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The purpose of the IT Leaders Council is to bring together IT Directors and Managers for leadership training, educational content from guest speakers, and peer discussions in a vendor-free, collaborative environment. IT Leaders Councils are currently offered in Indianapolis, IN and Columbus, OH, with more cities coming soon!
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;02;07
Speaker 1
So the ships that you're seeing on.
00;00;02;07 - 00;00;26;19
Speaker 2
The screen right here, these ships were destroyed, sunk by December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. And it was one of the biggest failures in military history. It was a failure to communicate. It was a failure to drive clarity on alignment. It was a failure to have the correct person in the job that was needed.
00;00;26;21 - 00;00;44;26
Speaker 2
Okay. People talked about checklists. Here's checklist we've all seen. Right? This is leadership checklist. We've seen these all over the place lately. Leadership training, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The list keeps getting longer and longer. Guess what? We're supposed to do this stuff 24 by seven by 365, no matter.
00;00;44;26 - 00;00;46;13
Speaker 1
What else is going on in.
00;00;46;13 - 00;00;55;23
Speaker 2
Organizations. Right. There's mergers. There's acquisitions. We get by private, get bought by private equity, whatever. Good news, there's a bonus round.
00;00;55;25 - 00;00;57;25
Speaker 1
Anybody want to guess what the bonus.
00;00;57;25 - 00;00;59;17
Speaker 2
Rules.
00;00;59;20 - 00;01;14;26
Speaker 1
Give you? A hint. B, go up last two and a half years. Yeah, that's right. A global pandemic. Yeah. How the hell you lead through that? There's no checklist. Right. What about social unrest? What about election chicanery and.
00;01;14;28 - 00;01;37;26
Speaker 2
And all kinds of stuff there? Oh, yeah. And. Oh, man, maybe there'll be a nuclear war because Ukraine. Right. These are all things that are on everybody's minds that are in our organization's leadership. Does it happen because of a checklist? It happens because you're down in the trenches dealing with people and the problems that they bring to the team every day and carrying on record Isaiah's team.
00;01;37;26 - 00;01;39;16
Speaker 2
This is a real team. Right.
00;01;39;18 - 00;01;41;20
Speaker 1
So the innocence of a while.
00;01;41;22 - 00;02;00;06
Speaker 2
You may have to deal with someone on your team passing away. God forbid you don't. But it happens. Or you might come in in the office one day and a young mother walks into your office, sits down across from you, looks you in the face and says, Do you think I should leave my husband? And you know what?
00;02;00;06 - 00;02;21;24
Speaker 2
Yes, she expects an answer, right? That's why she's there not to tell you about it. Or maybe you have to convince a team of people to pick up their families and move across the country with you because your company restructured the organization. That would be shocking, wouldn't it, Brian? Yep. We've tried it. I both work for the company.
00;02;21;24 - 00;02;48;24
Speaker 2
For Bob. Right. Aw, that's hard to talk about, but I'm to talk about it anyway. You're standing in a hospital, and you're standing with an employee and her husband as they're realizing that their child is not going to make it. And the reason that you're standing there in this most intimate moment in probably the worst day of their lives, because this is one of the families that you've moved across the country.
00;02;48;26 - 00;02;51;19
Speaker 2
And besides you and their teammates.
00;02;51;24 - 00;02;53;10
Speaker 1
They don't know anyone else.
00;02;53;10 - 00;03;11;05
Speaker 2
In this strange city. So in this situation. Yeah. Don't tell me you're not family with your employees because you are or in a more prosaic situation. A CEO points his finger in your face. It says, I don't want to hear it again. But you know what? You look at it and you see it again.
00;03;11;13 - 00;03;13;10
Speaker 1
Because, you know, the idiot has to.
00;03;13;10 - 00;03;39;04
Speaker 2
Hear it again. That's how leadership works. Leadership doesn't come from its checklist at all. Right. It comes from here at the moment. It comes from here or it comes from your head up here. FDR said, Tell him it's to get the hell out of Pearl and don't come back until the war is. So do you know what kind of orders that is?
