Episode 104 – Crisis Leadership – Lessons Onboard the USS Cole Manage This - The Project Management Podcast
-
- Management
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 experien
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 experien