Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Lieutenant General Reynold Hoover

I recently interviewed General Reynold Hoover on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview: 

Adam: Our guest today spent 35 years in the United States military, before retiring as a lieutenant general and the deputy commander in charge of the US Northern Command, the military command responsible for protecting the United States. General Reynold Hoover has worked at the White House, serving as assistant to the president of Homeland Security under President Bush, FEMA, as the chief of staff at the CIA and DIA, General Hoover, is a member of the President's national infrastructure Advisory Council is a senior fellow at the McCreary Institute at Auburn University, and is a senior mentor at the Army War College. General Hoover, thank you for joining us.

General Hoover: Hey, Adam. Thanks for having me.

Adam: One thing I left out of your bio, which is something you mentioned to me the last time we spoke, you had mentioned that you were once the Easter Bunny. How did a general windup as the official U.S. Easter Bunny?

General Hoover: Well, it was recently declassified so I can talk about it now. When I was in the White House, I had one of my members of my team who had been an Easter egg the year before and she came in and said she was going to do it again. And she said, “You need to be the Easter Bunny. You need to do it.” And I said, I'm not doing it unless I’m the man. I gotta be the Easter Bunny. Nothing was said and a couple of weeks went by and she came in the office one day and she said, “All right, you're it.” I said, “What do you mean?” “I meant,” she said, “You're the Easter Bunny and that's what you wanted.” So it's next thing I know I'm wearing an Easter Bunny costume on the South Lawn of the White House for the Easter Egg Roll, one of many I should say. You can only do it for about an hour and the suit’s a little smelly.

Adam: I can only imagine. How did you become a three star general in the army? What were the key moments, experiences, and characteristics that you believe were most responsible for your ascent?

General Hoover: You know, when I made one star General there was a general officer, my boss actually, told me, he said it's luck and timing from here on out. I think if when I was a cadet at West Point, he would have said you know, I was going to be a general officer. I, you know, I graduated. I tell people I graduated on the backside of the curve. So, you know, my GPA wasn't great, but, you know, I had a lot of great assignments and I had a great team of people around you. And I think, you know, as you raise through the ranks, one, you need to learn the value of diversity and, and including all ranks in your unit and what you're trying to accomplish and, and be a little bit of a people person to get people to want to be with you and be part of your team and be part of your effort. And, you know, it's worked for me through the years.

Adam: Was there anything in particular that you could really think of, in your experience as you were sort of climbing through ranks that stood out to you that you look back on and say this was a pivotal moment or experience that really helped you become ultimately such a successful leader in the US Army?

General Hoover: I, you know, I would go back actually to when I was a Second Lieutenant at Fort Hood, Texas. I was a military police officer there and General Palmer was the three core committee under there, and at the time, he had a theory called power down and basically gave the authority and responsibility to leaders at the lowest level to make decisions. And I think that was what set me on the course that that leaders make decisions and people may not necessarily agree with the decision but after you've taken everyone's input and you've made a decision, people will follow you, I believe, and I think that was kind of an early scene setter, if you will, for me, and then later on, I learned the importance of the NCO Corps and their value that they bring to the military, regardless of service, to get the mission done. And I came to rely on my, my first EOD, First Sergeant Jim Haney, he's, he pulled my butt out of the fire a few times and that's important in the EOD community. And then I think later on in life, Job, who was the FEMA director, I was his chief of staff brought me in. And, you know, he said to me, “You know, I want people to know that when you speak, you speak for me. And we make decisions around here.” And I took that to heart and he's been a great mentor ever since.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit more about the power of mentorship? You're a mentor now, at the Army War College, what makes a great mentor and what should people look for when they're trying to find a mentor or when they're mentoring others?