00;03;39;06 - 00;04;19;23
Speaker 2
That's a do not retreat word. That's a potential death sentence. He means it. But that's leadership in a moment. And that's why we talk about leadership in war. It's not because we like. It's not because we want to glorify war. But for God's sake, we need to learn from it. And there's an obligation to learn from it. Either particular interest in the Pacific War during World War Two, because my uncle served aboard the battleship USS North Carolina, he was at every major engagement in the Pacific War, including when the ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on a port visit to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
00;04;19;23 - 00;04;37;20
Speaker 2
He bent by and and they were married for 55 years. So there you have it. Whole segment of my family brought to you by the US Navy. So first thing I want to talk about is waste. There are all kinds of people in this country.
00;04;37;25 - 00;04;39;04
Speaker 1
That wanted to fight for.
00;04;39;04 - 00;04;39;24
Speaker 2
This country.
00;04;40;01 - 00;04;40;13
Speaker 1
Even.
00;04;40;13 - 00;04;43;08
Speaker 2
Though they were second class citizens. Why?
00;04;43;14 - 00;04;48;28
Speaker 1
Because this was their home and because they believed America was still a better idea.
00;04;48;28 - 00;05;17;25
Speaker 2
Than a Nazi future or a future run by crazy Japanese imperialists. People like the Tuskegee Airmen, people like Navajo Code Talkers or Japanese-Americans. When I met these guys in 2009 at the World War two Memorial in Washington, I thank them for their service. The guy in the left here puts his arm around me, goes, You're welcome. And then he points at the Japanese-American and he says, Let me tell you something.
00;05;18;02 - 00;05;42;16
Speaker 2
This right here is the bravest man you will ever meet. I didn't ask him what he did, but I sure as hell believed him. Speaking of bravery, this is Doris Miller. Doris Miller was. This was a ship's cook. It was one of the few jobs that African-Americans were allowed to fill in the U.S. Navy. Sure, they could have their ships blown out from under them.
00;05;42;18 - 00;06;08;20
Speaker 2
They could be vaporized by a 16 inch naval shell or glory. They could be eaten by sharks alive, but they could not fill a combat rating. That didn't matter to Doris Miller. Doris Miller. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, dragged his captain off the bridge of the burning USS West Virginia. Then when he was done with that, he manned mounted weapon for which he was not trained and started shooting at Japanese planes.
00;06;08;22 - 00;06;35;17
Speaker 2
For that in this picture, he's being awarded the Navy Cross. That's the highest honor the Navy can award. But almost later this decade, the U.S. Navy is going to launch the USS Starship C-band in 81. You can talk about metals all you want, but in our Navy and the U.S. Navy, there is no greater honor than having a nuclear or aircraft carrier named after you.
00;06;35;20 - 00;06;42;04
Speaker 1
So if we're going to talk about waste, we got to talk about 50% of the population.
00;06;42;06 - 00;07;05;09
Speaker 2
That no matter how bad they wanted to fight. We're not allowed to women. And it wasn't like they weren't in harm's way. So this group of women right here was just released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp after three years in captivity. A lot of women wanted to fly and a lot of women wanted to fly. Combat in particular, but not allowed to.
00;07;05;09 - 00;07;28;13
Speaker 2
The best they could do is this thing that we call the Women's Air Force Service pilots, basically ferry pilots. They're allowed to fly planes back across, back and forth across the U.S.. It was important work, but it wasn't what they wanted to do. General Hap Arnold, head of the U.S. Army Air Force, was afraid that they couldn't handle heavy bombers.
00;07;28;15 - 00;07;51;14
Speaker 2
Well, here's a woman flying a B 26 marauder, two medium bomber. Twin engine is an all female flight crew just getting out of a B-17. This is the heaviest airplane we had in our inventory. They were pretty happy. They didn't have any problems flying B-17s all the time. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Star was like, You want to fight?
00;07;51;15 - 00;07;55;07
Speaker 1
Come on down right here. These two women.
00;07;55;07 - 00;08;11;21
Speaker 2
Belong to a bombing group that the Germans nicknamed the Night Witches. How good were they? The Germans put a price on their head. This one cracks me up. This one is a fighter, Ace. And he was a little young. I looked at the description here. She loved the buzz of the air base.
00;08;11;26 - 00;08;15;20
Speaker 1
She loved to fly close to the control tower just because it pissed.
