The Exchanges

Q What phrase that your mother or father repeated to you over and over again has most stuck with you?

A Well, I guess there's two, and one we hit upon, which is the, is noblesse oblige, which is, you know, if you have the ability, you have an obligation to use that ability to help others. The other is you've got to pay the price. And this is one that my father, you know, who again, he went on to be an NIT championship, captain of NIT championship basketball team, and it was something that was taught to him by his coach, Claire B, is that, you know, success doesn't come easily. You have to pay the price. Whether that means working extra hours, whether that means, you know, giving up something else that you like, you know, self-discipline is just about Pushing those things away that you might want now for something greater that you want later. And that's, that's something that whenever things get tough, I remember my father saying, hey, you have to pay the price. And it, it, anything that's worthwhile is not going to come easy. And we, too many times we see success. We're like, oh my gosh, that guy's so lucky. That gal is so lucky. Nobody's lucky that they haven't set themselves up for luck. And there's been plenty of failures and there's been plenty of hard work. Whenever Someone else is going to sleep. Someone else is staying awake and working an extra hour. So that's, that's where I'd say those are the two. Noblesse oblige, and you've got to pay the price.

AI assessment note: “Well, I guess there's two, and one we hit upon, which is... noblesse oblige”

Q he lunged for Tom Cruise And I, I think the line was something like, I'm gonna rip your eyes out and piss in your dead skull, as he was saying that. So people have seen you before, and I, I would just love to circle back. You were from Long Island and went to the military. And what was your thought process at age 17 when you decided to enlist?

A Well, thanks, Ted. I appreciate you asking. So the, uh, Yeah, I guess to put things in perspective, um, you, we, we are sort of a culmination of our upbringing, and my mother and father were both very service-oriented. My, uh, father was a United States Marine during World War II, and, uh, he was actually a, uh, a very prominent figure in New York in that he was the captain of an NIT championship basketball team. Everybody knew who he was, and when he enlisted in the Marines, It, uh, got a full page, uh, spread with tons of photographs. Art Gerfine off to fight the war. And so, uh, he, he didn't necessarily have to go, but he wanted to go, and he recognized how to leverage his popularity to gain support. And so, he went and served, and my mother was serving as well, but in England at the time, and she was a nurse. And so, both of them have always sort of put into me the whole perspective of spirit of service and, uh, Uh, as we refer to it, noblesse oblige that, you know, if you have the ability, you have an obligation to serve. And so when I was 17, I cut out of high school and ran down to the recruiter and said, uh, hey, you know, how do you, uh, how do you join the Marines? And the recruiter told me the whole story of, you know, what you have to do. And he said, you know, do you do drugs? I said, no, I don't, I don't do drugs. He's like, are you in good shape? I said, yeah, y…

AI assessment note: “both of them have always sort of put into me the whole perspective of spirit of service”

Q it was like an intro psychology, diffusion of responsibility. I used to talk about it with my team. If you send an email out to three people asking for something, nobody ever sends it back, or you sort of have to assign ownership. Same, same kind of concept. And so do you see that repeatedly in the organizations you're working with, where they're just, there isn't the sense of ownership?

A Absolutely. And, and I think most people Um, have jobs. Most people, uh, it's, it's not something that's a profession. Um, they're, that they're, they're figuring out how they're going to pay the mortgage. And so there's also a different sense of loyalty to the organization and to the individuals that they work for. But again, a part of that is The way that the leadership has set up their own perspective. And one of the analogies I try to give, you know, we all think of leadership as sort of this pyramid and the org chart where you have the senior leaders up top and everything flows down. The Marine Corps has a very different perspective. And the perspective is really that of an inverted pyramid, and that the leader is actually at the bottom trying to balance everything, because at the end of the day, for success, that eighteen-year-old rifleman must locate, close with, and destroy the enemy, and if that doesn't happen, nothing else matters. So everything in the organization exists to support that individual, whereas in the corporate world, a lot of times we see individuals who are moving up the leadership channels, they see subordinates As trying to affect their accomplished missions for them to get a good resume or them to build so they can go to the next level. And so they're stepping on people and not really caring about their personal welfare. And this is where the Marine …

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. And, and I think most people Um, have jobs.”

Q Hey, Bo, before you jump into that, in those moments before the, the, the fire came in, Were you starting to think about, okay, what am I going to say to the guys in the morning?

A I recognize there was nothing I was going to say, but it was one of those things where I knew, or I perceived that my credibility was shot. That, you know, these guys just were not going to trust me, and whenever they could get away with something, they'd be like, you know, this lieutenant doesn't know what he's doing. He's doing things by the book. He's not doing the right things, and, uh, I, I was really, I was questioning myself, and I, I trusted in the leaders who had trained me, the mentors who had trained me, and I guess it was just luck that we were strafed, I mean, if you can put it that way, because it created the cohesion and support of our unit, but I don't know that there would have been anything to say at that time. I think they, they recognized my position, and that was it.

