---

Transcript

Ryan Eaton: Welcome this morning to another episode of the Insurance Leadership Podcast, I'm Ryan Eaton, your host and honored to be here with a friend Richard Lett this morning, so Richard and I played golf together. Was it February this year?

Richard Lett: It was February, Miami.

Ryan Eaton: February, we had a blast down in Miami. And by the third hole, I knew I had to have him on the show. He was one of those guys, by the end of the thing, I was telling my partner, I was on my team. I said, man, he's like the most interesting guy I've ever met, like your background was very impressive. And so why don't we get started this morning with giving a little, it'll be your background prior to the insurance industry.

Richard Lett: Okay, thank you. Actually, just thank you for inviting me down. It's a real pleasure.

Ryan Eaton: Honor to have you,

Richard Lett: I think there's a lot of people who may be listening to this are either part of Morgan White or know who you are. It's been a great revelation to meet a, just a wonderful company. That's great history, background, people. To me people are as more as important as product. Anyone who hears me talk and the products are good, but working with great people is the foundation, so I think a lot of people that work with you already know that, and it took me a long time. I appreciate it.

Ryan Eaton: Thank you, we appreciate it.

Richard Lett: But also, to say I bundle my jokes to people as I say I used to be an agent. And I still am. I'm just now a health insurance agent.

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: It's an interesting journey. I'll make it short. I'm British. Probably some people

Ryan Eaton: Love the accent.

Richard Lett: Some people might think, is that New Zealand? Is that Australian? It's English. This is a sort of a West London accent. And I went to Naval Academy. I was a Naval family. My father was bomb disposal. We traveled around. And I ended up going to a Naval Academy. One reason or another, having been to Naval Academy, I decided to join the police. With a short interlude in between where the college and joining the police I worked on a deep sea fishing boat, so I had a real concept. That's probably the riskiest thing I've ever done is working out North Sea going out on fishing trips. As a 16 year old that was tough. But I was in the police and then I ended up transferring from the police into what in America you call secret service. I was in the British secret service and was looking after members of the British royal family. I was running the protection detail for Prince William, Prince Harry. I did the security for three. So for the Queen's Jubilees for weddings. So I Edward and Sophie, Charles and Camilla, William and Kate, Frederick Windsor and Sophie Winkleman. So all the royal weddings that happened from 97 to 2012, I was a sort of the wedding planner, but major events, so I did four presidential visits. And my final gig is I led the security for Central London for the VIP protection operation for the London Olympics.

Ryan Eaton: Oh wow.

Richard Lett: So I've had an amazing career, just from a Navy brat going to a sort of fairly regular school, just committing, working hard, building relationships with people. I've just had a blessed life and now here in America CEO of Leclerc, which is an FMO. And, we're distributing purely in the distribution business, we don't do any retail but we support agents in the Medicare, employee benefits and ACA space. But I think the question is hang on a minute, how did he go from the London Olympics, to being here.

So I'm going to go back a little bit I had never married, so I start with Prince William, Prince Harry just at the time the mother dies. And it was incredibly intense experience without the intensity of young men, you've got media, you've got them trying to grow up. You've got kids, you've got boys and you know how they're dealing with all sorts of stuff and then they're in this sort of like pressure cooker every day. There's new, the stories about the mother, there's people trying to get in on them. And actually, to me, I get to realize that these are just two young, wonderful young men who don't have the sort of, necessary, the things that a very strong nuclear family has, the father's away doing his stuff he wasn't really brought up in a way, as a parent as you, the mother's gone. And there were a little bit of drift. And then all of a sudden I'm now running that team. And I'm I don't have any kids. And I'm trying to work out how to keep control of Harry, and which is probably why, which is probably why he is what he is today, and I probably didn't do a very good job.