General Hoover: Yeah, Adam, that's a great question. I think a couple of thoughts on that. One is I think, what makes a good mentor is someone who has perhaps a story to tell and someone that is a good listener, and, and has good observation skills, and you have to be able to be paired up with someone who may not look like you. And in fact, those probably are the best mentors and are able to observe quietly and listen and provide kind of constructive feedback to those that you're mentoring. And so when you're a person who's looking for maybe a senior mentor, you want to look for somebody that can give you maybe an alternative view of where you want to be and what your goals might be. And I think that that's so important because too often we, you know, you get into a comfort zone with somebody who looks like you, who acts like you, thinks like you, and and I'm not sure that that is what it takes to stretch your imagination.

Adam: What along those lines, what are your best tips on how to push your comfort zone?

General Hoover: Well, one tip is to not always sit in the same seat. You know, it sounds kind of strange, but you know, you think about it when you go into a meeting. And it's a recurring meeting, maybe every week or every month or every other day, whatever it might be, and you always go in and you sit in the same seat and if you go in and out actually sit in a different seat. Every time you go into that meeting, you'll have a different perspective on what's being discussed, you'll see a different person sitting across from you or sitting next to you. And I, and I believe you'll think differently about the decisions that have to be made or the discussion that's that's under, you know, that's being taken up at that particular meeting, but take a different seat. It's a really interesting tip and one that I wish I knew when I was a student, they sat in the same seat every time when I was in business school. We do it all the time. I mean, it's just, we’re creatures of habit. And one way to get you out of it is to just take a different seat.

Adam: What are the most important skills that you think anyone should develop early on in their career, whether it's a career in business or in the military or some other form of public service?

General Hoover: Problem solving. And by that, I mean, you know, when I was a cadet at West Point, I did not do very well in math, but they forced me to take five semesters of mathematics starting with calculus and going through the ozone layer after that, and I'll spare you the very long story, but in math class in particular, we were required every day to get up and brief our math problems, the instructor would give you two problems, you'd set the board up in a certain way, you'd underline the problem in with a straightedge and a red chalk. And you'd label it and then this instructor would say, you know, okay, cease work, take your seats, and then he'd look around the room and he'd say, “Cadete Hoover? Why don't you get up and brief your first math problem?” And of course, I had no idea what I was doing. And I'd get up and I'd say, “I'm required to solve the problem using the given equation. And I did this, this and this and this. And are there any questions? I came up with this answer.” And inevitably there was a cadet in the room who would say, “yeah, I think you made a mistake and the third line of the fourth place,” and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna kick your butt after. Thanks for that. And it took me a long time to realize that last point wasn’t really teaching me calculus courses. They had a hard time trying to do that, and I helped them make it even harder. Right. But what they were teaching me and what they were forcing me to learn was a way to approach a problem. And too often I think leaders today aren't able to articulate what is the problem we're trying to solve. And what I learned from that cadet math class was, as long as if you have a problem, if you have a logical process of coming to a solution, that may not be the right one per math class. It wasn’t important that I was the right one, but it might get you close enough to get you started. And then you can course correct from there, and I think today that has proven so valuable to me over the years. Just if you see a problem, be able to define it and then have a logical approach to solve it. It'll get you started and get you close enough. And that's a skill I think that many folks have, perhaps, not developed. And it's key, I think, in your early days of trying to develop your own leadership style. I think that's tremendous advice. And sit in a different seat, literally and figuratively, as an entrepreneur. And I can tell you that one of the things that I look for in the people who I hire is that exact same characteristic; someone who can come in and figure things out. Not necessarily know what the answer is coming in, but have the creativity and the guile and the fortitude to just figure it out and not rely on whoever it is that he or she is reporting to, to give them the answer. We might not know what the answer is, and there might not be a right answer. So it's kind of on you to figure it out.. And that leads me I think, to my second, I guess, point, and that would be, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. And too often, you know, people get hung up on going into a meeting and thinking that as the leader has gotta be the smartest one in the room, and you don't have to be the smartest, you know, again, you have to just be able to define the problem, and then rely on your staff and rely on your team to help you collectively, you know, kind of come to a decision or come to a point in the project that, you know, requires some movement left, right or center. And so I guess the second point is, you don't have to be the smartest guy, guy or gal in the room. My third point is going to be- my staff used to kid me that I used to say, you know, when they come in with a problem, or they've come in with a an issue that we needed to talk about, or something in the interagency that needed to be done, and I'd say. “Hold on, I think I got a guy,” or “I think I got it,” And I would get up from the desk from the conference table, and I would go over to my desk and I read through my stuff, and I'd pull out a business card and I'd say, “Let's call this person, and we'll get it taken care of.” They at first weren't sure what to make of all of that. And then they realized, the moral of the story was, it's all about relationships. And you always gotta have a guy or a gal that you can count on, or you can call, to help you solve your problem, to help provide some service that you might need to give you some resources that you might need. And so it's important to have that Rolodex of people that you can count on as you go through your career. And so you know, building up those business cards is going to be key. I told some new general officers that story and somebody asked me, he said, “Do you really have a Rolodex?” I said, “I still do have a card file,” and then the guy gave me his card; his business card. He's in Korea. Now he's a general in Korea. He gave me his business card. He said, “Sir, because you have a Rolodex, I want you to have my, you know, my card in your Rolodex.” And so I took a picture of it in the Rolodex semitones. Anyway, so those are my three, I guess, my three points for people that are, you know, developing their own leadership skills, it's logical problem solving. It is always having a guy or a gal that you can that you can call. It's all about relationships. And the third is don't try to be the smartest person in the room. All great tips.