AI assessment note: “I recognize there was nothing I was going to say”

Q to work for Goldman Sachs. Let's start a little bit with what did you start to see in Goldman Sachs? It could be any organization, but in that particular organization where you're in this incredibly well-managed, leadership-trained organization. Goldman, which is probably one of the better organizations on Wall Street, but it's still Wall Street. What were your perceptions at the time of the good, the bad, and the ugly?

A Right. Well, look, I only spent a very short time with Goldman, and truth be told, I ended up punching out very quickly and ended up going to a high tech startup. And the reason was, Goldman, great organization, super people, really brilliant people. Everything about it, I really, I didn't have anything bad to say about the organization as a whole, or the people. But I, having, you know, spent, you know, so much time in a combat environment, I saw myself more aligned with the entrepreneurial startups and really going into more of a, an environment that was a little bit more volatile, uncertain, and complex, and ambiguous, and, and so I, I didn't, uh, I didn't stay at Goldman long. I ended up, you know, just did a quick summer associate, and then bam, I was out, but, uh, I, I don't really have anything bad to say about Goldman.

AI assessment note: “I really, I didn't have anything bad to say about the organization”

Q to build up the, the strength to feel that they have the competence to have the confidence. For those people who it's just not innately I'm just gonna keep running through the brick wall until the brick wall goes down. How do you encourage those people, and we've also talked about with our kids, how do you support your kids when they're in those moments where they're not being resilient?

A That's great. I, you know, I see that all the time with my daughter, and I'm constantly trying to reinforce those things, and she, she understands one concept, and that is, we always try, and this is where, you know, as a matter of fact, this morning, she just made her own macaroni and cheese for lunch, and I provided supervision from afar, but she did it herself, and I was very proud, and she was like, but dad, what do I do here? Figure it out. And, you know, certainly, you know, you, we have to take that perspective from the leadership into our subordinates and where we have to encourage our subordinates to always try because too many times they come to us like, I have a problem. And, and they're not saying I have a problem. They're saying here, you have a problem you have to fix for me. And it's important. We push it back down and say, great, figure it out and tell me what you're going to do to solve it. And, That's one of those things that too many times we, if we're good leaders, or we perceive ourselves as good leaders, like, I will save the day, and we end up detracting from what our responsibility is, which is the oversight of the organization, because we get focused on this individual task that we have to push down, and we have to develop our supported leaders to have the resilience and to be problem solvers. And, you know, I guess, again, to take it back to the Marine…

AI assessment note: “push it back down and say, great, figure it out and tell me what you're going to do”

Q What was your favorite sports moment, either as a participant or an observer?

A Uh, I guess that, that had to be our senior year in high school, uh, being the quarterback of an undefeated football team, and I remember our coach pulling us together, and we had this on video, and, you know, we're all jumping around cheering, and we're all happy, and he pulled us together, and he said something that was very insightful that I don't think really sunk in at the time, and he said, savor this moment because you may never have one like this again, and I think, you know, as an 18, 17, eighteen-year-old kid, you don't realize that great success doesn't happen all the time, and, you know, I was very fortunate that I've gone on. I've been a part of great teams, but I know there's a lot of kids on our football team, like, that was the highlight of their life. Those are glory days, and, um, so that was the, you know, definitely the greatest sports moment of my life, and I, I love that one, and I love, you know, reuniting with, The old classmates and, you know, reliving the glory days. Absolutely.

AI assessment note: “senior year in high school, uh, being the quarterback of an undefeated football team”

Q All right, last one. It's your waning days. You're about 98 years old, sitting in a rocking chair. Don't have the energy to restrain Jack Nicholson. What advice would you give yourself today?

A Do it all over again. I, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly, it's been an amazing Amazing ride. Uh, the importance of friendships, of networks, uh, that's, uh, to me the most important thing, and it's, again, to give a short story here, I had a roommate, academic honor graduate from the Naval Academy, brilliant, super person, uh, who went on to go to Stanford to get his MBA, and when I was thinking about getting out of the Marine Corps the first time, he convinced me to go get my MBA and Really didn't know what that meant at the time, but it was sound guidance, and he gave further guidance, which was even more insightful. He said, when you go, the most important thing is going to be developing your relationships, and developing your networks, and making sure that you have people that you can rely upon throughout your career. He said, the academics, you'll pick up. But he went to Stanford to be the academic honor graduate because that's sort of the, the rule of thumb in the Marine Corps is that whatever school you go to, you should be number one, especially if you go to another service component. If you go to an army school, you should certainly be the honor graduate from the army school. And, uh, he tried to do it and he failed. Uh, he fell short. He still did very well, but he said he failed worse than not becoming the academic honor graduate in that he spent all of his…

AI assessment note: “Do it all over again. I, you know, the good, the bad”

Q So let's use that as an example. How does leadership in that situation make sure that you are not demotivated in your next task?

