People Focused: Mike Reavy, SVP Security Engineering at Electronic Arts and US Air Force veteran

MAVEN

Mike’s clear line of sight into the small things that gave him the tools to be successful is credited to his humility, self-awareness, and commitment to leading people. We talk mentors, change, commitment, integrity, patience, and much more! This is definitely an episode you’ll want to make time for! Mike Reavy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkreavey/ David Cross - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-b-cross-b856657/ -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;28;25 You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve what one of the main podcast, I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this episode I'm joined by our cohost David Cross, senior Vice President and SAS Chief Information Security Officer within Oracle.

00;00;28;27 - 00;00;51;11 And today we are joined by our special guest, Mike Reavy, Senior Vice President for security engineering at Electronic Arts, and also an Air Force veteran. We're really excited about this episode because of how many slivers of information we touched on. Mike's clear line of sight and the small things they give him the tools to be successful, his credit to his humility, self-awareness and commitment to leading people.

00;00;51;13 - 00;01;12;20 We talk mentors change commitment, integrity, patience, and it's packed with much more. This is definitely an episode you'll want to make time for. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity. In genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

00;01;12;23 - 00;01;38;20 David's and Mike's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. All right. Good morning, David. Good morning, Mike. Good morning, Chris. It's great to be back. You know, I know the community is waiting for a while for this, so but we have a special edition today, don't we? We do. And there's there's I'll let I'll let our guest talk more about his intro and things.

00;01;38;20 - 00;01;58;25 But we have Mike Reaves, senior vice president, security engineering over at Electronic Arts. And what we're doing today is we're just tapping into our network. We've been talking about it for many episodes, how our networks are important, how wherever we end up, it's always important to keep in touch with others that you've grown up with or experience in different lives.

00;01;58;25 - 00;02;14;17 And as you get to where you want to be, you know, you call in those not only call them favors, but you call in that chat and say, Hey, we have a conversation that we'd love to get you involved in. Do you want to do it? So David reached out to Mike. Mike said yes, and here he is.

00;02;14;18 - 00;02;31;29 Mike, welcome. Hey, thank you. Thank you. I know. Look, I just to be clear, I view this as a as a real opportunity. I appreciate you guys give me a chance to be out here. No check called out at all if I get a chance to talk About what? We're going to talk about, I want to take up take up the time, and I will do it.

00;02;32;01 - 00;02;49;07 So, yeah, let's start out a little bit with your background, kind of just, you know, the typical stuff where you grew up, the choices you made and how you ended up where you are. And then then we'll get into the get into the weeds. Yeah, yeah. I'll try to make this quick, but like where I grew up on a dirt road in a trailer next to a creek named Poverty Creek.

00;02;49;09 - 00;03;04;05 You know, we didn't have any cable television as the joke. That's that's very real. But my dad, he was. He was. He was a retired colonel, so we were only in the trailer while we were building a house. I don't want to give this scene of, like, deep poverty, even though we did live on a creek and and poverty creek.

00;03;04;08 - 00;03;23;05 But I will say what was kind of crazy about that upbringing, it was in lower kind of lower Alabama, northern Florida. It was technically Florida. But I swear I thought our state song was Sweet Home Alabama, where I grew up. And I had a much different accent. But I did. I did. I did manage to get on the Internet back in the early nineties on that dirt road.

00;03;23;08 - 00;03;40;02 So that kind of was a good signal and sort of where my career went. So that's where I grew up. You want me to kind of go into how I got to where I am now because yeah, so where you are in where you just described and you're building a place and then all of a sudden you're old enough to make your own choices and then you do.

00;03;40;04 - 00;03;58;16 So let's go with that. Yeah. So, So, you know, my dad was a pilot. He flew A-10s in other planes. So I was going to be a fighter pilot like my dad, like all my friends, you know, that I was around growing up and but I also had this deep, deep love for computers. So long story short, like, ended up with an option to go to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

00;03;58;16 - 00;04;14;23 And I and I took that option to go to go fly. And my first year there, I ended up breaking my back snowboarding, which was Deckard me for any of the cool fighter jets that I wanted to do and made me think a bit about like, Hey, what I want to do in my life. And that's when I actually changed my major to computer science.

00;04;14;23 - 00;04;33;09 You know, to take up this hobby and maybe turn it into a career. Looking back, you know, as one of these great transitions that paid off really well. So I went to the Air Force getting out of the academy. I actually was a communications officer, worked there. Basically, if you guys know Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, there's a lot of commands there, trans comms there.

00;04;33;11 - 00;04;55;05 AMC's command was there. So it was a big installation and I was part of the COM squadron supporting the networks in the late nineties. So as a young lieutenant, I was technically in charge of 10,000 workstations across multiple commands. You know, as you probably know, there is the senior enlisted personnel that knew what was really going on from my first few years there.

00;04;55;05 - 00;05;16;11 And but I really got a deep a deep crash course and had a support network. And that was the time when there were things like the Melissa virus and stuff going on in security. And so I was in charge of messaging, which was basically exchange back then. And the help desk, which got flooded when, you know, the generals in there just couldn't get their emails.

00;05;16;11 - 00;05;46;20 So that was my introduction to computers in the real world. And then actually my, my, I spent all five active duty years at Scott Air Force Base. My last two years I went to a group called Scope, and they basically did. We flew to every Air Force base as a small team and did a kind of a two week optimization and securing of their network, because back then Air Force networks were basically built kind of out of closets, you know, like maybe some tech sergeant knew what to do and built out a domain on windows into it.

00;05;46;20 - 00;06;04;07 So this was part of the Air Force trying to professionalize their networks worldwide. So as a young lieutenant, young captain, junior captain, I was able to fly two weeks on, two weeks off and lead small teams. I mean, just you don't get an experience like that anywhere else. You know, like they they threw a bunch of training at me, but I was hands on.

