What can business leaders learn from the Red Arrows?

Juliet: Hello and welcome to Achieving More Together, the podcast where we explore how to build and sustain high-performing teams in today's corporate world. I'm Juliet Mann, and each month we will dive into the habits, the challenges and the breakthroughs that shape team success. We'll speak to leaders and experts in a variety of industries. In this episode, I spoke to retired Air Vice-Marshal Gary Waterfall to talk about what the corporate world can learn from the armed forces.

Juliet: He served as a Harrier pilot, a Red Arrow, and he also oversaw air security at the London 2012 Olympic Games. You know, military teams are under a lot of pressure, high pressure. It's high stakes and they operate with discipline, clarity and trust. So what happens when you transfer that kind of mindset into the world of business? Those kinds of skills into the world of business.

Juliet: And what can leadership learn from the military world in terms of resilience and that leadership style that really generates military success? Let's find out.

Juliet: Gary, thanks for coming. Great to see you. I want to start by asking you what the phrase high performance really means to you in practice.

Gary: Yeah. So high performance, high-performance teams. You know, I'm really fortunate from my background. I was in the Red Arrows. And that really, to me, is the epitome of high performance. Because you've got everybody. It doesn't matter whether you're somebody who's doing the supply of kit, whether you're looking after the people or whether you're an engineer or whether you're a pilot, you're all of that same aim, goal of excellence, and you're all working together in unison to deliver that formula.

Gary: Formula One is another great example of that as well.

Juliet: I think you mentioned the Red Arrows. You've had a glittering career, but I'd like to rewind a little bit and find out a little bit about who Gary is. So who did you admire most growing up?

Gary: So my father was in the Air Force. He was an engineer in the Air Force, and we followed the flag, as it were, and travelled around to a lot of different bases. And wherever he went, because he was an aircraft engineer, we would all see aircraft flying. Even today, if I see an aircraft flying, I have to look up.

Gary: And I was absolutely inspired by aviators, by pilots, by my Second World War heroes. I'd watch Second World War movies. And just the very thought of being able to fly an aircraft, I just thought, that's a dream of mine. And one day I'd really like to follow it.

Juliet: And was there a particular moment, you think, when you thought, well, that's the career for me. That's what I'm going to do. The RAF is my destiny.

Gary: Yeah. So my father, he was an engineer and he probably resisted my attempts to become a pilot in the Air Force, because they were probably viewed by him as lesser mortals. And he probably wanted me to go to university and get a degree. For me, when I went through school, I joined the Combined Cadet Force, so the school version of the Air Training Corps. It was at that stage I realised that that was what I wanted.

Gary: I wanted to have a career in the Air Force, and I paid a lot of attention to that, probably more than my studies, in terms of the Combined Cadet Force. I learned how to glide. I learned how to fly. I had a pilot's licence at age 17, and then I left school at age 18 and walked straight into the Air Force from there.

Juliet: It's interesting you say that your father wasn't necessarily behind it, if he was an airman himself and he was your childhood hero.

Gary: Of course, so he was. But he wanted me to have a broader outlook. He wanted me to sample the world, go to university, make sure I've got good educational credentials, and I'd advise everyone to do that. But maybe then, and only then, choose wisely about being in the Air Force. So he was also aware of some of the perils attached to it.

Gary: Becoming a pilot in the Air Force isn't risk-free, both personally, but also actually getting to the end of it and flying that aircraft type. There are many, many hurdles to overcome, and it's not without risk of failure. So I guess he was protecting me as well as just encouraging me to be broad in my outlook.

Juliet: So how did you feel that first day in uniform? Do you remember?

Gary: Yeah, I do. I remember my first day in uniform at the station, sort of, you know, declaring the oath to Her Majesty the Queen. And I can still remember to this day thinking, this is a really big deal. It wasn't an error I made. I joined the Air Force, as I said, straight from school at age 18.

Gary: Many of the others had joined from university. So I was, as we know, the difference in age between 18 and 21, 22 is vast in terms of life experience and everything. And it was a real sense of trepidation and fear that I stepped into. I remember my first day going flying in a jet aircraft, sat next to the instructor. As the canopy closed above me, I thought, this is it. This is it. This is now reality. And it was such an incredible feeling. I've still got it to this day.

Juliet: You mentioned knowing your limits. So looking back, what qualities do you think were the ones that helped you succeed, and were they instinctive or learned on the job?

Gary: To be in the Air Force, to be a pilot in the Air Force, I think you have to have some natural aptitude. I mean, I'm rubbish at golf, but it doesn't matter what I do, how much money I pour at the problem. I'm rubbish at golf. I just haven't got that sort of coordination. But I have the aptitude for an aeroplane.

Gary: And the natural aptitude, and the service are very good at testing your natural ability in coordination and being able to sense and see a variety of information, complex information, and assimilate it. You can train some of that, but I think a lot of that is natural. What you can do, though, is train people to cope better with pressure, to learn on the job, and really to work out better methodologies within yourself for coping under those extreme conditions.

Juliet: It's sounding a little bit like you're saying, stay in your lane. Like you're saying, I can't do golf, but I can fly a plane. On the other hand, you're saying you like that feeling, that challenge of being pushed to the edge of your comfort zone?