A That's, that's great. The general rule within the Marine Corps Is, and it's even written in our FMFM one leadership, you know, warrior Bible, if you will, is that our subordinate leaders should never be punished for making a mistake. They should be counseled. They should be brought aside, but never punished because it does limit taking risk or chances or advancing going forward. And the only time that a subordinate should be punished is for a lack of action. Because in the Marine Corps, we have to have a propensity for action. And just as an entrepreneurial organization, you can't have somebody come back and you say, hey, did you get X done? Well, well, no, because of this. Well, what did you do? Well, nothing. I, you can't do nothing. You must do something. Even if it's wrong, you have to do something. And this is where the, the momentum and everything can be stalled if you're crushing someone every time they make a mistake. So in general, You know, I've, I've had plenty of subordinates who've made mistakes, and certainly you have to correct it and pull them aside, and assuming it's not a criminal action or something that's, that's, you know, a war crime, you just give them that rudder correction, because that's how they learn, and that's how they move forward, and then you, you constantly, you know, we always have this saying, hey, good initiative, bad judgment, you know, so …

AI assessment note: “subordinate leaders should never be punished for making a mistake. They should be counseled.”

Q So I want to turn a little bit from leadership to try to understand lessons of resource allocation from the military. So there's resources of people. There are resources of Weapons. There's resources of knowledge. As a leader in the military, how do you think about delegation and allocating resources?

A The Marine Corps is something, as we do our planning, that's referred to as the focus of effort, and it's a concept similar to prioritization, and basically it says Let's say we have three companies of Marines that are advancing. One company is designated as the focus of effort, which means that if you only have limited amounts of resources, whether it be artillery firing and support, or naval gunfire, or airplanes, or any other aspect of what's happening on the battlefield, that the priority goes to that unit that has the, that is the focus of effort, or wherever we must see success. And so, Other parts of the organization recognize that, hey, we may not get what we need at the time because we're the supporting effort. And this is really important to communicate that because a lot of times people are going to say, hey, why aren't I getting what I want? And we see certain individuals within the organization that have more influence or it's perceived that they have more influence. They're getting more assets. They're getting more computers. They're getting more people, whatever it is. And it's important that it's communicated that we're working as a team, that the organization must succeed. And for the organization to succeed, this one group has our priority of effort. And like, if it's in business development, and you're seeing that, okay, we're going after, you know, B to B co…

AI assessment note: “referred to as the focus of effort, and it's a concept similar to prioritization”

Q And how do you think about the, the idea of, of putting your full self into something when you know at the beginning the odds of success are long against you?

A It's one of those things that It's the only way to play. Number one, you, you, you can't do something, you know, half in, and this is, many people, they, they do this half in, and then their excuse is, well, you know, I, I really didn't try, and you know, it was just, I knew we were going to lose. That's not acceptable. You go in a hundred percent, or you don't play at all, and it's a lesson that I learned early on, uh, actually as a, a little kid playing football in high school, where I came from You know, a non-football world where, you know, Great Next South, Liberal, New York, we, we were not a football school at all, and, uh, we had a bunch of great kids, and we were really enthusiastic, and we loved each other, we were like brothers, and we still are to this day, and early on, I said, you know what, when we're seniors, we're gonna have an undefeated team, we're gonna be number one, and my own team laughed in my face, and they said, look, we don't even have a quarterback, and so I was like, Good point. So I decided to be the quarterback, and I knew nothing about quarterback. I was a fullback. I was a guy who'd take the ball and just crash into the line. Well, by our senior year, we had an undefeated team, and we destroyed everybody by 30 points per game, and we weren't the fastest, we weren't the strongest, but we had the will, and that's where I learned early on that the …

AI assessment note: “It's the only way to play. You go in a hundred percent, or you don't play”

Q There was a Daily News or the Post? I know you ended up somewhere on the, one of the New York papers.

A It was on the front cover of every newspaper across the world. My brother in Israel picked up a newspaper and saw it, was like, what the heck? And the communication that came out was, America here is to remove Saddam Hussein, not to harm the Iraqi people, and that spread throughout the Arab world, and was a very positive message. Now, your question was about failure. So, the interesting thing is, we have a saying in the Marine Corps, no good deed goes unpunished. So, after that incident, I collected up some of our, uh, the senior officers that we had captured, and our, uh, some of the classified information, all rest, and we went back to the, the rear command, which was still in Kuwait, And we came in, everybody's cheering, everybody saw what happened. Of course, some colonel, who has, was not able to make that shift from the bureaucratic world into the combat world, pulls me into his office, which was just sort of like a partitioned area of this giant airplane hangar, and proceeds to start screaming at me, like, that was not your mission! Who told you to do that? You were in the, on CNN, you were in the news, who told you about it? Just screaming and yelling, because there was nothing written about doing that. That was my interpretation of the commander's intent. Now, fortunately, one of the Marines who was outside, because they were all listening, they all turned down the rad…

AI assessment note: “It was on the front cover of every newspaper across the world.”

