096: Calm, Courage, and Command with Colonel Jill Morgenthaler

Pete Mockaitis
Colonel Jill, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Jill Morgenthaler
Thank you Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to break the ice with just some small talk, if we could, about your face-to-face showdown with Saddam Hussein.

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, that was real small, right? It’s interesting ’cause when I joined the army so many people were against women being in there, and I hung in there and by hanging in I got to meet one of the most evil men in the world, so it was like, “Well, that’s totally awesome.” So how it came about, I was over in Iraq in 2004 and I was running all the public affairs for the Commanding General, and Saddam Hussein, who’d already been captured, was finally going to go before a judge on his crimes against humanity, and I was responsible for getting the media into the courtroom.
And once I got the media all into the little courtroom, no room for me, I’m hanging outside. And I’m actually in civilian clothes because the State Department asked me to downplay the role of the American Military. So I was just standing there in a long skirt, long blouse, combat boots, very styling, and Saddam Hussein actually arrives on a school bus and he walks by me. He doesn’t even see me ’cause he is trembling, in total fear, and I realize he thought he was going to die that day. I thought, “Ooh, this will be interesting, because that’s not how Western justice works, fortunately.”
So he went into the courtroom and eventually realized he wasn’t going to die that day and he started to threaten the very brave Iraqi judge, everyone in the courtroom. He was going to kill them all, he was coming back, “Watch out!” And finally the very brave judge kicked him out, and so Saddam Hussein just came strutting out, top of the world, he showed them.
And then he saw me just standing there in my civvies, and he stopped and he looked at me and he checked me out. Yes, he looked at me like I was just a bimbo, of a piece of meat, just stripping me to my Victoria’s Secrets, and I just thought, “You don’t know I’m a colonel. I know I’m a colonel.”
So I just stepped into his space and I just stared right back at him and I just thought, “You’re going back into the hole.” And finally he stepped away and he barked out something to the guards, and the guards just started laughing. And as they’re taking him away and I’m like, “But wait, why did he say?” He had said, “Kill her!” He used to kill people for staring at him. And I just laughed, I just thought, “Dude, you don’t know who you are today. You’re not killing anybody else.” So it was like, wow, what an experience just by hanging in there.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Well, kudos! And it sounds like you’ve done a lot of hanging in there in some difficult circumstances, some real firsts to your credit and endurance. So maybe to frame this and draw the connection or the bridge here, what would you say are… When it comes to military service, in many ways that’s a very different environment than a United States corporate professional workplace, but in other ways there are absolutely some carry-over principles and lessons, so how do you think about that as you do your speaking and you’re kind of making that connection all the time for folks?

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, I do, Pete. One thing, I did write a book, The Courage to Take Command, and I actually share leadership lessons before the business world because especially leadership is very translatable from the military to corporate, non-profit, volunteer. What I found, probably the most important thing in the workplace, in the battlefield, is first and foremost, respect. You give respect before you expect respect. So you show it first and then you will gain it. And a lot of people assume in the Army because we have the rank structure that just because of rank you’re guaranteed respect. No, you’re guaranteed polite niceties, such as saluting you, but to really get a team to work with you, you have to show them respect and then it will come back.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, now I’ve got to dig in there a little bit, so…

Jill Morgenthaler
Okay, good.

Pete Mockaitis
In the workplace, what are some maybe common ways that people fail to show respect, that make you just sort of shake your head like, “Come on now, that’s so easy. Why don’t you just do this little thing that would convey some extra respect?”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, first of all when people won’t even find out the talents of each team member. Everyone has talents, and when you can take the time to find out what they have and then you can use that compared to what you don’t have, then you’ve got a dynamic team.
Second thing is, it’s just listening. Shutting up and letting people come up with the solutions. And that’s what I loved about the Army – if you brought up a problem, you better bring up a solution. But it frees your team then to be very creative, especially you millennials are so creative, you know technology. Bosses, shut up, let them do it.
And then I’d say the third thing is delegating. Don’t micromanage. Tell them what you want, tell them the standards, but don’t tell them how. Let them figure it out, and they might come up with something you would never thought of in yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Alright, so I ‘d love also… I’m just going to jump in. You’ve got a hodge podge of goodies… I was just trying to cover as many as we can. Maybe some of those elements are covered in your keynote called Winning at Work. I think it’s funny – both of us have something called Winning at Work. I’ve got a 10-day email series; you’ve got 21 secrets to lead and succeed in that keynote. So, Winning at Work is something that How To Be Awesome At Your Job listeners are into, so what are a couple of those secrets you think are most applicable for young professionals in particular?