Gary: Yeah. No. That's fair. That's a fair challenge, actually. And so I'm still not going to throw any money at golf. But you absolutely realise there's no way on earth, on day one of flying training, you could have been looping and rolling in the Red Arrows. And even just before I joined the Red Arrows, I thought, that's impossible. I would apply. There's no way I'll get in. Blimey, I've got in. And others judge that you've got the aptitude, the ability, the willingness to learn, that you'll be able to assimilate all of that complex information and achieve.

Juliet: Let's talk a little bit about that, because I'm curious. So they recognised something in you. Then you had to bite the bullet and do the loop. The loop.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. So to apply to join the Red Arrows, you have to be a volunteer. You have to have a certain amount of flying experience behind you, and you have to have been graded as above average. Then, when you apply to join the team, you spend a week out with the team wherever they're based or doing their winter training, and you sit in all the back seats.

Gary: It's as much about personality, and not a competition between you and the others, but really getting to understand you as an individual, how you work under pressure, how you react, how you deal with members of the public. And then there's a flying test. And in the flying test, they're after some aptitude, because everyone can fly an aeroplane. Well, can you do everything else associated with it?

Juliet: And essentially, can you get on with the team? It sounds very much like you're leaning towards that as being quite important to being a valuable team member.

Gary: It is vital. You get back to where we started with high performance. If you're going to be nine pilots looping and rolling, you've got to have the ultimate trust in the boss, the leader who is sat at the front of the formation, because he is guiding all of the other aircraft around the sky. At no stage are the other eight pilots looking at the ground, looking at whether you're in conflict with other airspace.

Gary: You are trusting him to do that, and you will do your job, and you are looking through other aeroplanes just to form right on him and stay in the right place.

Juliet: When you're learning how to become skilled at something, you can say, right, I'm going to go and get a book. I'm going to read about it. I'm going to go out in the field. I'm going to try and do it. You can't go and say, right, now I'm going to go and get some trust. Yeah. All right. So thinking about the people who shaped your career, who inspired you? How did they gain your trust and how did you gain theirs?

Gary: Yeah, that's a great question. So leadership is a constantly evolving beast, isn't it? I will never, ever, ever stop learning, you know, how to lead and how to follow. And throughout the time in my service, I have benefited most from watching those above me and those beneath me who are leading well or being exceptional team-working individuals. I've also learned a fair bit about those leaders above me that I haven't got on with and haven't gelled with.

Gary: There was one Army general in particular I worked for, and on my departure from him, I thanked him so much. I was eternally grateful for everything he taught me about leadership, though perhaps not in the way that he imagined, because we're all victims of our own experience. And as I've gone on, I've really tried to cherry-pick those traits from people that I most admire and that I think I could do with myself, and try and shape myself.

Gary: There's a big thing here about character and behaviours. Character is who you are. But you can have many different behaviours depending on those circumstances and what audience you're dealing with, and those that you have to lead or follow, in fact.

Juliet: So you've learned from those who weren't your favourite.

Gary: Yeah, definitely.

Juliet: But what about the ones who really did shape your career? Are there any particular people who stood out to you and why?

Gary: Yeah, very much so. So I worked for a three-star guy called Greg Bagwell, and he was an inspiration to me. And at the time, I was running a station at Cottesmore, which was looking after the UK's Harrier force, which, under a strategic review, had to retire very early. He was an inspiration to me in the way he empowered me and delegated to me with authority and just let me do it.

Gary: And he said at the start, he said, "I'm going to support you in each and every one of your well-considered endeavours." I didn't really understand what that meant until I found myself in leadership positions later, and I would bring out the same line to others, and people then would go off and they would do things how I wouldn't do them.

Gary: But at no stage would I then reprimand them. I'd tell them, congratulations, you considered every aspect of that. That's not reckless. You've done your best here. And then afterwards maybe guide them: have you thought about this? Have you considered this? Because these are implications, maybe, that may have affected the outcome. But he himself was a real inspiration.

Juliet: Do you think there was a moment where he or someone else saw something in you before you'd done it yourself?

Gary: Yeah, definitely. I've always had incremental ambition. When I was in the Red Arrows, it's not actually a high career move in the Royal Air Force because you're taken out of regular flying and you go on the display circuit for three years. I left that. I became a second-in-command of a Harrier squadron, and I wanted to go back and lead the Red Arrows.

Gary: No higher accolade could I think of for myself. This guy used to be my squadron commander. He was now one of the high-ranking officers in headquarters. And he stopped it. He stopped it because, you know, "You're not going to do that because you've got a career." I was furious. I then went on to have a really enjoyable and successful career.

Gary: And he was right. I mean, he was right. And at the time I was really cross. I look back on it now, I left the Air Force as a two-star officer, and I'm probably the highest-ranking ex-Red Arrow that there's ever been, because he gave me that opportunity that I didn't think I wanted. But he was right.

Juliet: But before, you just explained how difficult it was to get into the inner circle of the Red Arrows. Now you're making it sound like it's where officers are sent to see out the end of their days.

