Instilling AI Readiness Across Your Teams with Capt. Jonathan Haase

[00:00:00] Capt. Jon: My goal is that using AI and AI-driven tools allows us to have more time and better conversations, right? It's not that it removes that space and prevents us from doing that. These tools are meant to humanize work, give us more face-to-face interaction, and spend less time editing and rewriting documents and slides and more time talking about them in person and communicating these ideas, hopefully, better ideas that we've thought through more, and building better human interactions on our team.

[00:00:26] Capt. Jon: Not removing or paring them down, but enhancing them. We choose to. In this decade do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard through our blood and our bonds. We crushed the Germans before he got here. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

[00:00:54] Bonnie: Okay. This is Bonnie Evangelista with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office joined by John. [00:01:00] From the Navy and I say that maybe with a little funniness to it because, John and I don't, haven't talked very much or, but I, there was an instant, I would say, connection with John when I met him at one of my events and or one of my trade wins events.

[00:01:15] Bonnie: I believe John has been a defense Maverick in hiding. So I'm bringing him to the limelight and we're gonna find out together, if you don't mind, John, we're gonna, I'm gonna get a little curious and we're going to, we're going to figure out if you're the, the maverick, I think you are. Go with 

[00:01:28] Capt. Jon: that, Bonnie.

[00:01:29] Capt. Jon: That sounds great. looking forward to doing it with you and the team. And I'll just say that I thoroughly enjoyed our, initial get-together and, was very impressed by your work with Tradewinds. So, yeah, happy to explore the space and, figure out where we're at. 

[00:01:41] Bonnie: Cool. Go ahead and give us a quick rundown.

[00:01:43] Bonnie: Who you are, where you work, what's your functional lane, and, 

[00:01:47] Capt. Jon: Wouldn't care [00:02:00] about. Counter UAS and some of the tools techniques and publications that we use within EOD. And so I get to have this incredible experience as a PM where I get to see what's out there in the marketplace. I get to take a look at some of the robotics systems, some of the AI.

[00:02:25] Capt. Jon: Capabilities that we have, the data problems and challenges around that, then we get to look at testing, evaluation, fielding, and then continuous improvement when those things are out in the field. because it's, not until the first sailor gets to use the first one in the real world. Do you get that feedback that you need to do the kind of continuous improvement?

[00:02:42] Capt. Jon: And the great thing is that because we're hardware and software, we get to, continuously update and improve on both sides and the integration poses, you know, really fun challenges. You know, on the acquisition side of things, we get to deal with all the same processes and rules that everybody else does.

[00:02:55] Capt. Jon: Has its opportunities and challenges and you know, that's fun to explore. And you know, what I've found [00:03:00] from that is there's just a bunch of great people trying to do exceptional work. And the more you can kind of all push together, the more you can accomplish. And it's been amazing to deliver a lot of end items to the Navy.

[00:03:10] Capt. Jon: You know, last year our program office delivered over 20,000 items into the Navy and I'm just so proud of our team for doing that. you know, in addition, we've got AI systems that we've been working on for a decade that are great. So that's been fun. Yeah, it's a little bit about me and I think outta that portfolio, the things that are most on my mind are, you know, how.

[00:03:25] Capt. Jon: We use AI to do our job, and then how we roll AI into these systems for them to help sailors do their job. Because I get to see the whole life cycle of all that and explore the challenges and where the edges are on the capability, what we can do, what we can't do yet, and what the risks are.

[00:03:42] Capt. Jon: The balance between speed and risk, is a really interesting thing to explore because it's still emerging, and with the pace of technology right now, it's hard to keep up with honestly. Right. Especially once you, for example, get into a large language model and those continue to be updated and see the capability rolled out and there's a hundred ideas you get and by the time you sort of put pen to [00:04:00] paper, the next update is out.

[00:04:01] Capt. Jon: Right. And you have to kind of start over from scratch. That's been interesting. Well, before we get down to 

[00:04:04] Bonnie: business, so to say, you mentioned to me before. As we were talking before we started recording that you read, a Benjamin Franklin biography every year, autobiography. Oh, that's right. every year, right?

[00:04:15] Bonnie: Did I hear that right? Why do you do that? 

[00:04:17] Capt. Jon: It goes back to, I guess like my, one of my rules in life. I'm a really simple guy, so simple rules serve me well. And I have this rule that if two people, two independent, credible people tell me the same thing on separate occasions, except for a good reason why I shouldn't, I'll do whatever I'm told.