00;08;15;20 - 00;08;17;15
Speaker 2
Offer, Commander.
00;08;17;17 - 00;08;26;14
Speaker 1
Forget about Tom Cruise. He's a maverick. She's maverick. They were also in the infantry. They were in tanks.
00;08;26;17 - 00;08;50;24
Speaker 2
Here's one. That's a military policeman directing traffic in Berlin. This woman was nicknamed the Unseen Terror of Prussia by a Canadian newspaper after she killed six people. And she's not even though she's not even the best sniper. The Russian side that was female. There was one that came close to 300. But the picture was kind of blurry, so it didn't really work out.
00;08;50;26 - 00;08;58;28
Speaker 2
And let's not forget the Pacific. This woman is a captain in the Philippine resistance, and she's showing an American officer.
00;08;59;04 - 00;09;00;06
Speaker 1
Well, you know, this is.
00;09;00;06 - 00;09;28;09
Speaker 2
How I cut the throat of a Japanese for somebody fighting. So don't tell me you could fight. So I said that I would get back to these ships. And I also said that this was a failure. But not talking about an American failure. I'm talking about a Japanese failure because the attack on Pearl Harbor, from the Japanese standpoint, was a complete cluster.
00;09;28;11 - 00;09;51;28
Speaker 2
And I'll tell you why after we talk a little bit about the people involved. So this is brainchild of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. And this is quite a guy I mean, you could tell from this script, I mean, this guy is a party. It is charismatic. His men love him, etc.. Big, big risk taker. He threatened to resign if the attack on Pearl Harbor wasn't greenlighted by the Japanese military.
00;09;52;05 - 00;10;00;23
Speaker 2
So against greenlighted. So he's an overall command under him in tactical command. Is that is Admiral Chu reaching a Google?
00;10;00;26 - 00;10;02;08
Speaker 1
And Google is basically.
00;10;02;08 - 00;10;04;17
Speaker 2
Everything that Yamamoto is not.
00;10;04;20 - 00;10;05;09
Speaker 1
I mean, he's really.
00;10;05;09 - 00;10;07;00
Speaker 2
Conservative, is solid, Admiral, but.
00;10;07;00 - 00;10;08;27
Speaker 1
He's not a risk taker. So try to.
00;10;08;27 - 00;10;13;16
Speaker 2
Imagine the discussion that went on in Japanese military headquarters.
00;10;13;19 - 00;10;19;14
Speaker 1
Should we send the government policy? He's got a few cards. This is a really risky.
00;10;19;14 - 00;10;23;19
Speaker 2
Operation and this is a risk averse guy. Let's get involved.
00;10;23;19 - 00;10;25;27
Speaker 1
Six of our best aircraft carriers. This guy has.
00;10;25;28 - 00;10;34;22
Speaker 2
Very little carrier experience. He hated the plan. He thought Pearl Harbor was stupid. And by the way, his health is starting to fail a little bit.
00;10;35;00 - 00;10;36;16
Speaker 1
But, you know, on the plus side, he's been.
00;10;36;16 - 00;10;52;20
Speaker 2
Around a while. So so the results were predictable. Okay. They achieved surprise. The aircraft carriers weren't there. That's what happens when you throw a risk. First risk already lost.
00;10;52;22 - 00;10;53;23
Speaker 1
Basically, what they.
00;10;53;23 - 00;11;09;20
Speaker 2
Did in the first wave of attacks is they sank some old slow battleships in a shallow harbor without destroying the repair facilities or the fuel depot, for that matter. You're probably thinking, boom. That thing's going to say it's already sank.
00;11;09;20 - 00;11;12;00
Speaker 1
It's sitting on the floor. That's how shallow.
00;11;12;02 - 00;11;39;17
Speaker 2
The water was right there. So the Japanese launch a second. The second wave was complete mess. Right. Pilots are circling around. They're not following directions. Everybody wanted to attack the battleships, even though the battleships are sunk. They got absolutely nothing accomplished in the second and the second wave of the attack that did any good. So now most staff is begging with and pleading with them, Please launch a third wave.