Adam: Yeah, I could not agree with you more. What are the key characteristics of an effective leader?

General Hoover: Well, I'll give you three because in general officer school, they tell you we're always supposed to have three things. And so I think the first is sincerity and character. That is so important, you know? People need to trust you and they need to understand that when you speak, you're speaking on, you know, the best intentions of the organization. And so I think character and sincerity kind of go hand in hand with character. Character, trust, and honesty; kind of all of those things. And sometimes we, in this day and age, we seem to have lost sight, just the importance of character. And I think that's really crucial.

Adam: Before you go on to the second two points, can you elaborate from your perspective as to why character is so important?

General Hoover: Because with character goes your reputation. And, you know, if you treat people with respect, you're going to get respect back. If you give people your loyalty, you're going to get loyalty back. If you give people sincerity and genuine caring about them, then you're going to get that back. It's going to be reflected back to you if you fail in those places. And you know, I think of a three legged stool almost; it's just not going to stand. You know, your hall file is going to go with you, as you progress in the ranks, especially, you know, in an organization that gets thinner and thinner and thinner as you get to the top. And that just because that is so, so important. And you develop that over time and it's such a challenge now. When I was coming up in the ranks when, you know, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have cell phones, you know, and now, you know, with social media that's like a tattoo. You know, that's a tattoo that's gonna follow you forever. And it's going to be out there archived somewhere. And all of those things become important.

Adam: Well said.

General Hoover: So, I guess my other thoughts on that. To be successful. Obviously, one is character. We talked a little earlier about competence. Competence doesn't mean you're the smartest person in the room, but you're competent in your abilities. And when you're competent, then people will look to you to help lead the effort. And so I think that's kind of another important area for leaders as they go. And then the last one is having humility and realizing that, you know, our time is fleeting. As a leader, you know, one day you may be the CEO of a company, or you might be a three or four star general officer or a one star general officer, or a flag officer and, you know, the next day, you know, you might find yourself, you know, sleeping on the floor of the airport, waiting because you missed your flight. Or you might find yourself, you know, needing a ride from the Uber guy when you used to have a driver all the time. And so, you can't take yourself too seriously. And that goes to my Easter Bunny story, you know? You gotta be able to laugh at yourself, and realize that, you know, it's all the people around you that help make you the success that you are and just because you're a CEO, or an entrepreneur, or general or a flag officer, you know, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden, you know, you got to be better looking with age or your jokes got funnier, because they don't and you have to realize that and I think that the humility piece and being humble about the position and the power and the authority and the responsibility that you carry comes with a lot of extra baggage that you have to manage and manage effectively. And that might be through your faith- whatever that might be. If you go to church or whatever it is that how, whatever faith that you have, or you carry with you. It has to do with wellness and taking care of yourself and taking care of your family. Because I tell general officers, at the end of the day when they play ruffles and flourishes for you for the very last time, you got to go home, and you got to go home to your family and you got to take care of them along the way.

