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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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[00:00:01.02] - Tim Huff
How many people who are in an organization that have integrity as one of your core values, and almost every hand goes up. But then we dive into, how is that actually represented in your company? Do you have leaders that you've seen that maybe not exactly exemplify integrity? Almost every hand goes up. So, what that truly means and how to bring that from the military experiences that we're used to into the corporate world on a daily basis, those kinds of things just make a huge impact when done right.
[00:00:25.00] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. I'm John Berry, and today's Our guest is Tim Huff, CEO of Turknett Leadership Group, and also the former Company Commander of Alpha Company, Grim Reepers. Grim Reepers. One Five Cav, First Calvary Division. For listeners that haven't read the Veteran Led book, I talk about the Grim Reepers. Tim was the Company Commander right after I left as a platoon leader. Our paths never directly crossed, but we knew each other. Now we're here at the MIC, the Military Influencer Conference, Tim agreed to come on and speak. Welcome to the show, Tim.
[00:01:02.02] - Tim Huff
Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
[00:01:03.23] - John S. Berry
You went from military, active duty, National Guard, doing both, having the deployments, and you've got about 14 years in, and then you decided to get out. Tell us about that.
[00:01:15.00] - Tim Huff
I tell you, I had a phenomenal experience in the military. I enjoyed every minute of it. When I made the decision to get out of the military, I just completed up a successful Company Command in the first CAV. I was thinking about, Am I really having that fun that I want to? I just got married. I was thinking, you know what? I want to see what this whole civilian life is all about. When I left the military, I missed it. We all know why, the camaraderie and all the wonderful things to go along with it. I was very fortunate to be in a position where there's an infantry National Guard battalion right there in the city that I was in, Orlando, Florida. I signed back into the National Guard 9 September of 2001. Of course, we were all called up two days later. The other adventure began, and I had a phenomenally wonderful time in the National Guard I got out in 2007, and as my civilian career was going really well, and I doubled down on that, and the rest is history.
[00:02:08.07] - John S. Berry
I want to go backwards now. You're the CEO of Turknett Leadership Group, I wanted you to tell us what you do now, but then let's go backwards to how you got there, because a lot of Veterans that are listening to that, how do you get to be the CEO of a company after you've spent a lot of time in the military, let's start though being at the top, and then we'll work our way backwards. What do you do now?
[00:02:29.15] - Tim Huff
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great way to look at it. So, Turknett Leadership Group. We've been around for 38 years here in the greater Atlanta area. We help executives in large companies be better leaders through leadership character. We've been around for 38 years. Our founders, Bob and Lynn Turknett, phenomenally wonderful people. They created this organization right when the whole concept of executive coaching was starting to become a thing in the late '80s. And we've evolved since then. We're grounded in science in the sense that we have a lot of industrial organizational psychologists on staff, and we've done tremendous research on some of the intellectual property that we have that we actually bring into our coaching engagements. So, on a daily basis, we help at any given time a couple dozen people that have active engagements, not just here in the Greater Atlanta area, but across the country. And we've had clients in, I think, 17 countries now that we're up to. And we do that through one-on-one experiences, one to many experiences, through workshops and things like that. But it's all grounded in character. That's one of the things that I am truly passionate about.
[00:03:24.20] - Tim Huff
Good and solid long term lasting success as a leader comes from leadership character, which we loosely defined as having a solid base of integrity and a solid balance of respect for others and responsibility to the organization. Being able to deliver that into organizations, what I do every single day.
[00:03:41.04] - John S. Berry
For our Veterans listening, look, a lot of this is second nature to you because you grew up in a military organization that had real core values. Not the crap you hear about, but the difference is this. You can parade your core values, and you can give awards for following, but it's when you make the tough decisions based on core values, that's when you know it's about character. And so going back to, this seems like an easy fit for you, Infantry officer, we learn why those things matter, because when the shit hits the fan, you're not going to follow a leader that you don't believe in.
[00:04:13.04] - Tim Huff
That's absolutely true. In fact, one of the things I like to talk about when I'm doing workshops to the point of values. Integrity is the foundational, non-negotiable for a leader of character. And I often say, so how many people who are in an organization that have integrity as one of your core values? Almost every hand goes up. Integrity is always one of the things that's on the list. But then we dive into, how is that actually represented in your company? Do you have leaders that you've seen that maybe not exactly exemplify integrity? Almost every hand goes up. What that truly means and how to bring that from the military experiences that we're used to into the corporate world on a daily basis, those kinds of things just make a huge impact when done right. That's what I love to do every day.