00;11;39;17 - 00;12;06;02
Speaker 2
We've got to destroy the repair facilities. We've got to take out the fuel depot. But now the good Akuma was nervous. He was afraid that it was going to lose one of his carriers. So you just turn the fleet around and sailed home. After the war, they discovered Yamamoto's diary. And in his diary, he said he had been willing to lose two aircraft carriers on the attack on Pearl Harbor.
00;12;06;04 - 00;12;07;21
Speaker 1
How does the Google not know that?
00;12;07;22 - 00;12;38;18
Speaker 2
Did you not tell that or didn't Google just decide to ignore it? Who knows? We'll never know. Either way, all they did was create a big mess for themselves. A few years later, they do not regretted what happened because when he was defending the island of Saipan, where he would die to places Emperor, he noted to a colleague that the battleships surrounding the islands that were killing all of his men were the same ships that he had sunk at Pearl Harbor.
00;12;38;21 - 00;12;45;18
Speaker 2
And if you're wondering if you're going to see these guys again, the answer is yes. They could show up again.
00;12;45;20 - 00;12;46;11
Speaker 1
So let's talk.
00;12;46;11 - 00;13;07;18
Speaker 2
About fundamentals a little bit and let's talk about fundamentals. Japan versus the US. Beginning of 1941, the Japanese were great at all the flashy stuff, right? The great at night tactics coming in with torpedo drills, with all what their destroyers had really sharp uniforms, their ships with beautiful control information together.
00;13;07;20 - 00;13;10;15
Speaker 1
The Americans, not so much. We didn't really have.
00;13;10;15 - 00;13;12;05
Speaker 2
Any of that. We needed work.
00;13;12;07 - 00;13;14;06
Speaker 1
However, what the Americans.
00;13;14;06 - 00;13;31;18
Speaker 2
Were good at. So really boring stuff that the Japanese hated. We have radio logistics. We were really good at search and rescue. We were amazing at damage control and and and intelligence was just off the charts compared to the Japanese.
00;13;31;20 - 00;13;32;17
Speaker 1
These were things the.
00;13;32;18 - 00;14;02;13
Speaker 2
Japanese were terrible, but they didn't think they were foreign and they paid for it very shortly, starting at the Battle of Midway. Look here. We've got the band back together, Right? The same thing. Another I'm going to resign moment if you don't do this from Yamamoto. And guess who is in charge again? Magoo on the scene. So Midway was supposed to be a good old fashioned bushwhacking.
00;14;02;16 - 00;14;18;22
Speaker 2
But the Japanese are going to Laughlin by attacking the old man. We're to send our fleet there. They're going to rush it with their fleet. Destroy it. Well, we turn the tables and we ambush the ambushes. So how did we do that? Fundamentals.
00;14;18;29 - 00;14;20;05
Speaker 1
First thing. Intelligence.
00;14;20;12 - 00;14;33;01
Speaker 2
We could read their codes, and they didn't even know it. So we knew when they were coming. We knew where they were attacking. We knew what they were attacking with. We even knew that there was a diversionary tactic that we didn't.
00;14;33;01 - 00;14;42;20
Speaker 1
Fall for, fall for. On paper we couldn't lose. And it broke. So as soon as the battle started.
00;14;42;22 - 00;15;11;20
Speaker 2
Other fundamentals came into play. Like damage control. So the Japanese did severe damage to the U.S. carrier Yorktown. But within an hour, within an hour, we had the Yorktown back up underway and launching planes. We damaged four Japanese aircraft carriers. They weren't even they weren't able to save not one of them. And then search and rescue, the U.S. was able to pick we were able to pick up most of our downed fliers.
00;15;11;22 - 00;15;43;07
Speaker 2
The Japanese, they lost so many pilots and so many aircrew that they never recovered through the end of the war. A few years after our actions, 1943, we set a flight of P-38 Lightnings to kill Yamamoto. How did we know where he was? Fundamentals. Good intelligence on our part, bad radio, discipline on the part of the Japanese. Fun fact we almost let Yamamoto live.
00;15;43;07 - 00;15;44;25
Speaker 2
I mean, it was a serious discussion.
00;15;44;27 - 00;15;46;16
Speaker 1
Because his plans were so.