In 2008 I was actually planning a a visit in India. I was in India when there was a massive terrorist attack at the Taj Palace Hotel. For those of you that sort of remember that whole period they'd come ashore in boats, they had sacks and sacks of ammunition and assault rifles, etc. And that they've attacked the Leopold Cafe, shooting up all the terrorists in there. They've gone to the Jewish Shabbat house. They've killed the rabbi's wife and family, and everybody that's in there. They've gone to the Oberoi Hotel and more famously, to the Taj Palace Hotel, where they've gone in. And they're just going level by level, room by room, knocking on doors, seeing who comes out shooting them, right? And it's just awful. The Indians, at the time, locally, really didn't have the resources, or the weaponry, or the know how, and it just happened. And everyone stood back. One thing I'll share, having been there, the largest loss of life was at the Victoria Railway Station. Which is all local Indians. If you've ever seen footage of Indian railways, there's like thousands of them, thousands of people. At the railway station, where all this intersects, It's a massively crowded environment and some of them, two of them went in there with AK 47s and lots of ammunition clips and just were unloading on the platform. So you can probably remember from the news that the pictures of the smoke coming out of the hotel and the teams, and it was like a three or four day process to neutralize all the terrorists.

So I'm back and I'm in there, so I'm on a mission and I meet this American woman who's traveling back from Calcutta. Who's on a mission trip. So she's on a mission trip. I'm on a mission. We're there in the midst of all this tragedy, etc. Obviously, that wasn't a moment for any romance or anything like that. But I've actually had a really intense period for the last sort of 10 years. Hadn't really settled in a relationship. So I meet somebody and then we just stayed in touch. And actually two years later we started dating and then ended up after the Olympics, I was going to take over the security detail for Kate, for Catherine, after the wedding. So I did the security for the wedding, and then I would have started that detail. But I'd have gone to my boss and said, look, I wanna, after the wedding's done, I wanna move on to the planning for the London Olympics. So the wedding was on the 29th of April in 2011, and then the Olympics was the following summer. So it was a really nice period to get really intense on a major operation, something that I was good at planning and to do that and part of the reason was I knew that there was the closing ceremony, and after the closing ceremony, that I could go hang up my badge. Talk about risk. So here we are in the insurance business. This is the risk. I hung up my badge. The only way the relationship was going to work was for me to give up, come, stay, visit, and be with. So one of us had to make a move. We could have just had this sort of long, crazy long distance relationship for any amount of time. And that would have been okay, but it's I wanted a relationship. Hang up my badge, and next thing I'm like, retired, and I'm in America, now her family are all part of Leclerc.

Ryan Eaton: Leclerc.

Richard Lett: They're running the Leclerc group, which is, been around since 1932, third generation. And one thing or another, there's a whole series of events where I'm in there, I get licensed, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. The next thing is I'm like there as the CEO of the business, and it's just gone great guns. And I think, we can come on to this in more detail, is that the business is probably 10 times bigger now than when I took over.

Ryan Eaton: That's awesome.

Richard Lett: And I can look around I'm really proud of that success. But I think part of the secret is, I didn't know anything about insurance. I wasn't the most intelligent or knowledgeable person in the room. So what I have always done is focus on leadership. Focus on the team. Focus on the strategy. Focus on the big picture. Bring people together, because it was obvious to everybody.

Ryan Eaton: You didn't know insurance.

Richard Lett: I didn't know what I was talking about. I come from Europe. In Europe, I can tell you, if anyone here ever starts to get suckered into the idea of single pay, or government pay insurance, it's an absolute mess. You can make all these front end promises. Oh, it's easy everyone gets it, it's all free. Nonsense. I'll tell you what's happened to my mom, who's still alive, and my family and my own experience is that whatever you want, you wait forever. Okay, the only hospitals now are in the main cities. There's no regional local thing. You can't get to see a primary care physician. So if you want to get something as simple as a knee operation it's going to take you somewhere between 18 months before you get the first one. They won't do two. So it's another 18 months. And if anything happens in the meantime, you go to the back of the queue. So if you miss it, you go straight, it's not like you just delay it, you're back to the queue. So you could be, in your 70s or your 80s, and you've got three to four years, and think about the remaining clock. You can't get it done, and then when you do get it done, you go into these hospitals that are nobody joins the national health system, right? The nurses and the doctors, they're wonderful people. I've got three nieces that are two doctors and a dentist in it. They're wonderful people, they all enter with the best intentions. But I can tell you what happens is the government just suppresses. Enthusiasm, suppresses motivation, suppresses anything and puts in just red tape upon red tape that they almost can't do their job. I know that there are things we need to solve. But the solution is not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and completely reinventing it. You have the basis of a wonderful system and I'm very proud to be here, I'm very proud to be in the health insurance business.