Jill Morgenthaler
I think one of the most important things is to show up with confidence. Even when you don’t have confidence, you can still project it. And when I speak in front of audiences, I actually have them all do this exercise, where I have them stand up as straight as they can, look up at the ceiling and give it a big smile, ’cause then as you change your muscles you’re changing your mind. So whatever insecurities you have or negative voices in your head, you’re already changing it.
And then lower your face but keep the smile, and now you’re projecting confidence and you can walk into a job interview, to a new boss, to a board, or my case in front of an angry mob, and just project natural confidence. And that is… Sometimes I think my kids get jobs because they project this confidence, even though they have no clue what the job is about. But they get it, because they’re sitting there just radiating confidence just by doing that simple exercise.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. And so that’s all it takes, is just change your muscles, change your mind. That’s a nice little turn of a phrase.

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, isn’t that nice?

Pete Mockaitis
So you’re just standing up very straight, looking at the ceiling and smiling, and then just moving your neck down slightly with your face now pointing forward, and there you go. Well, do you have any other quick tips in the confidence-boosting game?

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes. When you find yourself getting emotionally upset, whether for women it often can be tears, for men it can often be an out-of-control anger, as a leader to be successful, you keep your emotions under control, you keep being able to function. And so one of the things I found, especially ’cause when I was over in Iraq I was working on 3 to 4 hours of sleep, and under very stressful conditions, so I knew my whole energy base was being sapped and having to deal with the media, the last thing I could do is be exhausted and say something stupid.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Jill Morgenthaler
And so what I had found, when you find yourself getting too emotional is to click in the thinking side versus the emotional side. And one way to do that is just to take a high number and count backwards. So 89, 88, 87… Now you’re kicking in the intellectual side and you’re just tampering down the emotional side. And so you can keep your composure then and appropriately respond to whatever the situation is.

That one to me has been a lifesaver, even when it came to the funeral of my mother. Being able to just kind of… ‘Cause I had to speak, I had to keep my composure, so I just did that little exercise before I stood up and spoke. And so that is one of the most important tools to me as a leader is, you’ve got to be able to keep moving forward no matter what you’re facing, and this is one tool to do it.


Pete Mockaitis
Thank you for sharing that. And I know what you mean about those situations where you need to deliver a eulogy for someone you care about. And that seems very sensible as an approach, because numbers are absolutely unemotional. Like if I told myself, “Come on now, Pete, think!” It’s like, I might still be in a place of sort of spiraling, stressing, “Ahhhh!” with regard to what I’m thinking. “Well, all the options are terrible!”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes, let me run around with my hair lit on fire.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you, thank you. Well, how about any more nuggets from another keynote you do, called Be Prepared, Not Scared? That sounds great. I think it’s a whole different level of fear, I’m sure, with bullets whizzing past you versus you’re in an assignment that is kind of beyond your skills, and you sort of don’t know what the heck you’re doing and you’re afraid you’re going to look like a moron. It’s I think a common sort of workplace scared experience. So, what are your perspectives for bringing preparation and sort of pre-empting that fear?