Gary: So it's a professional accolade. The top of the professional tree for me was to represent your country in the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team. That is an excellent organisation sitting within the Royal Air Force that isn't necessarily recognised alongside a traditional career path. So to come out of that and then go back to enjoy a traditional career path, sometimes you have to pay a little bit of payback for the time you've had away. To go back and lead the team would be marvellous, but for me, my path was set on having a career versus being a great aerobatic pilot.

Juliet: So that was a real particular moment. He stepped in and changed your destiny? Yeah. You've mentioned something before, that catchphrase that you've then taken on and made your own. What would you say is the best piece of advice that you were given? And what would then be the best piece of advice that you would give to someone else?

Gary: So I had a marvellous bit of advice, which was: be yourself. And it sounds obvious. Yeah, but be yourself and always be yourself, and be very, very predictable. Not boring, just predictable. Because then everybody knows where they stand. And that's the piece of advice. Just the other day, I gave it to an Air Force officer and he said, "You've been around a bit."

Gary: What would you say? Be predictable. Be predictable, whatever you do. And be yourself. Because everyone knows you. It doesn't matter how tired you are. I'll almost say to people, "I'm really tired at the moment, just so you're aware. So my bandwidth is very low." But I'm still the same person I am, and I would really love it if, on my tombstone, it said, "We always knew where we stood," because then you can deal with that as a leader, I think.

Gary: And if you're not, and we've all been with people that are scattered around the place or they're in a bad mood today, I don't know what you're thinking about this. That's not conducive to running an effective business.

Juliet: You don't think there needs to be a little bit of jeopardy, a little bit of spark, a little bit of unpredictability in leadership, especially in this fast-changing, crazy world?

Gary: Well, I think President Trump is exemplifying that on the global stage right now, isn't he? He is unpredictable. But yeah, I do think you can still have spark. You don't have to be dull and boring, but you kind of need to think before you go to the boss's office: I think I'm going to get most of this solution right.

Gary: This can be a bit of a rational one-tenth or nine-tenths sitting outside. But the core of his thinking, I think I'm in tune with. And particularly if you're in a high-paced organisation where you're relying on delegation and empowerment, you've got to be able to trust those beneath you. Therefore, they've got to know how you tick and how you think to make it work effectively.

Juliet: What about staying nimble, being adaptive to change?

Gary: Yeah.

Juliet: Having to pivot quickly.

Gary: Yeah, you absolutely have to. But you cannot be dogged and determined just to stick to your one solution. And that's where I think creativity comes into this quite a lot, doesn't it? Setting boundaries. So the boundaries are somewhere between one and 200. Off you go now and be creative in that and come up with your solution space.

Gary: And then you can zero in on what is maybe the preferred answer at that time. But you've also then got to have the ability to react to new information, new circumstances and variables. Otherwise, you're going to go down a wrong road an awful long way before you come back into where you should be.

Juliet: It sounds like you're saying you want to be perceived as a safe pair of hands, so you're reliable and you've got that predictability in that. And sometimes, though, you need to harness creativity too. And I'm sure you've done that because you've operated in environments that have been pretty high stakes, high pressure as well. So how did you learn to make decisions under pressure?

Gary: Yeah. So that comes all the way back to right at the start of flying training or learning to drive, I think, doesn't it? You know, just being able to live on the edge the whole time, if you like, right on the edge of your comfort zone. Because when you're flying an aeroplane, you're moving at seven miles a minute.

Gary: You can't slow the world down. That's the speed. It's running towards the target, towards the effect that you've got to deliver to stop somebody doing what they're doing. In the air-to-air environment, you're closing at a thousand miles an hour. So making those decisions under that time pressure is just utterly critical. It's just as relevant when you look at the command position as well.

Gary: In 2011, I led the UK's contribution to the UN Security Council resolution over northern Libya, if not the whole of Libya, where we were there to protect civilians. So you're commanding and controlling what's going on on the ground, with some latency, people reporting what they're seeing back to you in the command headquarters. You've got some of the intelligence, and you are having to work at speed because that aeroplane is running out of fuel.

Gary: He or she is running out of fuel. They're running out of weather. They're running out of munitions. The enemy is doing its own thing and it's running away. And you've got to react quickly under that time pressure. There's no way you can stop and have a board meeting. You've got to make the decision with the information you've got and carry it through.

Juliet: So do you remember a moment where you truly felt the weight of responsibility?

Gary: Yes. So I think I've got two of those throughout my career. The first one was back to running the Harrier force. So in October 2010, they elected to disband the Harrier force. I was in charge of the Harrier force, not only the current Harrier force, but I had the legacy of an aeroplane that came into service in 1969 and was probably one of the great aviation greats, along with Spitfire and Concorde.

Gary: It was up to me to look after the people of the current Harrier force and then retire the legacy of the old Harrier force at the same time, all set against maybe a political context. So everyone wanted the problem to go away and just move on and accept it. I said, no, we need to do this for two months and retire the aircraft gracefully from service for everybody.

Gary: And I think the other example for me was, again, back to 2011 in Libya. There was one occasion in particular where there was an accusation of civilian casualties, and it was from intelligence which I sourced. I passed it and I led a multinational formation to deliver ordnance onto that target. And the Libyans came back with allegations of civilian casualties.

