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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:00.20] - Dusty Shultz
We sometimes forget that when we teach a person how to do something and we let them go do it, them not doing it exactly the way you want it can be a really good thing.
[00:00:13.18] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Lead. I'm your host, John Berry from Camp Cowboy in Kempner, Texas. We are shooting here today, and we are honored to have our guest, Major General Retired, Dusty Schultz. Welcome to the show, Dusty.
[00:00:29.15] - Dusty Shultz
Thank you, John. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to be back at Camp Cowboy. A lot of fun because I'm working on the next phase of my life, and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
[00:00:39.04] - John S. Berry
Now, for most of us, the transition was an afterthought. We were thinking we were getting out, and that's the most important thing, and we didn't spend enough time doing it. Now, you have been very meticulous and deliberate about your recent transition. So I'd love for you to tell our veterans who are listening how yours was different and how it was better than many that you've seen.
[00:00:58.13] - Dusty Shultz
Well, thank you. I didn't do the Skill Bridge, and I didn't do six months being off from my last job. I just left being the Director of Intelligence for United States Southern Command. But I will tell you that three years ago, I thought I was retiring. And so, the decision three years ago to take transition seriously and take it in pieces was absolutely huge. That's really where I've been. Is three years ago when my family and I had a conversation, and it had to be a family decision, of what do we want next, where do we want to be. That was fundamental. Having informational interviews with leaders, with peers, with subordinates that had already done this. Learning, that was huge. Additionally, three years ago, I was fortunate enough to join up with a organization called American Corporate Partners, and they linked me with a professional who was in industry who could talk to me about what industry was looking for. And so, I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. What did I want that next stage? I wouldn't say chapter because I think our life in the military, particularly when we're retiring, is so much more than a chapter.
[00:02:12.18] - Dusty Shultz
So, I really did a lot of thinking about that, a lot of interviews, and I had a lot of individuals say, you need to decide on an industry. You need to decide exactly what role you want to do. Honestly, I've fought that. For me, that's worked well because I wanted... First and foremost, I didn't want to work with jerks anymore. Not that I worked with a lot of incredible people in the military, but sometimes when you're in an organization, you don't get to choose all the people you're working with. I was about people, purpose, and passion, and I really wanted to make sure that I was making an impact. But I didn't know if it was going to be in a specific industry. I really wanted to just get on fire by enjoying the people that I was working with. And so, that's where informational interviews and having conversations with people, tough conversations about what works, what doesn't, has really come into play for me.
[00:03:06.23] - John S. Berry
Now, earlier this morning, I heard you give a speech here at Camp Cowboy. For those of you that don't know about Camp Cowboy, it's an equine therapy. It's great opportunity for veterans to come and not only learn how to become a cowboy but also learn business skills and other skills that are going to help them be successful at the next level. This is for active-duty military and veterans. Major General Schultz is giving a speech, and one of the things you said is you always have to learn. What's that like being a... You got two stars on your shoulder, or I guess now on the ACU, but you got two stars, you know a lot, you're respected because of what you know, and now you got to start over. How do you do it?
[00:03:45.19] - Dusty Shultz
Maybe that's been the story of my life. I'm mildly dyslexic. Most people don't know that. Yes, I can read, I have a couple of master's degrees. I can write. What that does mean is I had to embrace learning and the love of learning early. I had to chase and find that growing is good, and you can't grow if you don't fail. You got to fail fast. As so as you fail, how do you take that moment and say, okay, I don't have to fix it all next? But what's my next step? And how do I consistently run after that? For me, learning is a lifelong thing. Learning excites me, and I've had to embrace that throughout my career. I started off in a field artillery drill sergeant unit, and I've been in logistics units, intel units, and I've always had to learn. Honestly, when I first went into the military, not many people expected very much of me. When I went to New Mexico Military Institute, where I met Scott Robison and my husband, people knew I was wonderfully determined, but I also probably was the first person to fail in the group. But I'd try, at least, and then I'd learn from it.