Ryan Eaton: Well, Richard, I got 3000 questions that are not on my list today, that I wanna ask you after that. We gotta talk last night, just hearing some of the stories and some of the different things you've experienced and seen and been through and just the strategic planning side of it, the leadership side of it, the having to be so proactive in your thought process. I want to build some of the questions today off that. Let me ask you a general question about leadership. What do you feel as the leader of an organization is your number one job to do?

Richard Lett: I'll answer that but I will just say any information you get from me, just always remember that there's a very famous oxymoron, okay? It's called British intelligence.

Ryan Eaton: I love it.

Richard Lett: And since I was a part of it, there's probably not much intelligence that's coming from it. But let me think about mine. This is my number one thing and I don't often hear this in relation to CEOs. I think they do it a lot. I say to my people when I have team meetings or when I'm there, is that my number one job is to keep you safe. And I don't mean that in the sense of what my old job was, which is physically to keep people safe. I actually said, if I can create safety here. You know what you're doing. You know what our mission is, what our strategy is. They're important things for me to do. But I just turned around and said, my job is to make you feel safe. There's no bully. You're clear about your purpose. Your pay's gonna arrive. The company's got a really valid mission. So I focus on that culture, that safety, that everyone is happy. So it's just non negotiable to me, anyone who's toxic, anyone that has anything, there's any sort of misogyny or racism or anything like that.

Now, I'm I love humor. British, we love humor. So I think sometimes America's lost the plot as to what the line between humor and all the rest of it, but I think my number one job is all things been equal day in day out. I want people to feel happy and safe to come to work, because after that they're just productive. I don't have to be a genius.

Ryan Eaton: I think that's really good. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but that makes a lot of sense. You hear vision. You hear stuff like that's a very common thing, but making them feel like they get a good safe place to go to work and safe in the meaning of Hey, you're going to have a paycheck. It's going to be a good environment. The culture is going to be good. The people you work around, people who are creating strife and stirring stuff up, we're going to get them off the team.

Richard Lett: This is a good place to be.

Ryan Eaton: That's good.

Richard Lett: Good place to stay and you're going to feel happy and content and you've got a career and it's something I think that is Fundamentally important. And I think sometimes I hear, when it's on a podcast or a book, it's all about this very heroic leadership about I'm the visionary, I'm the bread maker, I'm the rainmaker, I know there's a lot of this heroic leadership out there. And I think often it's about CEOs trying to justify they're paying one thing or another, and how great they are. But for me, I make it all about the team. Often, even in a meeting today, right? It's all about the teams up front. They're the ones making the presentation. They're the ones with the idea. My job is to support them, come with, sit with, and say, you're good, you've got the budget, you've got the clearance. This is on you, and by the way, not only is the work on you, but actually the success is yours as well.

Ryan Eaton: That's it.

Richard Lett: So I don't take any of that away.

Ryan Eaton: So with that question, I would then ask, what do you think leaders get bogged down with more than anything? Because I noticed that even at dinner last night when we were leaving dinner, he said I'm going to come to the meeting, but these are the guys who do all the work, know all the information, I'm here to support them. And I like that and I think a lot of leaders in today's time get sucked into emails, get sucked into meetings, get sucked into so many different things and really what their role and their job is, they don't end up being able to do that because they're more involved with the day to day type stuff. What do you think is the biggest thing people get tied up with? And then I would say, is there something maybe like a trigger or an aha moment that a leader should look at and be able to say, Hey, this If I'm doing this, then I'm not doing my job and I need to delegate this or do something along those lines.