Gary: I will never forget standing outside our command headquarters, looking over the Italian mountains. That's where the ops centre was. About to step into another target board where I'd have to sanction more targets that therefore would be carried out, thinking there was almost a weight here, because I may have got this previous one wrong. I don't think I had, and I hadn't actually.

Gary: And I've now got to carry on unabated in front of everybody because the responsibility stopped with me, you know.

Juliet: Two very different moments, that one very much where you're thinking about the human consequences. So do you think that makes a difference?

Gary: Yes, it does. I mean, ultimately, whether you're looking after people or whether you are making the decision to take life in order to protect life, that's a very real and difficult dilemma. All you can ever do is do the right thing with all the information you have got. And certainly my Libya experience, I think, changed me as a person.

Juliet: I was going to ask you that. If there was a particular event or setback that changed the way you lead, was that it?

Gary: Yes. I think that, for me, was it.

Juliet: So how did it change?

Gary: So from that moment on, and sometimes frustratingly, I carry this out at home as well. I live with the information I've got, and I make a decision at that point. There's always going to be new information. But if the decision's made, the decision's made. And that might be, I'm not going to go to this party because I'm a bit too tired, etc., etc.

Gary: You find out afterwards that was one heck of a party. I really wish I had been there, but that decision is made. There's no point reflecting on that unless we're learning from it, but there's no point reflecting on it and being disappointed or thinking I should have done, I should have made a different decision. Because actually, the decision not to go to that party was based on some very valid reasons.

Gary: You then find out subsequently that the party was this great success and you wish you'd been there. That's fine, but that moment is gone. So I think it's looking forward, not looking back. Look back to pick out salient areas that you will learn from, but not to be critical or disappointed with the decision you made with the information you had at the time.

Juliet: Because you could have had an afternoon nap or had an espresso.

Gary: Weetabix or so.

Juliet: But so you're saying you're not a procrastinator. You don't take a long time to come to a decision. You make quite a quick decision and then you stick to your guns. Faced with that, it sounds inflexible.

Gary: You know, based on the information you've got, you make a decision, because it comes back to working under time pressure. There's either no decision or there is a decision. Sometimes indecision is quite helpful if you've got that solution space. But if you're working at a pace where you're going to reach the end of that time period and you have to have made a decision because lives are at stake, you've got to make that decision.

Gary: So you've got to work within that time available and, with all of the inputs you've got, make the best available decision.

Juliet: Do you like a deadline as a leader?

Gary: Do I like a deadline as a leader? Yes, I do, because I think it's a great forcing function, a really good forcing function. And sometimes, as I've translated into the civilian world, people are more comfortable without deadlines. And maybe I find myself, I'll fill all of that solution space. Yeah, I would far rather have a deadline that everyone is working to and actually galvanise around.

Juliet: When people are under pressure, trust can sometimes be tested and sometimes it can fall apart quickly. Yeah. How do you help keep people focused, keep that trust?

Gary: You've got to be transparent. Really transparent. And what do I mean by that? I mean regular and open briefings. So on operations in Libya, on many operations, you'll start the day with a bird table, and that's a phrase where you'll stand up around a high table and you'll go through the issues of the day and what you need to do.

Gary: You'll probably finish that day doing the same thing as well. And that'll bring everyone up to speed, so everyone knows what's going on, so they can all run with you. They get the commander's intent, if you like, and they know what they should be doing and why they're doing it. I think the other thing you must do when you're working under pressure to keep people's trust is you need to work out what's that one critical factor that's going to make it fall apart.

Gary: And it might be that one of the areas in the business you're working in, they might be the most hidden from it, the most opaque, who aren't traditionally bought into it. You've got to bring them in, because if you don't bring them in, that's how mistrust starts. And once it starts in one area, it will just permeate around it from there.

Gary: So it's all about galvanising, transparency and good communication.

Juliet: Interesting. Here you're saying don't just have an inner circle. Always keep looking.

Gary: Always, always. There are times, particularly in a military context, where you've got to have an inner circle because of security classification. But even then you've got to take it outside of that inner circle and be as transparent as you possibly can be with everyone else.

Juliet: It's clear that your time in the Royal Air Force shaped who you are. Do you think that leadership changed you?

Gary: Yeah, definitely. It definitely did. My two brothers both chose their own business paths, didn't go into the military. If there's anything involving the family, I'm always the one that wants to know what the deadline is, what we're doing, how we're doing it.

Juliet: You're in charge.

Gary: I don't have to be in charge. I don't care who's in charge. I'm happy to follow as well as lead, but I just need there to be a plan. Pitching up and things just happening just never will sit naturally with me. And that's a good parallel when I now work in industry. But I think leadership definitely sits at the very heart of what I do and what I am.

Juliet: And do you think there was a moment where the uniform stopped feeling like it was a job and became part of who you are, a part of your identity?

