The QBS Express

QBS_Ep37
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Back for Part Two
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Scott Heidner: [00:00:00] Welcome back listeners to part two of the QBS Express podcast with my guest, Colonel Fred Reynolds.

let's move on to this. I, I'm going a little less chronologically now, Fred, and I'm more bouncing from fun story to fun story.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Oh, okay.

Scott Heidner: Uh,

Secretary of Defense Visit
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Scott Heidner: Do you mind telling them about secretary of Defense? I won't, I won't name the one your encounter while you were over there too. And, and this is the Secretary of Defense, right?

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes. Yes.

Scott Heidner: I mean, not

Col. Fred Reynolds: a, this is, this is, this is the man and uh, he came to Turkey and it wasn't it wasn't like a formal visit. Mm-hmm. So the head of the Turkish military didn't stand out at the airport and welcome him in. Instead, he flew into this [00:01:00] NATO base in Isme Turkey, and it was explained to me, by this time I'm a lieutenant colonel. I guess it was explained to me that he was just here to rest from having a lot of travel.

They wanted to go to a nice resort area. His wife was with him and they just wanted to relax. And they had asked if someone could be with them as an escort to teach them a little bit about Turkey. And so my major general sent this little lieutenant colonel off to, I probably took a bus there, went to this resort, which is on the A GNC.

Beautiful place. I mean, if you want to go relax someplace, it's the place to go. It's called the Alton Eunice in Turkish, which means a golden dolphin as his great gold dolphin out. Well, anyway, so I went there and [00:02:00] I, one of his aides introduced me to the couple, and they had a lot of questions about the Turkish culture and things I was able to answer.

I felt I was doing a great service. I was able to explain to them a culture that they really didn't know anything about. And I could explain it in a, I'm not a high ranking official. I don't have any agenda with them at all. And it was very enjoyable. I think I spent four days with them and I just really enjoyed the time.

They were interesting people and it wasn't like I was in the presence of. Royalty or, or, it was, it was easy. It was more like I was with my grandparents. It was nice and easy.

Hiring a Harbor Ferry
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Col. Fred Reynolds: Well, in the middle of this someplace he was on the top floor and he had a beautiful view of the harbor. And one of the aides sought me out and said, you know, the, the secretary I'd like to go just spend a few hours on a ship in the harbor.

And I thought, [00:03:00] okay, so there's, there's no US Navy ships. There's no Turkish navy ships. The only big ship in the harbor was a ferry. Oh, this wasn't the tourist season. The ferry wasn't doing anything. It was parked there. And this aide went with me and I said, well, there isn't anything here but the ferry.

He said, well, that's fine. Go hire the ferry. So my job was to find the captain of the ferry and negotiate him with him a fee for the ferry to puts around the harbor with the Secretary of State aboard. And I'm sure it wasn't very much money because he didn't have anything else to do. Right. He probably was happy to have any tourist on board.

And the Secretary of Defense didn't mean anything to him, but the secretary and his wife and the staff that was with him enjoyed it was a beautiful day. The sun was out and so we had a cruise on it. Ferry for the [00:04:00] Secretary of Defense.

Scott Heidner: Well, I find it extraordinary. I don't know if you've watched the movie Forrest Gump, but he

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes.

Scott Heidner: Is a man who runs into the most amazing circumstances. Yes. And the most unlikely path. You have a bit of Forrest Gump in your story to have spent four solid days with the Secretary of Defense. I mean, there just aren't many Americans that can ever make that claim. And yet you got to have that experience, which I think is awesome.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yeah.

Powerful People Are Human
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Scott Heidner: Well, let me,

Col. Fred Reynolds: but these are, but see, these are real people. I mean, they're very powerful. They make momentous decisions, but they're, when, when I said they were reminded me of my grandparents, that's what I thought of. I wasn't awestruck. I mean, I was respectful at all times, but, they're real people.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Well, let me ask you this.

Rapid-Fire Army Career
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Scott Heidner: I'm gonna pick up the pace a little bit through the rest of your military career,

Col. Fred Reynolds: okay. '

Scott Heidner: cause I still wanna spend some time on your post-military career. Before we get into the, the leadership [00:05:00] lessons portion of this, but I believe after all of this is when you finally went to the Army War College and all the way up through, I mean, I know your career ended right here in Fort Leavenworth, but give us maybe the, a little more brisk cadence of what came after all of that.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Well, I was also assigned as the commander of the Waterways Experiment Station

Scott Heidner: which is located where?