00;15;46;16 - 00;15;51;08
Speaker 2
Bad. We were concerned that they would replace him with someone better.
00;15;51;11 - 00;15;53;03
Speaker 1
But then we said, this is really going.
00;15;53;03 - 00;16;21;08
Speaker 2
To piss off the Japanese, so let's kill him. So we did go down talk about General Douglas MacArthur, really interesting character, one of the most controversial military figures, certainly in U.S. history, maybe anywhere. So some said about that he had a reputation for being like more of our rank than a general, like he had more of a royal court than he actually had to staff.
00;16;21;11 - 00;16;22;23
Speaker 1
It pretty legit.
00;16;22;23 - 00;16;27;12
Speaker 2
I mean, after all, his office is called the Palace, and it was in the Palace Hotel.
00;16;27;14 - 00;16;28;00
Speaker 1
But, you know, the.
00;16;28;00 - 00;16;31;06
Speaker 2
Reputation and that reputation was.
00;16;31;08 - 00;16;32;09
Speaker 1
There's maybe a little bit of a.
00;16;32;09 - 00;16;53;09
Speaker 2
Coward. His troops, some of his troops in the Philippines called him, dug out, dug, implying he was afraid to go to the front lines, which wasn't true, by the way. He was in the front lines. There was no coward and none other than George Patton, who is no persons coward, served alongside MacArthur during World War One and Indians.
00;16;53;09 - 00;17;16;27
Speaker 2
But in his biography he's quoted as talking about MacArthur under fire. And he just says, The guy was nuts. He's crazy. He exposed himself to fire all the time. Another good thing that MacArthur had going for her was his relationship with the Filipinos. He had a real affinity for the Filipino people. You respected their culture. He genuinely liked them.
00;17;17;03 - 00;17;33;09
Speaker 2
He said, Give me 10,000 Filipinos and I will conquer the world. And he meant it. And the feeling was mutual. And that was a huge strategic advantage for the U.S. because even after the Filipino and U.S. Army surrender in the Philippines.
00;17;33;12 - 00;17;36;10
Speaker 1
The Filipino people never stopped fighting.
00;17;36;12 - 00;18;01;01
Speaker 2
Only about 20% of the Philippine Islands were actually occupied by the Japanese. The rest was just a guerrilla mass that they never really quite got settled down. So here's where you start laying a little blame on their guards. So MacArthur, true to his ego, did not like the plan that we had for the defense of the Philippines. Right?
00;18;01;08 - 00;18;05;21
Speaker 2
We were supposed to evacuate Manila, head up into the hills and fight for Bataan.
00;18;05;24 - 00;18;09;15
Speaker 1
But he didn't like that plan. He had his own plan. You know what? He never got.
00;18;09;15 - 00;18;39;04
Speaker 2
Around to fully implementing it, probably because he's bored by defensive things. So when General Marshall, the head of the U.S. Army, knocked on his door and said, do implement Rainbow fight right now, MacArthur did it and he frittered away time and his entire incredibly huge air force was completely destroyed on the ground that was on him. Now, for the rest of the war, he did do an admirable, admirable job.
00;18;39;04 - 00;19;01;24
Speaker 2
But where MacArthur really showed and where I think he saved his legacy was in the postwar. So when the Japanese delegation to meet his staff in the Philippines to talk about how we were going to occupy their country, what are the what are the things that they were going to have to do? This is not a negotiation, right?
00;19;01;24 - 00;19;04;19
Speaker 2
These are orders, right? This is what you're going to do.
00;19;04;22 - 00;19;07;01
Speaker 1
They expected harsh treatment.
00;19;07;04 - 00;19;31;00
Speaker 2
But they were surprised. The first thing we did was we flew in the mayor on a VIP aircraft, the C 57 right here, C 87 right here. There's mess stewards to take care of their every need. They were served a nice set lunch. In fact, the Japanese being culturally sensitive or trying to be tip domestics even though they in an Army zero four because they thought, well, I guess in America you tip everybody.
00;19;31;05 - 00;19;39;26
Speaker 2
Okay. So during the day, during the discussion scenes in the afternoon, the Japanese raised some concerns that.
00;19;39;26 - 00;19;41;01
Speaker 1
Some of the language in.