[00:04:30] Capt. Jon: Right? And so, you know, if I have two friends that I trust in a space and they tell me the same thing on different occasions, I'll generally do that. And if I look at somebody like Charlie. Munger, who's Warren Buffett's partner. It was his, his partner at Berkshire Hathaway, who's continually quoting Benjamin Franklin and the number of other folks who have quoted his wit and wisdom over the years that more than triggers my two-person rule and they're not in person.

[00:04:49] Capt. Jon: So I thought, you know, I should just read him directly instead of listening to what people say about him. And so every year. Me and the kids would take a drive back to visit my parents and we had a lot of time to kill 'cause they were in Chicago. And so I would [00:05:00] download Benjamin Franklin's autobiography and so it just became a tradition to li listen to it.

[00:05:04] Capt. Jon: Though my kids did not enjoy the experience, I found it exceptional because there are things that he did and concepts that he expressed that are timeless to the point where people who are incredibly accomplished are still citing his wit wisdom, and his. General rules for a good life. And at the one at the end of one of his, at the end of the autobiography, it talks about an endowment that he had set up for the trades 'cause he was a tradesman, he was a brand printing press business.

[00:05:26] Capt. Jon: Retired. Well, I mean, first of all, let's just go over his life. Retired at the age of forty-two. He was put into a terrible apprenticeship with his brother, which amounted to almost slavery at the time. He worked his way out of that without any, resources to his name or advantages. He set up an incredible business in Philadelphia.

[00:05:41] Capt. Jon: He became a successful. Entrepreneur set up the fire department idea that we have in America, the first public library, the university there. He gave away patents later in his life. He was an incredible inventor. He like was an expert in electricity in the age of electrification. It was incredible what he accomplished across all these domains.

[00:05:57] Capt. Jon: And then he became a statesman. He went abroad and [00:06:00] financed the American Revolution. And if you look at his ability to contribute to America or science, or to our understanding of how to live a successful, happy life, he's just incredible to me. And so for all these reasons. I've always been inspired by his example, and I never get tired of listening to him talk about it.

[00:06:15] Capt. Jon: But back to the endowment about the trades. Now, when he first started as a printer, he's Hey, if we set this up with this much principle and at this much interest and we pay it out for this long, we should have an endowment for the trades nearly indefinitely. So I looked it up and it like it worked.

[00:06:26] Capt. Jon: It was like, for so long there was an endowment for the trade set up by Franklin. And so he had this enduring, he was right. He was just right. So often, you know, his one big rule is that it's just. Still so useful to me though. Seems so simple. As, you know, always spend less than you make. It seems so dumb. yeah, why would you, why would that be a deal?

[00:06:41] Capt. Jon: But if you think about it, if you do that for your entire life like that's the only financial rule you need, invest the delta and you'll be incredibly well off. And he's got these other heuristics that are such a great and useful guide to life. And he's so witty and clever to me. He's just an inspiration.

[00:06:54] Capt. Jon: Well, 

[00:06:55] Bonnie: I don't know if this correlates. To that note or sentiment. But [00:07:00] another thing that struck me when I met you was you were kind of telling me about your career and, you there. I will say the department needs good PMs, really good PMs, and you seemed like a really good PM in that regard. And I kind of remember a.

[00:07:14] Bonnie: Story around good people having lots of opportunities and you declined a lot of opportunities to stay at pm Am I remembering that 

[00:07:21] Capt. Jon: correctly? I did, yeah. The Navy had given me a real golden ticket to go get a Ph.D. in the study and teach as part of a program, and I had sort of, declined that, to go be a PM and.

[00:07:31] Capt. Jon: And, you know, I look back at that often and I think, boy, what a great decision. when I look at these, you know, life as a PM is funny for folks who have done it. They can relate to this, but, you know, so often I have such good people working on the team that I'm there just to cheer the team on and to be an advocate for them and to talk about the great things they're doing and to just sort of stick to the plan, right.

[00:07:51] Capt. Jon: Probably 90% of the time we're sticking to the plan and we're doing great work. But there's 10% of the time where I'll see an opportunity and I'll have a moment to move. That [00:08:00] can change the course of a program that can change the conversation, that can broaden what we're looking at and in my opinion, can make a real difference.

