With a name like Ignite Louisville, we expect our participants to be able to handle some heat. We could not have predicted such truly searing temps last Wednesday, but our current cohort braved their Ft. Knox day and came out stronger for it.

Haley Cawthon, Assistant managing editor—digital at Louisville Business First documented her experience and what she learned about the parallels between military and business leadership:

“But to be honest, I had never really thought about the military in the context of leadership until I heard my Ignite Louisville class was heading to Fort Knox for team building and leadership training. Initially, I thought, ‘Sure, they can teach us about mental and physical toughness — but will any of this really be applicable in business leadership?’ I realized that skepticism was totally unfounded soon after stepping off the bus on last Wednesday.”  See full article published in Louisville Business First below

Ft. Knox is just one of our program days in this 6-month program, focused on building effective teams and leading up, down, and across. Participants also get essential training on topics like innovation, DE&I, effective communication, and personal branding.

Parallels run between military and business leadership

PUBLISHED JUNE 20, 2022, LOUISVILLE BUSINESS FIRST (link to article)

Ignite Louisville Team Three, otherwise known as the Social Sevengers, includes: Saravanan Murugan (front left), Rachel McMahan (front center), Tyler Smith (front right), Haley Cawthon (back left), Megan Tennison (back center) and Jake Smith (back right). Not pictured: Sofia Fischer.
JO LLOYD-TRIPLETT

As the daughter of a U.S. Army veteran, I’ve always held great respect for our country’s military.

In fact, as a child, I was so inspired by my mom, Carmen, that I wanted to follow in her footsteps and join the military myself. While I lost the ambition to do so later in life, my admiration of service members never dissipated.

But to be honest, I had never really thought about the military in the context of leadership until I heard my Ignite Louisville class was heading to Fort Knox for team building and leadership training. Initially, I thought, “Sure, they can teach us about mental and physical toughness — but will any of this really be applicable in business leadership?”

I realized that skepticism was totally unfounded soon after stepping off the bus on last Wednesday.

Following a few quick introductions, Col. Andrew Hanson shared his leadership journey with the group. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1994 and went on to lead a battalion of soldiers during wartime following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He also served at the Pentagon, and later, as the garrison commander of West Point, which he likened to a mayoral position.

For being such a decorated member of the military, Col. Hanson was a really down-to-earth kind of guy. He let us ask lots of questions before we headed off to tackle the obstacle courses, and left us with several great pieces of advice that’s applicable to any leader.

His favorite: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Between eating MREs (meals ready-to-eat), sweating (it was HOT) and just having a blast, we actually learned a lot about ourselves and each other. Here’s just a few of my takeaways from the experience:

Be visible and accessible

Col. Hanson spoke a lot about servant leadership, making sure to put himself in the shoes of those he’s leading.

For example, he regularly works a few hours at the gate checking IDs. While it might be below his pay grade, he still wants to make sure everyone working in those positions have the right tools and the right environment to succeed, even if it’s something simple like fans on a hot day.

Additionally, each day, he takes time to walk around the office to ensure that he’s “visible and accessible” to his team. That’s a key way to get people to approach you with their issues, he said — don’t lock yourself away in your corner office.

Strategize — but not too much

When it comes to missions, the U.S. Army has this one-third – two-third rule. Roughly a third of your allotted time should be spent planning how to achieve your goal, while the two-thirds should be executing on that plan.

My team had firsthand experience with those tight timelines on the obstacle course. On the first one, we spent a little over 12 minutes strategizing when we only had 30 minutes to complete the task. We were super close to finishing, but couldn’t get it done because we took too long in the planning process.

But when it came time for the second obstacle, we learned from our mistakes and quickly started experimenting to see what might work, which earned us a compliment from the supervising captains. Not-so-humble brag: We were also the fastest team to make it through that course!

Trust in your team

Before Ignite Louisville began, we all took Predictive Index tests to understand our leadership strengths and working styles, among other things. But we didn’t know a lot about everyone’s physical abilities, and taking our team’s communication from a mental challenge to a physical one was interesting.

Knowing my own skills (balance, agility) and weaknesses (bad knee, not super strong), I found myself trying to resist the urge to do everything that I could on my own in an effort to make it easier on everyone else. That actually parallels with how I act in my real job — just ask my editors. Instead, I made an effort to rely on my team to contribute in their own unique ways.

Col. Hanson touched on that in his talk earlier in the day. In his book, everyone starts out with 100% trust — it’s not something they have to earn, but it’s something that can be lost.

Play to your strengths

This feeds into the trust takeaway, but it was really fun to see how our team worked together in the obstacle environment. There were a lot of broken bridges, heavy ammo boxes, big wooden planks and one terribly injured Rescue Randy we had to worry about.

Jake Smith (Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs LLP) is a former UofL football player, so he ended up being our muscle. Tyler Smith (Messer Construction Co.) knew the materials we were working with, while Megan Tennison (Norton Healthcare) was our troubleshooter from the ground. Saravanan Murugan (Humana) was a master communicator, and Rachel McMahan (Cedar Lake Foundation) had a knack for planning around and adapting to the challenges we encountered.

And me? Well, I was always willing to take a risk and go first.