314 Leading Excellence: Greg Wooldridge's Leadership Secrets as the Blue Angels' Only 3-Time Commanding Officer | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Greg Wooldridge, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. 

[00:00:06] Greg Wooldridge: I am glad to be here, Mahan. This is going to be fun. 

[00:00:09] Mahan Tavakoli: What a joy it is for me, Greg, for so many reasons, including your leadership experience, but I have to tell you every year we see the blue angels fly over Annapolis and we are.

[00:00:26] by the beauty and the magnificence of the blue angels. So we'd love to also find out more about that. But before we get there, what to know whereabouts you grew up, Greg, and how your upbringing contributed to who you've become. 

[00:00:42] Greg Wooldridge: I grew up in the Midwest, mostly Ohio, a little bit of Maryland.

[00:00:46] And then back to Ohio, then some in Michigan and some in Illinois, and then I was off to see the world as the recruiting posters say. My mom and dad were great people. My dad was raised in an orphanage. 

[00:00:58] So he had little experiences of dad. He tried really hard. And he was a good guy, great man, professional baseball player at a point love sports and taught me all about teamwork and the essence of being a sportsman. And I puttered around with school,

[00:01:16] The best grades I ever had were in elementary school, my times tables were incredible but going beyond that, I was a slacker, and so had a hard time getting in college went out on academic probation 

[00:01:30] and I had a lot of second chances in my life. Some of them are pretty funny. Some of them are pretty scary, life has been good. I have no complaints.  

[00:01:38] Mahan Tavakoli: I know you were a big believer in those second chances and

[00:01:42] you are humble enough to talk about the fact that your grades weren't great. How were you able to get into college and stay in college? 

[00:01:51] Greg Wooldridge: I got in on academic probation and I guess I really didn't grasp how fortunate I was to even get into school not much money in the family.

[00:02:00] So I had to work a job on the campus. I fired a boiler of all things. And please don't let that age you but it heated the campus, a small campus of about 650 students. So I'd get up at four in the morning, go down and get the old clinkers, the burned up coal out and fill the chute and fill it back out.

[00:02:19] I remember one morning I overslept and it filled the whole house with smoke. my gosh. I thought I was gonna get clobbered. I got through all that. Anyway grade school finished the first semester still on academic probation, which you're supposed to come out of it, and I got some grace there.

[00:02:40] They extended it to me and I I was able to stay the next semester, then go on and finish school. However, something happened start of that second year I got married and had a child, so now I became a commuter. But it was still really good. It was a great school.

[00:02:57] , but, yeah, college was tough, but I graduated and I graduated in the half of the class that made you look good.

[00:03:07] Gotta be some anchorman, right? But I got out, I got through and got a diploma

[00:03:12] Mahan Tavakoli: Greg, the audience has already figured out your wonderful sense of humor and your humility,

[00:03:18] usually people who fly planes, especially at the speeds and with the precision, you. did aren't necessarily portrayed as humble on the big screen. Why did you decide to join the Navy? 

[00:03:36] Greg Wooldridge: This goes back to my humble beginnings. A lot of time. People say, oh, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pilot.

[00:03:41] I watched him up in the air and they were flying. That's what I want to do. Or I saw the blue angels and that's what I want to do. Nah, not me. I wanted to work for a railroad. I wanted to get out of high school and start making that big money. As a strong kid, I just want to throw railroad ties around and make money.

[00:03:59] Boy, oh boy. Luckily I got my college degree. And after I got my college degree, it was time to serve my country. And I wanted to do something that. Once I had served for my requisite amount of time, I could get out and get an airline job. The antithesis of what most young men and women now want to go in the military and fly.

[00:04:22] Fun, hot airplane, right? Nah, I want to fly a big ol cargo plane. But my mind quickly changed when I got in the Navy. So that's how I got into the Navy and into Naval Aviation. And when I got into Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, that's where the Blue Angels were actually based. So every day when I'm out there marching on what we call the grinder, the big pad out there in the, 90 degree humidity and 90 degree temperature.

[00:04:45] Trying to look out the corner of your eye up at the Blue Angels flying overhead and I'm looking at these F 4s and those days and going, maybe I do want to fly jets and so that started that inclination but no inclination that I'd ever fly with the Blue Angels. Even up until I got selected to lead the team. I had no confidence that I'd ever be picked. 