Gary: Deep question, that, isn't it? That's a deep issue. So I think it is me. We joke about, cut someone through the middle and, like a stick of rock, there's the Air Force roundel. I do think it is my identity, whether I like it or not, because I joined at age 18 and I did it for 34 years. Since leaving the Air Force, apart from what I do in the outside world, I'm a deputy lieutenant for the county of Leicestershire, so I'm a deputy representative of His Majesty the King.

Gary: I'm also a Gentleman Usher to the King, one of ten. So I keep on serving, even though in a volunteer context, even though I'm now out of uniform.

Juliet: So you're out of uniform, but you haven't even dipped your toe, you've dived into civilian life, taking a lot of those learnings with you. How tricky was that transition, or did you embrace it?

Gary: No, it's really difficult. I suppose there's two strands to this, isn't there? There's me as the person, and there's me as the skill set. So the emotions and the professional side. On the emotional side of it, I ran out of runway, as it were. Within a week or so of running out of runway, not getting promotion to the next job, I was out the door. Done. Finished.

Gary: Well, with a degree of resettlement time and still salary to allow me to resettle back into civilian life. I probably sat upstairs in my home office and finished the internet in a couple of months, because I was so used to working at a ridiculous rate, 12, 14, 15 hours a day, five days a week, living away from home, that I just kept on.

Gary: I couldn't stop working. So I finished my CV, I polished my CV, I polished it again. I was looking around for all sorts of things, and it took a number of months before I finally sort of calmed down or stopped doing that. And it is ripping the heart out of you because you've done that for 34 years and you've devoted your time and compromised other aspects of your life.

Gary: On the professional side, I wondered what on earth anyone was going to do with someone who'd been in the Air Force for 34 years, had flown aeroplanes and done a bit of leadership. And it was a real dilemma for me, and a bit of imposter syndrome coming from the military to the outside world. Was there an element I didn't want to get a proper job?

Gary: Probably because I didn't think I'd pass the interview, which is why I went down a consultancy route to set my own business up, to try and stay within the circle and help defence from the outside in versus being in defence.

Juliet: But then you found out that the skills that you had were exactly what the business world wanted.

Gary: It's amazing how transferable, and we talked much earlier before we started, how transferable the skills of being in the military are to being in the outside world.

Juliet: So what was the hardest thing? Was it that you were working on adrenaline, at breakneck pace the whole time, and then you had to slow down? Was it that, or part of your heart being ripped out of you?

Gary: I think it was just all of it.

Juliet: Yeah. So was it all that bad?

Gary: Oh, it's brilliant. I love it. I absolutely love it. And I wish it had happened a year or two previously. Absolutely. So from the moment I left, I suppose you go through quite an emotional period. There's a period of grieving, without being too dramatic about it, having been involved for such a long period of time.

Gary: And that no longer exists. So all of your contacts, everything. God, my last military job was in the Permanent Joint Headquarters, where I was responsible for planning and executing operations around the world. So I used to watch the news at the weekend knowing what would be in the news. Within a couple of weeks, I was watching the news thinking, oh, I thought that might happen.

Gary: Within a couple of months, I was seeing the news as new news, and that was an interesting thing, and that whole grieving process. But then turning to, right, I need to find out what's in the outside world. That has been probably the biggest and most adventurous thing I've found. I've really enjoyed it.

Juliet: Do you think that the reality of military leadership is often different from what people imagine?

Gary: Yeah, I think. One of my first clients, that I'm still with some seven years later, I think he expected me, not me personally, me, the retiring two-star Air Vice-Marshal or Major General, to come in wearing some red trousers, a suit, and just be quite bombastic, quite directional, directive, rather, be really firm and fixed and not engaging.

Gary: He said to me, not much later, at the end of the day's workshop, where I spent the day with my sleeves rolled up, at a whiteboard, asking everybody open questions, because that's who we are, really. Everyone has this image of the man on the charger coming over the hill shouting, "Follow me!" The reality is really different, from all the skills you've learned over your time in the military.

Juliet: So was that a big challenge, convincing people that what the military was isn't what was in their imagination?

Gary: No, I found it quite easy, actually. Because you go in with a disarming attitude and what you suddenly realise is the attributes that you find really quite natural maybe don't exist. So you would say things like, should we have a bit of a rhythm to this, a bit of a battle rhythm, as we would call it? So at the moment we're meeting just whenever you want to.

Gary: Why don't we meet here on the first of this month and then the 29th of that month, and we'll discuss this and we'll discuss that? And they look at you as if that's a bit of a revelation, but it's just putting structure into that very, very good business to try and optimise it and make it a bit better.

Juliet: So you talk about structures that are part of military life that you miss. What do you miss the most?

Gary: What do I miss the most? So I miss the people and I don't miss the people. I miss the people because being part of a team is just nothing on earth like it. I do a lot of road cycling, and I love road cycling out with a whole bunch of people. And you're just working around the peloton.

Gary: And before you go out, someone's going to choose the route. Someone else is choosing where we're going to wait. Someone else is choosing this. So you're all together as a team, not really a leader, but you're all there as a team. And I really miss having those. In probably the last four or five years in the Air Force, I lived in a more sort of rarefied environment where you were separate from the team in a high-command leadership position, but you still got to work with people.