[00:08:07] Capt. Jon: And to me, those moments, I always, when I have those, I step back and I just take a deep breath and I'm like, I cannot believe I, this is my job. I'm like so lucky to be able to do this. And here's why I can still go back to when I was a lieutenant on deployment and the first night. We showed up in Iraq and it was so dark and I had so no idea where I was as we were making it out to the base that we were stationed on, that I was terrified and I was like, I hope we know what we're doing.

[00:08:31] Capt. Jon: And there's this moment of like trust in the system and fear coupled together. And as a pm, I just think there's some lieutenant, maybe it's not now, maybe it's not even five years from now, but like this is gonna happen again to another version of me. Like I look at JG's lieutenants and I see my face in their uniform, right?

[00:08:45] Capt. Jon: Like it's hard not to. And I just think, boy, if we could do one small thing, protect one person when they have that experience, or give them one more. Bit of confidence that the system cares about them and wants them to come home safe. that is what drives me as a pm and it's, so incredibly rewarding.

[00:08:59] Capt. Jon: And just as an [00:09:00] example, we were doing like a tech review one time, and there was this great mind detector system, handheld mind detector system that they were doing that would use AI to visualize the spots that were searched and not searched so you wouldn't accidentally step in an area that wasn't safe.

[00:09:11] Capt. Jon: And I shared my stories about, you know, instances where I had close calls myself and how this. Capability would've been such an incredible difference to me. I was just sharing this with the science committee and they, and when it was done, they came up and they said, we're gonna accelerate that. we appreciate you sharing kind of the story behind it.

[00:09:24] Capt. Jon: And so it's in those moments as a PM that you're like, boy, it's worth it a hundred times over. And what a privilege to be part of the system and how grateful I am that you know, 15 years ago there was some PM who was. Thinking of, you know, Lieutenant Posse and fat, the stuff out that protected me and my team.

[00:09:37] Capt. Jon: And so it's great to be able to give back. Wow. 

[00:09:39] Bonnie: what an incredible reminder of the mission that, you know, people in RC tend to either get distracted or disconnected from because you're not as close to it. And, but they're being reminded that us as a collective, like if any part in the system starts to break down, it, ultimately affects that.

[00:09:57] Bonnie: Thank you for sharing that. That was, really nice. [00:10:00] It's a, it was just a great reminder. Like I said, that's, that purpose-driven mission-driven is, why a lot of us are here. 

[00:10:07] Capt. Jon: And it's, a challenge, right? And I can understand why that, isn't top of mind sometimes because there's so much to do.

[00:10:14] Capt. Jon: The checklist is there, the to-do list is there. You've got deadlines, you've got updates, you know, you have budgets like the job just requires. Of all of us so much and so much attention. And it's such a complex system to navigate that you can get lost in the process and that's easy to do. And so it's really helpful for me to see junior officers sometimes.

[00:10:31] Capt. Jon: And just to go back to that moment where you're like, wow, like the things we do and are creating are when they're out there when they're doing the mission and when they have to, when they have to have something that works. that's our job. Like it's our job to make sure they come home. And when they do and they say, we just had an automated target recognition, ATR Community of Interest meeting, and a couple of younger versions of me were, they were talking.

[00:10:50] Capt. Jon: About their deployment and they were able to say, Hey, we used this automated target recognition and we didn't trust it when we started and we trust it now. And it was so helpful that we're, you know, we're excited about the future of where this is [00:11:00] gonna go. And just take a deep breath and you're like, geez, two years well spent like that feels so good to hear.

[00:11:04] Capt. Jon: So how does, 

[00:11:05] Bonnie: we, were talking about AI readiness 'cause AI readiness. Play into the challenge you just described in terms of there's so much work to do, budgets are only getting bigger, workforce is getting smaller. Are you, do you see that as a tool in our 

[00:11:16] Capt. Jon: toolbox? I think AI readiness has to be on everybody's mind right now because there will come a time when it all gets turned on.

[00:11:23] Capt. Jon: And if I've seen the way the software's rolled out at the enterprise level, we might do some pilot tests. We might do some, you know, small user groups. You know, usually, you're not super aware of all that stuff. Generally, like one day it shows up on your desktop or there's a new tool and a new tab and everybody's whoa, you know, what's that?

[00:11:38] Capt. Jon: How does this work? And we kind of struggle to figure that out. And then while it becomes normal and then we're able to use it, something like that is gonna happen with AI. Across the workforce. Right. I don't know what day that will be when we flip that thing on. I don't even know what that thing will be that we flip on.