[00:05:07] How did that come about? And what is that selection process 

[00:05:10] Greg Wooldridge: like? I didn't apply as a wingman, as a junior officer, I knew I'd never be selected. My call sign in the Navy, everybody gets a call sign. Mine was Rugdance.

[00:05:22] What it had to do with was, I really pushed the edge of the envelope a lot, broke rules along the way. One of them, I was flying aerobatics over my house one day, after hours, in a training command squadron. I thought I was fine. I was over 3, 000 feet.

[00:05:39] The next day, in front of all the pilots, the commanding officer of that squadron said, Hey, we got a report that there was an orange, they were orange and white airplanes, it was flying Therapeutics. I had relatives in town at the house. I went, Oh, watch me, watch this. And I'm doing these loops and the roles and stuff.

[00:06:00] And sir, it was me. I have to, show some integrity here. And so I get called into his office. It's a carpeted office. I'm shuffling my feet in front of his desk, and that was known as a rug dance. Shuffling, you're getting called on the carpet. And I survived that without getting canned.

[00:06:22] And then I did a few other things along the way. So anyway, I never thought with that. Infamy, which whenever you get a call sign, if you don't like it, boy, it'll stick like glue a call sign can be humbling. It can bring you down from your haughtiness 

[00:06:38] so I never thought with the rug dances, I did the record I had that I'd ever be selected as a wingman. So I just Oh yeah, they want somebody to apply. I can't apply. Finally, I led my own squadron. I'm in the ready room reading these things called naval messages before we had emails.

[00:06:54] And it said, we want to take applications for a new flight leader, the blues. And I smiled and in my ready room chair there, I leaned over to one of the junior officers next to me and said, Hey, you know what? The Blues are looking for a new boss. I said, wouldn't that be something?

[00:07:09] And I told him, I said, I would never have a chance. And you know what? My junior officers, a couple, two or three of them, chimed in and said, Skipper, they called you a skipper when you're the head of the squadron, Skipper, you need to apply. You'd be a great boss. Plus you'd get his front row seats at the air shows.

[00:07:31] That's it. Oh, you know what? I don't never pick me, but I went about my day and I thought, you know what, in life, given an opportunity, if you never pursue it. You'll never know. There's a great quote. I can't do it verbatim by Mark Twain about casting off your bowlines, and heading out into the deep water.

[00:07:54] You don't know what's out there, but if that's where you want to go and you want that opportunity, if you don't do it, that'll be one of the things you regret in your life. I applied. I had a very thin endorsement package compared to some of the other guys, I went back to the interview process, and one of the fellas was the commanding officer of Top Gun, and another guy was a guy doing a F 14 Tomcat demonstrations on the East Coast, with, flowing blonde hair, and I'm thinking, it ain't gonna be me!

[00:08:24] So I was very relaxed and very honest, I said, look, I'm going to speak my piece. I'm not going to hold back any sugarcoat anything, try to meet their expectations. I'm going to tell them about me. How much I love the people that work for me and the people around me and how I love taking care of them, doing the right thing.

[00:08:43] I couldn't believe it. Hours later, after they'd interviewed everybody and had a chance to discuss it, they said, come on over here. You're the guy. And oh, man, was I surprised with that. , that's how I got picked. You might imagine, as you said, it's a selective process and then you get out there and you see what it's all about and your initial impression is, this is going to be hard.

[00:09:05] I'm not sure I can do this, but you stand on the shoulders of giants, as they say, because there's people who've done it before. And you just take that into your heart and the way we interacted with each other. Three out of the six pilots each year in the Blue Angels are new to that job. So they all have to increase their competency, their performance, their trust in each other to a level they've never seen before.

[00:09:31] And I knew the culture promoted that. And since I knew that I had a sense. All right, Woldridge, give it your best. And let's see what happens.

[00:09:39] Mahan Tavakoli: Now, Greg, it is six people that have to function at the highest levels as a team.

[00:09:47] And half the team turns over. So it's not as if it's the same people that have been with each other for  dozens of years. How is it that team ends up bonding, collaborating, trusting each other to such a high level. Obviously there are things that are done well in the military but.

[00:10:10] This is a unique team that has to operate the highest levels of performance with the highest levels of risk as well. 

[00:10:20] Greg Wooldridge: Let's go back a step, if I may, on to the selection process and one of the things that people get an astonished look about is that we never picked anybody based on their flying performance.

[00:10:35] We picked them based on their personality. So we needed that humility, we needed to be able to talk to somebody. And the slush process for the wingmen was just as hard, if not even harder, in picking those people because it was all about Your heart, your humility, how we thought we were going to get along on those 300 days out of the year that we were together Away from home generally.