Q I know you were campaigning with your ninety-one-year-old mother, which was just a phenomenal thing to see from afar. What was, what was the process like? What did you learn? And again, let's, Let's talk about some lessons of leadership and resource allocation. Now you're in a very different type of environment, limited budget, trying to get a lot done. And, uh, and how did that all unfold for you?

A Well, I'll tell you that, you know, the, the, the first question everybody asks when you decide to run for Congress is, do you have the money? Will you have the money to get this done? And I don't think, as a first-time candidate, you realize the impact of the money and how important that is. You know, it's really the ammunition to fight the fight, and those people who understand this game realize that the majority of your time really has to be On the phones, begging for money. And it's a, uh, a painful process. And, uh, you know, fortunately I had, uh, you know, people like yourself and others who were just very supportive and people who would, you know, contribute. I had classmates and section mates who were unbelievable in their support. And then other people just because of family circumstances, all the rest that just weren't able to, But then, you know, you're going out to everybody, just, you know, really trying to gather your war chest before you get going. And, um, we, we had a lot of promises from big donors as well, and this election cycle was very interesting in that, you know, when people were watching who was running and what was happening, people would, they would say, yes, we're coming behind you, then next second, we're not putting a penny into any of these races, and it was just very bizarre from, uh, From the financial standpoint, uh, it's sort of, there's two…

AI assessment note: “The ground game, we crushed. Uh, we were out five in the morning”

Q but I want to circle back to it, is the notion of making plans and then giving orders and how you give orders. So let's start with the second one. If you start with this construct of, hey, the employees are the people that matter. The bottom of the pyramid is what works. How do you, how do you give orders in such a way that supports that thought process?

A That's a great question. I think the, the, the first piece is the communication, and it has to be a two-way communication, and the first thing that I always do whenever I step into an organization, whether as a, a CEO or as a consultant or in any form of leadership role, whether it be a combat unit or whether it be in civilian private sector, I ask three questions of every single person in that organization. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong, and what can we be doing better? I call them the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tell me the good things, and people come out, a lot of times they don't think about it, because we get focused on all the things that we, we bitch about and we're upset about. So people first identify, well, we're doing these things really well. Great. Let's keep doing that. What's the bad stuff? Oh, we're doing that? Let's get rid of that. And what are the things we can do better? Because there's some things we should be doing and we're not doing for whatever reason, and then this is really where we find those solutions. And so bringing this back in and then coming out with directives and orders that people want to hear. I mean, this is the thing down on the, you know, for all of us who have been working down at the subordinate level, we know who the crummy players are long before the management ever finds out. And this is where, you know, we're n…

AI assessment note: “bringing this back in and then coming out with directives and orders that people want”

Q All right, let's turn to some closing questions. What is your favorite thing to do that is a complete waste of time?

A Huh. Well, my favorite thing to do that I, I guess depends on how you define it as a complete waste of time is just playing with my daughter. And, um, I would say it's not a waste of time because I've got a great relationship with my daughter, but, um, Like yesterday, my daughter wanted to figure out how to make slime, so we went online, and we figured out how to make slime, and she loved it. The fact that she actually created this thing was amazing, but I remember as we were doing this, like, oh my gosh, this is wasting so much time, and the reality is, it wasn't, and so I think in general, whenever you do something with someone else, it's not a waste of time. I think doing things by yourself, uh, if you're not Developing yourself, reading, or something like that, that is a waste of time. So I try to always do things with my daughter, so I'm not wasting time. It's an excuse for not wasting time. My wife will say we're wasting time.

AI assessment note: “depends on how you define it as a complete waste of time is just playing with my daughter”

Q What's your sweet spot, just so people who are listening know, what's your sweet spot to the type of organizations you like working with?

A I, I really enjoy developing teams, uh, working with, uh, Like right now, there's an organization that I'm going to be, uh, helping out where they, a lot of times organizations misunderstand their, their business strategy versus their execution in that they'll divine or develop to find a, a great business model based upon financial success, but the implementation and the execution with the personnel escapes them. And it's because a lot of times when people who are in the The financial world, they're great crunching the numbers and building out the pro formas. The execution piece is the challenging part, and so I'm coming in to help build out world-class teams to actually facilitate success for these different organizations that do have great business models, and that's really, I would say, uh, where I've been able to add the greatest value.

AI assessment note: “implementation and the execution with the personnel escapes them”