[00:11:49] Capt. Jon: But to your question of is that an enabler? As the challenges and the complexity increase, I think it is. and so when you look at, you know, when that flip is thrown when that [00:12:00] switch is turned on, are we ready for it? That will all allow us to, I think, do a couple of things. It'll improve the quality of the work, the pace at which we're able to go and improve our decision-making ability when.

[00:12:10] Capt. Jon: We fully realize, you know, more fully realize AI as we go on. And so the question is, what can we do right now before that flip is switched on and we get a full implementation of whatever AI we're gonna get to be ready for that day, for that moment, right? And so I think if people aren't thinking about that, they'll be at a disadvantage and they'll be, I think, not getting the benefits as quickly as possible.

[00:12:30] Capt. Jon: So how are you 

[00:12:31] Bonnie: thinking about that? 'cause you're in a critical decision in the decision-making Tree of the department, right? As a pm what are you thinking about? How do you bring I won't say, I was gonna say normal. But maybe that's not the right word. How do you start to embrace or introduce this to get it to where it becomes normal so when something gets flipped on, we're ready?

[00:12:49] Capt. Jon: Yeah. So fortunately Flankspeed, Microsoft Flankspeed has made this easy in my world and in the world of folks that we work with because everybody has Microsoft teams and there's. A little setting in [00:13:00] teams that took me a while to figure out and even longer to try 'cause I was a little nervous about it.

[00:13:03] Capt. Jon: But you can turn on transcriptions and so, you know, it's using natural language processing, some kind of NLP. I'm not sure if it's AI-driven or if it's using other tools, but you know, it's pretty transparent. You flip a little switch, it builds a transcript for you and when you're done you get a written transcript that's not perfect, right?

[00:13:16] Capt. Jon: But it is a transcript of everything that happened. And so, you know, as much as we're able to, what we've started to do is try to normalize transcription of our team's meetings and they'll leave. Everybody will show up in my office and I'll start the team's meeting and I'll turn the transcript on so we have a record of it.

[00:13:29] Capt. Jon: And then what we try to do is just gather all those transcripts and put them into Microsoft OneDrive. And we have folders that we've set up by sort of our products and our topics. And that folder system is an ontology or just labeling that if we never need to train an AI and what we're doing right, the folders are labeled properly, that the ontology of those OneDrive folders is a label of the data itself.

[00:13:52] Capt. Jon: And then inside one, each one of those folders, there's just bunches of transcripts. What I, think, and what I communicate to my team is that by having all [00:14:00] this written data about who we are what we think who we work with, what our products are, and how we're moving forward, and what our challenges have been, and what the opportunities in front of us are, right?

[00:14:09] Capt. Jon: We're building up this massive volume of information, perspective, and context, right? And to me, that's a key component to using AI to do knowledge work. Right now we need to build these repositories of data. The reason I say that is because if you look at what's happened with the advancement of the large language models or their initial training, it all hinged on the data.

[00:14:29] Capt. Jon: And so by having better data, they had better models. And then through the reinforcement learning with human feedback process of getting, you know, this worked, this didn't work, this was good, this wasn't good, this was offensive, this wasn't right. Whatever magic is happening with reinforcement learning, with human feedback for these various companies, it's just been a massive improvement.

[00:14:46] Capt. Jon: In the AI that we've gotten. And so what that tells me is it's about the data that you get. It's about how you label it, and it's about how you use it for training. And so what I'm telling my team right now is, you know, imagine a world in which we get some kind of AI assistant that's turned on for all of us on it.

[00:14:59] Capt. Jon: It [00:15:00] shows up one day. Now imagine we can point that AI assistant to everything that we've collected in transcription. In our programs, and then we create a version of this AI assistant, and that's getting easier to do every day with building your GPTs and point and click basically, and you get a fine-tuned model.

[00:15:14] Capt. Jon: Now you point it towards this folder. It knows what the folder structure is, it knows what the labels of the folder are, and it can read what's in those folders. And I, in my imagination, see out of this a tool that not just knows the far and the DFAR, but it can understand the history of all the NDAs and how we got here and all the conflicts that have ever happened, right?

[00:15:32] Capt. Jon: All the things that would come with a large language model, but now it knows specifically who we are who we work with what our programs are what our challenges are, and how we can sort of bring these things together. And so. When I think of AI readiness, that's what I'm thinking about and how I'm communicating it to my team.