Richard Lett: So I'd have everyone who's thinking about leadership, two points I'd make. One is the first promotion that you get, the first time you lead any team is by far the hardest, right? that's the point where you come from the, so let's say the shop floor or the team and next thing you're leading a team or a subset of that team, et cetera. That's the hardest lesson in leadership or experience anyone will have and if they are given so about what's the pitfalls of that about trying to be popular or trying to be too tough or whatever, that's the one where people need the absolute most support to make that transition successfully to be happy and content and successful in that, right? If you focus on that, actually, all the rest of the steps are just about bringing scale and more people and more resources or more budget. But actually, for me, when I think about as I bring in senior leadership, the biggest mistake I see people make is that these are genuinely super talented people, right? So they've actually earned their success through what they've done. So what they think is each time they go the ladder that their job is to do more, is to actually that I'm more senior therefore I have to do even more.

Ryan Eaton: Even more than what I'm currently doing.

Richard Lett: It's like an aggregation process. So you just see this sort of like rolling stone gathering, or whichever one gathers most, right? Or the turtle shell just getting all this stuff and it's just weighing them down. So what I say to people is I want you to stop doing it. The only thing that is scalable is your support, is your vision, is your direction, and making sure that you have enough people on the team. If you're running out of capacity, and there's an ROI there it's doing the right thing, then you hire into that space. You don't do more. I actually want to see my leaders do less because the more you do, the less you think. And the most the key thing about a little sort of an anecdote, but this is a story about a British military unit hacking their way through the jungle and everyone's been immensely, they're all fit, they're all being protected, they're all rotating the top to the front, and they're making great progress through the Amazon and then all of a sudden someone stops and says they have a stop, someone climbs the tree and he looks around and he goes, we're making great progress, but we're going in the wrong direction.

Ryan Eaton: Yeah.

Richard Lett: And that's what happens when you get bogged down doing, you're not looking, you're not thinking about. And the question I'll ask people is, I've been in this business now for, 10 years. And if I look back today until next week, you don't see any change. But you asked me to look back at what was different 10 years ago, about e enrollments and the ACA and all the different types of plans and stuff like that. Just massive change if you put perspective onto it. So therefore the question is, just know that change has always been throughout humanity. Your key job at The Leader is, and I think in northern Minnesota, I don't know about down here in Mississippi, but where's the puck going? And I don't know what puck is. Is that hockey?

Ryan Eaton: Yeah.

Richard Lett: And it's too hot here for hockey. So the idea, my job on my list is that I want you to stop doing. I want you to learn to delegate, and when you delegate, you're delegating tasks, not responsibility. You still own it. You own the success. But the only way you can bring scale to that leadership, and the reason you're a leader is now it's scale. Because you have to have time to think about the future and lead.

Ryan Eaton: That's good.

Richard Lett: And people get it wrong they just think, I get paid more, I'm doing more and I've got to do more. No. I want outcome, not effort.

Ryan Eaton: I'd notice with your team even, they love you. You could tell with Ryan and Emily last night, they just closed relationship there and you've delegated stuff.

Richard Lett: When you make fun of me, does that mean they love me?

Ryan Eaton: Yeah, that's what I tell myself. Hopefully that's the case. They love being around you, they spoke very highly of you when you weren't at the table. I thought that's always a good example of a leader and so I was, but there was trust I could tell, and I was thinking about it from your standpoint, obviously you've been in the military side of it, you've been in the British Secret Service side of it, and you have to be able to trust the guys on your right and your left in those type of situations. How do you build good trust among your team?

Richard Lett: I don't think there's any great shortcuts to that. So when I was a part of, would be the selection recruitment process, and it's a lot of work. We focus on selection. Recruitment, selection, and training. You get that, you got the right. It's just whether it's picking software or it's picking the right car. What's the right tool for the mission? And that's the same with the human, right? So you get the right human in. Now at that point, everyone understands that thing about, have they got your back or whatever.