[00:05:04.15] - Dusty Shultz
As I look forward in this growth point in my life, I'm learning how to try things that make me uncomfortable, how to identify what I don't like because I just don't know the skill or what I don't like because it's something I really just don't care for. I don't feel like I want to be a snake wrangler. That's just not me but thank you very much. But that doesn't mean I don't want to wrangle other types of things. I'm working right now on figuring that out in a more portfolio approach and really having some fun conversations with people who have gone in front of me. To me, that's the number one thing, is to have those conversations, to figure out not only what I want and what my family wants and the balance of time and the hard work, but also what does that mean as your impact in the world? Because I'm not ready to go to sleep right now without knowing that I am still making the world a better place. I want to put my energy all in and make an impact.
[00:06:11.14] - John S. Berry
I think that's so key because we're talking about impact above ego here. I think the misconception is that for a lot of people, you reach the general officer level, you reach that pinnacle of success in some people's eyes, and maybe in your own goals, in the eyes of you when you were 30 years or whatever it was when you said, I want to be a general officer. Then you get there, and then you realize maybe it's not about ego, not about what you need to be doing, because that can be dangerous, and very dangerous. I think when we hear about the 22 a day and we hear about veteran suicide, we think about, oh, this is some poor junior soldier who deployed several times, or this is maybe an NCO who's towards the end of his career, his life fell apart. But you've had to deal with casualty assistance in your life, and you had to deal with it for a general officer. I'd love for you to share that story if you would.
[00:07:05.17] - Dusty Shultz
Absolutely. I had a dear friend who was also married to a general officer who had transitioned in front of me. He left the military, and before his six months of transitioning from the military were up, he committed suicide. I was given the call to the casualty assistance officer for his wife, who was then still serving a one-star general. He was a two-star. I had constantly harassed him and saying, okay, I'm watching you. How are you doing this transition? I'm watching you. What I came to find out over time is the transition wasn't easy. A lot of people have a hard time accepting that new mission role. This guy was a friend to many and a leader and a servant leader. He taught me how to eradicate mar plots, which are seditious, undermining bureaucrats. He taught me how to move at the speed of trust. Losing him was not only hard on me and his wife and his family, but to the community. But it also inspired me and made me get serious about, I want to be there for my family, and I want to be there for my community, and so I need to prepare myself now with the skills to get after who I want to be in my next role.
[00:08:37.19] - Dusty Shultz
I didn't know exactly what that looked like, but we send kids to school, and we don't know exactly that they're going to be a doctor, but we still teach them the alphabet and math. With that being said, I think it's important that we embrace learning and run after it and have conversations and learn and grow.
[00:08:58.01] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think we don't want to get lost in our own museum with the I Love Me wall and everything we've done. That becomes our identity for a while. It's my rank, my time and service, the people I serve with. That's who I am. Then you have to move away from that. At this point, if it's all about you and all about your ego. It's a very depressing thing to walk away from that.
[00:09:18.01] - Dusty Shultz
You're absolutely right. When you think of some of the best soccer teams in the world have incredible players on it, but they wear the jersey they're given. Sometimes also things like the goalie gets to make the goal. He was given the jersey of being a goalie, but he's got to kick that goal to break the tie. I share that with you because we really need to make sure that we're wearing the jersey that we're given. For me, being a servant leader, being the best of myself while giving to others has been huge, but it's not about me. I honestly, at 30 years old, didn't want to be a general. That was not my aspiration. I think sometimes I get concerned by young individuals who decide that they want to be a general because it becomes all about them. I found out that for me, the more I gave to the team, the more I got back. The more I invested in the individuals in the team, the more I got back. I was tapped on the shoulder to promote, and I'd be shocked because I didn't think I was the one. I was fortunate to have leaders that invested me and said, no, you're giving back, and that's what the team needs as a whole.
[00:10:36.17] - John S. Berry
Yeah, that servant leadership. Once again, it's not about ego, it's about impact. As you look to the next challenge, I say, challenge is that you're going to face and you're like, what is the impact that you want to have?