[00:11:03] That's why it was only a two year tour. That's why after each year half the team left so you started with that foundation of Humility and knowing that we could meld into the culture there at the Blue Angels a culture based on gratitude Thankfulness and trust. The two major things that created excellence and created the teamwork and loyalty that we got from each other.

[00:11:28]  Greg, I want to highlight what you just said. It is incredible how often. Organizations of all types, prioritize that competence over those other factors. Now, competence is the price to get in, you wouldn't select. Mahan to fly with the blue angels it has to be someone who has that competence, but then when you want performance at the highest levels, you're not differentiating and selecting the people that have the highest performance as an individual, but how they are able to work in a team.

[00:12:08] Mahan Tavakoli: With each other. I think that is such an important thing for all teams and organizations to keep in mind, not just the blue angels. 

[00:12:18] Greg Wooldridge: Spot on. Spot on. I talk about trust, Mahan, and I talk about four C's of trust. The first C that starts to develop the trust is just what you said. It's competence.

[00:12:29] So you know that person. You can trust them because they're competent. They're not the ace of the base, as we would say, in flying necessarily, but they're competent. So they come in with their applications for our team to pick our own wingman. Nobody in Washington said, pick these guys. No, we picked our own wingman.

[00:12:47] So they came in with a recommendation and A flying record that was good. It didn't have to be the airman of the year or anything like that. We just wanted somebody because we knew the process works on how we got people trained and how we develop that trust through this briefing execution with trust and debriefing.

[00:13:11] The debriefing was the secret sauce for the Blue Angels success. And I take that out two companies to tell them about that debriefing process.

[00:13:19] Mahan Tavakoli: You mentioned the briefing ahead of time, the performance, and then the debriefing, that entire process can translate very well to teams and organizations as they want to perform at a high level.

[00:13:37] Greg Wooldridge: It started with what we broke down into belief levels first, you go into the brief with an established set of beliefs into that brief and you focus on those and you get your individual and team focus based on what you know you can do and then you brief and the brief is structured, but it's always different because of all the things that change every time you go flying, the weather, the terrain what field you're flying from.

[00:14:04] Yeah. All those things change. So you brief and you have a structure for the briefing for how you're talking about what you're going to do and whatever business you have so you don't miss anything and we briefed every time we went flying. There was no remember what we did yesterday?

[00:14:18] We're just going to repeat that today. We sat down, we went through a visualization process. What they were going to hear from me as I called out the maneuvers and as I gave a cadence to what we were going to do, that same cadence I gave them on the ground applied in flight. We covered all those things in the briefing and we walked out of there ready to go.

[00:14:38] We had in the back of our minds what was central to us. We had a center point in the whole organization. And for us it was ambassadors of goodwill and safety, of course, as you mentioned, it's the high risk environment, safety was a center point. So that was always resting in our focus in the back, resting, you might say, but always there.

[00:15:00] So we went from that briefing down to let's go fly. Let's go do it. And. You knew that you could trust the people around you. There were contracts, if you will, I've got your six, as they would say in flying, I, I've got you covered, don't worry about this, don't worry about that, hold steady on whatever we do, and we would bolster each other in flight.

[00:15:22] If somebody had a bad maneuver, we would up our, we talked all the time in various. specific ways, but it would be, all right, if I knew somebody was having our time, all right, we're behind the crowd, setting up the diamond roll, very uplifting, put that last maneuver behind you.

[00:15:40] We'll talk about it later, but we got a bunch of air show maneuvers to fly yet, trying to pick each other up and we'd go flat and we'd come back from flying and do all the requisite things, which were Marvelous signing autographs, meeting people, talking to kids, seeing the look of hope and dreams on these little ones faces, when they see you walk up in your blue flight suit and getting the realization also that it wasn't about us individually.

[00:16:04] It was about that purpose. Much larger than ourselves. The purpose of elevating the Blue Angels into a position of being respected and held in awe. Knowing that it wasn't about me when I'm signing an autograph, it was about that blue airplane and what it represented in the blue flight suit and those sort of things.

[00:16:25] Get done with the crowd, which is a huge part of our job, and then go into the debrief. And a debrief was what we called a glad to be here debrief. So that sense of gratitude that I talked about as being part of the foundation of the culture, we went into the debrief with that attitude. A lot of places you say the word debrief and it's Oh, somebody is going to get fired, or, this isn't going to be a party.

