Carey Lohrenz - Span of Control
Introduction:
Welcome to Beyond Speaking with Brian Lord, a podcast featuring deeper conversations with the world's top speakers.
Brian Lord:
Hi, I'm Brian Lord, president of Premiere Speakers Bureau and your host. Our guest today is a Wall Street Journal bestseller of Fearless Leadership. She's the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy, her speech and book just coming out now is Span of Control.
Carey Lohrenz:
Brian. I'm so excited to be here today. Thanks for having me.
Brian Lord:
Well, thank you for coming on. So our first question, obviously, you know, there's a lot of different meetings for this. What to you is the span of control?
Carey Lohrenz:
Your span of control is, is really being intentional on what it is that you should be focusing on and understanding that at the end of the day, everything else is just a distraction. So what I've been able to do is through, you know, years of, of flying fighters and for the last 15 years or so, I've been working with Fortune one, Fortune 500 companies doing leadership development, strategic planning, all of that good stuff is figuring out how can you take that and put it into a framework that's really actionable. And that also helps leaders and managers clarify the complex because we're living in such a time of overwhelming chaos. I think right now, uncertainty and people are really getting overwhelmed and we're, we're getting our attention pulled in a thousand different directions. And at the end of the day, no matter how much tenure you have, how much experience you have in your industry, when you, when your focus gets pulled in a thousand different directions when you dilute your focus, you dilute your power and then it doesn't matter how good your strategic plan is or how talented your team is. You, you are going to end up struggling when you start getting pushed to that limit, push the wall. So span of control, I think, is going to be super helpful, hopefully for people to try to figure out how do you, how do you find the opportunity in the chaos and uncertainty because it's 100% possible.
Brian Lord:
So when did, span of control really, turn into something that was meaningful in your life?
Carey Lohrenz:
It's actually been a mantra of mine for years, and that ability of trying to figure out, you know, how do you identify the most important things? How do you formulate a flight plan for success, if you will, and then how do you let anybody else know what's possible? And it's something that I started leveraging even early on years ago when I had four kids under seven and, ran into a bit of a health, a health scare, if you will, but then most certainly in the work that I've done in the corporate space and in the business fear is that it's become not just a mantra, not just a framework, but it has allowed me and others that I've worked with to establish a really good foundation for extraordinarily effective communication and decision-making and even risk managing. So, it was about three years ago that, I was going through a time. My mom was really, quite ill and it happened very fast that I got my first tattoo that my daughter designed and I was terrified she was not going to approve of it because she was not a big fan of tattoos. And I showed up with it and she saw it and I told her what it was. And it's just the initials SOC for span of control, to remind me in those darkest times and amidst cast to just, just make sure you focus on the most important things and try to let everything else go. And, thankfully enough, she had liked it. She approved. So I just dodged a scary one on that one.
Brian Lord:
Oh yeah. So with this, why do you think it is so important? I mean, I think it's always been important to figure out what you can control, what you can't control. Why do you think it's so important right now?
Carey Lohrenz:
Well, you know, I think I can reflect back from my time even flying fighters. And, you know, you are not going to find a carrier based fighter pilot, somebody who has landed on and off of aircraft carriers that has not had their night in the barrel has not had a time where they've become just wrapped and drenched in sweat, where they have a pit in their stomach. And they wonder if tonight's going to be the night. They're not going to make it, but all of us fighter pilots included, high-profile performers included have to figure out if we want to be successful. We, we have to figure out in the moment again, in times of uncertainty in times of overwhelm, how can we actually focus on that most important work? How do we identify that? How do we overcome task saturation? And these are actually learned skills. It's not something that somebody else is just more blessed with the capability. It certainly, I know in the military and from where I came from, there were probably millions of hours of research of study of training, so that when you're in those times of overwhelm, when you're struggling to find that path forward, that you're able to do that successfully, that not only you can get to the other side, but as importantly, you're able to bring people with you. So I know certainly you've probably been working with clients in the last 14 months that might even be at the point of breaking that they don't know how to keep going forward when we are in a really uncertain time. So if there's, if there's a way, if there's a tool set, if there are some, some tips or techniques I can share that can help people get through that to achieve what they want to do and what's possible for them, then boy, I'm super excited to do that. I mean, I was lucky, right? I kind of, I was able to crack the code as well as fumble on the other side of it again, when I had four kids under seven and was trying to run a business and pushed myself past my own physical limit, that I figured out how, what that path forward and, and out of that was going to be. So I was, I was grateful for that lesson learned would want to be there again, but hopefully people will find that helpful.
Brian Lord:
Yeah. One thing I do like that you've talked about is that you, even once you master it in one area, you know, from being a fighter pilot, then you need to figure it out as a mom, as a business owner, as a writer, as a different thing. What, how has your, how has your viewpoint of a span of control changed as you've gone through these sort of different iterations of using it?