Col. Fred Reynolds: At? Pburg, Mississippi.

Scott Heidner: Okay.

Col. Fred Reynolds: The famous Civil War battlefield. And it's a composite laboratory has five laboratories inside of it. 1300 people. Half of 'em, PhDs. Here I am with a master's degree.

But I learned a lot about managing civilians and also learned a lot about stuff underground. The, I had a huge geotechnical laboratory there and that led me into a PhD later. And then I had a command of the US engineer group. It was [00:06:00] in Adana, Turkey, or Gerlich is the name of the air base. It was on a Turkish air base, and I was able to work on a.

Our customers. I'm, I'm using contractors to build air bases and shelters for munitions, including Atomic Uni munitions. And I helped establish a couple air bases that were very useful in the follow on ward. So I felt like I was very well employed. I had an assignment in between all these things with the US engineer district in Kansas City, and that was followed up with an assignment.

By this time, I'd been promoted to full colonel and I had an assignment as a director at the Commander General Staff College. And the staff college is run by a brigadier general who's on the way to becoming probably Lieutenant General. And the directors are all colonels. [00:07:00] They're all long in the tooth.

And, there must have been about 13 full colonels, and we ran the different departments in the college. It's wonderful place to learn about how the Army operates. So I retired from there. And then I went back to Turkey because black and Veatch, I, I didn't even think there was a life after the military.

Scott Heidner: Okay. Can I ask what year it was that you retired?

Retirement and ACEC Link
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Col. Fred Reynolds: 1991.

Scott Heidner: 1991. And by the way, for listeners, if I, if this were a higher budget podcast and we had sound effects, this is where we would do something to symbolize that we're shifting in. If anybody's wondered, this is a fascinating story, but how does it relate to ACEC?

Well, black and Veatch, of course, is a, a solid, long time appreciated member of ACEC and so. That's where you go next. And, and if you don't mind, it's a [00:08:00] fascinating story how you got hooked up with them.

Black and Veatch Turkey Pitch
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Col. Fred Reynolds: So, black and Veatch is has several different divisions, four big divisions, and one of them is international and they do the international stuff.

And my name had popped up as a guy that speaks Turkish and they were looking for an engineer that speaks Turkish. There aren't a lot of those around. And so, I was in another temporary engineering job and I took a leave of absence for a week to fly with his executive vice president from Black and Veatch.

To Turkey. I called it a trial run. He wanted to see if I really knew anything about engineering and if I could really speak Turkish. And so this Executive Vice President's mission was to meet with the head of the, in Turkish, it's the Devlet Su Isleri. It's the combination of the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of [00:09:00] Engineers.

Managing water in Turkey where the center is semi arid is a big thing. So I fly over with this guy, I get to fly in business class, I think this is cool. And we stay in a nice hotel. And he meets me in the lobby. He says, okay, now this is the guy I gotta meet with. I want you to, I want you to get me to him.

And in the past it had been very difficult. He hadn't been able to meet with him. He couldn't seem to get through the. The security to meet with this guy. And so we get in the taxi and I tell the taxi where to go. He's astounded that I can tell a taxi driver where to go. I mean, this is nothing. And so we get to this headquarters and it's like a big military headquarters, has all kinds of security out front.

And we get out and some century opens the [00:10:00] door for us and I say, I wanna see the sergeant of the guard. And so he brings the sergeant of the guard over and say, I have a meeting. My, my boss has a meeting with the head of the whole thing. Please take us there. Well, his eyes got really big.

And so he just moseys through all these checkpoints and stuff, and we get to a place where we sit down in room briefly. They bring our security badge to us, they give us tea and they check on us and the head of this thing is pretty busy. And he was maybe 10 minutes later on the appointment, but they kept track of us and they said, okay, he's ready to see you.

So we walk into this guy's big office and in Turkish I introduced my boss to the head of all this stuff and he thanks me and immediately switches into English so he can talk to him. So anyway, [00:11:00] because of all this, we finally get back to the hotel and he tells me, he said, I'm just astounded you were able to do all that.

And I just giggled. And he said. He said, you come as advertised. I wanna make you a job offer. So when I got back to Kansas City, he had a job offer prepared for me, and my job was to move to Turkey and run their hydropower program. And they were building dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. I mean, these are big projects.

So since I came as advertised, I I got a, I got a job there

Scott Heidner: and, and back to Turkey again.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes.