Adam: How can anyone become a better leader?

General Hoover: Through constant learning, I think. You know, you should never stop learning. I keep a leader journal, a little leader notebook. To this day I keep a leader notebook and I have a son who is in ROTC out in Colorado College, and he's in his second year and had a bad day out on an exercise and I said, you know, “Do you keep a little leadership journal?” He said, “No, what's that?” And I said, you know, “It's just a little book. In it, you write down some observations of things that went well, things that didn't go too well and observations that you noted, not only of yourself, but of others that were good or bad, and keep that as a reference for you as you go through life.” And so I think through constant learning, and keeping a leader journal, I think it makes you a better leader.

Adam: A lot of us feel that we have high pressure jobs. Your last job in the military was literally to protect the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, and the surrounding air, land and sea. What are your best tips on how to manage pressure and excel under pressure?

General Hoover: Yeah. So at Northcom and NORAD, we also had the responsibility for the Ballistic Missile Defense program. So the the ground based interceptors that we would launch or you know, the United States would launch in the event of a North Korean missile attack and that mission alone was, I think, the single biggest mission that General Robinson and I shared and it would keep you up at night. That and we also had what was called civilian aircraft engagement authority. Which was post 9/11 where we had the authority to authorize the engagement of a civil civilian aircraft and shoot it down in the event we were under attack and that was another incredibly stressful responsibility. And I think the advice I would give when you're in one of those high pressure positions or have that type of responsibility is wellness. And that is, I go back to taking care of yourself emotionally and physically. And you have to find a way that you can kind of put it away for a time and take care of yourself and take care of your family and take care of the folks who are around you. I have a classmate of mine, General John Rossi, who was not only a classmate of mine, but he was in my company growing up at West Point. So I've known him since he was 19 years old. On the day before John was going to be promoted to Lieutenant General, he committed suicide. And that caused all of us to take a pause and take a knee and say, wait a minute. You know if it can happen to John, it can happen to any of us and so I would just say that if you're in a position where you are working, you know, you feel like you're working 20 hour days or 18 hour days, and you're always on your BlackBerry or updating yourself, you're always on your smartphone. You know, you got to take a step back and take a breath and say, hold on a second. And especially as you get to be a senior leader, where you have a staff who's kind of looking out for you, if you're sending them emails at 9, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night, because you just feel like you got to do, they're going to be up for another three, four hours trying to answer the mail. And so there is a trickle down effect that we all experience and we have to be aware of. So I would just say that you got to manage stress through

wellness, and time management and realize that your actions impact the quality of life and the work life balance of those around you who work with you and for you. And so you need to take care of that. So, that's kind of a very long answer to how do you deal in a stressful environment like that.

Adam: No, but it's a very, very valuable advice on the topic of pressure. You mentioned that earlier in your career, you were stationed at Fort Hood. In 2009, you had just been promoted to Brigadier General and you were in Fort Hood, preparing your unit to deploy to Afghanistan. Can you talk about what happened and the impact that it ultimately had on you as a leader?

General Hoover: Wow. So it was November of 2009. We were at Fort Hood. We'd been there, maybe a week getting ready to deploy. I was the Commander of the Joint Sustainment Command and I was going in to be the commander of the Joint Sustainment Command- so all of the logistics in Afghanistan, and that morning in the reception building, we had actually had gone to that building that morning for something and left. I was with my team and we were moving on to somewhere else. And I had a major who called actually was calling in a spot report. He was taking fire inside the reception staging building in Fort Hood. And so that was when the shooting happened. And he was actually in the cubicle where Mr. Cahill, who was the civilian who was killed, was under fire and had the presence of mind to, to call in a spot report of taking fire. I had another major who was in the building, who was shot in the arm and in the leg, and I had a E6 who was in the building, and she managed, actually, to run and get out of the building. It was an incredible chaotic day. But for me, I think at the end of that day, I brought the unit together and we had about 300 folks in the unit. As the unit actually, led by the chaplain, prayed for our soldier who was wounded pretty badly in the arm and leg. The other two escaped injury. But they not only prayed for them, but prayed for me. And Adam, I gotta tell you, when you have people that are praying for you, and praying for your safety, and praying that you will bring them back from Afghanistan, and bring them through this particular ordeal, that's pretty humbling, and has made a lasting impact on my life.