[00:15:47] Capt. Jon: And there are different levels. You could do the, ours is a fairly complex, be AI ready program, but you could do this at a much simpler level if you wanted to just by storing and archiving your data in a way that's accessible for this later, even if you don't go to transcription. So if you're not asking [00:16:00] questions like, what would work for my organization?

[00:16:02] Capt. Jon: Or How do I become more AI-ready in the future? Right. You're just. Gonna be caught a little flat-footed. 

[00:16:06] Bonnie: Are there any tools you're playing with, AI or not, but just new tools that are helping you do work easier, 

[00:16:12] Capt. Jon: better, faster, cheaper? Yeah, so we're fortunate there that there is through, you know, a particular organization within the DOD, a large language model that does have an ATO and authority to operate.

[00:16:23] Capt. Jon: That is at the IL-II level, which just means that you can't use sensitive information with it at the unclassified level. And we were able to, through a number of our connections, get in touch with the admin behind that. And we're exploring using that. And it's a commercial large language model that's inside of there that has an authority to operate or ATO now.

[00:16:39] Capt. Jon: And so we're taking a look at how we can different use cases for that and how we can roll that out and improve things for us. And so I'll just talk about that for a moment. You know, I've found that it's an incredible tutor, right? You don't have to give it information, you can just ask it questions. And this one is pretty well grounded, meaning that it'll give you citations that you can click on and read the references that it used to come up with its answer.

[00:16:59] Capt. Jon: You can [00:17:00] also sort of ask it to structure arguments for you. Hey, I'm. Wrestling with this topic, you don't even have to tell much about the topic. How would you address this? what's the structure? And then, you know, there's other times when you could just use a perspective on something that you're wrestling with and you could say, Hey, here's this issue, here's my thoughts on it.

[00:17:15] Capt. Jon: You know, what am I missing? And it can be a really useful tool in that way. So, you know, we are fortunate to have access to an LLM, a large language model to do that with. And there are several that are available for folks who wanna experiment with those things. But that's one of the things we're working on.

[00:17:29] Capt. Jon: And what I found is that the more that our team uses it and sees what it's capable of. Their creativity and ideas about how they can use it in their program. And the one that we're looking at there is how do we take something like these commercial tools and build that in so that instead of PDFs and user's manuals and quick steps, right?

[00:17:45] Capt. Jon: You get an intelligent chatbot that knows all about your system and can walk you through it and you can ask questions too. And I think that's an incredible tool for us to be able to use. And so those are, you know, some of the things that we're looking at on the how do we do our job better side and some of the [00:18:00] tools that we're looking at, how do we help sailors do them.

[00:18:02] Capt. Jon: Better also. And so, my, my, my comment there is that like none of the some of this stuff sounds like a way out there, but it isn't a way out there problem. The technology generally exists to do these things. We're working through, you know, safety and ATOs and cybersecurity about how to use these.

[00:18:17] Capt. Jon: But you know, what we wanna accomplish is very doable, I think. 

[00:18:19] Bonnie: Can you talk about your experience a little bit in dealing with the human element? Behind introducing tools with AI or AI capabilities, because it sounds like you're ha, you're within your sphere of control. You are at least having conversations to help tee up, like when, you know, as you said, when something gets turned on, or, try to structure things so that you're not too far behind.

[00:18:40] Bonnie: So it's, it sounds like you're creating that space and might be getting some feedback because in my lived experience. You know, there's a few different personas that you're gonna encounter when you start talking about these things. So can you describe what it's been like for you? You know, what have, what's been the feedback or the human part of how you're dealing [00:19:00] with adoption?

[00:19:00] Capt. Jon: Essentially? it's a very well-informed question, by the way, because many people wouldn't appreciate that issue particularly, and I didn't honestly appreciate the issue or it's important to these other personas because I'm like an analytical and conceptual guy. If you look at my Emergenetics profile, and so I'm like.

[00:19:16] Capt. Jon: Big ideas, what does the data say, where are we going? And I wouldn't think Hey, what's the social impact? what will this do to us as a team? How does this dehumanize or humanize work? And so here I am, big ideas talking about where we're gonna go. Being AI-ready, communicating this to my larger team, and talking about how we can look at how we make the award submission process easier and faster.