Scott Heidner: My goodness. That's, that's you. Have you, just a curiosity question. As an adult, have you spent more time in. Turkey or n

Col. Fred Reynolds: [00:12:00] no. 29 years in the Army, seven of it in Turkey.

Scott Heidner: Okay. It feels like it plays such an oversized impact in your career that it feels like more than seven inch list.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Well, the year before we moved, I did a lot of shuttling back and forth because the, the consortium, the four big companies that were gonna do all this, one was Turkish, one was Austrian, one was German, one was American.

Took a long time to nego, negotiate these. And I would fly back and forth with meetings, not with the government of Turkey, but with the consortium to try to figure out how are we gonna skin this cat? Where's the money gonna go? Who gets this margin? Who makes the money on the generators? I mean, it was a, yeah, it was a huge problem.

Hydropower Deal Falls Apart
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Scott Heidner: And you were there how many years in Turkey for Black and Veatch?

Col. Fred Reynolds: Well, we were only there one year.

Scott Heidner: Okay.

Col. Fred Reynolds: The Lira, tanked. And they brought us back because the contract with Black and Veatch included [00:13:00] financing Black and Veatch had to bring the international financing that is Turkey didn't have the hard currency to pay black and ve certainly not to buy generators. So Black and Veatch had to have a funding plan for them that would bring in hard currency that then they would take and pay to the Consortium.

Consortium because the Lira tank, that didn't happen. And Black and Veatch called me and says, oh, you gotta come back. The, the kids were furious. They just love living there. Hmm. ~And I've got one little story, I've got it marked down here that I want to tell when I was living in RA the other times I was in, in.~

~I was a military man there. ~

Church Floor and Shared Faith
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Col. Fred Reynolds: I was a civilian, but I was kind of part of the military network because I was retired. And so everybody, Americans and Turks got to know that there's this funny American engineer that speaks Turkish. And one day the, my secretary said the local Catholic priest priest is on the line.

He [00:14:00] wants to talk to you. I thought, I, I'm going to a, a Christian Church. What's a good father wanna talk to me about? Well, he talked to me. He's, he doesn't speak English well, he speaks French, he speaks Turkish. He was explaining to me that he had a church that was kind of a church in the round. It was sort of a big oyster shell thing.

And the floor was collapsing and he wanted me to come up. He said, you're an engineer. I want you to look at this and tell me what's wrong. So I was also very active in Rotary. In Rotary. I was the only non Turk there. Rotary, everything's in in Turkish. The president of the Rotary Club was an engineer running an engineering firm kind of like this one.

And so I Irfan, I asked Irfan, will you come along with me and we can look [00:15:00] at what the good Father's problem is? So we got there. Then the father had a guy with some flashlights and he, the father took off his big outer coat and we shucked our jackets and we crawled underneath of this thing through the cob woods and stuff with our flashlights.

And Irfan and I, the engineer said, oh, well yeah, this is, well, yeah, we can do this. We'll do this. And so we get out and dust ourselves off. And I talked to the good father and I said, well, listen, Irfan, and I know exactly what needs to be done, but you have to have somebody write up a contract for a contractor to come up here and do this stuff.

Now, Irfans company does that all the time. And holy Father are, are you willing to, you're gonna have to pay Irfan to do all this stuff. This is a lot of work. And he said, oh, of course my flock needs it. [00:16:00] And so I turned to Irfan. And I said, well, can you do this? He said certainly. I said, well, would you tell the Holy Father about what the price might be?

And he said, well, I'm not gonna charge for this. And. I kind of looked at him and I said, Irfan, are you sure this is a lot of work? And he said, it's all for the same God, isn't it? So he Irfan's Islamic, the Good Father's Catholic. I'm Christian. And his answer is that it's a charitable work. It's all for the same God, isn't it?

And I thought, and and, and this is where my world comes together with, it's one God and three books.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. pretty profound.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Col. Fred Reynolds: But that's the way Irfan was, and that's the way a lot of the Turks were. They're such a kind and loving [00:17:00] people. It was hard for us to leave as a family.

We even had the dog with us.

Scott Heidner: when you did come back. So retired from the military in 91. Mm-hmm. And then stayed with Black and Veatch through

Col. Fred Reynolds: 2010. I retired

from them

Scott Heidner: 2010. So almost another 20 full years with Black and Veatch.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Mm-hmm.

PhD and Earthquake Design
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Scott Heidner: Can we touch for just a minute on Postretirement?