[00:16:54] Who's going to get blamed this time. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you know what? So everybody clams up. They're protecting themselves. No. In our world, in the Blue Angel world, and in the world you can develop in a corporation, the CEO, the flight leader, the boss, me, the head goose comes in and says, you sit around and have a sandwich, get a soda, relax.

[00:17:16] Pretty soon I go, okay. That was it. And then it was like. Let's get on with it, you know in a positive way. I said, okay I thought it was a tough day today The air was a little bumpy hard to get exactly what we wanted, but I think it turned out Okay, so it's a general impression.

[00:17:35] I thought everybody did a pretty darn good job out there Especially you Bob or whatever, I thought you handle some of those things really well So there's platitudes but then it goes into And these were my safeties. These were me. These were what I did wrong. This is what I could have done better, it's not, all right, that first maneuver. Hey, George, that was crappy. What the heck did you do on that one? Do you think George is going to tell me what he did? Do you think he's going to be fully honest with me no. I say, this is what I did wrong. I was 50 feet off on this one altitude and I can fix it.

[00:18:09] So you're guaranteeing people you're going to take every measure you can to fix what you did wrong.

[00:18:14] Mahan Tavakoli: Did you every single time talk about something you had done wrong or you should have 

[00:18:19] Greg Wooldridge: done better? Absolutely. Because you always did something wrong.

[00:18:24] Nobody ever flew a perfect flight. You always had something, you might've turned the wrong way taxiing. Everything was considered what we would call a safety because in that world, if you did something wrong, it had a safety impact. 

[00:18:38] Mahan Tavakoli:  Whether it is talking about genuine vulnerability or enabling psychological safety, when the leader has the confidence and the humility to talk about what they could have done better and do it with sincerity, then it opens other people up. It is a hard practice, but it goes to the core of a lot of leadership principles.

[00:19:03] Greg Wooldridge: Absolutely. Mahan., there's a whole bunch of elements in this debrief. It's a safe place, you hang your rank at the door, everybody comes in equal.

[00:19:10] And a lot of people talk about that but there's two things that I think are key and one is a vulnerability, allowing yourself to be vulnerable with positive outcomes and because of the culture that's established here, because it's a glad to be here debrief, you can be vulnerable.

[00:19:28] You're not going to be hammered for that. The other thing is transparency. Total transparency, and that builds trust. Man, when you are transparent, you're not hiding anything you did,  you'll be applauded for the good things you did, because we will pass those around as we go around the table. So it starts with me, it goes to my right wingman, number two guy, and then all the way around the table, all the officers that were in the flight, The officers that were on the ground that had something to do with the flight also get to speak about what they saw and what they might have done better.

[00:20:03] The promise that you're going to fix what you did. Keeps that trust together. It just glues it together and the other thing that we did if you said I was out of position on the roll for the third straight flight and I don't know how to fix it. You dummy, fix it. No. No, it's hey, brother, come over here.

[00:20:25] Let's talk about this. I flew your position last year or, let's try this tomorrow. It's that mentoring, brotherly love type mentoring. Oh, man, it's always there. It's loving each other. It's looking not for my answer or my way. It dives into finding the right answer.

[00:20:43] And so that's where you take all those elements of that debrief. Each person getting to talk and being totally transparent. Guaranteeing you that they're gonna work on making that work the next time you won't see this mistake again And there's no holding back. You don't have to hold anything back because you can almost say there was never an egregious error if you will Anything that was egregious would be holding back an error.

[00:21:10] That's egregious, right? That's when trust gets nicked Didn't see that but twice maybe in the four years that I led the three different occasions freedom My team, the four years I led the team, maybe twice where there was an overlooked error. And believe it or not, even a minor stuff, if it's overlooked, that can create a trust repair job.

[00:21:31] And then, so you take those things you got out of that debrief, which. Our group did virtual six weeks, once a week with Procter and Gamble's R& D division about three months ago, teaching them all about debrief. There were about six of us from. The company I'm with and we had a marvelous time.

[00:21:52] It brought out the way we debriefed. It brought out the hidden gems in people as they got to debrief and talk about what they were doing. You know. People have trouble expressing themselves and they have a fear, I talk about fear in the workplace. what I like to say is it's not driven out.