00;19;41;01 - 00;20;09;20
Speaker 2
The occupation orders might offend the Japanese and it might make them harder to cooperate. MacArthur had the wording changed because he understood right cooperation was a good thing and he respected the Japanese culture. That night there was a dinner and you can only describe it as a banquet. One Japanese attendee years later said that he had warm memories of that evening with MacArthur's staff.
00;20;09;23 - 00;20;11;27
Speaker 1
How the hell does that happen?
00;20;11;29 - 00;20;21;13
Speaker 2
But how do you go? You're talking to your conquerors, you're talking to the people that are subject to subjugate your country. And this is a one way meeting. This isn't a negotiation.
00;20;21;15 - 00;20;22;02
Speaker 1
How do you have warm.
00;20;22;02 - 00;20;44;16
Speaker 2
Memories of that? MacArthur He made it clear that, hey, we were enemies then. We're not enemies now. Let's get on with the job and rebuild your country. The Soviets had the bright idea and tried to say, You know what? We should help govern Japan just the way we're self-governing in Germany. And MacArthur just told them to take a hike.
00;20;44;24 - 00;20;52;01
Speaker 2
He said, Thanks, but no thanks. Never heard boo from them again because not even Stalin was going to argue with MacArthur.
00;20;52;03 - 00;20;53;04
Speaker 1
The position that we.
00;20;53;04 - 00;21;15;29
Speaker 2
Occupy in the Pacific today is largely down to MacArthur. I believe we have strong alliances with Australia, with the Philippines, and most especially with Japan of all things, and Japan has one of the most powerful navies in the world. So I hope we can keep that alliance. A listen about Admiral Bill Halsey, another colorful character he vowed to rise.
00;21;15;29 - 00;21;24;01
Speaker 2
Hirohito is a white force in the streets of Tokyo. I mean, the press love this guy. How could you not? He's carbonaceous he was aggressive. He's everything.
00;21;24;01 - 00;21;24;28
Speaker 1
That the country wanted.
00;21;24;28 - 00;21;34;25
Speaker 2
To hear. In the early parts of the war, we were mostly on the defensive. This was a time for innovation. It was a time for shooting from the hip. And those were his strengths.
00;21;35;02 - 00;21;37;03
Speaker 1
In the early part of the war, he conducted.
00;21;37;03 - 00;21;45;13
Speaker 2
Character raids on Japanese bases just weeks after Pearl Harbor. He was the commander of the taskforce force that launched the Doolittle Raid.
00;21;45;15 - 00;21;48;05
Speaker 1
And then he was sent to save the invasion situation.
00;21;48;05 - 00;22;09;29
Speaker 2
I wanted Canal Guadalcanal, in my mind was the turning point of the war because after the Japanese lost on Guadalcanal, they never expanded again. From then on since the night from 1942, on their defense the entire time. But then things got more complicated. The fleet got a lot better communications.
00;22;09;29 - 00;22;11;11
Speaker 1
Coordination planning.
00;22;11;18 - 00;22;41;21
Speaker 2
Became more important. And this was in your recalls. You started making mistakes. It was made commander of the US Third Fleet, U.S. Third Fleet Surprise. It had a reputation for being aggressive and opportunistic. Flagship was Battleship New Jersey. His counterpart, the Fifth Fleet was Admiral Raymond Spruance. Fifth Fleet had a reputation of being steady. Stick to the mission, get the job done.
00;22;41;28 - 00;23;12;10
Speaker 2
His flagship USS Indianapolis, give you some idea of how powerful the U.S. Pacific fleet was. If this has never been wargame, but I'll fight you to death on it. If the U.S. Pacific Fleet had met the Normandy invasion fleet at sea, it would have people list the Normandy invasion fleet out of existence. Who knows the difference between the US Fifth Fleet and the U.S. Third Fleet?
00;23;12;11 - 00;23;26;28
Speaker 2
Anybody got Fleet was Halsey, Fifth Fleet was front? Yes. You know the difference. That's all. Well, that's all there is, right?
00;23;26;28 - 00;23;34;14
Speaker 1
That's the only difference, right? It was the exact same ships, the exact same sailors. It was on the fifth when Spruance.