So post 2010, and then I want to get into leadership lessons from all these experiences you've had, but since retiring, you have not been sedentary by a long shot. One thing we haven't even touched on you are an avid player of the cello.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Well, while I was working for Black and Veatch, I told them I wanted to get a PhD.

They liked that. And so I got a PhD in civil engineering. It's actually an earthquake mechanics, and I got some payment from the va. They. Paid for my doctorate. I'm very thankful. Number one, they gave me some time off so I could do a dissertation. And they [00:18:00] paid some of my fees and so I'm obligated to the VA for the money they put in and to Black and Veatch for the time and the money they invested in me so I could get a PhD.

And then in the process of doing that, a project came up in St. Louis to do the earthquake design for Cassons. These are water wells that are sunk into the sands beside the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. It's actually at the Confluence. And they wanted to make sure that if they had a new Madrid earthquake like they had in the 18 hundreds, that these.

Water wells, these huge cassons, they're like 30 feet in diameter and 200 feet deep that they would not collapse. And so using what I learned in my PhD, I was able to do a design for them. That, so I help pay Black and Veatch [00:19:00] back by getting them engineering fees.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Oh.

Cello as Therapy
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Col. Fred Reynolds: So I really love flying, but I found that I was, I was too old. I really didn't think I would be competent to fly. The safest way to fly is instrument flight, and I didn't think that I could to do that, you have to fly a lot, you have to maintain proficiency. And I, I couldn't do that and raise a family and do all the other stuff.

So I, I quit flying. But I decided I wanted to play the cello. And this is unusual. You'd think a guy with all of my analytic training that something in the arts, like a cello would be when I flew, I could see the vectors coming out of the wings of the lift and the drag. But when I play the cello, I can, I can hear the harmonics.

I mean, it's, it's all mathematics also. [00:20:00] And the, the teacher I'm studying under is a cellist in the Kansas City Symphony, Meredith. And so late in life, I played the cello in high school. I played some other instruments, but I, by accident, bought a really good cello from a member of the Seattle Symphony when I was going to grad school for the US Army.

And I got that instrument back out and dusted it off and, and, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of the, the cello. Susan, my beautiful wife, I mean, I'm, I'm indebted to her for many, many things. Beautiful children, but sometimes we get crossways. But if I get crossways, I go down, I play on the cello for 30 minutes.

It's, it's all gone. Everything, everything is good again,

Scott Heidner: music.

Col. Fred Reynolds: So it's good therapy,

Scott Heidner: music can be a powerful tonic. Yeah.

German WWI Aviation Research
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Scott Heidner: Well, last thing to ask you about [00:21:00] briefly, your, one of your other hobbies is my favorite 'cause I'm a military history junkie particularly aviation. But you're also a scholarly research never ends have dug deep into of all things German aviation.

Combat from World War I.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yeah. Well, when World War I started aeroplanes were very fragile and they, they couldn't be useful in combat at all. The only thing that worked were things fueled by hydrogen, and they, Germans were the leaders in this because they had a retired cavalry, brigadier general named ~Von Zeppelin.~

~August ~Von Zeppelin, August Von Zeppelin was sent to the United States as an observer in the American Civil War. And there in Virginia, he saw hydrogen fueled balloons, tethered held down by a big wrong. [00:22:00] He saw those and he said, oh, I think this is a good idea. So when he retired from the Prussian Cavalry, he decided to invent a thing called a Zeppelin.

Which is a rigid aircraft. It's got a skeleton outside. It's not a big balloon, it's a skeleton and the hydrogen's inside. So when World War I started, Germany had more of these kind of combat platforms than anybody else, and I got interested in them because I'm an aviator and a military guy.

Publishing Through Philately
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Col. Fred Reynolds: I know a lot about World War I.

And so it was easy for me to research in this area. And so, as I mentioned before we started, I just published an article. Now I'm doing this through philately, the study of postal history. But I've just published a, a magazine article, 17 pages long about this, about this. You see, when I went into earthquakes, [00:23:00] it's, it's about.

10 miles deep and three feet wide. And it's the same with the zeppelins.

Scott Heidner: It it's, it's just impressive. Most of us go our entire lives without publishing a 17 page paper. You're doing it in the fifth iteration of your career still pushing yourself. It's, it's pretty impressive.