[00:19:36] Capt. Jon: How do we use this to write up better evaluations of our performance so that people, you know, 'cause you start with a couple of bullets, then you have to expand it? Like how can we use AI to make that process better so that we have less reward? Work and less errors. And I'm, like getting all excited about these great ideas, right?

[00:19:49] Capt. Jon: And I'm communicating to them, to the team, and I like, slap the table. All right, we're done. Let's go. And then, knock, on my door. One of my most thoughtful and talented PMs is Hey, do you have a second? And I was like, [00:20:00] sure, yeah. What's up? And they're like, Hey, I just am concerned that what you're talking about is gonna just dehumanize the workplace.

[00:20:06] Capt. Jon: Like we're just gonna let AI do everything. And you're when you're talking about performance assessments and I don't know, I'm super uncomfortable with this. And my first reaction was, thank you so much for sharing this with me. Like total. Blind spot, wow, is this useful feedback for me? Because it's funny.

[00:20:20] Capt. Jon: Exactly what you were talking about is like what's the risk of dehumanizing the interactions? And so what I told this person is, Hey, I'm sorry I didn't communicate this, but my goal is that using AI and AI-driven tools allows us to have more time. And better conversations, right? It's not that it removes that space and prevents us from doing that, it's that it allows us to communicate our ideas more accurately and it allows us to do performance evaluations or write-ups and awards that get people promoted faster and better because there's less errors in them and they're more clearly written and we understand what we're trying to say.

[00:20:52] Capt. Jon: And we've given them quality assurance and, you know, checks at some point in the future when we're doing all that. And his point was, you know, that didn't come across right. All it talked about [00:21:00] was like, we're gonna use these AI tools and we don't have to worry about it. And what I had. Failed to communicate in that moment of, enthusiasm to my team that these tools are meant to humanize work, give us more face-to-face interaction, and spend less time editing and rewriting documents and slides and more time talking about them in person and communicating these ideas, hopefully, better ideas that we've thought through more and building better human interactions on our team.

[00:21:22] Capt. Jon: Not removing or paring them down, but enhancing them. And I'm fortunate to have had some time with Jeff Sutherland, who was one of the co-creators of Scrum about Agile and software development. And I always remember, Hey Jeff, why did you create scrum? And he says, John, work should be fun, fast, and humanizing.

[00:21:35] Capt. Jon: And to me, work just seemed, dehumanizing, slow, and agonizing. And so my whole point here was to make things more human, more rewarding, faster, and more fun. I'm thinking, man, here's this guy who had such an impact on the software and our ideals around, software development and work. And one of his core principles is like, work should be humanizing and fun.

[00:21:55] Capt. Jon: And I think the same thing all the time with AI. if we use it in a way that's done correctly, it should work. Make [00:22:00] work more human, more rewarding, more interactive with other people. It should not make it slower, harder, and more, you know, turn off your lights, go to your office, and work it on your own for eight hours on a document without talking to anybody and stuff.

[00:22:09] Capt. Jon: So yeah, that's a big issue. Something that we have to continue to work through. I don't think I have all the answers to that. And one of the challenges we're gonna be as we roll out AI tools at some point in the future, how do we manage that, the human connectedness of it? 'cause you're not gonna get great people and great teams without.

[00:22:23] Capt. Jon: A strong, robust sense of belonging. Right? So we need to figure out belonging in a world where it is really important. I 

[00:22:29] Bonnie: love that you have the fun focus because I've felt, that I do mostly procurement or in my career has been mostly procurement oriented. There are a lot of fun things in procurement as you can imagine.

[00:22:39] Bonnie: But I've always had fun. I've always had fun with it. There was always. To do that. And I believe these tools will help, I think, bring a little bit more fun because it, they're gonna take away the monotony., the, I used to always say I hated writing, and business clearance memorandums. And I think in the D&D, you might call it price negotiation memorandums.

[00:22:57] Bonnie: if, someone had assisted me with that, like if I had a tool to [00:23:00] do that, would've taken away the energy, the non-fund energy I was extending and maybe put a little bit more fun energy back on the table. So I think that's relevant. And I also thought when you were talking about the exchange between your team member and, how, you know, he came to you with this de dehumanizing concern.

[00:23:19] Bonnie: I was thinking how culturally there's, we as a department at large are dealing with a total change in mindsets. And what I heard from that. The story was yours, the person thinks that you value his output, like his work output, like the performance report, or whatever. And that's probably, I'm guessing not what you value about him.