[00:10:50.21] - Dusty Shultz
I want to have an enduring impact that enables others to not only run after their dreams, but to obtain their dreams. I want to have a cultural effect that drives individuals to really live and build teams of trust because we move at the speed of trust. As you build that team and you build and you invest in people and they are self-sustaining individuals who they themselves can help grow other teams of teams, that's the magic. It sounds a bit idealistic, and I'll admit, my husband really does call me par for puppies and rainbows. He's, I am this pragmatic idealist. I am an optimist at heart, and I see the world as it should be. At the same token, sometimes I recognize we're in the sludge, and we got to just have to trudge through the sludge. But we have a choice in life on how we want to respond to things, and I want to respond to things positively. I don't want to spend my life being miserable. I am not ignoring the bad things in this world, but I'm doing what I can to change my part in an imperfect world.
[00:12:07.16] - John S. Berry
You have a certain agility about you that wants you to forgive my prejudices, but that I didn't expect to hear from a general officer. A lot of times we think of general officers, we think that they can be very bureaucratic in nature, and yet you are sought after by entrepreneurial companies. As we talked, you've got amazing project management credentials, but you really believe in speed and getting things done. Getting them done right but getting them done in transparency. Tell us a little bit about your project management credentials, because I think this is important, because here's the thing. I think too often, I think when senior leaders get out This is why I did not want to become an '06. I got out when I was an '05. Lieutenant colonel was the last time your soldiers recognize your walk in the night with that battalion commander. I realized I didn't want to go to the next level because a lot of the individuals that I knew, like I said, they were great at politicking and they were great at bureaucracy, but that is not what you need in an entrepreneurial company. It was interesting to me that some of the opportunities you have, you're highly sought after for these entrepreneurial companies that want you to figure out how to get things done.
[00:13:13.21] - John S. Berry
I love that you said, Hey, MDMP, the military decision-making process, it's a great process, but it's not the right thing for every project. Tell us about that.
[00:13:20.23] - Dusty Shultz
Well, it's interesting that you ask about that. A couple of things. One is when I was made the director of strategic operations for the army staff, and I who was working for the G-357 of the army, he looked at me and said, Dusty, we have to transform the army's data program. We're outdated, we're clunky, we're slow. Here you go. This is within your portfolio, here you go. I was fortunate enough at the time that my husband had gone back to college to get a coaching degree. In my mind, okay, well, I worked 16-hour days, but I could come home and be a study buddy. I decided that I was going to do some binge learning because I realized that commercial America was outpacing our military thinking process on how to implement dynamic processes at scale, at scope and Scale. I did binge learning, and I was certified in project management professional, then Scrum master, then agile, then Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. All to learn, how do we think about what we're doing at Scope and Scale and then employ it to our overarching whole military. Because as many know, my mantra to people was, I joined the military to fix it.
[00:14:41.16] - Dusty Shultz
I joined it to make it a better place. How do I help it make it a better place? People would sometimes show me in the military, hey, you can't do this because of this piece of paper from 1980. I would literally read it and go, that was written in 1987. I'm like, why are you showing me something that's that old? I'll follow the Constitution, but still, we've had modifications. I tell you that because I paused and I realized that a lot of people don't even think about, okay, we need to rewrite this policy. When I was as the director of strategic operations on the army staff, we got to start rewriting policy. We got to start rewriting how we were looking at problem sets so we were no longer thinking that carrier pigeons sent messages because that's how it felt sometimes. It's like we were going back to a World War II model. We have so many dynamic, incredible thinkers. What really, I was able to do was harness that capacity and use it to change how we are thinking models. How do we get after this? How do we really harness and utilize other people's thinking powers?
[00:15:53.01] - Dusty Shultz
Because when you rethink how you're doing business and allow other conversations to come into play, sometimes you're amazed because people are going to show you shortcuts, people are going to show you stronger sides of what you need to be doing. And so that just really became a critical element of how I looked at the world.