Carey Lohrenz:
That's a great question because I can tell you that certainly it's always easy to reflect upon your experiences and your coulda woulda shoulda's, but I can, I can say with 100% certainty that in those periods where I fumbled or in those periods where I've watched other people struggle and struggle to navigate what is because they become too anchored in what could have been that I can, I can very easily pinpoint where there was a breakdown if you will. and what if there was one thing you could have leveraged that could have made a difference that the roadmap is there? So it's, it's through, you know, almost 30 years of experience actually, of studying the mechanics of success and failure and deep diving into the research and even brain science that this whole idea of span of control isn't just butterflies and unicorns and this is going to be a sparkly, little glittery saying it's, it's based on the efficacy of it is actually based on lots of different bodies of research, some of my own as well. And it's proven to actually, help people be successful to navigate that. So that's the piece of it. And as you do, I know I work with lots of different people, you know, you have, you've got the creatives, you've got the engineers, the people who need the data, they need the science behind it, or they're like, "Yeah, I don't know. That's now sounds a little fluffy to me here. Here comes the motivational speaker." So I think being able to straddle both of those worlds of, of experience and that relevancy backed with research and science is, is a bit of a win-win.
Brian Lord:
One of the things you talk about too, is, is the danger of autopilot, especially when it comes to task, saturation, burnout, those sorts of things. Can you expound upon that a little bit more?
Carey Lohrenz:
Yeah. The hard part about that. So, so many of us are probably super familiar with when we're under stress or duress, the fight or flight syndrome, right? Like we're either- or the freeze. So we're either gonna go all in and attack whatever's scaring us, we freeze like a statue, or we simply run away all of which, by the way, there should be zero shame around any of those very, very human responses because your body's doing everything it can to protect you. However, the one thing that, that a lot of us have gotten, dragged into a little bit, if you will, certainly I think over, over the last 10 years, not in the last 14 months, but in the last 10 years that we've become very comfortable and almost complacent with, we know how things are going to go. We just start becoming very automated, in our responses instead of being thoughtful or attentional and, and the danger in, in doing the autopilot response, it can 100% be okay for a limited period of time, because it can save you no different than flying an airplane. Right? It's first thing. If, if anybody's hand flying in airplane and they have autopilot available and there's an emergency, you generally put it on because you want to do all the brain thinking work and let that airplane take care of itself. However, the danger in that is if you let that go on too long, then you do fall into either a complacency trap or even what's happened, you know, for a lot of people during the earlier parts of the pandemic, for sure. Slides into a numbing situation that we don't even really pick up on. And whether that's over-baking, over-Netflixing over Hulu-ing, over-languishing, that then to move through that space effectively can become very challenging.
Brian Lord:
Yeah. And we watched all the MCU movies, like one, one through 23 or whatever it was during that time. So we had a little bit of autopilot too. So I know, I know a lot of people can identify with that, but one way that you talk about getting out of that is through purpose. How do you find or identify your purpose?
Carey Lohrenz:
So that's one of the things that I think is, you know, it can be challenging for people when, especially when you hear a lot of, how do I say this motivational, means or Instagram or that sparkly advice that just can say, you know, what, if you, if you find your purpose, you're never going to work a day in your life. And you know, I, I'm going to push back on that a little bit because I'm not so sure that I agree with that. if you're going to try to achieve anything worthwhile or, or anything that's above average or extraordinary, or even just simply showing up means you're not always going to love everything that you do. But I think when it comes down to fighting for your purpose, it's really understanding from a leadership perspective. If, if you're looking at your strategy or what's our corporate perspective, you know, we, we want to make sure that we're still working alignment with that from an individual perspective, fighting for your purpose is also going to include there going to be times that you are going to have to be flexible. You are definitely going to have to try to tamp down some of the bias that you might bring to conversations or situations. So we're really going to want to work on focusing on facts over fear, which means we are going to have to stay curious. We're going to have to stay engaged and maybe not quite as reflexive. And then also from again, from a leadership perspective, whether you're leading just yourself, your team of maybe five, 5,000, whatever the case may be, it's, it's having the ability to set your ego aside and face your failures head-on. When you're able to do that, what happens is that those are all very proactive and meaningful ways to keep taking action and to keep moving forward in a directive manner. And again, back to the science piece of it, what we know to be true is that mood follows action. 100%, you're a runner, you're a triathlete. You know, the sister, not always, maybe on the bad days, you were like, eh, not in a good mood. That was a tough run, but, balance right. Mood follows action. And 100% of the time action will conquer fear. So it's, it's understanding taking a second to go, okay, what, what am I here for asking some of those questions? And then just, just taking that one step, continuing that forward momentum. I always like to share with people, you know, you don't have to have it all figured out to take that first step. As long as you have some good processes and simple processes in place to learn and learn quicker than maybe your competition maybe learn quicker than the ever-changing marketplace, then you can start taking action because you know, you are going to learn and you're going to be able to incorporate those lessons learned really, really quickly into the next day, the next cycle, et cetera. So it's, it's understanding that, you know, this is hard work. It's not a glittery, glittery, Instagram meme, just, you know, oh yeah. For your joy, hashtag blessed. But yeah, it's also understanding, and, and I, oh boy, my poor kids, the number of times that I've had to even remind them. And one of the things that I want anchored as, as well as, as just being good people and in the depths of their soul is, just to remember that, although, you know, a negative, great attitude doesn't guarantee your success, a negative attitude kills your ability to adapt. So if whoever's listening or watching right now might find themselves drifting a little bit. I don't know why it just graduated a year ago. I don't know. I can't even get a job or, or I'm new, or I was laid off or I want to get back into the event space, whatever the case may be, that it's, it's hard work, right? And you don't have to have it all figured out, but just do one step, do something proactive and, and you will start developing that momentum. You'll start spinning that flywheel and you'll figure it out.