[00:23:38] Bonnie: So how are we communicating to people what we value? what, where's the value We do want you spending your time on, yes, we need to do what, we have our checklist and they, we have to do administration. But again, that's. so I think there's, I, that's part of where we need to open up conversation was my point.

[00:23:54] Bonnie: You know, how do we get to that part? And that requires a lot of space and time and energy, and how do you create that [00:24:00] space, 

[00:24:00] Capt. Jon: time, and energy. No, that's a, that's an excellent observation. And I mean, you're exactly right. Obviously like a perfectly written performance report or the other things that are part of the process that have to happen, they're very important.

[00:24:10] Capt. Jon: We should do those. Correctly, right? But as I look at this particular person's contribution over time, that's not where they made the biggest difference. It was when they were able to step, well, actually in this particular person's case, their real superpower was understanding other people and bringing together a team around a sense of purpose, and they could identify their work and how it.

[00:24:28] Capt. Jon: Fit into that purpose. What that did is it built a cohesive team that could work together to tackle tough technical problems, systems, engineering problems, acquisition problems, budget and finance problems, and have a common goal and a common vision of where they're gonna go and have some fun doing it.

[00:24:42] Capt. Jon: And that was their superpower, right? And so what I would want them to spend their time and energy on is doubling down on that. not on spending three extra days writing up their end-of-year assessment so that, you know, 

[00:24:52] Bonnie: or doing taskers, right? and, again, what I heard to do those things like building.

[00:24:58] Bonnie: Great coalitions and finding [00:25:00] meaning and purpose requires a lot of relationship building, and that takes time and energy. So get, you know, like giving people back that time to do that well. I think there's something there. 

[00:25:09] Capt. Jon: So I'm with you. You know, the other thing, and this is interesting. I ride my, I ride a bike, my bike, I love cycling.

[00:25:14] Capt. Jon: It's, you're outdoors, you're in nature, you get some exercise. It just connects you to the real world, what you see. I've seen the most incredible things riding through DC over the years. Like it's wild. Like it's, fictional. Sometimes it gets so weird, but some of my best ideas, well, I'm judging my ideas here, but some of the ideas that have proved most fruitful to me do not happen when I am at the desk trying to get through the inbox.

[00:25:33] Capt. Jon: Running between meetings, because I've got them booked from the moment I show up to the moment I leave and I'm struggling to get through my inbox before I rush home at night, just before my, you know, kids get to bed. My best ideas will come in these moments when my pedal's off the gas. In that work sense.

[00:25:46] Capt. Jon: And I'm riding to and from work and I have just a moment where, you know, you look at the sunrise and you're thinking, man, that is amazing. And then all of a sudden you get some random thought about, you know, we should try this. have we ever, needed to follow up with this person? hey, when's the last time I did this?

[00:25:58] Capt. Jon: And what I think is we don't, [00:26:00] oftentimes culturally value taking the Deliberately, taking the foot off the accelerator for a second, allowing the subconscious mind to kick in too. Storm through what we're working through, right? To process all that. And then to give us something to think about that maybe would be beyond what's in our inbox.

[00:26:14] Capt. Jon: And so, I think there's a huge value in letting people know that there is, it's appropriate to do that and that you need time. I still remember Admiral McRaven one time, when I was at JSOC, asked this question about when you have time to think. Right? he went and would talk to these folks who were so busy and so highly accomplished in their field.

[00:26:31] Capt. Jon: And I remember his question was, well, yeah, but when do you have time to think? And for the longest time, that didn't make sense to me 'cause I well, you at work, like you're thinking all the time. Working through tasks. And then it's not until I started having these moments where it was like, you're not thinking about things and you get this idea and you're like, Ooh, light bulb.

[00:26:44] Capt. Jon: Like I need to write that down. And so not only does it give us more time to connect, but it also gives us more time to be reflective and thoughtful about things. Aside from everybody's to-do list. It's just too big. Right? And so if AI could buy us a little bit of time back and allow us.

[00:26:58] Capt. Jon: Time to process and think through things in [00:27:00] a way where we could go with more creative solutions into the process or into the relationships or the challenges that we're facing. You know, we'd just be better off. And so I appreciate you mentioning them. The 

[00:27:08] Bonnie: the fact that you went there, I didn't expect you to go there.