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: The only way that works is partly, we do a lot of training. So the training is in a very real environments, right? It might well be, it's real guns, it's real sort of hostage situations, it's in mock buildings, maybe it's simunition, still hurts, right? But it's funny when the human mind gets into a practice people often would say, in a practice and they would completely get it wrong or they'd lose their head or they wouldn't see or they get tunnel vision and they said I wouldn't do that in the real world, right? Now, I know you can't do this day, but one of the old mild instructors at that point used to turn around somewhere go whack and they go. You know what? That would hurt in the real world. So what you're not in the world, right?

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: And the point is how you train and how you practice how you play. So in relation to that trust, is that you realize that people are competent, they've got their eyes up, that they had you back, that you didn't get shot through, the other way in practice. And then you're on operations around the world, we would run, I'd have teams sometimes that might be in, 5, 10, 15, 20 countries at any one time. And this comes back to leadership, right? Is that you think to lead, you've got to supervise or micromanage. So we had to make sure that we selected and trained and supported and make sure they're absolutely clear about their mission. They had the resources and the team to go and do what it was. They knew exactly what the contingency plan is, if something, we're always thinking about what could go wrong, right? The exits, the doors, et cetera, but what are the aircraft? What are the support? How much you can bring resources in? This is one of the secrets about the professional bodyguard world. It's not about necessarily the martial skills to actually look for fights and to neutralize fights, with professional runners. And actually what we want to do is spot trouble early, get out of there and get away. So our whole mission was always to never be where there was trouble, right? And if you spot it, get out. And I think sometimes we got it from a

Ryan Eaton: that's good life advice.

Richard Lett: It's good life advice. That from the celebrity, it's almost as if, they've got these people there and they're looking for trouble and they want to, no, that's not where the professional world is you get out there and you teach your kids, get out. There's no heroics. If we need it. We had the skills and the sort of the systems to deal with it, but you never wanted to do it. By experience, by working with teams, by having good retention in the company, and I know, listening to the Morgan White story, how many people that you've got that join, stay and retire from this organization? Right there's your trust. Because you've had multiple experiences, you've had multiple meetings, where you've got success stories. You celebrate that success. You've had that meeting, you did a great job, right? Now they understand how it works, or what their role is, or how you interface or play with each other. That's where it comes from. We would often see people come in, and they're so desperate to be part of the unit, and they're in. And all of a sudden, it's as if they've been there 20, 30 years, you know that? And they talk about it without necessarily the experience, and you knew you had to go through that cycle, you know that the sort of forming norming storming and performing, you had to go through all those mental phases in order to get to that performing and you can only do that with the right people who've been there long enough that had shared experiences, no shortcut around.

Ryan Eaton: I agree.

Richard Lett: Having been on that tea with you, right? When we're in the scramble.

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: And you've got to hit that shot. And that's when I say,

Ryan Eaton: You knew not to trust me.

Richard Lett: I said, no pressure.

Ryan Eaton: I was there for the pudding.

Richard Lett: No pressure, but we're relying on you. But we actually went through that experience. And here we are today. And I feel a real good affinity with Morgan White and with you because we had an experience.

Ryan Eaton: Yeah, that's right. I agree. Relationships. Experiences.

Richard Lett: Relationships. Experiences. That's where it comes from.

Ryan Eaton: I agree. You've led through a lot of high pressure situations obviously, some of the ones we've even already talked about. What are the similarities, and I would say, what are the differences between the high pressure situations, and then a white collar type environment?

Richard Lett: The secret is there isn't too much difference. Sometimes when I talk about stories, I'm talking about a royal wedding or this, or a terrorist attack or a terrorist threat. Sometimes you can take your eye off the ball by looking at, cause we were more interested about the story because there's helicopters and there's guns and there's drama and action. And we all love an action movie, right? So yes. So the background was action movie and it was phenomenal. But actually, the process and the thing is actually no different. So you can get distracted by the story, but the context about how people leaders keep their heads up, look around, spot opportunities, reading the room, reading people, reading the situation, what's the opportunity? What have you got? Been truthful. Been transparent, building relationships, listening I don't think it's any different. I have fundamentally had no insurance training, right? I have now, completely. Maybe I am. But I've just so focused on leadership that it's actually been really easy for me because I didn't have that background. But, I think we've just got to be really clear about what our roles are, and I don't think it's any different. So when I'm here with the team today, we've stepped out, they're still in the meeting. Do they need me? No, but they're really pleased I came. Because having the CEO come and being here says a lot.

