Guy Snodgrass: Former naval aviator, TOPGUN instructor, and speechwriter for Secretary of Defense James Mattis

The Art of Excellence

Guy Snodgrass recently served as director of communications and chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis. A former naval aviator, he served as commanding officer of a fighter squadron based in Japan, A TOPGUN instructor, and a combat pilot over the skies of Iraq. Today he is the founder and CEO of Defense Analytics, a strategic consulting and advisory firm. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis and his latest book is titled: TOPGUN’s Top 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit.

Some interesting insights from this episode:

· To succeed a TOPGUN, you have to possess three traits: talent, passion, and personality.

· Competence is when you have an excellent capability but you operate below that level. Arrogance is when your competence is lower than you anticipate but you act like you’re better.

· You can achieve anything you put your mind to so long as you’re willing to break down the problem and put the resources against it to solve it.

· After every simulated dogfight there would be a debrief comparing your recollection of the events with the actual video footage. This created a continual feedback loop to accelerate learning.

· President Eisenhower once said: “Plans are worthless but planning is indispensable.”

· TOPGUN has a flat organizational structure whereby junior officers are calling a lot of the shots. Decisions are made based on capability and knowledge base, not based on rank. This allows them to get to the best tactical end result.

Show Notes:

TOPGUN'S TOP 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit

Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis