader. Now when we talk about world events your KP talk about strategic competition great power competition also taking a look at what our adversaries are doing what the world environment is presenting you and looking at through the lens or looking at it through the lens of what is the adversary doing. How does the adversary view us. How is that adversary going to disrupt us and what can I do how do I need to shape my messaging and my engagement with the folks within my organization. Now I'll give you a couple U.S. Transportation Command examples of how I took this and how I view the world and we'll start with China and there are many examples that we can use with what China is doing that impacts United States Transportation Command's ability to project and sustain combat forces around the globe. And I'll take the Africa example right now. When you look at the country of Africa. And what China is doing in there with going into Africa supporting the countries of Africa with building infrastructure with doing other things establishing relationships. Very high likelihood that at some point they could impede our nation's ability to project. That is one of the few advantages we have right now over China is our ability to project and that is based on our partnerships with nations that allow us access basing and overflight and the opportunity to use their ports. There's not a lot of airstrips in Africa right now. And we are competing for partnerships with the countries in Africa. We're competing with China and I would offer that in many cases they are doing a far better job than us. So what did that mean to me as the command senior enlisted leader of United States Transportation Command? As I go out and shape the narrative and talk about these things what you talk about as a chief master sergeant whether you realize it or not is important to your people. You talk about it it's important to you it's going to be important to them. And to shape that narrative and get your people's level of understanding up there on what are adversaries actions and what's going on in the world what that means to your people is hugely important. And that's just one example as well. We can also talk about China with their investments in ports. What China is doing right now through some of our global choke points the the straight of Hormuz Babel Mandib the Suez and the Panama Canal. What China is doing is buying up property that surrounds these things and preventing the United States from having the ability to grow and scale and increase the capability of those areas. Now that's of course what we call gray zone competition but why is that important for you to know as a senior enlisted leader. When you have the opportunity to engage with your partners and the other services and the other organizations in which you support to be able to shape a narrative and explain to them the why behind the things that you do in your organization is hugely important. Or I can use another example of Russia because we haven't talked much about Russia this week. When we look at ability and again these are stories find yourself in this find your unit in this. When we look at Russia and we look at our mobility in the Air Force I'll use an Air Force example. You know we have 455 aerial refueling platforms. That sounds like a lot. Sixty percent of those reside in the arc. So in the garden reserve. What some of my combatant command SEL partners presented to me sometimes was hey man you have this many. Why can't we get some of that. Why are you telling me you can only offer this day to day. Well. Understanding that we have a certain percentage in depot. We have a certain percentage that are on training tails. We have a certain number of those assigned to SENTCOM. We have a certain number of those prepared to support the national mission force of United States Special Operations Command United States Strategic Command. OK cool Jay that's great you got the math there but why can't we just mobilize. Well. You look at Russian doctrine. Mobilization of our forces to them is considered escalatory. And I think the folks who here is at Ramstein. I'm not sure if you would all appreciate. What Russia might do. If we start to mobilize our arc. To move forward. But understanding some of those things is very important so you can explain the why behind it. Now let's talk about understanding relationships in the operating environment. Up down and lateral. Understanding the equities of each of the services was very important to me. Understanding their culture understanding those hot topics that are going on. And also understand how I support. Or United States Transportation Command supports the other combatant commands. And what they need for me. And getting. And establishing and building personal relationships with them. So we build on that trust. So we know when times start to get tough that if I'm sharing a piece of information is because even if it's bad news it's coming from a place of understanding. It's facts. It's real. It's not that I don't want to support you. It's that we can't right now and here's why and here's what the break glass plan is and here's when we're going to get to you. And I'll share an example a covid example a little bit later in the brief. It talks about where I had to leverage many of these things that we're talking about right here. Now understanding authorities. Now. What authorities does your organization have. Is extremely important. What authorities of others you need whether that services or other combatant commands. I was very fortunate. In US transportation command because our combatant commander had all the authorities he needed short of mobilization of the reserves which is a presidential decision. We had everything we needed. My partner over in US cyber command had to worry about so many different authorities and permissions to operate in their battle space that we were in two completely absolutely completely different worlds. But it's very important to understand in the joint world as a joint enlisted leader what you have what you need and how your actions impact others. Also understanding and this is a a kind of a common misunderstanding. The difference between service responsibilities to operate training equip and combatant command responsibilities to actually execute the mission. It was surprising to me how many of our airmen did not understand what a combatant command is. What a combatant command does. And what the services do. To allow those combatant those combatant commands to execute mission. And to shift as a leader from growing up in an operate train and equip world. To a world where you don't need to be as concerned about those things as much is could be a bit of a challenge. And then some opportunities. All of these things I just talked about you know definitely affect your people's ability to do what they need to do. Again if it's important to you and you talk about it it's going to be important to them. Also want to talk about some misconceptions and gaps in there that that could exist from time to time if you step into the joint world or even in your organization. Pulsing those things understanding those things gathering those commonly asked questions or those misunderstandings from the other leaders in your formation. Or that's another combatant command that's another service element. And reaching out and answering those things for them and raising that level of understanding. Now I had the opportunity early on to pay attention to those things that people didn't understand about the command or what it is that we did. So hosted a senior enlisted leader. Symposium where I invited all of you to join me in the discussion of what it is that you need to understand. And this is something you all can do as well in your formations on your installations. Bring everybody in to raise their level of understanding on what it is you do. And why. Understand their perspectives understand what they need from you understand what you provide them and clarify those things again building relationships. And I'll get to that definitely. I've heard a lot of money and I've heard a lot of discussion this week about cultures and norms. And one of the most common questions I got as a joint senior enlisted leader is hey what do you expect out of an airman in the joint world. What do you expect out of a soldier sailor marine coast guardsman in the joint world. Well it's not deep it's not mysterious. I expect you to be an awesome airman. I expect you to be really good at what it is that you do. I expect you to understand what those institutional competencies are what the Air Force does. I expect you to know what those functional competencies are that you do in your particular craft. Then I expect you to adapt to the situation. I expect you as an airman to step up and represent the Air Force on us opinion. We're a little too quiet as airman in the joint world. We have so much to offer you have so much to offer. But what happens from time to time is folks get a little hesitant in that joint community because they think the other services are better prepared for them. Yes they train differently. Yes the army might understand doctrine a little bit more. They might have a little bit more depth of knowledge in the army's competencies than the Air Force does with ours. Because they focus on that. But what I will offer is our airman without a doubt have the greatest ability of all services to think through problems. And I don't say that in a disrespectful manner towards the other services but when you throw a problem a challenging thing at an airman they will absolutely in most cases outperform our other folks because our ability to innovate our ability to think how we change and how we evolve much more rapidly it might feel slow at times but when you look compared to the other services our ability again to think to maneuver to innovate we are far ahead of those folks and I would really really love it if the Air Force took more of a stand be proud of who you are I also when people would come into the command would have the discussion on what expectations are I expect you all to maintain that swagger that service pride those service norms that culture that you can join organization before alright that is a lot of hands that is good going in there I made the mistake as a tech sergeant to really focus on the jointness to focus on pretty much being an army I will just be honest as a young person in the special operations community I lost my identity as an airman became very very good at what I was doing down there at the time I had a hard time going back to big blue as a master sergeant after three and a half years and the Air Force had passed me by and it took some catching up to do but what I also didn't do was fully represent my services I should have as a young person and speak up from time to time and stand up for what the Air Force brings to the fight so just something to think about with your folks alright so the people part of it talked about that understanding assignments what value is placed from the services because each service values it differently and these are some leadership challenges that you're going to have to come through if you have a person in a joint organization realistically we have already gotten past the service issues we have already gotten past that training piece we have already gotten past all the things that are in your world every day it is mission execution time and understanding things about services as a joint senior enlisted leader is hugely hugely important let's talk about structure a little bit understanding our structure of course is hugely important you have the ability here as a chief or as a senior enlisted leader to impact this a lot knowing where to go to get what information how processes and timelines work for example here's another transcom example deployment validation timelines when requests come in for those things to get approved for those things to move through there are some jokes again I'm not going to talk about all that stuff today for that process to move through there are some expectations out there I got beat up by I don't know probably every command sergeant major in the army calling me direct hey I'm this unit downrange and you guys are failing to get us home on time so we can reset and redeploy and move forward hey Roger that sergeant major that's right quick the access I had well here's the deal y'all are 37 days late on getting that in the system and we're going