[00:04:50.23] - John S. Berry
I think it's so crucial to define integrity. Look, people often define integrity as, oh, we don't lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. Look, that is kids' stuff, that is school stuff. But when it comes to being an adult, I actually had the guts to ask this question in my pre-battalion command course in Fort Leavenworth. Someone was talking about the OER. I finally said, well, I just don't understand. Why is there even a box here for integrity? Why should that person even... How are we rating people on integrity? It shouldn't even be an issue. That should be a given. The general officer said, Well, that's not how you look at integrity. He's like, Integrity is doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. I think it's clear. Everybody has an idea of integrity, but how do you define it? Let me ask you this, Tim. How do you get your clients to define integrity? Do you go through a process, or you tell them what it is?
[00:05:38.14] - Tim Huff
Well, it's a couple of different things. There is a process that we go through. For example, we have a lot of assessments, and we actually bring people through the assessments. Amazing self-awareness that can come about when you're seeing things from an actual science-based assessment, as well as a 360 assessment, of which we have a proprietary version. Getting that feedback from a science-based instrument, as well as your peers and your subordinates and your superiors, Nothing can top that. That is absolutely crucial. But around the definition, you gave some really good insight into what integrity means from a leadership standpoint. But even more than that, even taking it further, we look at the personal values and corporate values and how you're living them on a day to day basis, the more those are all in line, that's what integrity is all about. The more that you can actually be your authentic self and you can live your values and talk to the truth that you want to talk about to the people that you want to talk about it, obviously with respect, but doing it in a way that you don't have to have a mask on, that's integrity.
[00:06:35.17] - John S. Berry
So who's your ideal client?
[00:06:37.03] - Tim Huff
Oh, goodness. So we service all kinds of clients, but we're typically corporate clients. We do have government, nonprofit, etc. But large organizations, typically ones that have vice presidents and up that could use them an extra hand on getting to the next level, an extra hand on being better at their current job, or those who might have a little bit of some rough edges that need shaving off in order to be successful in their current job. Those are our best clients because we can scale. Because we're small enough that we can know the organization, we can understand their culture and what it means to them to be successful as a leader. But we're large enough that we can actually bring a cohort of coaches, and we can descend with the right coaches to the right client, and we can help the entire organization uplift their capabilities. That's the A+ client for us.
[00:07:24.02] - John S. Berry
Let's talk about this, because a lot of Veterans probably think, Yeah, hey, I want to work with the A team. I want to work with the A+ people. I want to work with the people who got their one block on their OER. I get that. Let's talk about your journey to get... Let's go backwards now. You weren't just... You didn't just get dropped in CEO role. How did you get there?
[00:07:40.19] - Tim Huff
I was in the information technology arena for a very long time, for a couple of decades, and I was growing in my career. It was about maybe eight years ago. It was my first time as a vice president of IT at a very large company. I was with a group of peers and a boss. Wonderful people, by the way. But we had some dysfunction, personally, each one of us, as well as a team. We had some dysfunction. And the CEO, to his credit, said, you know what? You all need an executive coach. I had no idea what that meant. I just figured, okay, just another meeting on my calendar. But long story short, it was about a year long experience and it literally changed my life. As a person, as a leader, I understand leadership in the way that I bring it to the organization on a day-to-day basis differently, the strengths that I didn't even know that I had. It took all of the things that I built in the military, applied to corporate America, and just got a huge exposure to what really matters. So I uplifted myself. My relationship with my wife got better.
[00:08:32.10] - Tim Huff
So at the end of the experience that I truly loved, my coach at the time said, Hey, you might want to look into being a coach. You've got some interest and some aptitude. Check it out. Got some education. I went through some certification classes and I figured, okay, I'm going to have this little side business where I can be a coach, help people through that same transformational experience that I had while I'm continuing with my IT career. I had a wonderful time doing it, and I had an amazing opportunity. It was a couple of years ago in 2022, with the organization that I was in They were experiencing a little bit of a downsizing. I said, Hey, you know what? You can reorganize the IT organization, lay me off, repurpose that position, and I can go join this other organization as an executive coach. So in doing so, the CEO and I just happened to have known each other through the technology community. He said, Hey, if you're interested, you can be on a path to succeed me in a couple of years, and I'll go on doing my thing. I said, Okay, let's do that.
[00:09:24.00] - Tim Huff
So long story short, at the end of 2023, at the beginning of 2024, I succeeded him as the CEO of this amazing organization. It has been another adventure, but it's just been a blessing all the way around.
[00:09:37.17] - John S. Berry
So let's dig a little bit deeper into that. Coaching others, right? I mean, obviously, you did that as a command. Company Commander. Amphitry Company Commander. You got to coach others. But getting to the point where you are coaching executives. Now, you're the CEO of the company, but at some point, you had to learn how to coach before you could be the CEO of a company of coaches. What was different about coaching corporate America as opposed to Coaching that young lieutenant.