00;23;34;14 - 00;23;35;05
Speaker 2
Was in charge.
00;23;35;12 - 00;23;37;19
Speaker 1
It was a third when Halsey.
00;23;37;19 - 00;23;37;27
Speaker 2
Was in.
00;23;37;27 - 00;23;40;18
Speaker 1
Charge. Don't feel bad if you didn't know that, because even the Japanese.
00;23;40;18 - 00;24;12;11
Speaker 2
Were confused for a while. Can you imagine what they were thinking? Oh, my God. That's two elites, right? Say exact situation, Different commanders, completely different cultures, depending on who was in charge. So the battle we take of this was the biggest battle, naval battle in the Pacific war, I think might be the biggest naval battle history. So in this battle, the Japanese use houses aggressiveness because they knew it was the Third Fleet.
00;24;12;12 - 00;24;38;03
Speaker 2
They knew he was in charge to lay a trap. So we're busy invading the Philippine Islands night. We had a huge invasion fleet that needed protection and the Japanese suckered Halsey into sailing away with the entire Third Fleet and leaving the invasion fleet to their mercy. They came at the invasion fleet from the North with a strong group of carry with a strong group of battleships and cruisers.
00;24;38;08 - 00;24;43;19
Speaker 2
They came up from the South with a strong group of battleships and cruisers.
00;24;43;21 - 00;24;45;00
Speaker 1
The only thing that saved.
00;24;45;00 - 00;25;14;09
Speaker 2
Them was the crazy heroism in the north of some destroyer captains in their crews. This is the USS Johnston. The USS Johnston literally sacrificed its sacrifice in itself in the life of most of its sailors to protect that fleet. They weren't the only ones. The Johnston, by the way, was commanded by a Native American named Ernest Evans. The Johnston folks fought so hard, even as they were going out of the way, their guns were still firing.
00;25;14;11 - 00;25;33;01
Speaker 2
So the survivors are floating in the water. Sure comes a Japanese destroyer. The survivors are thinking, okay, well, that's the end. They're just going machine gun us right here in the water. A dead because that's what we did to each other in the Pacific. It was absolutely brutal. But instead, the destroyer drew close the sailors on the destroyer man the rails.
00;25;33;09 - 00;26;01;19
Speaker 2
The Japanese captains stood on the bridge and they rendered a salute and they sailed on one destroyer crew. And in appreciation of what another destroyer crew did, it. What saved them in the South Shore is our old friends again, Right? So these old battleships executed in a classic naval maneuver called Crossing Beauty. And they decimated a fleet of Japanese battleships and cruisers.
00;26;01;26 - 00;26;24;25
Speaker 2
In fact, they created so much carnage, they started to run out of ammunition and had to back off. That was the end of the Japanese fleet for the rest of the war. After that, it was just a shadow of itself policy. It also flew into not one but two tie for sale to do not one, but two typhoons in the typhoons he lost three destroyers.
00;26;24;27 - 00;26;31;01
Speaker 2
He had major damage to an aircraft carrier. Hundreds of U.S. sailors drowned. Anyone else.
00;26;31;03 - 00;26;32;08
Speaker 1
Would have been relieved.
00;26;32;11 - 00;26;53;18
Speaker 2
Three times over it. But Halsey was just too popular to fail. And not only that, the Japanese were afraid of him, so he was useful in that regard. And I mean, he did 48 well in the most part, but he did make those three crucial mistakes. One big mistake that Halsey had was a blind spot. How many of you have had a blind spot?
00;26;53;18 - 00;27;00;09
Speaker 2
You don't have to answer. I don't. Right. And somebody usually has to tell you, Hey, dumb ass.
00;27;00;12 - 00;27;03;03
Speaker 1
Right?
00;27;03;05 - 00;27;18;29
Speaker 2
This is Captain Miles Browning. Miles Browning was houses blind spot. My assessment of Browning and probably everyone else's too, was he had a toxic toxicity level of ten and in actual redeeming qualities level of zero.
00;27;19;02 - 00;27;22;03
Speaker 1
You don't take it for being oil. Take it from.