to get to you but it's probably not going to be today you all failed to do the right thing to get those things in there I think if I would not have known that I would have made some pretty big mistakes if I would not have understood those timelines it's important for you all and I'm just using that as an example it's important for you all to understand what those processes are that other people are relying on you for within your organization and your structure the physical layout especially if you have the opportunity to stand up a joint task force where you go into a joint command we learned an incredible amount of course through COVID through surges we learned and I share this with you to hopefully you'll take a look at this what we learned is our structure in our operation center was not efficient we were structured by joint directors we had our one our two our three you know all the way through the numbers and each had a clean little area and cubicles and any time we would stand up for a crisis or a conflict and we would move together as a cross functional team or we would do things differently and when we actually looked at it we're like why aren't we structured this way from day to day so when we actually have to execute we have to do things we're already set up for efficiency so just something to take a look at with structure authorities I talked a lot about that earlier today as far as understanding the organization with authorities one thing that we don't typically do as airmen or within our structure as a chief of staff you know definitely learn what authorities they have learn what they do for the staff and see how you can leverage with those folks and then the service elements there was some discussion in here also about yesterday was about evaluations and leading folks that are in a joint environment understanding who to go to and what authorities exist in the service elements you will have a commander of each of those particular service elements so for all of the army yes they're going to be distributed out in the joint directors but they're going to have a service element commander they're going to have a service element see your enlisted leader if you choose to do so to designate that know where to go and know what authorities and what is important to them and how you can of course leverage that as senior enlisted now let's talk about this is where I want to spend some time where we talk about operationalizing our culture and our climate and our relationships and our communication this chiefs is where you are going to make your money and add the great value to the organization we have talked a lot about a lot of things this week we've had great presentations and great information sharing and I challenge you all to think about those individual topics we have talked about this week and what that means how you are going to operationalize all of those things to affect readiness to affect mission outcomes again this is where we're going to ask the second and that third why why is it important for us to have connection with our airmen why is it important for us to have a strong culture let's talk about culture for a minute or that connection piece we talk a lot about that in the air force here's the rest of the narrative that I would really like you all to carry what next what ends now we have done a great job great job for our airmen in recent years for breaking down barriers that allow them to reach their full potential to allow them to feel valued to allow them to express their individuality we have broken down barriers for assignments we are redoing a lot of things we are focusing on what keeps our airmen we are focusing on how do we retain this talent what I don't hear a lot of is why to what ends when chiefs do we come to a point where we start to get a return on that investment and all of those investments that we have made it is very important for you all in the room to draw those things to mission outcomes to really frame how you communicate when we talk about retention why is that why are we talking about retention it's so we can affect mission outcomes it's so we can defend the United States of America it is so our services can support the missions of the combatant commands that are going to put these folks in harm's way or could so please really think about the next why and the next why when we talk about some of those things where I would really love for you all to focus and this is hard to say as an airman but I gotta say it I really hope that you all will focus on ensuring that our airmen don't fall into a culture of entitlement and understand that the reason we are doing things is really in the defense of our nation and to be really good of course at what it is that we do as a credible combat force to deter and defeat our enemies yes it's great that our airmen feel valued it's great that we have done so many things to improve their quality of life and they are treated much better than many of us probably most of us were coming up but it's actually beyond those things the reason why we do that so please make sure our airmen understand that these things are to promote a culture of service and not a culture of entitlement I could really, I think all of us could really use your help on that so as far as operationalizing those things you know we talked about culture you know that connection of course we can go to trust having that trust earning that trust, maintaining that trust is gonna make those hard times better it's going to allow you as a senior enlisted leader to deliver those hard messages and get those airmen to do very difficult emotional hard things when we have to do what we do as airmen to affect mission outcomes the relationships the communication, how we do all those again when we talked about operationalizing culture relationships when I talk about communication it's again sharing those things when I look at how we leverage social media there is an opportunity here as far as the way you communicate culture relationships and all those things there is an opportunity here that I think sometimes we don't take full advantage of and here's what I see sometimes organizations, and this is not just the Air Force organizations will go out on visits they will