Leadership Maxims Setup
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Scott Heidner: Well, with that I wanna switch to, you know, I said all the way back at the beginning that some of my members very helpfully encourage me to consider leadership as a key topic for the podcast, not just infrastructure and public works directors and that kind of thing,

in meeting you and spending time with you and hearing your story, leadership, just, you come back to that over and over and over again, and you've put together a list here of leadership maxims or takeaways.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yeah.

Scott Heidner: And if you don't mind I'd like to close with this. Do you mind if I just read each one in turn [00:24:00] and then let you comment on it to the extent that you see fit or share with readers?

Col. Fred Reynolds: Oh, please do I

Scott Heidner: each lesson

Col. Fred Reynolds: I think that I, it's an excellent idea, Scott.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, I'll, I'm just gonna walk through these because some of them you have a more holistic commentary on, which is interesting. And then some of them, you know, you tied a very acute.

Moments and experiences you had and lessons learned. I'll just start at the top.

Leaders Can Be Made
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Scott Heidner: Leaders can be made. They don't have to be born.

Col. Fred Reynolds: I think this is really important for engineers. Most of us are introverts, and as I commented, when I, when I went to West Point, I, I'm still an introvert at West Point, the Army taught me to pretend like I'm an extrovert and, and to be able to speak most of the time.

But engineers, you, you don't find a lot of engineers are introverts and you don't find them as [00:25:00] the captains of the football teams. But at West Point they taught me that they can teach me to be a leader. They took as, almost as done in the Bible as a pot of clay and molded me. Into something. So some engineers might wrongly think that they're too analytical to be engineers and being too analytical could be an obstacle, but it's not fatal.

I think. I think it can be be taught.

Scott Heidner: It's this could be its own entire separate conversation, but we have a program called the Emerging Leaders Program that we offer through ACEC. Oh, cool. That it is I'm glad you think so. I do too. It's actually my favorite part of my job. I work with the most extraordinary young people in that program.

But it is part of what we talk about there too, is that very thing [00:26:00] you may not be. The backslapping extrovert that wants to go have beer with every client prospect, but it does not mean you cannot be a valuable leader. Well, let's move on to the next one.

Skills Can Be Taught
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Scott Heidner: The skillset that leaders need can be taught.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes. So what kind of things did I learn at West Point? Well, certainly self-discipline that comes as a, that first year is really hard, but the, the mottos of West Point due to duty, honor, country have been guiding lights for me throughout my life that I talked earlier about my duty to accomplish the mission and my duty to take care of my men.

So, just a few principles like that and to talk about honor that that. Cadet does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do. Just really simple. And then of course, country. So I've, I've got [00:27:00] a loyalty to something. So as an engineer, my loyalty may be to a firm or it might be to a federal agency, but I've got something bigger than myself that I can devote myself to.

And these at West Point, I guess I got 'em through repetition. It isn't like I had an epiphany one day, but it was over and over. So it's a, it's a skillset that, that can be taught and some of these other skill sets are down inside of these others, I believe firmly that for an engineer to think that he cannot lead a department or cannot lead an entire firm just because he's an engineer isn't correct.

Yeah. That there may be other things that hold us back, but with a good team like that combat team, a comprehensive team can accomplish amazing things.

Scott Heidner: I [00:28:00] think something that see young engineers perhaps underestimate their own opportunities about is. They may identify something specific that they think they're not good at and are skeptical that they will ever get good at.

But I think sometimes what they fail to realize is to run a division of a company or a company or whatever, requires a very diverse set of skills. Yes. And you're only gonna be truly great at a few of 'em.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes.

Scott Heidner: And our members, our young designers are so humble that I think they're much quicker to self-identify the ones that perhaps they're not innately gifted at.

Hmm. And then look at somebody else who is and say, well, that's probably the kind of person that needs to be a leader, not me. Whereas when I look at them, I see the other skill sets, which they are so either innately good at, or they're taking the training they need to [00:29:00] evolve and excel at it. So I, I love that lesson.

~I think, ~

Col. Fred Reynolds: ~well, I comment, ~I believe it's an error for me to. My insides based on what I see in somebody else's outsides.

Scott Heidner: Agree. Yep.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Alright.

Scott Heidner: Okay.

Walk the Talk
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Scott Heidner: Number three. You have to walk the talk. If you tell people they have to behave a certain way, then you have to do the same.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yeah. And I very early, I must have come at West Point, but it, I will never ask someone to do something that I haven't done myself.