Gary: And I really, really enjoyed it. I also don't miss the people. It's surprising what people can do, isn't it? And I don't miss that side of it in terms of dealing with some of the personnel problems you might have. And that's actually one of the reasons why I've gone the way I have in setting up my own business.

Gary: So I'm dealing with just myself, but with different companies, but not in an organisational way.

Juliet: So you can parachute into a company and use those skills that you have.

Gary: Yeah, very much so.

Juliet: And are you surprised sometimes by how much of a revelation your clients find what you think is just common sense?

Gary: I think so, but in the same way I'm educated by them. So I had no experience of profit and loss at all. And the motivation, when you look at... So the military is very easy. I walk into a room and I know who's in charge because it sits on the shoulders, and that's really clear. I also know that person, male or female, what's on their shoulders.

Gary: I know how much they earn as well, and I know where they sit in the organisation. I can virtually walk into the room and see the line diagram of where everyone is in the structure. I go into some civilian rooms and that's far, far from it.

Juliet: Can you imagine, though, if everybody had to do things on their own and we knew, all right, yeah, we were in the highest tax bracket? Yeah.

Gary: Wouldn't that be easy? But also, the motivators are different. I've never been motivated by money. No one in public service is really motivated by...

Juliet: Come now, I'm sure you have a very nice pension.

Gary: Pension's very nice. Straight to the pension. Very nice, but not motivated at all. You go to the outside world, the drivers can be bonuses, can be salaries, can be pensions, can be whatever, shares. And a lot of those are quite opaque and not clear. And likewise, who's in charge and who isn't. So that's very different for me in terms of motivation.

Gary: And sometimes, when I see it through a military lens, it skews behaviours. I work with a brilliant event company and you have people doing sales. You have people doing sponsorship. You have people doing stewardship, and all of them have got different bonuses and structures and conflicting demands, as opposed to the high-performance team, where they're all about producing that end show for the goodness of it, as opposed to the goodness, perhaps, of their bank balance.

Juliet: So are you helping companies talk to each other with more coherence and get rid of a lot of that?

Gary: Yeah, I really enjoy that side of it. And actually, my portfolio is quite large, with about ten different companies on it, and a lot of the time I find myself saying, you should really go and talk to that company that they thought were enemies. But I said, you've got so many synergies and, funny old thing, they always work together and they're better together.

Gary: They really are, each and every time.

Juliet: So when you want a bit of perspective and you want a bit of clarity, what do you return to?

Gary: I return to my military experience. I return to moments of my military experience that define me. A lot of it, I have to say, comes from my time in Libya, when I really look and reflect on some of the things that occurred there and how that changed me as a person. Back to not looking back, looking forward, using your previous experience, quite rightly, to guide what you do in the future and picking the right things out of it, but not harking back to previous decisions just because you've got new information.

Gary: "I wish I did that." There's no such thing in my book any more.

Juliet: You're holding on to a lot of the disciplines, a lot of the things you've learned from military life. But after a life in leadership, who are you when the uniform comes off? It's a different uniform, isn't it? Yeah. You talked a little bit about cycling. Yeah. So you've gone from the stripes...

Gary: To the Lycra. Here we go. Yeah. It's a lot lighter, actually. It's a lot lighter. So outside of uniform I'm still really connected with the Royal Air Force. And I said earlier, I think I'm now helping defence from the outside versus from the inside. I really enjoy my broad life. When I left the military, the first thing I did was work in my local village pub for free, pulling pints for a month.

Gary: And I absolutely loved it because I got to know people that I'd only ever seen when I rushed home at weekends. I was going back to work and it just normalised me as an individual, if you like. So I really enjoy where we live. I really enjoy the local area. Pubs are like the centre of the village. I'm frequently out cycling.

Gary: But I do spend a lot of time working still, either for my own business. But on the voluntary side, I'm an ambassador for the Air Force Association. And through that, I organise an annual cycling event that's coming up next month, actually, RAFA Rides 26. Feel free to join in. So I spend a lot of time on the bike just getting myself fit enough for doing that.

Gary: And also as an ambassador to the association, because they look after the Air Force family of yesterday and today. And not only my father, but my mother's father was in the Air Force as well. So it's really in my blood.

Juliet: So to be a good leader after a career in the military, you need to be versatile.

Gary: Yeah.

Juliet: You need to connect with your roots, yeah, but you also need to keep learning. Is that what you're saying?

Gary: You absolutely do. I mean, I've learned so much from the outside world. We talked a little bit about profit and loss. The behaviours, yeah, the boardroom behaviours, where sometimes companies are really happy with ambiguity. No one wants to close with a difficult issue, that you will pour a little bit of pixie dust over something and say, "It's all fine, isn't it?"

Gary: And then I'll sit on the sideline. I say, "Can I just ask a question here? What about that?" Well, no one's really talked about that. Gary, do you think we should talk about this? And asking those questions is what you would do from a leadership perspective in the military, whereas I think sometimes in the civilian boardroom, it doesn't happen. But I've learned that as I've gone through the journey. I've learned, to start with, where I shouldn't ask that question because I'm still quite comfortable.