[00:27:10] Bonnie: You're, you are officially a defense maverick. That is for sure. A colleague of mine, she always calls me and she's I, I had a shower thought, you know, in the place. You know when you finally quiet your mind and you're, you don't have to think about anything. Like she gets very inspired and she, so that's her, funny way of, saying, I had an idea, but it didn't come.

[00:27:29] Bonnie: Like you said, from doing the thing that we do every day and, that we try to do. 'cause we're trying, we're all trying our best. With that. I wanna end on the fun. You know, in the spirit of everything you're saying, when you're talking about bicycling, you see the weirdest things. What is the weirdest thing you saw on your way to work or on the way home from work on 

[00:27:45] Capt. Jon: the bicycle so you know where, M Street in South Cap is.

[00:27:50] Capt. Jon: Sure. So I ride through that intersection every day, and if any of the listeners ride through that intersection, please forgive me. If I ever get in your way there, please don't ever hit me. I promise I'm trying to do my best, but I was riding through that intersection. I stopped at a [00:28:00] red light and the light turned green and I was about to go, and I'm usually like fairly aggressive on my bike, kind of getting through traffic and getting to work and everything.

[00:28:07] Capt. Jon: But you know, in this case, I didn't go right when it went green and it was a good thing I didn't 'cause a car went through the red light, through what their red light, and would've hit me had I gone on the green, which is you know, kind of a weird thing to start with. But then, the way that it worked, they were going through the red light and I had to kind of peel off so I was going next to their vehicle so I didn't hit them right because I was like slowly starting, but, and then I realized they were passed out.

[00:28:27] Capt. Jon: What? Yeah, the person driving the vehicle was a truck. It was a white F-one-fifty had their hands on the dashboard, their head on the steering wheel, and they were going about 15 miles an hour through this red light on M Street and South Cap, right as I was about to go through. Right. So I had started and they almost hit me.

[00:28:42] Capt. Jon: I peeled off and that's when I noticed that they were stopped and so traffic was gonna hit 'em. I started riding past them and screaming at the other oncoming traffic to stop. They were asleep. I started. Banging on the vehicle. Tried to wake up the driver. Thankfully the vehicle didn't get hit. Oh, wow.

[00:28:53] Capt. Jon: The driver eventually woke up, and rolled down the window. Yeah. Looked at me and I was like, you need to stop. Can I call the police? Do you need help? Are you [00:29:00] okay? And it was about 30 seconds where they just stared at me in silence. Wouldn't say anything, wouldn't do anything. And I couldn't think straight.

[00:29:05] Capt. Jon: There was so much adrenaline going. Yeah. And then they just looked back on the road and drove away. And I thought to myself. Oh my gosh, I hope nobody gets hurt. It was terrifying. My, heart was racing all day long. Oh, man. Yeah, it was crazy. So that's, 

[00:29:18] Bonnie: quite a story there for, 

[00:29:20] Capt. Jon: it was the craziest one, but I'll give you a fun one.

[00:29:21] Capt. Jon: I always ride past the Gravely Park. There's a dock there where the water is clear. The tide goes in and out underneath the bridge. There'll be some morning where it's so glass calm, the water is reflecting off of the, of. The sun is reflecting off the water. It's so incredibly beautiful and peaceful, and it just brings back a thousand pleasant memories where I just have to pinch myself and say, I can't believe I get to live and work here.

[00:29:40] Capt. Jon: It's so beautiful. Oh, 

[00:29:41] Bonnie: Inspira. It sounds getting a tone inspiration as well for you, it 

[00:29:45] Capt. Jon: sounds like. Oh, it is. Yeah. And then you ride across. And you see the monuments and you're reminded of all the incredible things we've done. And you can see Lincoln and remember his sacrifices, Jefferson, and our freedoms.

[00:29:55] Capt. Jon: You see Washington, and, you know, to be inspired by his selfless service and all that he did for [00:30:00] America, and how we're we benefit from that. It's just, it's incredible to live and to work here and to be able to, carry forward that legacy. And so it's really, it's a joy. 

[00:30:07] Bonnie: I can't thank you enough, my friend.

[00:30:09] Bonnie: you, truly, surprised me. You're much deeper than you give. Give off for first impressions for sure. thank you for everything you're doing. I'm so glad the Navy has you. 

[00:30:22] Capt. Jon: I'm very flattered, Bonnie. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure today.