[00:22:11] It's dissolved you dissolve fear so people can be right wide open with you 

[00:22:18] Mahan Tavakoli: I love this practice, Greg. It should be a regular practice, more frequent and a lot more organizations, there are two things. One, there is a checklist before Major, events, interactions, that a lot of times people miss.

[00:22:35] And then the debrief afterwards, call it debrief after action review, done with transparency and with vulnerability. Now one question I have with that is the leader. would go first, which is outstanding. Now, was there a level of giving feedback to each other? Because one of the challenges is whether it's with post performance and other times is that we all have blind spots and there are opportunities for improvement that we might not see in ourselves.

[00:23:13] How transparent were you with that? First, you volunteered what you could have done better. How transparent were you with what others could have done better? 

[00:23:23] Greg Wooldridge: That's a great point. And we were forthcoming with that. Blind spots sometimes are intentional and sometimes they're not.

[00:23:30] In most of the cases that we experienced they weren't intentional and maybe we didn't see something occasionally one of my wingman say, Hey boss, you had a SIMO. I'll explain that. You had a SIMO in the diamond roll. What that means is I called we go, Oh, okay. And if people can't see my hands, but on the car and K I would start turning the airplane that was the cadence,

[00:23:54] and actually the guy on my outer wing would turn into me. Before he even saw me move because he knew on the cut and K I was going to move and it made us look like we were welded together if I didn't hit that marker that cut and K and move at that very moment at very second that was called a simul.

[00:24:15] I didn't do it right and that was okay. It was okay to be called out on that and it was not a hammering effect. It was. Just an illumination of something maybe you didn't see. So yes, we were okay with that, but it had to be pretty accurate. There was credibility issue there too and trust issue, but we took aboard what we didn't see. 

[00:24:36] Mahan Tavakoli: This is part of the practices. What else was part of the culture or practices? Greg, that ensured a high level of trust, accountability and performance in the Blue Angels. 

[00:24:49] Greg Wooldridge: Let me interject one last thing in that debrief first of all, like the debrief can be in any way you want.

[00:24:56] You could be walking down the hallway with somebody in another organization, elbow to elbow and say what did you think? Or say if you're leading that. Dialogue or that interaction. This is what I thought and this is what I think I could have done better So a debrief can happen anyway, but you take what you had in the debrief back up to your belief levels Which is what you started with before you briefed, so you take the debrief all the elements that came out of there and you can either elevate or adjust your belief levels So that you can go ahead to the next flight Down to the briefing with different beliefs. So that's the beauty of it. Like a Kaizen, if you will, only even better, because it happened every single day.

[00:25:37] Okay. I have a passion for it because I saw it work and I just love it. What were the other elements? One of the things that was terrific about it was the way the team worked, no matter what you did on the team, whether you filed files, you fixed airplanes, you swept floors, it didn't matter.

[00:25:53] We said glad to be here to each other, we shook hands a lot, but the most important thing was we respected each other. So that high level of respect. What that got us was if you were an admin person doing records and files and stuff like that, Hey, thanks a lot for , keeping things on course for us and doing such a fine job and accurate job.

[00:26:13] It's so important. There's that feeling of respect. So when there was a great air show that day. I have ownership in that. I am respected in this organization. I own some of that outcome, or I own that outcome. That's me. I'm a blue angel, whether you're wearing wings and jumping on an airplane or not.

[00:26:33] That was critical to making the organization succeed in that sense of teamwork that, I would say, the respect is probably right up there with the gratitude and the trust. The respect as a third spoke, if you will, in that wheel of the culture of excellence. What else? Always willing to help each other, always learning about each other.

[00:27:01] And that's how you lead too, right? You learn about the people around you. You learn what their strengths are. You bolster them. You give them opportunity in their areas of strength. You find out where they're soft and you say, okay, hey. Let's take a look at this or you got an idea, let's try this,

[00:27:17] some of this is so basic in leadership, but the way we did it in the Blue Angels just felt a little bit different and the outcomes are always pretty darn good. 

[00:27:25] Mahan Tavakoli: The outcomes are outstanding. Your outcomes were outstanding, which is why you're the only person to be asked. Back to lead the blue angels three times.

[00:27:38] Once also you had a chance to fly the blue angels over Moscow. How did that come 

[00:27:47] Greg Wooldridge: about Greg? That was a trip as they say. So how did we get to do that? I led the team three times because the last time they called me back, she said, we're going to give you one last chance to get this right.