00;06;04;07 - 00;06;29;02 I had to, like, go convince people that really, you know, sort of bled over creating these networks, that this young lieutenant, young officers and contractors were going to help their networks and then leave. That's a dicey conversation, right? That's how I got started. And then I had a job lined up with a government contractor. It was kind of the dream job as close to a fighter pilot as you could get, but sit at a computer.

00;06;29;05 - 00;06;45;18 It was computer network attack before we really talked about it dream gig. But then I had an option through some friends to interview at a place called Microsoft, and so who says no to that? So I interviewed at Microsoft and ended up, you know, taking that option instead of the Dream gig. Just because I thought there'd be more opportunities, I'd learn a lot more.

00;06;45;18 - 00;07;04;00 And that's exactly how it turned out. I met a lot of great people. Microsoft, one of them is on this call, on this podcast today, and I spent a decade and a half there now media liability for seven years securing the video game company, probably one of the craziest forms of entertainment that exist in the world is video games.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;21;03 It's massive. Anywhere you have huge value, you had a lot of attackers trying to get at that value. So we definitely have a very important mission as far as it goes. And we take the ability of getting people a chance to play very serious, like life is serious, you got to have outlets. So we take our job very, very seriously.

00;07;21;06 - 00;07;40;21 So so, you know, Microsoft, we got the truth out now, like Microsoft was not a dream gig, Right. You know, so the truth is finally came out and really the dream gig is that you can play, you know, games all day on your Xbox. That's that's what you're saying for everybody. Yeah. You know, the the young 20 year old Mike Reed, he had real mature plans.

00;07;40;24 - 00;07;59;14 Luckily, the world took care and gave me better plans, took care of me, gave me a better plan. So now there's there's little brief vision of like, hey, you know what? Who says no to Microsoft? And getting that chance was pretty eye opening. I just never saw it coming. Yeah, I imagine it's just one of those things David's talked about in the past of some.

00;07;59;14 - 00;08;19;17 Sometimes, you know, your plan, your focus, your intentions not derailed, but you know, you get distracted or something else draws your attention to it and then you make a choice. So when when you were offered that choice, how excited were you and what were you thinking about? Now that wasn't necessarily in your primary plan, but now, now you have a chance.

00;08;19;18 - 00;08;35;26 Now you have an opportunity. Absolutely torn. I was really torn. Like I said, the gig that I had lined up at this government contractor, small firm, if I said the name, it wouldn't mean anything. But I'm sure I'm supposed to say it because they got acquired. But I had friends that had that I had followed through my Air Force career that had joined that group.

00;08;35;26 - 00;09;02;21 And it was all gravy, like everything was set up great and I had signed. And so there was a relationship there and I had committed. And there's a bit about this integrity and like, I just wasn't sure what to do. And then I get this thing from Microsoft that I remember I went to my parents, right, Because this is I'm still pretty young and I just take a week to think and I really kind of laid it out and I said, Well, what I think this company is going to be okay if I say no, and I will just talk to them honestly about what happens to you if I say no.

00;09;02;21 - 00;09;21;00 Because if I hurt you, I don't want to hurt you because it was a small contractor and then too, I looked at it and I said, There's kind of two principles that have guided my career. And one was, Where do I think what choice is going to give me the most options in life? Because the one thing I knew about, like myself in the world was change is constant.

00;09;21;02 - 00;09;41;18 So the more options I have, the more opportunities I'm leaving open, the better I will probably be. And number two is where do I think I'm going to be the most helpful? And the story I had gotten from Microsoft and what they needed, they really needed help. Like this was the crisis in the early 2000 where Microsoft Security was, you know, kind of under the gun and this government contract like they had tons of great people.

00;09;41;18 - 00;09;58;29 Like I was probably one of the least skilled, you know, honestly going there. I was basically getting offered the job because they really liked me. It was relationship. So where was I going to be the most helpful? What was going to give me the most options and opportunities alive? And that guided my decision. Well, I think that comes into the topic always.

00;09;58;29 - 00;10;16;01 We talk about it many times on the podcast is about, you know, the networks and connections, Right? You know, is that the most important thing for, you know, veterans that are working to make a transition or to kind of make a move, you know, in their career? You know, has that changed in the past 20 years since you and I joined now?

00;10;16;03 - 00;10;39;09 I think I think the network, you know, the connections are really important. And I've always viewed myself as really poor at networking. But then if I look back at my career, networking has done everything for me. Like even the job at Microsoft that they got sat in front of me was because I had gone to Blackhat Def Con Solo in the Air Force because we weren't sending people there yet in the early 2000s.

00;10;39;12 - 00;10;57;02 And I stood out to a guy and when we started talking, he realized I was prior. I was active Air Force and his dad was prior Navy and he got to the Naval Academy. So that was the bond. That guy ended up getting me the interview a microsoft. He wasn't working at Microsoft, but he knew the people and he ended up speaking at a conference in Seattle.

00;10;57;02 - 00;11;11;09 I joined him as Black Hat Seattle back when they had it. I had no money, right like as a and some usually used leave. I think, or stuff like that. But I end up like doing the videotaping for Black Hat. That's how I got a free ticket. I slept on the floor of his hotel room because he was speaking at it.

00;11;11;09 - 00;11;28;00 And that's when a microsoft recruiter overheard me talking when we were getting bagels about me getting out of the Air Force. And I had a job lined up at DC. And she said, Well, we're hiring. Why don't you give me your resume and just that thing over bagels. And I went right upstairs and sent my resume to her.

00;11;28;02 - 00;11;46;09 And I remember she told me later, like she was really impressed with how quick I responded, but that's how it happened. So it was networking on both sides, right? So I think that's always been important. And I actually think the best networking I've done is kind of genuine, like people that I like, that I enjoy talking to it ends up flowing, but I have to I have to be conscious about it.

00;11;46;15 - 00;12;01;27 Otherwise, you know, I'm very comfortable, right? I could sit on my couch all day, look at my shoes, have a shoe collection. I could just look at my shoes. Right. And I'm not going to really meet people. So I think it's important to keep those networks alive if you. So he weaved it in there. So I'm going to capitalize on this that you can't see it.