engage with their people they will take happy pictures they will put stuff on tiktok they will do all kinds of I'll call it the way it is feel good things which is great it builds that trust, it builds that connection it reinforces that connection but how we message that is important as well to tie in the why it is that we're doing or what it is that I'm doing out here I'm not going halfway around the world to engage with these airmen just for the sake of engaging with those airmen I'm going there for strategic reasons for outcomes again how you as a chief put the narrative on that is important okay I went to this base to engage with this organization because their importance in their combatant commands mission or in the defense of the United States that's why I'm there adding that little bit of narrative into that and the way you communicate is also going to reinforce to your airmen the importance it is of what it is that they do every single day for our nation, for your combatant command for your organization doesn't matter if it's joint or if it's air force now some some observations just I'll share a story about relationships and how important those things that I had built with our service senior enlisted leaders senior enlisted advisors our combatant command senior enlisted leaders as well and I will use that COVID example and this was without a doubt the most challenging period in my 31 year career when the world opened up on my boss and I for good reasons and I survived that our command survived that based on relationships so when that kicked off and I had to actually write it down we were still supporting combat operations sustaining things and sent com we had to deploy the comfort and the mercy chop those over to north com we had to help north com stand up all the hospitals across the United States we still had to have clean forces to support the national mission force for us so com for us strat com we were still responsible for global patient movement household goods during a stop move and different service interpretations of those things we were still responsible for deploying folks around the world from our ports on the east and west coast and we had to maneuver through that with different service interpretations of guidance services having different requirements that was a whole lot going on we were unable to do every single thing that we had to do so the relationships that I had when I had to make the hard calls with some of the services your folks are showing up to our ports unprepared to deploy without their tests without this or that the countries that these folks are going to are not going to allow them in there here's what I need from you having those hard conversations hey sent com we're going to have to lay off your capability a little bit because we're doing this every single day in communication with my counterpart at north com who was probably a little bit more stressed out than us we had to make a lot of hard decisions and tough calls that could have caused significant stress across the Department of Defense between other combatant commands between the services and what it was that carried us through were those relationships that we had built before not on the fly not after chiefs build those relationships because you will not get to pick or may not get to pick the time that things go wrong all of a sudden and you become critically important to everyone else leadership presence I'm sorry the gap seems in silos understanding of course within your organization and outside of your organization where those rubs are as any senior enlisted leaders should do understanding where those rubs and those gaps and those seams are and getting after that comfort and crisis an observation that is important to share for those of you that have worked in joint or those of you that might before sometimes there's a little competition in service ways of doing things and when things start to get really tough your presence is going to be very important to be observant to the fact that works in a joint environment might go back to their service ways very quickly and their norms rather than come with a joint solution they're going to recommend a service solution something to really think about in the joint world probably the best example I have of that is actually back as a young master sergeant in joint special operations command we had to make some basing decisions to open up places for soft forces to operate out of and we have an organization within the united states air force I was a operations nco of course as a defender the security guy for the command hey let's use this organization down at moody air force base that does just that they do that exact thing for the air force for the joint force but the decision was made not to use that because of the air force structure the lack of depth of understanding for the senior folks within there they chose to go to the easy option which was the army option turned out not to be the right option and there were some challenges a little bit later so just something to be aware of in that comfort and crisis and that leadership presence that I talked about and I'm not only talking about that physical presence but some of the things where you can add value you as a senior enlisted leader have an access to the boss there's power in that but it doesn't always have to be that so your relationship with the other directorates depending on where you're serving these could very well be general officers you have a responsibility to protect them as well to take care of them if you're on the road whether it's with your boss or on your own and you hear a little something that might be important first option shouldn't always be go to the boss and tell him or her have the courage to call that individual and say hey you know I'm over here in Kuwait I'm over here in Qatar we got some challenges over here with this get it sorted you don't need of course to tell the boss everything preventing groupthink so I will say some of your leadership presence part of that is being bold you will experience if you have not already when the boss starts to say something the tendency for everybody around him or her is to agree with that in many cases you as a chief master sergeant you