[00:27:58] Greg, 

[00:28:02] Mahan Tavakoli: Before the Moscow story, I do want to get this humility thing., get your thoughts on it in that whether it's in movies or other depictions, people who fly planes, let alone fly jet airplanes, let alone for the air force, let alone at the highest levels are portrayed as being.

[00:28:25] Cocky at best and a lot of other terms at worst, all of what you talk about and my interactions with you show genuine humility. How were you able to maintain humility when you walk out of this plane and people are just adoring you with everything that you have been able to do? 

[00:28:50] Greg Wooldridge: I'll make up a one liner here for you.

[00:28:52] I think cockiness creates blind spots, you are so good that nobody can tell you anything, and that was the antithesis of the Blue Angels. We had none of that, and we made sure we kept each other that way, and it didn't feel bad, it felt great, why are they perceived like that?

[00:29:11] Why do they act like that? Not in the highest performing organizations. Do you have that cockiness? We'd sometimes in my fleet squadrons, we'd get a brand new pilot, I remember one time a guy came in, I think he was a Texas Aggie. Nothing against Aggie.

[00:29:28] But before they got there, we looked at their name. We said, what are we going to call this guy? How are we going to denigrate this guy and level him?

[00:29:39] So we would dream up names and sometimes based on their name, a four star Admiral, great guy. Retired as Sinkpac Fleet. Sinkpac, his name, and he was a contemporary of mine, maybe a little bit, even a little younger since retired as a four star, but he was a Lieutenant,

[00:29:57] his name was Scott Swift. Do you know what his call sign was? Not not so became like the third most powerful officer in the Navy and was still was known as not. So another great friend was Jim Ward. So Jim's call sign was psycho, so that's one thing we would do to create a sense of humility And when you're doing, you know landing on aircraft carriers day and night you're doing one of the hardest things In aviation, if not the hardest, and so is everybody around you. So to be cocky in that world, you were given the privilege of being challenged to your end ability, 

[00:30:43] wow, take that aboard and think. What an opportunity. How lucky am I, and I've got all these people around me that are supporting what I get to do. So cockiness we just didn't see it. .

[00:30:56] And the blue angels, we had people with high egos, the high performance people sometimes have egos, but we had our ways of bringing those down a notch whenever that looked like they were way. And we were just humble because what we did was so darn hard and we never got to perfection. I like with Vince Lombardi, the famous.

[00:31:17] Maybe greatest of all time football coaches in the Green Bay Packers, one of his best quotes, and I won't get it verbatim, but he said, gentlemen, and now we have ladies in all endeavors. But in that case, gentlemen, today, we're going to go out and seek perfection. We'll never reach perfection. But along the way, we're going to find excellence, and that was what we were like in the Blue Angels.

[00:31:42] Part of the reason you want to seek perfection was safety, of course, we would start out. At the start of the flying season, we'd get down to three feet apart. That's closer than your faces to your computer screen right now are, your feet are to your head, three feet apart at 400 miles an hour, 22 ton jet.

[00:31:59] So on. By mid season, we'd go down to 18 inches because of that, I told you about that, elevating your belief levels, and building trust. So you'd get that back to where we could even get closer. So it's throughout the year. Going back to Vince Lombardi, we were seeking perfection, but the excellence would be reflected in getting closer and having that level of trust that we could be there safely.

[00:32:23] Mahan Tavakoli: What a beautiful way of putting it, Greg. As. We move up in organizations and we've glamorized a lot of entrepreneurs and CEOs, and some of us get bigger heads as a result, the recognition that you had that it wasn't just you. It was hundreds of people who were supporting you do.

[00:32:44] what you were doing. That genuine recognition wasn't just in words. You felt it to your core because that then changes the behavior toward others. And then the humility that it takes to constantly improve. It has to be confident, humility, but overcoming the ego. I love this focus, Greg, because the listeners to partnering leadership are leaders in organizations and while they admire the Blue Angels. And many of them get a chance to see the blue angels and are mesmerized.

[00:33:20] There is a lot we can learn from the way the blue angels. Operate as a unit that can then transfer to how we lead our teams and organizations as well. That's why I wanted to underline and emphasize that, but would love to know the experience and how you got a chance to fly these 

[00:33:42] Greg Wooldridge: over Moscow.

[00:33:43] It happened in the 90s the Berlin Wall had come down, the Soviet Union had divided into separate states and we as a country wanted to have opened the interaction with Russia, and get to know each other and share. There was a proposal for one of the, American flying teams to go to Russia and fly with the Russian Knights, their aerobatic team, and fly over Moscow.