Brian Lord:
What's your action step when you're in a bad mood?
Carey Lohrenz:
Oh, for me, I am with about 99.9% success rate. If I get a workout in, I either can feel like I can solve any problem, or I, at least I'm better than when I didn't do it. And I will, I will share with you on the really hard days, the relay down days, the days that, you know, maybe you spend 10 hours trying to help clients shuttles troubleshoot and work to a next step or a next level, or even, I mean, I would probably like a lot of kids, people on the, on the call right now. I had four kids, all of a sudden at home doing virtual school on Zoom, fighting for bandwidth fighting for how do I log into Google Meets all of those things that a rule that I've had. I don't even know when I started it, but at least 20 years ago, at least. Cause I can remember thinking about it at one time when I was running, I have a 12 minute rule, which is a little different than Mel Robbins' five second rule by the math is hard, but by a lot of seconds, my 12 minute rule is that on any given day, I need to try to work out for at least 12 minutes. And why, for me that works is that usually the majority of the time, even on the days that it, it might be 10 o'clock at night and I'm hopping on my bike. Once I get to the 12 minute mark, I'm like, I'm here. I might as well go to 45 and it works. But on the rare occasion where I am so beyond exhausted and I get to 12 minutes and 15 seconds and I'm like, Nope, not today, then at least I got 12 minutes in. Right. So it doesn't set up. It doesn't break that habit chain of, well, I didn't work out yesterday. Oh, it didn't work out again two days ago. Oh, it didn't work out this week. But for me again, it's, it's that mood follows action. It's the difference that helps your brain, the physiology, it all threads together. It's it's not about trying to hit some unattainable dress size or anything like that. It's all about keeping, keeping my head on straight.
Brian Lord:
One thing I really liked that you talked about is focusing on the good, because so many things keep coming at you. What are your tips for helping people get better at focusing on the good,
Carey Lohrenz:
Well, you know what, so that, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the things that I think is critical and right now for so many people to hear and understand, and when you think about the last 14 months specifically, it will help things make sense. Is that how our brains are wired? All of our brains were wired to grab onto any negative information that we hear. And what's so important for everybody to understand right now, again, this is science- is that when people are overwhelmed, when they're stressed, when maybe they don't feel like they have physical safety, psychological safety, job security, when we're overwhelmed with stress, we do not hear 80% of what is being shared with us. So what happens then is that as a leaders, as teammates, as parents, right? Or partners, we might feel like good grief. I have said this 10 times, how can you not hear me? Well, whoever, whoever is on, think about your situation. You've got young kids. You're like, "How many times do I have to tell you 'no.'" And you're like, well, okay. Maybe with the little kids they're super distracted, but for the rest of us, those of us who are over the age of four and a half when we're really overwhelmed, our brains are literally in self-protect mode. So we're not hearing when we're stressed 80% of what is being shared with us. So that should then open that space of grace for all of us that instead of operating from a place of frustration or becoming just, you know, just barking orders and not even communicating really clearly or effectively understand that if we want to be tilting toward the good, if we want to have our teams really be collaborative and supportive of each other, if they are stressed, operate and communicate from a perspective of, okay, whatever I'm putting out there, I need to put it through the filter of, they might not hear 80% of what I'm saying. So then how do I change the tone? How do I change? Maybe the modality that I'm delivering that information and maybe even, how do I need to be a little more patient so that how I show up is supporting my team and is not leading them to come super burned out or worse yet, or not worse yet, or also, really disengaged, which is, is a big danger right now.
Brian Lord:
How do you, how did you find the tenacity and resilience, to keep going when things were, were not when things were going well and then when they were not going well.