00;12;01;27 - 00;12;27;28 But behind him, I don't know who four, six, eight 2020 pairs about behind him on display colors the whole nine. It's really beautiful actually if you're loving it. So so thanks for that. So the question might then you know because it is tough choice and your two priorities that you're looking at is, you know, the options you know, the most options for you and then where are you going to be the most helpful and how you assessed it.

00;12;27;28 - 00;12;47;08 I mean, that that's not very typical today where it sounds like the depth that what you were looking at is how many people were in the contracting organization. And then did that. Was that the significant influence of saying, well, that lessens the the kind of the decision making process for me to know that they're going to be taken care of.

00;12;47;13 - 00;13;02;14 I'm going to go over here and and create a new path going my perception that was that I mean, I knew they would be I'd actually had a very open conversation with the person who was in charge of the company, the person that recruited me. And, you know, they were they were okay. And that was a big part.

00;13;02;16 - 00;13;17;04 Like if they had said, hey, this is tough, we were really betting on you. We have, you know, you know, because you know how government contracts were like, sometimes they actually booked work based off of the credentials of the people on the bench. And they had said that I think I would have changed my mind, but they were just like that were good.

00;13;17;06 - 00;13;34;29 And then I'll tell you what, like that relationship stayed alive and they ended up working together on some stuff that was not being very helpful for everybody. So I just say like it was done in a way, in such a way that like I was still and still to this day friendly and friends with some of the folks that were part of that group.

00;13;34;29 - 00;13;50;13 And that group is kind of moved on. So yeah, like I think that's a great point is element is like there's an element, as we all know, don't burn bridges of the past and things like that. But also I think is that sometimes maintaining those connections and you know, helping out of you never know that hey, you could help them.

00;13;50;13 - 00;14;04;04 You may have met the right person or you need make a change, but you can you can repay or, you know, kind of reciprocate back to them. And I think that's maintaining those network is a very, very important because you never know you could be one year from now, maybe not for ourselves, but one year is now a five year turn out.

00;14;04;04 - 00;14;23;00 You come across a man, wow. Because of what you paid there, they're there to help you when you need it. That is exactly how it played out. As they needed something down the road. You never would've seen it coming. But it was all done with integrity. It was all done with mutual respect and just open transparency. And as a result, like when it up doing a lot of things together over the years.

00;14;23;03 - 00;14;51;10 Yeah, that's the sorry David said. And I just want to touch on it because when we're talking about the topics that were seemingly just kind of naturally going into is like transition. It's a decision making level, the loyalty of what I had, how do I maintain that? And now when I'm struggling with feeling like I'm not being loyal to this and then I'm trying to go out and do something different, that feeling, that angst, that that uncertainty as to what's going to be the impact it sounds like it turned out.

00;14;51;10 - 00;15;10;01 And that's what I think, you know, for me, I just want to make sure anybody listening is clear on is you can still have that integrity and the loyalty and how you do those things to preserve that. If you just imagine down the line, it's a small world. And I know David's talked about this before, not only veteran community, but also the security communities.

00;15;10;01 - 00;15;29;20 Very small in a sense. Right. So the relationship component, I think was key. And you kind of just played that card well, Yeah, I think I think it played out the you know, looking back as best I could have ever hoped for, you know, Mike eventually, like, you know, you know, and Chris, just talk about loyalty like Air Force, right?

00;15;29;21 - 00;15;49;11 You know, your family's Air Force. And you mentioned Navy. You would actually Air Force people. You would actually work for another service. What where did I hear that before it? Yeah, it is. You know, I've met a few Navy people that I can actually really respect and get along with. Now, tell us about them someday, but we'll go on to that.

00;15;49;13 - 00;16;08;25 But there's been there's an element of, you know, the service is that, you know, it's not just we're all veterans, right? We're all together. Right. And I think that's a connection I think many people don't make sometimes. Is that is that even though we know the Marines are very Marines, but like, hey, we're all together, all you have a common mission.

00;16;08;25 - 00;16;25;23 We think of things like the Gulf War or major conflicts like we're all in together. It doesn't matter what service we are. And I think it's you know, from a network perspective, I think people keep their eyes open and much broader. Yeah, I think it's kind of like sibling rivalry, right? Like, you know, sibling siblings pick on each other because they're bonded because they care about each other.

00;16;25;23 - 00;16;44;02 They can do it. And people see it from the outside to like, what the heck's going on? Like, you guys hate each other, like, now, like we're here in it together, you know? And that's that's why we can do that. Yep. Yes. So, so now you've made the choice and you're obviously looking back now. It was it was a good choice.

00;16;44;03 - 00;17;11;13 It turned out that, you know, there was some connections later down the line. What's happened since then that you felt probably were aren't the things were unexpected or, you know, where you were introduced to things to where there were some contributing factors of how you made your decision, like the awareness or just kind of the knowing yourself? Well, just to explain a little bit on how things progressed since making that choice.

00;17;11;17 - 00;17;25;12 Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, when I when I made the choice to join up with Microsoft, part of what I had been doing in the military and, you know, you get a you get a lot of this as a young officer, you get a lot of this at the at the Air Force, any service academy. Like I love it.

00;17;25;19 - 00;17;43;17 So when I say something negative, please understand this is totally, totally backed by so much positive. But when you join the Air Force Academy or any military academy, I think they tell you like you're the best of the best, you're the cream of the crop. You're going to be the future leaders of the world, the like. You really get a lot of a lot of talk that you're awesome, right?

00;17;43;19 - 00;18;00;25 And I think part of me started to realize there wasn't much separating me from all the people that I knew that did not go to the service academy. And that started becoming immediately apparent when I got on active duty and I started seeing like the noncommissioned officers that were just amazing and I was like, why do they, you know, teach us that?