[00:16:14.06] - John S. Berry
Outstanding. And now time for the after-action review, where we talk about great leadership and poor leadership. If you could, Dusty, we'd love to hear your three examples of great leadership, three examples of poor leadership. You don't have to name names.
[00:16:25.19] - Dusty Shultz
Okay. Great leadership. So great leadership I will tell you, it happened to me several times when I had commanders who gave me intent, clear purpose with an end state, and helped me engage with disciplined initiative and assumed some prudent risk. To me, that was just empowering. The times that I had command; I was fortunate to have great commanders. I have also had in poor leadership. Poor leadership to me often rises up with micromanagement. Poor leadership rises up with a lack of trust, a lack of willing to assume risk. We sometimes forget that when we teach a person how to do something and we let them go do it, them not doing it exactly the way you want it can be a good thing. We forget that. I've had some leadership that have crushed me for not doing it exactly their way. For the most part, I try to win them with my doing, my reasoning. I praise in public, and I will have serious conversations with individuals that I have challenges with behind a closed door all day long.
[00:17:57.17] - John S. Berry
Now, I have struggled with that last concept of praise in public and admonished privately. Not the praise in public, but what I found as a young lieutenant was sometimes if I didn't address something, and I addressed it privately, what they thought was that staff sergeant was getting way with that. I would praise them publicly for the stuff they did well. Sometimes the people who got the most praise were also the ones you needed to talk to behind closed doors the most. I found that I created an atmosphere where people thought, Oh, Staff Sergeant Smith, he's Lieutenant Berry's favorite. He could do no wrong. But we know he's done this, this, and this. Berry talks about how great he's done these things. He doesn't talk about the other things. Sometimes, as I've developed as a leader, I found that sometimes it can be a cheap lesson. Only one person in the organization has to learn it and to get it out there. I don't like to always call out names, but I do like to not waste the crisis, not waste the mistake, and let the team learn. How do you do that in a way where you don't alienate that soldier or corporate officer who you know needs to be admonished, and you know you should probably do it privately, but you know it would do a hell of a lot of good if the whole team knew the whole story so they could learn that lesson without having to make the same mistakes.
[00:19:08.02] - Dusty Shultz
I think that's brilliant that you brought that up because a lot of people go either or. I would like to think that like you, I'm a little bit balanced because I do admonish in private. That being said, the real money is when you can tell a story, the person knows that, hey, we're going to go out there and we're going to tell the team what happened. That your team needs to know that you're going to be transparent with your failures. While I might have to lay down the law, write a letter of concern, write a letter of admonishment of some sort to an individual, and I regularly will sit down the people that I'm having challenges with. I'm an ex-schoolteacher, so to me, it's like giving you a report card. But I also think that it's wise for us to maybe not by name, post the grades and clearly say, we've had these problems, and these are the things that we're doing to fix it. You tell it more as a narrative, and I think that's powerful.
[00:20:09.11] - John S. Berry
The speed of trust.
[00:20:10.16] - Dusty Shultz
Absolutely.
[00:20:12.01] - John S. Berry
Dusty, where can veterans learn more about you and your career. Are you on LinkedIn?
[00:20:17.12] - Dusty Shultz
I am on LinkedIn. I joined LinkedIn back when I was the Director of strategic operations because it was part of information and getting my professional brand out there to the greater world to help them understand the goodness that things were being done in the military and in the army. They can find me on LinkedIn. Shultz has no C in it, S-H-U-L-T-Z. I'm working with that. I'm working with several different companies on advisory roles, trying to help them enable their superpowers and unlock the capacity of their teams as well.
[00:20:55.08] - John S. Berry
Finally, we'll close with this. As a leader, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
[00:21:03.05] - Dusty Shultz
There's no I in team. There's only an E for we. The power of the team is incredible. Invest in it.
[00:21:17.06] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching at Veteran Lead on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Lead.