Carey Lohrenz:
Right. So I think that oftentimes people think that, other people are just born more tenacious or, you know, that person is lucky. They're, they're more gifted, they're more resourced. They're more whatever the case may be. But I think that when it comes to either leading yourself or even leading your team, you always have to be mindful of the fact that how you show up matters and you are going to have to lead by example. And cognizant of the fact that building your tenacity, that is tenacity is like a muscle. If you are opting out or holding back more often than you're going, you know what? I trust my team. I trust myself, we have the processes in place. We're debriefing, we're learning, we'll figure it out. Then when you run into those bumps and you run into those barriers, you will tap out because it feels overwhelming. It feels not doable. And that path forward suddenly gets super cloudy.
Brian Lord:
One thing I really love that you talk about is history being the best way to stay grounded during times of stress. Where did you get that and how do you apply it?
Carey Lohrenz:
Well, I think I'm pretty fortunate in that I am keenly aware of the fact that again, I grew up, just outside of Green Bay and when I was very young, my dad had been, well, my dad was a Marine Corps aviator and then flew commercially, but I was about 11 years old and he brought me down to my, myself and my brother down to the Oshkosh Air Show, which is the Experimental Aircraft Association. And it's one of the biggest air shows in the world. I think it's second to the one in Paris. And it was then that I met one of the very original female, military pilots, a WASP. And I heard her story and I thought, well, that's really cool, but it went years after that, that, you know, this is obviously I'm old enough before the internet. So all you have is your resource or your, your knowledge book is, is your encyclopedia Britannica. And there wasn't anything about the WASPs in there. And I never saw any women that were flying. And what I didn't understand was that eventually their story would end up coming full circle. And that 100% of my experience was based on me standing on the shoulders of their experience. And they, for those that aren't familiar, who are listening with the WASP's story, there were some of the first women, military aviators who flew several million flight hours during the World War II effort. And when we won that war and we wrapped things up, the demand had been so great for more pilots and we didn't have enough male pilots at that's why they brought the women into the fold. But when we won that, when we won World War II, all of the women were told, essentially, go home, put your, put your uniforms away. Don't speak of your experience, go back home and be good moms, good wives, good sisters, no need to ever mention this again. And for a lot of those women, it was extraordinarily damaging because everything that they did was in service of supporting that effort and in service of our country. And all of a sudden in the fell swoop of a pen, their identity, their, their belief of what they thought they were contributing evaporated. And it wasn't until another 25, 30 years went by that a small contingent of those women who thought they were going to be deemed military veterans who thought that they were going to have those benefits of healthcare, a GI bill, even respect circled back. And they were like, you know what, essentially, we're not okay with this. We flew several million flight hours. They flew every single airplane in the inventory. They were shot at. There were, they had, they used to do live gunnery training where people would roll in and actually shoot at the target with real ammunition. And, they were like, 'We're not asking for anything above and beyond. We're just asking for recognition of the contribution that we made to this very successful global effort." And it took multiple, multiple trips to see senators, to see Congress people, to advocate on their behalf and, and in doing so, they were so careful with, you know, how are we going to phrase this? We don't want to offend anybody because people said, we're too ambitious. Now, again, Brian, this 30 years later. So these are women who are right there now, 50, 51, 52 going, "How did you forget about us for 30 years? Nobody's talked about us." So they've navigated that system through the seventies, through the eighties, through the nineties. And it wasn't until 2009 that they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. And there were so many women that during, during the late seventies, they ended up standing up the women, military aviators association. And I know this is a really long story and I apologize.
Brian Lord:
I was intentionally hoping you would tell it.
Carey Lohrenz:
I don't have a soundbite for this one. No good at that. No good at soundbites. But they stood up for what was called the Women Military Aviators Association, and they stood it up so that they could help empower and inspire the women who followed them at the same time. They were simply fighting to be recognized by our country so that the duality in that of what it takes to continue to be on this selfless path, trying to shepherd or mentor or help other women who also want to fly, who are being told "no" is, is quite astounding because they were still being told no 30, 40 years later. And again, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be until just about, I guess- math is hard- about eight years ago now, again, full circle moment that I became the president of the Women Military Aviators Association, as a way for me to understand, or, or to be able to give back, right. I was on the board. I was director and then I ended up being the president of it. So it's, it's understanding that journey that you don't have to throw it all the way back to, you know, the Stoics, if you will, you can, you can simply go back a couple of decades and look at the, the WASPs, the, the first military women, female aviators, and look at what they went through from sabotage to being discredited, to having to meet a bar 500 times higher than even some of the men who are trying to fly and just look at it and go now, "You know what? I think I'll give her a go." Because if they can do that and it, and it made them being able to step into the breach, them being able to work through the very dangerous situations of sabotage, of being told that they weren't enough in that effort and, and, you know, 1943, 44, that was the linchpin. That was the thing that allowed us to, to win world war II. And I think that's pretty spectacular.
Beyond Speaking is hosted by Brian Lord and produced by Eric Woodie