00;18;00;25 - 00;18;17;24 They did teach us a lot more, but I just remember that. So I do remember like when I had when I had finally decided to leave the military, which was a tough choice. But what I finally decided to leave the military. I wanted to take a position where I wasn't going to be a leader. I wanted to be an individual contributor.

00;18;17;26 - 00;18;37;20 I just wanted to work like I think I had just been. I was tired of I had been taught leadership principles since I was 17, you know, And I and I my first year at Microsoft, I was working in this group where we dealt with all the vulnerabilities coming in to Microsoft for all of Microsoft's products and the way the team was set up.

00;18;37;20 - 00;19;10;16 You had program managers who helped manage the relationship with all the hackers that were finding the vulnerabilities with all the product teams at Microsoft that maybe had like Internet Explorer Windows, they needed to fix the vulnerabilities and then we had this team that was the the deep technical team that understood the vulnerabilities. And to make a very long story short, after about six months at Microsoft, I realized I was never going to be as good as these tech guys, these deep, deep tech guys that like folks like there's a gentleman named David Ross who passed recently, like just so smart, the best in the world at what they were doing.

00;19;10;16 - 00;19;26;25 I'm like, I'm never going to be that good. Like, I could try. I might get 90% of the way there, but it took me ten times the effort than it would be for me to actually be a people leader and manage people and motivate people like that I could do would be a lot more helpful to the organization and what I wanted to do.

00;19;26;25 - 00;19;40;21 So I think that was one of the first points where I was like, What I want and what I can do to be helpful maybe aren't the same thing at that level of maturity. That kind of hit me. I think it was just it was the caliber of the people that let me realize that. And I think that was one of these other kind of forks in the road.

00;19;40;21 - 00;20;01;23 For me, it's like really what I want and what I what I am best at or what I can be the most helpful doing may not be the same thing. Yeah. And so I was thinking that now when you said that the people that you're surrounded by, so I'm guessing then it naturally puts you in positions in the environment where most of the people are, because I don't know.

00;20;01;23 - 00;20;17;10 And you can tell us most of the people around you were very supportive in allowing you to kind of find your way. Is that right? And I just I think I think where that comes in to like being veterans and stuff is like, yeah, people were supportive and helped me find my way. But the other thing is they started recognizing the stuff that I was taught and how it was helpful to the organization.

00;20;17;13 - 00;20;37;07 And so like, I don't know, you know, if this is going to be universally true, but I'd say it's probably true for the majority of us in the military. We learn a lot. We learn a lot about working as a team, accomplishing a mission, staying motivated, staying focused, working through distractions and keeping on on target. Like we learn a lot.

00;20;37;07 - 00;21;01;06 Like you don't get that everywhere. So this gentleman that I mentioned who was like the best in the world at this technical capability, like he learned a lot, right? But what we learn and it's not something everybody gets like this person didn't learn all that. We get that in the military and that can if you can align that to the organizational needs, that can really accelerate not just your career, but it can it can accelerate what the organization is trying to do.

00;21;01;06 - 00;21;18;25 So I think that's one part of what it was for me. It was like, you know, I had like eight years of leadership training and here I was trying to do, I don't know, like five years of assembly, reverse engineering, you know, in my spare time. So I could do this. One thing I wanted to do as a non leader like that doesn't make any sense.

00;21;18;25 - 00;21;35;27 Like we were I was given this. I was given this experience and this training. I should use it for the best effect. So I think, Michael, you raise a great point of, you know, leadership and things and many companies, right. You know, that of hey, they may have some gaps, they may have some needs and often, often sometimes they may make change.

00;21;35;27 - 00;21;51;19 And I think this is where military veterans are often and can be the best change agents because A, they like you can say, here's the mission, here's the challenges, Right. You know, here's what we need you to do. Right. And, you know, the veterans really know how to operate that say, and they may need to learn something as part of it and say operate, make it happen.

00;21;51;19 - 00;22;11;24 Right. And be that voice. Be that that catalyst and things like that. And often when change is needed, veterans can be some of the best choices in bringing into your leadership team. Absolutely. I mean, just take it to the core. What the military is compared to what you do in the private sector at like just one of the fundamental truth about being active duty in the military, you're probably going to move every 2 to 3 years.

00;22;11;27 - 00;22;34;18 You're probably going to change some sort of career, something every 2 to 3 years. Like you don't have that kind of change baked into private sector tech roles. And we deal with that just on the norm. Well, die bomber in new team, new mission, go figure it out. Get it done like we just that's part of our bread and butter And so like you think about what you want to do to take an organizational change at a private company like a veteran's going to understand how to work through change.

00;22;34;18 - 00;22;52;03 They've been doing it their whole career every few years. Now. Building on that, though, I would say the other point let's sort of take the converse of things is what is the biggest challenge you think veterans is like, Hey, they could be leaders, they can adapt to change, but what's the biggest element you've seen in your experience when hiring or bringing your sons in?

00;22;52;03 - 00;23;13;02 They've transitioning. That is the largest gap or change that they need to make to adapt to the civilian world. Yeah, I mean, this is such this is such a good question. This is such a good question. And I think it kind of varies between where folks are coming in from, like somebody that's coming in with five years versus somebody is coming in with 25 years.

00;23;13;05 - 00;23;35;11 Right. It's different. You know, one thing that's the same is you need to learn the culture of the organization right away. Does it matter if five years, 25 years, you need to understand the culture, You need to find mentors that can help you understand the culture. You probably need to find more than one mentor so you can bounce, cross cross views and triangulate to build your own truth around the culture of an organization.

00;23;35;11 - 00;24;09;02 How the wheel really moves In an organization like 525 years. You got to learn that because it's not going to be the same one that you came from. I don't care what company you're joining unless it's you're going right back into the military. It's going to be different. So he got to learn that. But I'd say, like the folks joining with 20 years, you know, long, historic like great career, like coming in as a leader, one of the things I've seen that has been disappointing and just like I wish you could go different is folks come in with this background in leadership and they think their leadership is going to just naturally push them forward,

00;24;09;05 - 00;24;24;22 that it's going to be recognized and immediately appreciated because of what they did in service to the country. And unfortunately, that's not true. These most companies, they're just meritocracy. So it's going to be. What did you do for me lately? What have you gotten done? What impact have you had? And your credentials aren't going to get you anywhere.