Gary: And, you know, actually, I think my role here is to put quite a bit of respectful challenge into boardrooms, to say: have you thought around this problem? Have you thought about this area? And should you not develop a little bit of time, having a bit of rhythm and structure? Because that's what I think we bring to the party.

Juliet: And you talk about the time pressure in the military world that can maybe lead to impetuous decisions, even though you're very forward-looking. Yeah. You're saying in the boardroom you can't have that. You need to take your time.

Gary: Yeah. If you've got the time, you need to take the time. But I think indecision, and again not having a decision, is a good thing if you've got the time available. But sometimes you can stay all out the time without actually making a decision. And that then comes back to having structure and rhythm, I think.

Juliet: So Gary, can military leadership principles work well for business, or is there too much of a disparity here when it comes to time?

Gary: No. I think military leadership and the civilian boardroom absolutely should be hand in glove, I really do. And I really wish we did a little bit more of it. We had more civilian boardrooms into the military leadership areas to teach us some of the values from the civilian sector, because I'm nowhere near arrogant enough to say the military have got it. They absolutely haven't.

Gary: There's an awful lot of problems, and we will see them on a day-to-day basis, trotted out. So there's a thirst to learn, I think, from the civilian sector. And likewise, though, from the military sector coming into the civilian sector, you're going to get an individual that's really good at... He wants rhythm. He or she wants structure and boundaries, and wants to lead or follow and be empowered.

Gary: They'll also be really good at timekeeping as well. And they're good attributes, I think, to take into any area of any industry.

Juliet: You said that you had some insight into the civilian world when you were in the military. Can you give me an example of that and how it could maybe be taken one step further?

Gary: I think mostly it was down to interactions with industry, maybe with new capability coming into the service. You would then talk to industry, but that's very much in a kind of customer-supplier relationship. Later, as you went to high command, you'd do some leadership schools and they would bring people from the outside world along to one of our leadership sessions.

Gary: That was a week long and I spent a day with them, and actually the problems were the same. What we didn't do is then go to the next stage beyond understanding each other's problems, realising how you deal with them. And that's where I think we really could have offered each other quite a lot.

Juliet: So you're doing it the other way around? Yeah, correct. What about when you oversaw security for the London 2012 Olympics? There you were working with businesses, the public, a very different world.

Gary: Yeah, yeah, very much so. So, 2012 Olympics. I oversaw the security and, as part of that, we had to make sure everyone enjoyed a safe and secure Games. And we had to secure around the Olympic Park in London. That's in the middle of London, which is really close to Heathrow. And we had aircraft at quick reaction alert at Northolt, just north of Heathrow.

Gary: Helicopters dotted around London, and some surface-to-air missile batteries and some spotters. All of that linked together. If we saw something, we'd have to launch a Typhoon, which would close Heathrow. The commercial pressures meant that we had to be really sure of information before we did so. So I spent a lot of time liaising with the Civil Aviation Authority, the British Airports Authority, indeed Heathrow and the airlines, explaining what we were doing and why we were doing it to ensure they were on board.

Gary: And that was a great window into the world of how commercial pressures drive different disciplines, which, again, I had no experience of from a military mindset.

Juliet: And you talk about leadership needing to be open and transparent, particularly when it comes to communication. Did you find that to be the case?

Gary: Yeah, very much so. You had to be really open, transparent, and guess what? As soon as they understand the limitations of how you need to react militarily, they get it. It's no longer shrouded in mist. It's really open and clear, the time it will take to launch an aircraft, what the aircraft can do, can't do. It becomes really apparent to them because what everyone wanted was to have a safe and secure Games, which we did.

Juliet: Yeah. You talk about wanting to be perceived as reliable, a safe pair of hands, as predictable. Yeah. But let's talk about resilience. Yeah. Do you think that's something you can really teach?

Gary: You can help people to become more resilient. I think there's a lot of self-help to become resilient. We talked right at the start about always operating on the edge of your comfort zone. Yeah, always being tested. So you're building capacity, your mental and physical capacity, the whole time. That helps you become more resilient because you may be tested in extreme environments, and then you're working at a normal rate, and then you're tested beyond that comfort zone, but in areas you've been to previously.

Gary: So you've got that resilience. But working 16 hours a day, not going to the gym, not taking your own emotional time out and not going cycling, call it what you want, getting some rest away from the work, doesn't make you a resilient person. Some people like to wear a badge of honour that they're working 16 hours a day and the calendar is jam-packed.

Gary: From the moment they get in to the moment they get out. That's not resilience. That really is sort of a shortcut to being burnt out and not resilient. I always would maintain, in any job I've done, I wanted people to work at about 85% of their capacity, because then you could surge beyond that when you need to.

Gary: So yes, you can help people to become resilient, and they've got all the tools. They really do have to help themselves as well.

Juliet: And that's a leadership lesson in itself, isn't it? Recognising the need to give yourself breathing space.

Gary: Yeah. In the headquarters that I ran, the last job I had, I ended up drawing up a ten-point charter of what my onus is to them and vice versa. One of those was I wanted them, for two one-hour sessions in a week, to go to the gym or go for a walk, whatever, to have some headspace and get emotionally and mentally better prepared, as well as physically better prepared, for what they had.