[00:34:14] And so the immediate first name that came out was the Air Force Thunderbirds. We have a rivalry with them because we do similar things, but in a different branch of the service, and a little different airplane. And I heard that the Thunderbirds were going to get to go, and I thought, We should be doing that because the Thunderbirds went out of the country the year before into , Southeast Asia.

[00:34:37] I thought okay, I'm gonna jump on this. I was the boss, I was the flight leader of the team in my first year knowing that this would happen next year when I even had more experience. So I talked to a bunch of admirals in the Pentagon. I said, Admirals, it's time for the Navy to get its due to get to go overseas and do something pretty unusual.

[00:34:57] Revolutionary, if you will. And they said, Oh, yeah that sounds great. We got bigger fish. They didn't say we've got bigger fish to fry, but that was the impression. So I kept pounding away and, pecking away, not panel, but pecking away at it, trying to find a way. And then I thought, okay.

[00:35:13] Here's what I'm going to do. This might work. So I called Mr. Capilupo. I had been to McDonnell Douglas before Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis where the F 18s rolled off the production line. He had given me a tour in 91. And he showed me how and told me about how he had to keep the production line open because when you have interruptions, your skill levels, the people that are contractors, et cetera, drift away because they gotta make a living, so they're gonna go do something else.

[00:35:46] So important to keep that line open. So I thought, oh, okay. So I called him after, I'd been on that tour several months later and I said, Mr. Kalu book, I said we may have a chance to take the F 18, your airplane, to friendly countries and others in Europe and Russia but it looks like the Air Force is gonna get to do that, and so we get into this and, Corporate rivalry between the makers of the F 16 and the makers of the F 18, and so I said, Mr.

[00:36:20] Capilouto, we would love, and it's our turn, we would love to take your F 18 to these various countries, you already have contracts with them. Finland and with Spain. And let's see, because we, not only did we do lie in Russia, we flew in eight total countries in a month's time, which is twice as many airshow sites as we would have in the States and very difficult environment anyway.

[00:36:43] So I told him that, I said, I bet your senators. I'd love to keep the people in northern Missouri fully employed at your plant making airplanes. Boy, I bet they might have something to say about who gets to go. And by the end of the week ring. Hey, Woldridge, get your team ready. You're going to go to Moscow next year.

[00:37:06] And that's how it evolved and so I think that was a personal victory, frankly, and we got it done. And then we went and very successful trip. Documented in a a documentary. That was an award winning documentary in the mid nineties. 

[00:37:19] Mahan Tavakoli: What an outstanding experience as you got a chance to fly all around the world, including over Moscow. Now you mentioned the documentary you've also been making, or you've completed an IMAX movie as well. What is that? And when is that going to be out Greg? Let me 

[00:37:42] Greg Wooldridge: give you a snapshot of how that happened.

[00:37:44] Five years ago I called Rob Stone, a good friend who had made the documentary in the 90s that won the Cable Ace Award. I said, Rob, Blues are coming up on their 75th anniversary in 2022 and they're gonna fly a new airplane, the Super Hornet. Jazzed up F 18, beautiful plane. It's time to do another doc. And he said, all right.

[00:38:05] Boss, he calls me boss, still a nickname for the flight leader, he still calls me, he said, boss, that's a great idea. Let's go. So we started working it up. We were going to do it on a smaller level with corporate sponsors, Boeing makes the airplane and some of the other very pro military groups like USAA and Southwest Airlines and some of these other, and we were rolling until the coronavirus came and everybody got real cautious with the money.

[00:38:31] So we were at a standstill until I found. Through a couple of great connections, Glenn Powell, who plays Hangman in Top Gun Maverick, I found a connection to him, not mine, but someone else that connected me. He loved the Blue Angels, grew up with a Blue Angel poster in his bedroom, and he said, we got to make this happen.

[00:38:50] This would be fantastic. And now it's getting blown up from just a couple of guys doing a, Less than a million dollar documentary now to a much higher level. Once at the creative artists agency, we did virtual calls with a bunch of producers, finally found one that said, I'll produce and I'll find a way to fund it.

[00:39:09] And that was Bad Robot. Great company. Glenn Zipper Brothers, part of Bad Robot. Said we got to do this, and JJ Abrams owned, he's big and bad robot. I always shouldn't say owns, but I, I think he's like the founding guy and he loved the idea. So we got bad robot interested in producing.