don't have any more promotion potential you don't have to worry about that stuff anymore those other people in the room do you have an opportunity there to be that bold leader and make sure that groupthink does not lead to a poor decision because believe it or not the further you go the less your bosses really want to decide on things their headspace needs to be elsewhere and they need to have options presented to them by others to execute they don't want the good ideas I don't know how many times I've had the privilege of working for three four stars I don't know how many times we've walked away he's like chief what the hell was that why was I driving that bus where was so and so okay Roger sir I would hear that once but I certainly wouldn't hear that again because as a chief had to shape that environment to make sure that those things simply do not happen one of the biggest examples and you don't know also when you're going to get put on the spot and you might have to be that one voice of reason regardless of the seniority of the folks in the room and I got set up basically I walked into a trap that our previous chief master sergeant of the Air Force set for me and general gold fiends set for me and this was one of the hardest and I ain't going to lie I just had the opportunity over time to work around a whole bunch of GO's but this one my legs were shaking I had the opportunity I got an invite from the previous chief of staff the Air Force to join corona when they were talking about a global contested logistics tabletop I had been at United States transportation command for three or four months and hey let's get a couple chiefs in the room so you had myself the Air Mobility Command Command Chief and the Command Chief from the 18th Air Force there's only chiefs in the room all the MAGCOM commanders our chief of staff secretary was in there all of the the A staff folks were in there and we talked about the logistics and deployment scenario that the Air Force would have to go through but the challenge was this came from tip-fit delivery on so all of the things to the left of that as far as aggregating forces at the power of ejection platforms getting across the ocean whether that's surface or air all that's notional we're not going to talk about that we're going to talk about the hard thing right here that is the forward movement of troops to contact once everybody gets in theater well it was great very worth the time, the effort the A4 who used to be the previous vice commander that I worked with when I was the AFMC Command Chief great relationship it was awesome and then the chief goes around the room and says alright chief what do you guys got over there the challenge that I had and this goes back to understanding the environment understanding the organization understanding the structure understanding the relationships and understanding the authorities is that when we deploy to a high-end fight our reliance on our commercial partners to move 90% of our stuff and 90% of our passengers not on military aircraft and ships all on commercial that live outside of the DoD information network that have to have a certain presentation of sequence and timing to get to the fight at the right place at the right time when we look at what China can do if we question any of our data integrity when we are moving 15 brigade combat teams 21 fighter squadrons depending on what fight we're talking about that stuff matters and when the chief asked if I had any thoughts on this well sir yes I do this is great when are we going to talk about the challenge that our cyber professionals not the pointy stuff not the cool stuff not the sexy stuff the kinetic stuff when are we going to talk about logistics and cyber because if any of that fails before we get to this point this is a worthless exercise and wow like literally was shaken when I said that and I look at some of those MAGCOM commanders looking at me I look at the A4 and he's just like really chief you just did that to me but said what I had to say and said what I needed to say and this is not about me but what that led to is the important piece because our chief of staff took that very seriously and the engagements became even more frequent with the Air Force chief of staff their relationship became more communicative and more frequent US transportation commands relationship with US cyber command to try to solve some of those problems that I mentioned became stronger again this is not about me this is an example of how your bold leadership as chiefs can really get after some important things if you understand some of that stuff that I talked about earlier for your unit and you can speak from a position of knowledge and power and know what the hell you're talking about alright that leadership presence too you know we'll talk a little bit about that social media piece as well leverage that chiefs there are a lot of us that choose and I'm guilty of it as well I don't like to see my face out there because as many of you are we talk about being humble we talk about being servant leaders we talk about the importance of giving the attention to our airmen our soldiers, sailors, marines we talk a lot about that but understanding and embracing the power that exists in our presence online as well and this is not only with our US forces because also we have some smart folks some of you in here probably have dealt with this to figure out what our adversaries are watching to know that you are going to be looked at by our adversary your message is going to be read by our adversary yeah that's a little bit risky it might be a little bit scary for some but it's an important message and I didn't fully understand this until I went on a partner visit over at Azerbaijan which is a country that we rely on for access basing overflight went over there and met with them and I had the opportunity to meet with the SEAC equivalent-ish gentleman over there and he's like, hey man I got on your LinkedIn I was looking at that I got on the page I googled you I watched a couple of your presentations when you were at Air Force Materiel Command and I'm like, oh my god this guy even know what Air Force Materiel Command is he's like what's going on with me what you said here I'd like to talk