[00:10:05.12] - Tim Huff
The first thing and the thing that absolutely stands out in my mind, you have to meet them where they are. And of course, that means something different when you're talking to a lieutenant because you know what it means to them to grow in corporate or in the Army values, et cetera, and what it means to... So, they can be a Company Commander someday, et cetera. But in corporate America, it's very different. You have to meet that person and what it means to them to be a leader. Of the dozens and dozens of people that I've coached before, leadership means a little bit different for what success is. For example, we're in the GWCC. This is one of our clients, and I've seen some of the senior leaders of this organization have an incredible, wonderful success. But what leadership means to them is very different from another organization like a manufacturing company that I'm thinking about right now. Just a very, very different skillset, a very different way of looking at it, both fine, both enabling success for their organization, but meeting that individual where they are and helping them along the way, even if it's just a baby step here and there, and just understanding how they're going to meet that next step.
[00:10:59.01] - Tim Huff
It's a little bit different in corporate America with executives than it is, and coaching that second lieutenant who needs a little boot in the hind quarters sometimes.
[00:11:08.01] - John S. Berry
Story time. Let's get to the after-action review. Let's talk about your examples of great leadership and poor leadership. Let's start with the great.
[00:11:14.01] - Tim Huff
Okay, great. Oh, wow. I'd say one of the best leaders that I ever worked for, who was a battalion commander of mine when I was a lieutenant in the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. At the time, he was Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Champeau. He's retired as a three-star general, General Champeau, amazing human being, just an amazing person, and how he went about leadership. And it was in a way that I never experienced. He came from the range of battalion, and he had all kinds of credentials. But he came in so soft-spoken. He was the person that in a leadership meeting, everybody had to lean in because they could barely hear what he's saying. But the things that he said and the way that he led, he inspired people in a way that I've never seen that before. So he made everybody want so badly to succeed and be the person that he saw as a success. I always pointed to him as one of kind of leaders that he didn't have to be the cheerleader, the bravado. He was just a person who lived his values, understood what his values meant and how to be a better leader every single day.
[00:12:11.06] - Tim Huff
And he brought that to everybody that he talked to. That's always been one of the top examples for me.
[00:12:18.05] - John S. Berry
Now, you've got a good example of bad leader turned good. Tell us about that.
[00:12:22.13] - Tim Huff
I love telling the story because it's one of my favorite clients, and this is a couple of years ago. This organization, a manufacturing organization, The largest plant that they had, the general manager plant, who happened to be prior service Marine, got laid off, or not laid off. He was fired from his job, but they were keeping him around because he had some technical competencies. But it was all down to his leadership style, the way that he was bringing himself into his leadership. So I started to work with him. And one of the first things you have to do as a coach, and I think everybody can understand this, that trust factor has got to be built. It's got to be a situation where that psychological safety has to be there. And the other person on the other side of the table needs to understand, I am here to help you. Here's how we can help each other, and understanding how to build that trust. It took us a couple of sessions to get there. We had the prior service grounding that was extremely helpful, but we built upon that. And he got a chance to really see his leadership from a perspective that he never understood before because the leader who he was in the military, he was bringing that to his role.
[00:13:22.18] - Tim Huff
It had a degree of success until it didn't. Then once he crested that hill, it turned bad for him. He turned entire style around. He reached inside himself and got a hold of some talent and some skillsets that he didn't even know he had. We nurtured that a little bit. Over time, he was given an opportunity for another plant to go in and give it another go. The last thing I heard from the senior leadership of that organization, he was the best example of what it means to be a plant manager. He's going around to help other leaders what it means to be a plant manager. It's just a phenomenal success. Very proud of him.
[00:13:55.15] - John S. Berry
I think that's an awesome testament to how important coaching is. Look, you serve in the military, you were trained, you were coached, you had great mentors. In the business world, a lot of times, you don't get that unless you're intentional about seeking a mentor or in some cases, hiring a coach. Look, at the end of the day, if you want to be a great athlete, be great at anything, be a great lawyer, you need a coach. You need someone who can see what you can't see, hear what you can't hear, and then give... I know it's cliché, but the 360 feedback when a coach really sticks in your face, sometimes a lot different than when you say, Okay, yeah, my supporters don't like me, but they all suck. You get that sometimes. Some people believe Tim, I appreciate your time here today. Where can Veterans and other listeners learn more about Turknett Leadership Group, and where can they find you?
[00:14:39.04] - Tim Huff
Www.Turknett.Com, T-U-R-K-N-E-T-T. Com. All of our information is on there, and you can find me on LinkedIn, timhuff1. I'm out there. Love to connect with anybody who wants to connect with me, and love to spend some time with anybody who wants to chat.
[00:14:52.12] - John S. Berry
Thank you, Tim, for everything that you have done for our past leaders that have become Veterans to our future leaders, Veterans in the space, looking to become key executive leaders and, like you, CEOs.
[00:15:04.19] - Tim Huff
Well, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for all you're doing for Veterans in our community. Doing great work out there.
[00:15:15.09] - 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 Led 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 Led.