Adam: Can you talk a little bit more about what leaders should understand about the experience of the military and the army? What it means to serve and what those of us who are not in the military can apply to our lives, from the experience that those who do serve, are doing?

General Hoover: Everyone has, I think, a different reason for serving, and everyone has a different experience of what their service has meant to them through the years. But I think the one thing that those those who have not served and may be running a business and thinking about, you know, hiring veterans- realize that that when you hire a veteran, whether they're, you know, have fully retired from the service or the, you know, they enlisted and they served maybe four or five years and got out or got out at some point in time in their career, you're hiring a person that understands the importance of the mission that understands the importance of teamwork, that understands the importance of loyalty and dedication to the organization and to the team, and certainly has a personal commitment to the success of the organization. And, you know, I would say that you're hiring a person who comes in, who understands what it means to sacrifice. The Veterans today, you know, have done two, maybe three deployments in the course of their career. They have served overseas and gone overseas and they have served and sacrificed and I think that changes a person and changes them for the better because they are stronger. They understand what adversity is all about. And if they're working in an organization where, you know, there's a kind of high pressure to perform, these people are going to rise to the top.

Adam: What are your best tips on how to build a winning organizational culture?

General Hoover: First is teamwork. And I think, you know, as a leader of any organization, you need to understand your team and empower them to be a part of the solution. And I think that goes a long, long way. As I had mentioned earlier, you know, the leader who's trying to bring a successful team together has to realize that they are not necessarily the smartest person in the room, and that everybody has a contribution to make. And then you need to respect those people. And as I said before, when you respect them, that reflects back to you. When you empower them that reflects back to you. When you give them authority to make decisions, and not be afraid to fail and you're going to help them up through that failure, that reflects back on you as well. And I think all of those things contribute to a really highly successful team.

Adam: Every leader tries to rally the troops. You spent over three decades actually rallying troops. How did you motivate the soldiers under command? And what advice do you have for leaders on how to motivate

General Hoover: You know, I've always thought back to the story of the Civil War, of the Revolutionary War, and those early battles and what it took for captains and colonels and generals, to motivate these troopers, to say, “No boys, we're gonna walk to Gettysburg,” and they had no idea where Gettysburg was. Or, “We're going to walk down to them or we're going to walk to you name-the-battlefield, right? And when we get there, we're going to line up in a line, and we're going to shoot at each other from 50 feet away.” How do you motivate people to do that? And is is astounding to me and so, what I've done through the years does not motivate people to walk to Gettysburg or and teach them but what I've done is I've not been afraid to pick up a broom from, you know, my days is from a Second Lieutenant all the way up to being a General Officer, to pick up a broom, to be a part of the team to be yourself. When you're yourself, people see that, yes, you're a general officer or yes, you're a leader, but you know what? You're just a common person just like they are and when times are tough, you're the person that they'll look to because, you know, they respect you. And you respect that. And I think that's how you motivate folks is not through fear, not through intimidation, I was never a yeller or a screamer, but really through kindness and knowing that they have a piece to contribute to the overall effort. But when a decision needed to be made, or an action needed to be taken, they knew that you would make that decision, and you would lead them through it.

Adam: General Hoover, thank you for joining us.

General Hoover: Adam, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I applaud the efforts you're doing with these thirty minute mentor podcasts because leadership is an area that I think we could use a little bit more of these days.

Adam: I'm grateful for your perspective and the tremendous advice you shared.