00;24;24;25 - 00;24;42;26 Where your credentials are going to come into play is how you're able to leverage those for impact in the organization or the timeframe that you're there. And I think that's just hard because you come in with a service, this historic career and it's just it bring it built helps you build a network immediately and make connections immediately. But it's not going to get the job done.

00;24;42;26 - 00;25;00;14 You're not going to get a great end of year review because of what you did for 20 years in the military. So, Mike, you're saying that just because you're wearing the academy ring, I don't have to bow down and kiss it? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I thought for sure that was going to happen. I, I end up not wearing the rate because nobody seemed to care.

00;25;00;17 - 00;25;20;07 I was lied to all those years. So there's one. I'm going back to the dad jokes because you said, you know, multiple mentors to get cross views. David We're not talking about David Cross views just so we're clear. But I'm from who? I'm here all week. All right. So the meritocracy, right? So and I think you just landed on something, you know what?

00;25;20;07 - 00;25;44;12 What I feel is expected. What I feel is earned, how I feel about how I'm supposed to be treated. You know, we use the ring as a symbol, you know, an academy grad. But it's basically any any any role to wear even during the academy said, you know, basically you're awesome coming from a workplace situation if you've never even served where you've been told, you're awesome.

00;25;44;12 - 00;26;11;02 You know, we're talking about competency driven evaluations, performance reviews and things like that. To wear hard conversations to help guide people correctly where you're giving them information that is contradictory to how they feel. And David's been a big proponent of this. You know, feedback has the sting and the good ones actually know how to deliver it. Tell us about one experience that burst your bubble, if you will.

00;26;11;06 - 00;26;28;01 my God. Yeah. I mean, an experience. It wasn't it wasn't me per say. I mean, I can give you an experience about me, but that was, you know, I was coming in with five years, but some of that came up with like 20 something years. There was this six and I helped recruit and vote organization. I just thought they walked on water like I didn't work with them when I was active duty, but I saw how they showed up.

00;26;28;01 - 00;26;45;20 I knew a bit about their career or they ended up being the commander of a group that I was attached to as a reservist because I did the reserves for a couple of years, active after active duty. So they were also I mean, I knew what impact they had. The military, they joined, they failed horribly. And I had my fingerprints like I recruited them.

00;26;45;20 - 00;27;09;02 I sold I sold him to people like he joined into this in this role. And, you know, he just never really adapted to the culture. And, you know, I could tell that after a tenured career that got him to Oecs, he thought like rank had its privileges. And what he said would go like really getting people on board when there was no formal authority per se.

00;27;09;02 - 00;27;28;20 I was not especially cross organizationally was not a skill set they had developed and not a skill set that it looked like they really wanted to develop. And so that really burst my bubble. That's when I that's when when you said when you when you ask the question and I kind of just like you can't say it on the podcast, but like, I'm just grabbing my forehead is because that was the one that really hurt.

00;27;28;22 - 00;27;54;28 Yeah, because it hit me that like what got them there did not help them here at the time. And they really and I felt like if this ever happens to me again, you never, ever know anybody coming in from the military after a long career into a very senior role into a private organization like a tech company. I want to grab them and just be like, okay, here's the crash course and what you got to let go of what you're getting yourself into, you know, before they join.

00;27;55;00 - 00;28;10;17 Well, I think that always comes in. I think maybe the biggest mistake for some is that with putting aside all that things of the elite ism and all that, that's like you got to have a great mentor and peer mentor that's really going to give you the here's the hard to heart is like, this is not a mission that you've ever expected before.

00;28;10;19 - 00;28;31;26 And if you're not ready to take this on in understanding this, you're going to fail. You know, the mission is going to fail. Yeah. And like Chris said, I love what you say, David. You know, feedback, good feedback, important, critical feedback has to sting. You have to deliver words really hard. And I think a mentor like that in the context of a manager, an employee, of course that matters.

00;28;31;26 - 00;28;46;26 But as a mentor it really matters too, because you need a mentor that can really bust through that so you can feel it. I remember, you know, going into Service Academy, they had me meet up with this guy before I decided to join is like, I think he was like an insurance salesman who had graduated at some point in his life.

00;28;46;26 - 00;29;10;22 And he told me about how miserable life was at the academy, just how bad it was, how horrible, how he woke up with a in a hole in his gut every day. And I needed that because I still said yes, like I knew what I was getting into. Right. And I think being able to deliver that kind of message is something that you do in the military because you because you got to weed people out earlier, they're going to hurt the people around them, you know?

00;29;10;24 - 00;29;31;14 So I think it's important to be able to communicate that. Yeah. No. And you landed on something that's that's common today, no matter where the candidate comes from, is commitment, understanding, commitment and what that means. And I think what I heard and what you just said is you got something from somebody that potentially could potentially be perceived as negative.

00;29;31;14 - 00;29;55;13 It's you're giving me a negative experience, but that's X, Y, and whatever. But you looked at is like, well, it's real and I'm going to use it. And that just reinforced your commitment to make the decision. Talk about commitment. You know what what are some of the key factors that contribute to us getting past some of those things that we create on our own that prevents us from making the right decision?

00;29;55;16 - 00;30;14;26 Yeah, I mean, I think I think one is we're kind of grown with that. No, we're not. We're not going to let the mission fail attitude and a lot of ways. So whether that's a personal mission or an organizational mission, I think that's part of what we get as a indoctrination through our time in a in a in a military career as veterans.

00;30;14;28 - 00;30;34;17 And so like whether that is we're not going let the mission fail at this. You know, we're kind of in the to use another services term because we don't have this term in the Air Force that you're kind of in the sack. You just kind of grunt through it. Like I remember first a few years of my time in Microsoft, like I was basically my career was doing well because I was the last man standing.

