Episode 104 – Crisis Leadership – Lessons Onboard the USS Cole

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The unpredictable nature of a crisis means that leaders have little time to prepare. Our guest Matt Harper, a retired 20 year Naval Officer, talks about crisis leadership lessons he learned onboard the USS Cole during a terrorist attack. Table of Contents 00:37 … Meet Matt 01:38 … Matt’s Role on the USS Cole 03:55 … Background to the USS Cole Deployment 06:32 … Geographical Location of Yemen 07:58 … October 12th, 2000 10:02 … Reacting in Times of Crisis 12:24 … Events Following the Attack 14:36 … Responding Well or Responding Poorly in a Crisis 16:34 … Management vs. Leadership 20:15 … Crisis Leadership Lesson One: Understand Yourself 21:05 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Two: Be Comfortable with Uncertainty 22:40 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Three: Collaborate 24:01 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Four: Be Ready to do Anything 26:35 … Crisis Leadership Lesson Five: Lessons Learned 27:35 … Keeping Motivated in a Crisis 29:42 … Get up on the Balcony, Take a Different Perspective 33:11 … Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone 34:41 … Resolving the Problem 37:20 … Get in Touch with Matt 38:52 … Closing MATT HARPER: ...this is the hallmark of the good leader, of the good project manager that says, got it, that’s the way it’s supposed to be done, but we’re in a crisis deadline or whatever the case may be.  And this is how we need to do it now. WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  I am Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates. BILL YATES:  Hi.  Hi, Wendy. WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Bill.    Today we’re talking about what will we do in a time of crisis.  We have Matt Harper with us.  He is on Skype from Denver, Colorado. Meet Matt BILL YATES:  Yeah, Matt has had a twenty year career with the US Navy and we’ll get more into that. Specifically though, he had a unique experience and I’m looking forward to discussing with him and sharing with our audience. WENDY GROUNDS:  Matt is going to tell us about his experience on the USS Cole after a terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, which happened in October 2000. He was decorated for his leadership after this attack and he’s applied that to coaching lessons in crisis leadership, and so I think he’s got a lot of good stuff he’s going to bring to us today. BILL YATES:  Yeah, Matt, we so appreciate your time.  Welcome to Manage This. MATT HARPER:  Well, thanks.  Thanks for having me.  Looking forward to it. BILL YATES:  Any time we can bring somebody into a conversation that has the knowledge, the training, and the experience that you do, we know our project manager listeners are going to appreciate it and learn from it.  Wendy and I were talking, we feel like the best way to tackle this topic is just start from the beginning.  Give us a sense for what happened with the USS Cole and what your role was, or what part you played in that. Matt’s Role on the USS Cole MATT HARPER:  Sure.  Well, thanks, thanks again for having me.  I would like to kind of start out, having a 20-year military background, I’m sure a lot of the people listening to the podcast will have military backgrounds. BILL YATES:  Right. MATT HARPER:  But for most people who do not, I would like to say that anybody who spends time in the military, what we do on a daily basis is really project management. BILL YATES: That’s true. MATT HARPER:  It’s something that we I think don’t do a very good job, we people in the military or prior military personnel, we don’t do a very good job really making it clear that that’s really what we do, probably 90 percent of our day, is really different types of projects that all interrelate to each other.  They’re all underfunded; they’re all under-resourced. BILL YATES:  Yes. MATT HARPER:  And that’s what we do on a daily basis.  So about my experience, I originally grew up in San Francisco.  I always knew I kind of wanted to be in the Navy,