Jill Morgenthaler
One thing I always say, if you have a plan you’ll survive. If you have a plan you’ll succeed. Doesn’t mean the plan will remain the same, ’cause as we all know plans change. But if you can sit down and let’s say you have a situation at work, and you can look at the situation and come up with what we call in the Army “courses of actions”, come up with several courses of actions: So if this happens we can go this way, but if it gets worse and this happens, then we can get this way.
And if you can sit down and just brainstorm that ahead of time, whether the crisis is just a project or whether it is a true crisis in the workplace, you already have it in your head ways to succeed and ways to survive the situation. And that’s one of the wonderful things you learn as a first responder or in the military is brainstorming the worst case scenario, whether it’s a crisis accident hazmat or whether it’s all of a sudden the stock market falls out, or the supplier can’t supply. And you try and think of all of those ahead of time and then you can hit the ground running on the problem.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so by having your sort of back-up courses of action already kind of spelled out when disaster strikes, it’s like, “No big deal. I’m just going to go to Option D, and away we go.”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I’m wondering… Call me tactical, but when you document that, I imagine the military probably has all sorts of means or standardized templates or processes for doing that documentation. But what have you found is just a sensible, useful way to record that in terms of bullets or sub-indents or slides? Just ’cause I think that in some ways I can see it be possible to make a mess of your thoughts so that you’re like, “Oh geez, now things look even more complicated than when I started.”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, I am a visual person, so I like doing the whiteboarding. And, “If this happens, then we have options of A, B or C. If this happens…” I’m actually more of an outliner. Other people will do the lines “Yes / No” and then those arrows. I actually get confused by those.

Pete Mockaitis
Flowcharts.

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, but I think the important thing is whether you capture it on your whiteboard, you then document it in a standard operating procedure manual or something, so it’s not just in one person’s head because odds are that’s the person who’s not going to be around the day it happens. So documenting it in whatever style works best for you is important.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, you’ve said somewhere – speaking about documenting – that people are more important than processes and procedures in terms of how things unfold and get done and matter. Can you speak a bit more to that?

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah. I think that’s the difference between a leader and a manager sometimes. A manager worries about, “Do you have the processes? Are you doing it the right way? Do you have the t’s crossed, the i’s dotted?” A leader puts mission first and people always. Your eye stays on the mission while you make sure your people are safe to do the job and have the resources to do the job. And if something bureaucratic, some policy gets in the way, then throw it out. I actually now call that “Stop the stupid.”

Pete Mockaitis
STS.

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes, ’cause when I ran Homeland Security for Illinois, we had to get milk and food to heating stations in East St. Louis, it was in the triple digits. And so the National Guard said, “Hey, we can provide the mills.” And then I had some bean counter raise their hand and go, “Well, how are we going to pay for this? How are we going to back order?” And I just looked at him, I went, “Great, that’s your problem. National Guard, get the food there. We’ll figure the rest later.” And we did; we came up with the money to back order it. But it was like, “Oh my gosh, get out of my way. We’re going to save lives here; let’s focus on the mission.”

Pete Mockaitis
I’m absolutely resonating with that, and when I hear things about compliance… No disrespect for our compliance professionals listening – you’re so necessary and I couldn’t do your job and I thank you for doing it. I think I’ve bagged on compliance once before, so thank you compliance professionals out there. But when I hear that, it’s just like, “Ohhhhh.” ‘Cause part of my strengths is activators, what they call it in the StrengthsFinder system, I just want to go, “Let’s do it, let’s make it happen. Let’s get it done and see what happens. We’ll learn from it and we’ll refine.” And so there’s a big sort of checklist of things that have to be attended to before we can start taking any action. It just sort of takes the wind out of my sail. So I’m loving what you’re saying, but at the same time there are practical realities and rules and things that need to be dealt with. So how do you sort of manage either the emotions or the bureaucracy so that you sort of have it all – the action and the compliance?