00;30;34;20 - 00;31;01;13 It was just too hard for a lot of people. And I just had the resilience and the commitment and maybe I was too dumb to quit, right? But I just kept pushing through it. That's part of commitment. The other part of commitment is being willing as as David said, to embrace a change and to make a change when when it's early enough, where the change will save the mission and not so late that everybody sees the need, because when it's so late that everybody sees the need, it's usually too late.

00;31;01;13 - 00;31;26;24 But it's easier as a leader to get people on board. But when you see the change before the pain is really there, you have to communicate that change. And people may not believe in the Y yet you have to like bring them along and that's hard and that there's commitment involved in doing that. So that I love this part because it wraps a lot of what you've already talked about, our experience conditioned mindset.

00;31;27;00 - 00;31;54;12 We're instructed, trained and brought to believe on how we can influence outcomes, whether it's change, whether it's I recognize situational awareness, I'm observant, I'm connected to something where I can see it. So let's talk about that piece real quick. When you have somebody coming in, no matter where they come from and you can talk about the veterans, they see things faster, like we see the organizational structure, we see the culture, and we kind of just say, I've seen this movie before.

00;31;54;14 - 00;32;15;05 I already have the answer in my head. Talk about what you just said as far as like leading change and how sometimes people aren't ready to hear it until sometimes it's too late and then then it's easy. But when you're that person that sees it early, what are some of the behavioral components that are gotchas on how we now deliver what we see?

00;32;15;08 - 00;32;32;18 That's really good. That's a really good question. You know, there's a there's this dance. Remember the Nokia burning platform memo that went out and Nokia, the telephone company, the the right. David, do you remember this? Yes. have. And it was becoming pretty clear that Nokia was losing market share, even though they had been the dominant phone maker.

00;32;32;18 - 00;32;50;21 I mean, who who you know, if you're around our age, like you had the phone, you played snake, everybody did. Right. The candy bar, Nokia phone. And after the iPhone, you know, an Android, it became pretty clear Nokia wasn't going to make it. And and they did a burning platform memo. It's public it's kind of famous and like basically saying, hey, we've got we're on a burning platform.

00;32;50;21 - 00;33;06;24 We have to make massive change. I use that as an example of courageous communication, but also probably a little too late. Right. And so like at that point, it was pretty easy to communicate the difference. I'm sure there was a percentage of the population that Nokia felt like everything was going to be okay. Still, at that point in time.

00;33;06;26 - 00;33;20;00 So there are some people that needed the memo, but there was a lot of people and a lot of folks in the market like, hey, they got to make a change. They're not going to make it. So that's kind of a too late thing when you see a change before that, before that, before that pain and you need to communicate it.

00;33;20;02 - 00;33;46;01 One of the big trappings is that people get it. It's the hubris, right? It's just like everybody sees it, everybody knows it. And so when I communicate, it's going to be no big deal. That's a trapping, because what you're going to have is either going to have to use because I said so type language when people push back or you're going to end up having to fight against other parts of the organization, whether inside or outside, that to get them to embrace the change.

00;33;46;04 - 00;34;06;00 And you may never make it finished, you may never finish the change, you may never make it complete fully. It may be so long that you shouldn't have done it in the first place. Could be the worst of all situations. So what it really requires is the ability to bring people on board and communicate a vision and a need and kind of make them feel it as their own.

00;34;06;02 - 00;34;25;27 What was the is it was it a patent quote, general patent quote that said, you know, never roughly like never tell people what to do. Just tell them what's needed. Let them surprise you with the ingenuity. Like you have to give an up autonomy to the people underneath you. We're like, we have this need for change. And maybe they actually know the steps you want to follow in sequence to make that change happen.

00;34;25;29 - 00;34;40;05 But the way that you can actually get that change to land is people make it their own and just sort of point and you can watch and you can guide, especially if you know where it needs to go and. That and that I think is a real skill and you have to have that. I mean, the quote I just gave is from a general in the military.

00;34;40;05 - 00;34;53;23 It's something we learn in the military is how to get people on board with the mission and make them feel embrace it as their own. Yeah, I think that's a great story and things like that. And I think back to my time. It's about resilience, it's about focus. It's also being patient as well and not giving up as well.

00;34;54;00 - 00;35;10;22 You know, I can go back a long time ago like, you know, the Windows XP timeframe and I own the encrypting file system. I wrote this 100 page spec that when you should have full disk encryption, I won't mention names. They said the meeting ended after like 15 minutes. Like we're never going to do this. No one's ever going to pay for this.

00;35;10;27 - 00;35;27;06 Well, what do we do a few years later? we have bitlocker, right? So but like, you know, what Bob Muglia told me is like, you know, before in a different story, it's like it's like, hey, sometimes when you get set back, you don't just quit and walk away. You st patient resilience, right? Stick with it right in the time will come.

00;35;27;09 - 00;36;00;06 Yeah. No, I think that is such a good point. Patience. Organizational patience is a is a learned skill to. I don't think it's something that you're just born with. And I have seen and they've probably seen this too. I have seen what you call them in the Air Force fast burners like folks that are just, you know, amazing impact driven people that can get so much done, just not eight, not able to have the organizational patience and they burn out or they get frustrated or they cause drama.

00;36;00;09 - 00;36;20;12 And and if you can have that organizational patience because there is there's another truth sort of in the market, in the business world, the nonmilitary. Well, I'm sure there's an allegory in the military as well. But like sometimes you have the right idea too soon. The market's not ready. So having the patience to recognize that you can see the opportunities when to slide that and that's good business.

00;36;20;15 - 00;36;36;13 And it's kind of core to what success looks like. I mean, Microsoft had the tablets. Yeah, I joined in the early 2000, so. Right. You know, and right idea, probably not the right time for the market. Like people had to get used to playing on glass first which happened with the iPhone because they wanted their music with them wherever they go.