Gary: Interestingly, the very thought, the very notion of putting that on everybody's desk, on the little board they had, it empowered them to do what they wanted to do. And everybody pretty much followed that because they were then empowered and free to do those two one-hour gym sessions a week, and it made them better people for it and more resilient.

Juliet: So the feedback was, you'd given them permission, correct?

Gary: Yeah, yeah. Permission for them, but also permission in front of their line managers and the people that worked for them or they worked for. So they, again, were demonstrating that themselves.

Juliet: It's kind of a creative solution to how to make people more productive by giving them back some of their time. So you're saying that discipline and creativity can coexist with the right leadership?

Gary: Discipline and creativity absolutely can coexist. Discipline by itself, all you're going to get is the same way, the same day, the same dogged, determined solution. One-track mind, I think. Absolutely right. Creativity is brilliant, isn't it? But if you're overly creative, you're never going to get to that solution. You're going to cross the time limit while still being creative and dreaming up these great ideas.

Gary: So I'm all for starting out, setting the boundaries, allowing creativity, but sticking to a framework, an envelope within which to operate, I think. And that's actually equally important. We haven't talked about it much, but neurodiversity is really key here as well in that creative space. If you're just working on an autocratic, discipline-type line, you're going to get the view of one.

Gary: You want to harness everybody's thoughts to make the best solution possible.

Juliet: So it's all very well having a vision, having that personal clarity. Yeah, but don't underestimate the power of collaboration.

Gary: Without a shadow of a doubt. You know, collaboration is key to success. Absolutely. It comes back to the time pressure. At some stage, you've got to call time up and make a decision, but you've got to be as collaborative as you possibly can within the time you've got available.

Juliet: Isn't there a danger, then, that delays the point at which you make the decision that needs to be made?

Gary: Yeah. So that too. I think pretty much every company, if any of the companies I work with are in here now, they will say Gary's all about putting a timeline down. It doesn't matter what it might be.

Juliet: You're a planner, because you're such a part of the story that you like a plan.

Gary: Put a timeline down, put where the end state is, and let's come back from that end state and realise that actually some of the decisions we really should have made three weeks ago. Crikey. Well, let's make a decision now, or let's collaborate, be creative, change what we need to. But let's always have where we're going on a roadmap, on a timeline, and then work back from that.

Juliet: We talk quite a lot about the opportunities that you've harnessed in your career in the RAF, but also after that, to become a good leader and to then pass on those leadership skills. You also mentioned, though, that you learned from not-so-good leaders, people in positions of authority that you learn from in different ways. So what have you learned from bad leadership?

Gary: Oh crikey. An awful lot. An awful, awful lot more than we've got time to discuss. So from bad leaders, it's all about autocracy. It's all about that way. It's also all about volatility. I think the biggest thing I've learned, back to what you said about being dependable. Yeah. You know, I watched somebody and it depended what side of the bed he got out of, it depended whether his rugby team had won or lost that weekend, as to what mood he was in when he came into the headquarters.

Gary: That's appalling, because you can't know how to work and act. And then to look at those behaviours, how you deal with people, allowing your personal frustrations to actually come out and go through onto others, I think is quite unforgivable. And certainly there's a lot in the press that has been about bullying, toxicity in the military.

Gary: I absolutely welcome every single step that's still going on. And I think it's being eradicated. And the new generation that are coming through, I think, are just brilliant. And they're far more emotionally aware than probably the more senior in age, if not rank, within the military.

Juliet: So leave the baggage at the door.

Gary: Oh, yeah.

Juliet: Walk into that room with an open mind, keen to learn from the people around you at all different levels.

Gary: Yeah. So I can't say who, but somebody within the...

Juliet: Who?

Gary: No, I can't. Somebody within the intelligence services. I did a course and he was on it, and he was pivotal in the 7/7 bombings. And he was driven back to his headquarters, and he got outside his headquarters, and he walked in, and it was just pandemonium everywhere. Everyone running around, trying to do what they thought was the right thing.

Gary: And his secretary said, "Right, okay, I've got everyone ready." He said, "No, I'm not interested. Can I have a cup of tea, please? Can I have a cup of tea, please? What's the time now? It's just gone through, right, 3:30. I'd like to have a meeting with people." And he just calmed everyone down. And when the decision was made to stop the Harrier force in the Defence Review, I really took that on board.

Gary: And so I'd drive to work. We lived on the same station and I'd get outside work. I'd go, right, it's pretty dire. It's pretty damn... There's nothing good about what's going on right now. Get out of the car. Walk into the office, happy, smiling face. How is everybody? Let's talk about, you know, let's talk about something else.

Gary: How's your weekend? Yeah. Exhibit an air of normality and calm. Because you are there steering the ship, and you've got to.

Juliet: Gary Waterfall. Absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Gary: Thank you so much. What a joy. Thank you.

Juliet: Thanks again to Gary Waterfall for sharing those key insights and how those transferable skills that he learned in the military have been taken into the world of business. And thank you for listening too. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. You know what? You can share this episode with all of your high-performing friends, and do subscribe so that you don't miss out on a future episode of Achieving More Together.