Jill Morgenthaler
Bureaucracy is really the word. Bureaucracy is, in my opinion, built around saying “No”. And I was working with the reserve unit over in Bosnia and they were doing so poorly, the Army Reserve was going to face the shame of having them sent home. And so they actually called me up here and said, “Can you go out there and fix this?” So I went into Bosnia and as I watched them I realized, “Oh my God, all they do is say ‘No’.” I actually passed an order: No one can say “No” but me. And they looked at me and I said, “So you better come to me with ‘Yes’.”
If something was really dangerous… I remember for a while, for example in Iraq, we are coming under attack daily on the roadside bombs, and I said, “We’re not going to pick up mail over at the airport. I will not have anyone die over mail.” So that was a “No”, and then finally, after a week or so, the sergeants came to me and said, “Ma’am, morale is destroyed. They need their families’ letters. And I’m like, “Okay, we’ll do it right now, and you’d better not get hurt.”

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you.

Jill Morgenthaler
But that’s what I found as the leader was, sometimes you just have to tell people, “You do not have the power to say ‘No’.”

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s an interesting perspective because that kind of re-framed the importance and value of mail in a hurry, whereas you’re thinking, “Okay, a bunch of little documents – who cares?” And then it’s like, “Oh, now we see people get quite a lot, so maybe that is worth taking some risks to acquire.”

Jill Morgenthaler
Right, exactly. And that’s the decision – you balance the risk. And I had to balance the risk and the safety to the morale. And so it’s like, “Okay, this time, go.”

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Well, that’s good. That’s so good. Now I guess I’m curious to hear, folks are in their careers and they’re looking to develop and display leadership so that others notice and kind of want to propel them forward to bigger and better opportunities. How should they do that? The word “leadership” is kind of big and bold and vague-ish, but I think that at the same time you kind of know it when you see it, like, “Oh yeah, that guy, that gal, there’s something to it.” And we want them to have their influence and actually expand it. So what’s your take on developing and explaining leadership?

Jill Morgenthaler
It’s interesting – Harvard Business Review did a study where they found out the average person in Corporate America becomes a leader around the age of 30, but receives no formal training until about the age of 40. Yeah, a 10-year gap. So there’s different ways of doing it.
Number 1 is to volunteer, to step forward and say, “I’ll take the project.” And if you watch my YouTube “Fake it till you make it” – that is a leadership trade. It’s just saying, “You know, I don’t have the skill sets, but I’ll find them. I have the confidence I can do this job.”
Another thing is, there are a lot of wonderful leadership programs at local universities, corporations – many of them, the big ones, do have leadership academies. I did write my book The Courage to Take Command, to help fill in that 10-year gap because, having been trained since the age of 18 to be a leader, I shared a lot of things I’ve learned.
I also have an 18-day leadership program on Avanoo, that you can do for three minutes a day and it’ll give you what I consider the essential elements of leading. But probably the biggest thing is stepping forward and volunteering. You know how they always make the joke, “Everybody step back one” – don’t be that person. Be the one who does step forward and takes the initiative.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. And we covered a few of these already, but I just want to make sure if you have any other perspectives on sort of keeping calm and flourishing amidst lots of stress and distractions? We’ve got the backwards counting, we’ve got the confidence smiling. Any other sort of key things, whether it’s a personal mantra or breathing, or perspectives you use to keep it cool and make smart decisions under stressful times?

Jill Morgenthaler
Well Pete, one thing, especially first responders do that I think really works very well, it is the breathing. When you’re in a difficult situation and your mind is just feeling scattered or you feel the edge of panic coming on, it is that breathe in for 4 seconds – count it – hold it for 4 seconds, release it for 4 seconds. By the second or third time you’re doing this, you’re able to bring in the calm and get the head thinking again, so the emotions aren’t overwhelming you. And I had a woman just come to me recently, her son sometimes has panic attacks in school, and she just worked with him on just that simple exercise so he could compose himself.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s very handy, thank you. I think I heard, maybe it was Mark Divine, talking about box-breathing. Four seconds kind of in, hold, exhale for 4, and then you sort of hold empty for 4. And is all this through your nose?