00;36;36;15 - 00;36;55;07 Once they got used to playing on glass, you could have an iPad, right? And it was a lot more streamlined and having to have a tablet that could spin around and also have a keyboard because people were already comfortable with glass. Like, I don't if that's exactly the way it plays out. But that's that's my interpretation of the way the market worked, even though, you know, Microsoft had some pretty amazing tablet computers in the early 2000s.

00;36;55;10 - 00;37;19;22 Yeah, we had the Zune, which I still use, you know, at my desk. You know, you can see it because that's audio, but I still have the Zune. I still run with it, you know, every day. So I know I now know two people that use the Zune, David Cross and Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes. But you know, it might going back to a little bit about, you know, the fast burners, like it's, you know, the civilian world, like it's the Ferraris, right?

00;37;19;22 - 00;37;44;24 You're going to have Ferraris in the team. And it is a management leadership. Right. How you got to put the guardrails on the road. Otherwise, you know, you know what's getting jog your gaming language, right? You got a you the open map right at the games while you run all over, right? You know. Yeah. What you know how do how do people you know that are the fast burners of the military survive in a, you know, a slow moving corporate world.

00;37;44;26 - 00;38;01;09 Yeah. No, that's that's a that's a great question. And I love the kind of the analogy there. Right. So you've got one hand, you have Ferraris, but maybe need like some sort of like tank, like a like a like a g-wagon. They can really just push through all the muck and get things done. And how can you make one the other?

00;38;01;12 - 00;38;20;03 And I think actually, as a leader, like you can recognize the opportunities that are kind of paved. Like there are things where like the mission, the organization, the culture all lines up, but you can just run and get things done. And maybe it's not the biggest impactful thing, but it lets the Ferrari run and they sometimes just need to do that for the engine and for that talent just to stay happy.

00;38;20;05 - 00;38;34;01 So you find those, you let them run, but then you kind of use that to say, Now we have another tough gig coming up and that's kind of where you can teach them how to be a little bit more resilient to be that G-wagon that can just plow through the mud and get something done and pull out with it.

00;38;34;03 - 00;38;59;22 Now, maybe someday we'll meet some people that have Ferraris and G-wagon back. See if this analogy plays out in the real world, but bring it and put it in the mud, specifically the job crafting. So as you as you're speaking and I'm thinking about, there's a ton of Ferraris and there's a ton of kit cars that have the body of a Ferrari, but the insides maybe, I don't know, red flier, I don't know, something like that.

00;38;59;22 - 00;39;16;13 Right. So it's not quite made or built to sustain what their what their perception is creating for them to think that they can do these things that fast this way. And that's common. So you just kind of smash some things together. You know, you talked about how veterans, you know, are used to moving around a lot, 2 to 3 years.

00;39;16;13 - 00;39;40;27 If you take that in the private sector, it's like, well, your job hopping. That's how I consider success. It's what the job asks me to do. And I get promoted by take and duty stations and roles and things like that. So there's this interpretive translation that sometimes occurs for those that are smart about how to talk to others and learn more about what they do and how their change is apparent on, on, on paper.

00;39;41;00 - 00;40;20;06 But when it comes to now, having somebody where you understand what their ambitions are and how they're dialed in their capable of doing things, but you see that they're going to get impatient. Have you have you what are your thoughts on now creating that that that role of responsibility from other needs and kind of merging in some things to help pacify the ambition of somebody to where you're creating things that don't necessarily in the original job description, You know, you're actually making me think of another sort of truism that was hard for me to wrap my head around when you say that, which was sometimes you got to be okay letting talent go because it's

00;40;20;06 - 00;40;38;29 the best thing for them and the organization, even if they're amazing and like we are driven as leaders in general to not have negative attrition. You never want a good person to leave. And that kind of works against us. But I will say there are times, Chris, that you cannot do what you said where there there they are.

00;40;38;29 - 00;40;56;24 They are not going to be happy in role where they are. And I will say that, you know, especially in cybersecurity, I'm sure we don't have a monopoly on this, but especially in cybersecurity, when somebody takes a role at a different company, they're not dead. To us, that network is still there. And we talked about that at the beginning.

00;40;56;28 - 00;41;14;18 If you if you help them, I have actually helped myself. I've helped lose talent is I could tell it was the right thing and it was hard because it was going to cause more work for me. Right. So that's one thing I will just say is and then usually like we were talking about earlier, it will come full circle.

00;41;14;20 - 00;41;32;15 And if you have any kind of career, you're going to end up helping each other out again down the road. You know, Spirit is kind of interesting because we actually have bad guys just kind of like we have the military. And so if you really think about it, regardless of the company, in a lot of ways, we are all fighting the common enemy, which are the bad guys.

00;41;32;15 - 00;41;45;23 And so if you think about it that way, it kind of helps me wrap my head around what I just said. But I will also say that there are times where I've had some of my best director reports have really challenged me and they've really made me think about like, am I self-limiting in our mission? What else could we be doing?

00;41;45;24 - 00;42;06;21 Is there another part of the organization that's failing that we can help out in and this person really good at it? So to your point, Chris, about how do you create opportunities for somebody? A lot of times you look at where the where the business need is, like the the the biggest mistakes I made is when I tried to create something for somebody and it wasn't aligned with a business need because corporations are made of people, but they're not people.

00;42;06;23 - 00;42;25;00 Corporations are not people. They're not going to be nice. They have to survive. They have shareholders. You know, they're public. So as a result, like, you cannot get crossways is from what the business needs in the name of trying to get somebody is career ahead, you know. And if you do like maybe you'll get away with it for a little while because there is some slack in there.

00;42;25;00 - 00;42;44;21 You know, you never know. Nothing's it's not a perfect system. There are some friction and some lost. And so there's areas for people to do work inside the system that may not be perfectly aligned with the business and help them grow some skills right there, some room for that. But I will say like if you really try to create a you call a job crafting a role for a fast burner who's, you know, growing outside of their role.