00;27;22;03 - 00;27;35;02
Speaker 2
Animal. Ernest King, chief of naval operations, who himself was no walk in the park, trust me, said of Browning. Browning was no damn good at all. He had no brains and no understanding.
00;27;35;05 - 00;27;36;26
Speaker 1
That Halsey just couldn't see it.
00;27;36;29 - 00;27;43;12
Speaker 2
He thought this guy was. Yeah, this is the left hand. My right hand, man, I cannot live without.
00;27;43;15 - 00;27;44;22
Speaker 1
Browning made so.
00;27;44;22 - 00;28;09;13
Speaker 2
Many mistakes, I can't even mention them all. I mean, he got people killed, but probably the dumbest and most amusing mistake and probably the worse for him was sleeping and getting actually getting caught in the act with the wife of a fellow officer. Now, unfortunately for Browning, that fellow officer happened to be a champion boxer. And Browning just took a tremendous beating.
00;28;09;15 - 00;28;12;03
Speaker 2
Nobody felt bad for him. Eventually, he was.
00;28;12;03 - 00;28;15;12
Speaker 1
Relieved not by how easy, but because his superiors.
00;28;15;12 - 00;28;15;20
Speaker 2
Had to.
00;28;15;20 - 00;28;17;10
Speaker 1
Step in and say, No, you can't.
00;28;17;10 - 00;28;18;06
Speaker 2
Have the guy anymore.
00;28;18;11 - 00;28;23;10
Speaker 1
Isn't it? So let's talk about how Nimitz.
00;28;23;12 - 00;28;34;28
Speaker 2
Dealt with a similar situation. This is Admiral Richmond telling Ernie Kelly Turner, also known as terrible Turner and nickname ought to tell you something right there.
00;28;35;00 - 00;28;41;06
Speaker 1
There was one difference between Turner and Browning, though. Tara was absolutely brilliant. I mean, the Japanese were terrified.
00;28;41;06 - 00;28;41;24
Speaker 2
Of this guy.
00;28;42;01 - 00;28;52;18
Speaker 1
They're trying to figure out how to kill because they knew he was going to lead the invasion of the home islands. But Nimitz was making a decision. He said, I know.
00;28;52;18 - 00;29;05;13
Speaker 2
The guy's a pain in the neck, but I'm going to have to work with him. He called them brilliant, caustic, arrogant and tactless. Just the right man for the job, just the guy we need.
00;29;05;15 - 00;29;08;04
Speaker 1
So sometimes you need to put up with a toxic.
00;29;08;04 - 00;29;08;17
Speaker 2
Person.
00;29;08;24 - 00;29;10;13
Speaker 1
But you need to know what you're getting into.
00;29;10;13 - 00;29;39;10
Speaker 2
And you have to be willing to manage that person. In this case, the mission was pretty. So to leave you with some closing thoughts, closing thought about self-awareness and about ego, you're a lot about self-awareness. You touched on self-awareness. It's a big leadership thing right now, but self-awareness is nothing unless you can put your ego aside. Years ago, I was helping with a plant start up an incident in Mexico.
00;29;39;13 - 00;29;56;04
Speaker 2
I was responsible for some computerized production machine. One night I'm sitting with the plant manager in a restaurant and say, Hey, you know what plant that started up? I I'll to come down, we'll have a real party, etc., etc.. He says says, Well, you better hurry up. So what do you mean? He said, I'm going to get fired after a couple of months.
00;29;56;06 - 00;30;17;15
Speaker 1
I said, How are you doing your fire? You did a tremendous job. He said, Clint, so these people are running around getting the job done because they're scaring me. He said, That's it. Said, You can't run a plant like that. You have to be a people person. I'm not a people person. This man was wonderful. He's self-aware. Not only that he was willing to put his ego.
00;30;17;15 - 00;30;20;20
Speaker 2
Aside to get the job done.
00;30;20;23 - 00;30;21;25
Speaker 1
So remember.
00;30;21;28 - 00;30;25;11
Speaker 2
Self-awareness can save your bacon.
00;30;25;14 - 00;30;27;26
Speaker 1
But only, only if you.
00;30;27;26 - 00;30;40;12
Speaker 2
Realize when you're over your head you're not afraid to let somebody else know and ask for help. Thank you, Mr. Climate.