about that a little bit okay, wow so that presence online sends sometimes a message of reassurance to our partners and allies and also that leadership presence when you go to another nation in any capacity and you're standing there with your boss what that does for our allies and partners is absolutely huge because the value that other countries place on their enlisted force is not the same as us but so many of our partners and allies are watching us as the example and an example that I will share with you when my previous commander and I went and visited the Philippines we went to Clark Air Base or what used to be Clark Air Base my boss he was an army guy, used to having his Command Sergeant Major next to him all the time good feeling because we're moving through that space we walk into a room with the Philippine Defense Force or Philippine Military Force met with all the senior leaders from there there was not one enlisted person in the room we walk up I'm like, hey sir you know I'm going to sit over here he's like, nope we need to get a spot for my chief up here got it within about 10 minutes there was an action officer rushing out bringing in some enlisted folks from the room and their rank is the same as Air Force rank except the stripe is upside down so there was a guy that came in with upside down chief stripes on and he sat at the table and the interpreter came up he's like, thank you so much for this I hadn't really thought much about it because I was so used to it but your leadership presence with your boss sends a message to and one of the greatest and I don't know what this guy is doing right now had the opportunity to spend some time with the Ukraine CAC or their equivalent is the Sergeant Major of the Ukraine Military Forces to share some perspective with him I wish I could reach out to him right now but he was also watching and valued and I can't imagine what is going through his mind right now and what challenges he is facing right now but that trust that some of our allies and partners have in the leadership enlisted leadership of our force is hugely important alright I'm going to finish with some resources now again I said I wasn't going to hit you with a whole bunch of joint doctrine stuff but if you're looking for a starting point to understand where you ought to be thinking about if you're going to be going into a joint organization it's right there recently published called the command senior enlisted leader it's on the NDU national defense university website under Keystone you can Google it that's the first thing that pops up if you type in the command senior enlisted leader fourth edition that will help you out joint operations fifth edition that's actually from 2017 but it will explain to you the structure of the task force who is responsible for what how the government works to some extent and then also joint forces quarterly is a course quarterly publication that national defense university pushes out all of those can be found on joint.jcs.mil under doctrine you guys will have access to these slides so you can look it up if you're interested I would recommend even if you're not going into a joint assignment to take a look at the command senior enlisted leader it is very enlightening it is very helpful it kind of illustrates what right looks like and definitely think you ought to take a look at that and this is what we talked about we don't have time for discussion but I will be here the rest of the day I will be up here at break if any of you have anything that you would like to discuss there's my contact information as well please at any time in this hit me up if there is anything that I can help you with with some of the things I scratch the surface on today with any of those other things please do not hesitate to hit me up I'm still bleeding blue even though I'm not wearing a blue suit but that's because Todd is wearing his and he went before me so all good thank you all so much I wish you the best on your journey as chief master sergeant I am excited for what you're going to do to our people and I wish you and your families all the best thank you so much alright real quick y'all I know some of you guys gotta run out but let me say this you know I got a lot of things from hearing chief retire Jay France speak but the one thing that always stays with me is relationships matter more now than they ever have before like relationships matter at every level that you serve at so when I was a tech sergeant and I might actually have to do your homework because I think I was a young senior airman when you were a tech sergeant so no I'm just I'm like man I wasn't at JSOC when I was a senior I was a senior airman and a master sergeant and senior but anyway relationships at that time mattered you know they always do and the one thing that I have learned throughout my career and general Brown spoke about it a little bit as well is like the keys to success are surrounding yourself by people who are smarter and more talented so I always kept folks like Jay France in my hip pocket whenever you need to have somebody who's highly competent in joint operations or highly just a strong badass leader who by the way went to ranger school you know but when you need somebody with some operational credibility you call up folks like Jay France in your rolodex chiefs of people that you have you always have to have strong leaders in different skill sets and to that end brother thank you for continuing to pour back thanks for your love for our air force and our airmen let me give you did I give you my coin alright good here you go very cool awesome thanks brother absolutely hey and real quick I was remiss I did did not get an opportunity to also give my RMO to chief KP when it comes to relationships and I feel kind of bad because the last two days KP's been dressed like British royalty and now today we just looking cool so come on over here and when again relationships matter when I thought about who do I want to invest into this group and talk about where we need to go from a strategic perspective like I thought of nobody else than chief KP who can talk strategy but he can also break it down how it's applicable to every every day people so to you brother appreciate you thank you awesome