If I put a heavy responsibility on somebody else to act in a certain way, I have to be doing that already. I have to be the example and in, in, if I ask someone to do something that I haven't done myself, there are some real unknowns in the responsibilities I'm giving him. And, and that's not [00:30:00] fair. I have to.

Give a person responsibility and resources to accomplish what the organization needs done. And I have to do that with full knowledge of what that person has to do. So I never want to ask someone to do something that I haven't done myself. Now, I, I, I guess there gotta be some exceptions to that.

Obviously, I'm gonna if I get in a railroad train, I've never been a train engineer and I'm asking somebody to take me down the track. So maybe some exceptions, but in a, in a team I make sure that I walk the talk.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, it's kind of intriguing too. I shouldn't be surprised, but I think when most of us read that or hear that, the first thing I thought was.

That you show somebody, you're not asking them to do more than you're willing to do yourself, but your first comments took a [00:31:00] different tack, which was, how am I going to be the best leader I can for them if I don't understand

Col. Fred Reynolds: right.

Scott Heidner: What they're doing? Which is kind of an even deeper take on it, I think.

Col. Fred Reynolds: You bet.

Appreciate Differences
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Scott Heidner: Well, number four you have to appreciate each other, and this is something you and I have never really gotten into. I've heard you reference when you were in the military, a course called Please Understand Me. I can tell there's a bigger story there and that it attaches to that leadership a lesson.

What do you wanna share on that? Hmm. Well, the Please understand me this was it comes, the early Greek writers wrote about the f. Four fluxes. And the four fluxes were the personality difference. It's the same stuff, and if you read it in the English translations, it's almost the same. There are all kinds of systems about letting a person take a test that explains what their personality, strengths and weaknesses [00:32:00] are, what they have a bias for or a bias against.

Col. Fred Reynolds: And so what that taught me was it's easy, it's too easy for me, particularly as a military officer, to see every other officer's pathway like mine. But as I, the further I went, the more diverse the pathway got. It didn't get the same. It got more different.

Everybody's pathway in life gives them innate strengths in one particular area and some weaknesses in the other areas. And that's just the way it is. It's, it's unfair for me to lead a team and expect everybody in the team to think the same way I do. And so understanding the differences we have as members of a team may be [00:33:00] more important sometimes and understanding what we share.

And then I comment on those weaknesses a little bit later. But that was, that was sort of the epiphany for me. Just a little tiny black and white book. Maybe I'm a major and the Army made me read it, but I'm sure many people have these kind of epiphanies. That was mine.

Choose People Carefully
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Scott Heidner: Well, the next one is one of my favorites, and I want to hear your comments and then I wanna share an anecdote of my own, I guess.

But you have to choose the right people because it's so hard to get rid of the wrong ones. Be selective.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes, in combat it's different. You may have to, somebody gets killed and you gotta put somebody in their place immediately. You don't have much time, hopefully you've already identified.

That's called succession plan. You've already identified someone who can step into the void, but it take it's [00:34:00] wise to take some thoughtful period of time to evaluate individuals that you want to be in your team and what you want them to do. That shouldn't be a knee jerk reaction. And I believe that's the, that's the wise leader's way to do it.

The, the downside of being in too much of a hurry is when you pick the wrong person. It's really hard to get rid of them either because of their investment, or emotionally, it's hard to drop someone from your team once you've brought them on board.

So be selective. Take the time that it takes to choose the right people.

Scott Heidner: We have that emerging leaders program at the end of the program. Each year we bring in some veteran industry leaders, we call it senior leaders, round table. And they just share their, their wisdom and they take questions from [00:35:00] the class.

It's an awesome experience every year. How cool it is. It's amazing. And, and it's a huge privilege for me as a facilitator of the program. I get to sit in on it every year. So I've been listening to these q and as and presentations for a long time, and where I'm going with this is there are certain themes that, that you pick up that are common that all business leaders, practice leaders, or most of them seem to believe in, and one of them that comes up over and over and over again.

When people ask leaders, what would you do different? They say, I should have fired. Faster. And they talk about how important it is to them as a leader to help somebody succeed and how hard it is to admit perhaps you chose the wrong person or whatever. But these are leaders we're hearing from, they're great leaders, and that's something that I hear over and over again that I think goes hand in [00:36:00] glove with your comment.

You have to choose the right people because it's hard to get rid of the wrong ones.

Col. Fred Reynolds: George Washington famously wrote, it's easier to prevent evil than to devise a remedy.

Scott Heidner: Next one.