00;42;44;21 - 00;43;00;17 But you think there is a need like tied to the business need that's going to if you don't, that's going to be bad for them and bad for you dog track and and that and that was good. You caught me on that one because that's a good that's a great response is is because a lot of people are fearful of the patriot.

00;43;00;17 - 00;43;20;20 Right. It's that asterisk on them. You know you had X percent a trip in this timeframe. I'm you know, are you a good leader? Are you effective leader? And the reality is the micro perspective is well for the greater good, this person's maybe my business, but the industry could use this person somewhere else. And you just I kind of alluded to it.

00;43;20;20 - 00;43;41;04 You know, you're thinking big, big picture for security. This person could be a great fit somewhere else and still contribute to the greater good of the industry itself. Yeah. So business goals in my mind translates into industry specific things, which is and I will say like we still work for a company. So like if you've looked around and there truly isn't a business need that fits that person's role than yeah, then that's an option.

00;43;41;06 - 00;43;58;04 But where I would make a mistake would be if there was a business, see where this talent could be really helpful and I let them go. I probably made a mistake. So really it goes all back to the business and how they align the business to the person. Well, there's the other element. I think as we all run into sometimes is that every company is not going to grow in size increasing.

00;43;58;04 - 00;44;21;04 You know, organizations are going to grow everyone's and things like that. And sometimes when someone gets hits their peak right in their given role, there's not an opportune move up. When they stay there, they can fester, right, and create more sickness with someone else. Good. They're unhappy because then sometimes it's the best thing to do is to help them go to a better role or where they can move up where they can't in the current organization.

00;44;21;08 - 00;44;39;25 And that's healthy for everyone. Yeah, no, it is. And I will say there's also times where like sometimes folks that that are festering is because they haven't had a chance to have that next layer of accountability. And so for them, they feel like they could they could do better, they could do different, but they've never had that opportunity to have that that higher level accountability.

00;44;39;25 - 00;44;55;19 And they're festering because they think they know how to do it. So you got to give them a chance to get that next layer of accountability to try those things. Maybe they work and they have something to teach a stall or maybe they don't and they're more effective for it and they understand sort of like how to work about that next level.

00;44;55;21 - 00;45;16;09 Yeah, no, it's good. And that that comes down to as we wrap this up to keep things moving, you know, that think critically about work, not only you as person trying to find your way, but how you're responsible for others. One, they're trying to find their way. So you're also required as a leader that's in charge of somebody or has direct influence over somebody's mentor, manager, or doesn't matter.

00;45;16;11 - 00;45;41;02 Think critically about what your skills are or how your perspective is now open enough to see opportunities for others to grow into and then, you know, make those hard choices. On letting people go and digging deeply to find out, you know, where the true business need might lie. If you're not seeing it out outright. So we could have covered a bunch of other things that specifically in the security area, maybe we'll do that for another time.

00;45;41;02 - 00;46;06;12 But Mike, as we wrap this up, anything specific you'd like to let anybody know, whether it's veterans service members transitioning, getting ready is somebody that's been out for a long while still trying to think through change. What would I say? I don't know. I will. Look, nobody's got a checklist like, you know, my dad retired 26 years. He would say, like, there's just not a checklist for some of the stuff.

00;46;06;14 - 00;46;24;23 Right? As a pilot, you have the boldface, you have the checklist. So I would say like for anybody coming in to private organization, you're trying to figure out how to make your way. Don't wait for somebody to hand you the checklist. Look around, figure out like what's going to align with what you want, what aligns with what the business wants.

00;46;24;23 - 00;46;45;09 Don't wait for, you know, some government form to come down with the process and a SRP like make make it happen, whatever the need is, identify it and make it happen. Don't wait for a checklist, because I will say that was probably one of the first things I had to learn. You know, coming in as a young lieutenant early on, Captain just made captain was there wasn't a space for the stuff.

00;46;45;15 - 00;47;06;05 We're all trying to figure it out. And I think your ingenuity is there for a reason. You know, you can help yourself and help your work by just taking that lead. So one thing is, you know, the podcast I was like to mention is like, Hey, what's my book recommendation? And, you know, thinking about presents and other things like the latest book, it's an older book like ten years old, but that kind of came across.

00;47;06;05 - 00;47;21;22 It's called Executive Presents The Missing Link between Merit and Success Highly recommended, I think, to our to our audience and things like that. But Mike, I know in the Air Force you guys don't read books, but so what would you recommend for the upcoming game? The current VA? You know what I recommend as a game. Yeah, why not?

00;47;21;22 - 00;47;54;01 A college football game is college football. I'm not even a football guy, but I had a fire of college football. I think I mentioned I grew up in the South. I had to get an Alabama Auburn game going with my Alabama relatives in town up here in Seattle. So yeah, we've got all kinds of amazing games. And if if sports aren't aren't your thing, keep an eye out for the next battlefield and play the current battlefield because that is as a military you know podcast you know talking to veterans you know call of duty gets a lot of attention but battlefield is pretty amazing and the next one's going to just blow, blow people's minds.

00;47;54;04 - 00;48;15;27 We're excited now. Yeah. Is it really in the game? It is in the game. I was just wondering if we can do that or trademarked. We had one. He said, I'll let you know what happens. And I have to give up a couple of shoes. Yep. Mike, really, It's pleasure to meet you. Thanks for coming on. David Anything as always.

00;48;15;27 - 00;48;31;14 It was easy and it made Mike, you know, mentioned it, things like that. It's not about the checklist. It's about making things happen. That's how you win. Awesome. And say, Hey, this is so much fun. Thanks. Thanks for giving me a chance to come out here. I really appreciate it now. Thanks for coming on and thanks for making time and appreciate your message.

00;48;31;14 - 00;48;45;10 It's it's a it's a sticker. It's going to definitely have an impact on at least one person just trying to think through these things. So thanks. Party one, Keep moving forward.