Jill Morgenthaler
Whatever works best for you. If you’re congested, through your mouth is fine. The real thing is just the pulling it in, keeping it in, letting it out. And then you can do the 4 seconds of calm, or just start again.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you. So, Colonel Jill, you tell me – is there anything else you want to make sure that we get to cover before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things here?

Jill Morgenthaler
No, I think we’re doing a great job here, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super. Well, then kick us off – tell us do you have a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jill Morgenthaler
Some things that have gotten me through life are, two of them. One is, “Times are tough, I am tougher.” And that is to me a wonderful mantra – whatever is thrown at me – bring it on, baby. In fact now I have audiences do that now too. They don’t know what they’re going to do, I have them stand up, look at each other and go, “Bring it on!” And it’s amazing, high energy laughter that takes place. But sometimes that’s what the world is just throwing at you, so it’s like, “Times are tough, I am tougher.” And it just helps you realize you’re going to come out of this stronger.
And then the second one that follows that is, “You are the right person at the right time in the right place.” In other words, whatever obstacles are facing you, it’s meant to be you. It’s meant for you to grow, it’s meant for you to show the world what you’ve got. And sometimes, especially when I was in the early days of the army, when I just had so many people showing me disrespect, trying to get me to go away, kick me out, kick me to the curb, it wasn’t until years later I realized that I’m a much stronger, better person because I actually went through those obstacles then and learned from them.
And so now I look at obstacles as opportunities. Another obstacle is meant to me, “Oh, it’s time for me to grow again.” Like when I ran Homeland Security, my boss, the Governor went to prison.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Jill Morgenthaler
I’m out of a job, I couldn’t get a job interview for anything. I was tainted as bad as he was. And I luckily at this point went, “Okay, what am I meant to do now?” And the one thing I could get were the speaking gigs, and then I found I’m loving it, the money’s coming in, I’m my own boss. I owe him a Thank You note for going to jail.

Pete Mockaitis
“Dear Blago, thank you for getting…”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes, “Thank you for going to jail – it turned my life around.” But yeah. Sometimes for younger people time will bring perspective of why you went through something, ’cause you can sit there and go, “Wah wah wah, this isn’t fair”, or you can just go, “Oh,I guess it’s time for me to grow again. It’s time for me to show the world what I’m worth.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful, thank you. And how about a favorite study or a piece of research?

Jill Morgenthaler
One of mine was on the Harvard Business Review on the leadership, that was a real eye-opener to me too. Right now I’m listening to Hamilton on Audible, and I’m just finding it fascinating – the leadership, the politics, the maneuvering. But what really impresses me is, oh my gosh, how blessed are we to have such brilliant people, struggling to put this country together – just gives me a further appreciation. So I believe in… Find the things that you can read that will help you growing, and whether it’s podcast, could be simple podcast or blogs or audible books – to me you keep learning until the day you die.

Pete Mockaitis
Right on. And how about a favorite tool? Any things that you use often that make you more effective?

Jill Morgenthaler
Well, one thing I do is I belong to some Masterminds groups, fellow speakers, and we get together once a month and we share what we’ve learned. So we leverage off of each other’s learning experiences, we can also vent and release and share stories of when things went wrong. And having that – in the army we used to call it a “counsel of colonels” – having that safe group where you can learn from but you can also share your exasperations, will help you stay balanced and also will help you keep going forward. So, find other people like you; not necessarily in your family, not even necessarily in your own workplace, but find that group that you guys can keep leveraging what you’re learning and supporting and being basically the cheerleading squad for each other. ‘Cause you will find in life sometimes your family has no clue where you’re coming from and what you’re doing, and that’s okay. Just have a group out there that gets it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s been handy?

Jill Morgenthaler
Well, one of mine is, and this has helped me through when I was in Bosnia and also in Iraq, I mentioned I was working on very little sleep and that wasn’t really optional there. But I did work out every single day and those endorphins kept me healthy and kept me actually more focused and kept me calm. And even when I lost the job and I didn’t know what was going to happen next, were we going to lose our house, etcetera, I kept my membership with the YMCA and I kept working out every day. And it’s just amazing how just physically keeping those endorphins going is going to keep you optimistic and confident and healthy.