Resources Not Micromanagement
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Scott Heidner: If you get the right person, you have to give them the resources to succeed.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes. So selecting the person is only part of it.

If you've done that wisely you. You are obligated as a leader to give that person all they need to be successful, whatever it is you're asking them to do. They need resources. They may need money, they may need time. They may, may need a facility, they may need to hire other people. And, and so they have to have the resources and the latitude to employ those.

The opposite of course would be to give someone a mission and then only give them what [00:37:00] they need when they squeal about it. And that's just micromanagement. So. If, if you really trust them and you know they're the right person, then you, you give them the responsibility and you give them the resources and the freedom to use those in the way they think best.

That may not always be exactly the way you're thinking, but if you've picked the right person and you really have faith in them, then you've, you've gotta let 'em go.

Cohesive Teams Win
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Scott Heidner: Well, the next one we've got on here, we are in this together. Once you have a team, you can do anything.

Col. Fred Reynolds: And that goes back to those combat experiences that with a cohesive team, not necessarily that everybody agrees about everything, but that the major things, duty, honor, country, accomplish submission, take care of my men, those agreements in the broad objectives.

When you're solid on that, [00:38:00] then. Everybody else in the team will take care of the details and the, the main leader doesn't have to spend the time and the energy on the details, form the team, make it strong, make it cohesive, and then let it run.

Cover Weaknesses Not Cheerlead
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Scott Heidner: This next one is one of my other favorites. You don't need cheerleaders.

You need people around you who can cover your weaknesses and your strength can cover theirs. That does mean you will see things differently. You have to listen to others and figure it out.

Col. Fred Reynolds: And this takes time. Also, it takes time to figure others out. I reflected on much of my military time. It was very common for the leaders of the military units, at, at least with the officers and, and with the NCOs to meet together socially.

I mean, we got to know their families and I got to understand the stresses that they have at home, the [00:39:00] responsibilities that they have. I get to see the whole person by spending time with them socially. It's very common in military units to have a, a lot of athletic events.

Most of the units I was in, we played softball or we played soccer or we, we played golf or weather's bad. We played pool. I mean, we spend time together enjoying activities. So we begin, begin to understand the person, not just their position at a, a committee meeting we have, but we get to understand the whole person.

That takes time, but that time is a time of collaboration where we form. Bonds and we form opinions about each other, about how, particularly, I mean, in combat particularly and in a business when you are under a time [00:40:00] of financial stress or stress caused by clients or the workforce that you can pull together and they're, they're different and we have to understand and appreciate the differences of the people we serve with.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. One of the, another editorial comment I mentioned, those senior leader round tables earlier, Fred, where we hear from industry folks at these leadership programs years and years and years ago when I was much younger, I listened to one of those leaders say something and I heard it with young ears as somebody that still had multiple bosses to go report to.

He said something to the effect of, my job as your boss is not to be your cheerleader. You know, my boss is to, or my role is to empower you, to help you grow, to, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things he said was, when you, I want you to come to me when you have problems, but the purpose of you [00:41:00] coming to me is not for me to cheer you on or or to whatever, whatever it's to, to help you work the problem.

And he said, when you have a monkey on your back, you can bring it to my office, but you cannot leave it on my desk.

Col. Fred Reynolds: You can't leave it there.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's not my job to be your cheerleader and to figure it out for you anyway.

Col. Fred Reynolds: I like that.

Scott Heidner: I did too. And I never forgot it. Uhhuh. He said, you've got that monkey on your back.

It's more than okay to come to my office, but I'm helping you manage the monkey. You don't get to leave it here. And, thought. Oh, okay. That's pretty good.

Col. Fred Reynolds: It's so cool that you've had these interactions in your pathway that you can recall and help guide you.

Scott Heidner: There are so many of them. We could fill a podcast and I feel so fortunate.

It is only because I have the opportunity to be the facilitator for that program that I've gotten exposure to. I mean, my gosh, it's the kind of education people would pay sizable money and fly across the country to get, and I get to [00:42:00] be exposed to it in the course of my career, it's, it's a. It is a blessing beyond, beyond what a gift, what it is.

That's nice. It's absolutely a gift.

Why Youre In The Seat
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Scott Heidner: Every, every minute of it is, okay, well, three more that I've got here we are where we are for a reason. And, you know, you had made, the comment could be that a partner dies. Sometimes you're thrust into leadership for other, somebody leaves your firm or maybe you got there through a deliberate process.

But either way, you are there for a reason.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Life in itself, living life brings people together and puts them in positions where they are capable and ready to move ahead. And so to be in a position and have something unexpected is.

That's why you're there. You're there so that you can face the unexpected. If there are difficult decisions to be made, [00:43:00] you are there because you are qualified to make those decisions. And even if it's unanticipated and it comes in a sad event, like the loss of a, a partner or someone important to the firm retires, you are there because you're ready to do the right thing.

It wasn't luck. It wasn't the role of the dice. You're there because that's where you're supposed to be.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Promotion Is Capability
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Scott Heidner: Promotion is not a reward. It's a recognition that a person has a capability to perform at a higher or different level than they are now.

It's an acknowledgement of future worth to the organization.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes. And so it's, it's easy if someone meets or exceeds all their numbers, they, they make all the nuts and everything and you gotta do something for 'em. Oh, give 'em some more money. I mean, that's fine. But a promotion is, is not a reward [00:44:00] for having an outstanding year.

A promotion is a conscious act of a leader to say, this person is ready to do something more. If I put them in this position, they will be able to bring this to our organization. And, and mostly that is translated in financial terms, but not always. And it could be that an organization needs a more healthy view of something organizationally.

Promoting the right person because they bring the right skills. It's that capability. And I, I didn't promote a lot of officers. I promoted officers from captain to lieutenant, lieutenant to major, major lieutenant colonel, and in almost all cases I made some remark at that promotion ceremony that that's why they're being [00:45:00] promoted because they've demonstrated the capability to operate well at that next higher level.

And that's, so there's a huge difference between a promotion and a reward.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Curse Of The Possible
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Scott Heidner: Well, let me ask you about the last one on the list. And I will say for the other 10, I felt like intuitively I had an idea where you were headed with them, but this one, I don't just simply call it. The curse of the possible.

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yeah. So sometimes, and I've been afflicted with it a couple times, sometimes a leader will have a vision that something is possible. This organization with the right resources and the right people, boy we can just go triple our margin for this year. Or I, I think boy, we could, we could do faster foundation designs and much cheaper and make more money if we did [00:46:00] our own drilling.

Let's just set up a drilling crew. Well, to further this example, engineers don't make good supervisors of drilling crews. Drilling crews are roughnecks and there's nothing analytical about them at all. So, so sometimes a leader can say, well, now we could do this, and boy, this would be great. Only when the organization is ready for it.

And if the leader moves faster than the organization can adjust or the organization can provide the resources or the subordinates can grow into it. The, the, the vision of the leader, as great as it is, and with all the wonderful promise it has, it may not be achievable. So I call it the curse of the possible.

[00:47:00] If I'm out running and I have these wonderful ideas about, boy, I can do this. Our firm can do this, that's fine. But I have to have a reality check of what are the steps to get there? How long will it take my organization to get there? 58 years? Well, that's probably not a good idea. Not for me.

Board of directors can pick it up or something, but how do we get there and what are the resources and is the team ready for that? So I call it the curse of the possible.

Scott Heidner: Yeah.

Col. Fred Reynolds: To think of great ends and great visions that the organization at this level is not quite ready to leap into,

Scott Heidner: even with the best of intentions, if you were misaligned to the opportunity, it rarely ends well.

Closing Thanks And Farewell
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Scott Heidner: Well, Fred, I am so grateful that you agreed to come [00:48:00] on and share your story. Listeners. Nothing you need to know about in detail, but we have speaking of a, a curse we have been living under a bad sign.

Fred and I, this is about our fourth attempt to get together

Col. Fred Reynolds: Yes.

Scott Heidner: And I certainly appreciate your patience and, and your commitment to coming on. It's been a blast to have you. It's a pleasure to know you and, and appreciate all that you've done for your country and appreciate your willingness to give back to the ACEC community sharing your story today.

Thank you so very much.

Col. Fred Reynolds: But Scott, none of this would be possible. When this was first introduced to me, I thought this was a bad idea. I didn't think I really had anything to tell to anybody else, but as I listened to you, there seemed to be some utility in my discussing some of these oddities that have happened to me.

And without your support, without Chad's. [00:49:00] Nudging and without your support and patience, this would've been too hard for me to do. I really appreciate deeply this opportunity you've given me. Thank you very much.

Scott Heidner: It's absolutely our pleasure, sir. It's been been a thrill to have you and listeners, thank you for tuning in.

I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I have. And stay tuned for the next episode of the QBS Express. [00:50:00]