[00:39:29] And then we found John Turner at IMAX head of documentary saying. This is going to be more than a documentary. This is going to be a feature length film, like Top Gun Maverick in documentary style. I brought him down to watch the blue angels and watch the 50 foot fly over almost supersonic. He said whatever you need, let's go.

[00:39:48] Let's get it done. We're done with production. And we'll be out there in IMAX theaters. For a run and then Amazon prime is going to stream it. It's just so exciting. It'll be out in May sometime in May, you're going to see a movie called the blue angels.

[00:40:08] So I'm just so excited. I get, I got to be an executive producer on it along with the other wonderful people. And it's so much fun. 

[00:40:15] Mahan Tavakoli: What a wonderful treat. It will be to watch that movie. And it has been to learn from your leadership journey. Greg, I know you have vast experience after Blue Angels, whether at FedEx, running for governor in Oregon eight minutes of cardiac arrest.

[00:40:37] There is so much to your story, but I do want to wrap up with a thought on you and blue angels in that this high performing. Team has continually changed team members every single year and continues to be high performing.

[00:41:02] You've already alluded to some of the factors. What would you say are some of the elements that leaders of teams and organizations can most easily gain? So for example, I've had conversations with Whether it's Navy SEALs or other special forces. And sometimes people in companies say these folks have been with each other for years.

[00:41:25] They have trained nonstop. It's very different than my team and my organization. So what are some of the lessons from your perspective, from the Blue Angels, that can most easily transfer to teams and organizations? 

[00:41:43] Greg Wooldridge: The most obvious one is the glad to be here debrief style of doing business, but if you want to take it to its foundation, look at the culture.

[00:41:52] What is the culture based on? Is it based on that sense of gratitude that you can share with each other? That attention to each other. Listening, and that builds the trust and you can't have the trust without the sense of gratitude.

[00:42:08] And you're not going to have a sense of gratitude unless you trust the people around you. So you have a culture. That doesn't mean. That as a new leader, you come in totally tied to that. You can put a little different slant on it, a little different look at it. Mine was kinder and gentler. I wanted to pay closer attention to those who aren't in the limelight.

[00:42:28] It's easy to buddy up with CEOs and folks that can get your attention just by saying their name or their position. I. Wanted to take our culture in a little bit different direction and really appreciate those around us that didn't have the opportunity to always be together. Now I digressed a bit from what can other companies do one of the things that we do that was great is picking our own people, 

[00:42:55] what else? I take this respect thing to my own personal level, and that is walking down the quarters of an airport to concourse, I see a sparkling place, and I see somebody cleaning. I thank them, it takes me, what, five seconds? What does it do to that person?

[00:43:12] And what does it do to the outcomes from that person? Now, if you do that internally in a corporation, in a company, get out and about and make people know they're appreciated. I think it can change things. 

[00:43:24] Mahan Tavakoli: It's a beautiful perspective to have, and it is powerful. We need more of those practices and behaviors,  in all of our teams and organizations.

[00:43:34] Now, Greg, how can the audience follow your work, find out more about you? Definitely at some point in May, watch the movie in IMAX theaters. How can they connect with you? 

[00:43:48] Greg Wooldridge: I'm on LinkedIn. That's my only social platform because I just don't really have time to do the other side I probably would if I were more technologically savvy But so LinkedIn and I have had the joy of working with one of my former wingmen from my first Team John Foley and after the cardiac arrest you alluded to I couldn't fly anymore I came to him and I said, how do you get into this speaking world?

[00:44:14] And he opened the door for me so he had been my wingman. Now I'm his wingman. So John Foley, F O L E Y, inc. com, if you go to that website, you'll find a little bit of me on there, but a direct line would be through LinkedIn 

[00:44:30] and when the movie comes out, you'll see a whole bunch of stuff, promotions. And I actually show up in a movie. 

[00:44:35] Mahan Tavakoli: There will be a cameo of you. And I'm not going to say whether there's going to be a rug dance involved or not.

[00:44:43] Greg Wooldridge: There should be I'm always doing something wrong. I'm the king of knuckle holes. 

[00:44:48] Mahan Tavakoli: Greg, what an absolute pleasure getting a chance to learn more about your journey, including with the blue angels. Thank you so much for joining the conversation, Greg Wooldridge.

[00:45:03] Greg Wooldridge: My pleasure, Mahan. Thank you, sir. This has been great. I've really enjoyed it. You're a prize, sir. Thank you.