Pete Mockaitis
And I want to follow up on that a bit, because I think under sleep deprivation circumstances, it’s often when you least want to work out. It’s like, “Uh, I don’t have the energy for this.” But no, you said quite to the contrary – taking that energy and investing it in exercise produced nice benefits with the endorphins and such. So can you share, I imagine there are some exercises to do under high-stress, minimal-sleep times and some exercises not to do, like I’m thinking a deadlift routine may not be the ideal thing under those times.

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, I wouldn’t do a deadlift, I wouldn’t do anything that’s intricate ’cause your mind might not be functioning. But something like the treadmill, taking a walk with a friend, a good stride. The thing I do is the elliptical machine ’cause it works the upper body and the lower body, and you can go kind of mindless during that time too, if you’ve got a TV or something you’re listening to. And they say 20 minutes a day, but I always, even in Iraq at 112 degrees, when I couldn’t work out in the gym, I still took a 70-minute walk with my music. And that helps so much, because then I could just listen to the music and kind of let go some of the things I’d already faced that day. So doing just a simple walk can be so therapeutic.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And are there any kind of particular nuggets or pieces that you share in your speaking or writing that seem to particularly resonate in terms of getting the re-tweets and folks taking notes in a jiffy when they say, “Ooh, that’s good. I’ve got to write that down.”

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, what I found that really resonates is, I share a story about how the men especially put me down ’cause I was a woman in the Army, and yet we were able to overcome an obstacle because I was actually the smallest person and very fast, and was able to run on this guy’s body who was lying on barbed wire. And we were able to successfully do the obstacle, and no other team did. And that was because there’s a reason for the big guy and the little guy. And when I say that to an audience, heads just start nodding, and that’s because I think everybody in their hearts know they have gifts, but too often people are overlooked because they’re not the right gender, they’re not the right color, they’re not the right nation, and that’s not leadership. Leadership is knowing everybody has gifts.
It’s like you – you did the strengths based finder, you know what your strengths are. And what you want to do of course is find the people who have strengths where you don’t. And I’m like you, I’m an activator and I need people who actually… I give people permission to slow me down. I say, ”I’ll do this on a dime. But if you see some consequences I haven’t thought about, you stop me and point it out.” And then I’ll make the decision. And so I think that’s what really resonates.
Everyone wants to be appreciated for what they bring, and a great way to appreciate is not “Thank you” – that’s so overdone. I tell people, put Appreciation Day on your calendar and then walk around to people and using their name say, “I appreciate…” and give them a specific thing they have done, and they’re going to realize, “Oh, she knows me. She knows what I I’ve done. She appreciates it. Wow!” And the whole morale will lift up when you just do that simple, “Joe, I appreciate that.” “Pete, how you solved that difficult customer, I really appreciate it.” And just taking the time to do that once a month – put it on your calendar. And don’t forget your own family.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, thank you. And what would you say would be the best way to contact you, if folks want to learn more or get in touch?

Jill Morgenthaler
Yes, my website as www.ColonelJill.com and you reach me that way. I’ve got articles on there and you sign up for my newsletter, you can see what other resources I’ve produced that can help you be a better leader.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent, thank you. And do you have a sort of final call to action or a parting challenge you’d issue to folks seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Jill Morgenthaler
Yeah, it goes back to that “Fake it till you make it”. Don’t let life stop you when you are thrown into some place. And there’re so many resources these days – go ahead and grab the situation, realizing that you’re the right person, and you can find the capabilities and the abilities to get the job done. And that’s what’s going to help you step out and shine above everybody else.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely, thank you. Well, Colonel Jill, this has been so fun. Thank you, it’s been a treat, and I wish you tons of luck!

Jill Morgenthaler
Oh, thank you, Pete. Have a great day!