Ryan Eaton: It goes back to the trust and support, right?

Richard Lett: You've got my support, I'm behind this, I'm backing it. When you come back and you've got a list of things or things of your follow up, A, I'm going to be holding you to the commitments that we've made, right? And B, you know that you've got the support to actually do that partnership, to do that work with them. Because I was there. And sometimes presence is enough. I don't have to say anything.

Ryan Eaton: That's right. So we hit, you hit leading. Let me ask you this. Same type thing, high pressure situation. The pressure that comes along with this may more be of a personal question, so if you'd rather me pass on it, I can, but obviously there's a difference in the pressure of one of those type situations with the guns, the bombs, the helicopters, they're at a nightclub or at this event or at the Olympics, versus making sure the policy's out the door by five o'clock. There's a difference pressure, how heavy is that pressure? How real is that pressure in those type situations compared to the white collar environment?

Richard Lett: So partly just think about how you get to negate pressure, which is through experience and knowing that the boss has got your back and trust, right? Actually, there's a concept we haven't spoken about today, but I think one of the most paralyzing thing for any team is any culture, any leadership using blame. I am so anti blame because actually in the moment you ask yourself, is it useful? Do tell me, we've just got this problem, we've had a software system go down, we haven't got commissions out the door, or I'm going to go back to the the London bombings, where they bombed the underground and the bus, right? Now, so I was actually running the sort of mission control that day. We all, as all the leaders, we had to in the operation.

Ryan Eaton: I remember that. It was like 2005.

Richard Lett: Yeah, they did the buses at the Aldwych and the underground, et cetera.

Ryan Eaton: I remember that.

Richard Lett: So that morning, that the bombs went off around quarter of the way, eight o'clock in the morning, but the first set of bombs were deep underground, right? And the first reports that we got through our wires from the London underground and a number of sources was first, it was a power outage, right? And, or then it had been a electric wire explode. So it was all, we're getting incredible reasons for this sort of like disruption in the tube. None of the radios, not all the communications were down. So we've got no live reports because what was actually happening down there was just like bodies were torn apart, people were screaming. It was pitch black, full of smoke and everyone was just trying to survive at that point. No one was going to stop and say, Hey, give you a situation report. So I was getting that there's a situation happening and I thought, okay, so we're getting from the London transport police. What seems like this is a sort of an accident or civil situation, right? But I'm monitoring it. So the first thing I'm doing is monitoring the next thing is we get second report of an incident, right? And at that point i've got four leaders of foreign countries all about to depart hotels or venues to go about their days in London I've got four or five members of the british royal family about to go on there their days. So all these protection teams waiting for, who have either heard or not heard that something's going on. Someone's going to make a call at that point to go, not no go. So at that point, I'm getting that the official report is that it's probably, it's nothing. But you can't quite, so this is the thing what comes in pressure. If I am windy and I'm calling off operations and saying, hey to the queen or the prince of Wales or the head of Saudi Arabia or something like that you can't go or tell the teams because the teams at that point don't really know what they're going to do, they're going to go to the principal, excuse me, ma'am, sir, your royal highness, whatever. We've got to get back in the car and they're going to take them to a safe room or this. So I am making them do certain things, which is really apparent to our guests at this point, that there's something going on, right? So I've got to be very sensitive to that. How many times can I do that before they go? The British aren't very competent or they don't know what they're doing or don't trust and say, hang on, I'm going in anyway, right? In order to get compliance, they have to have total trust. So I'm going to make a decision so I make that decision at that point, and luckily, not luckily, but it all turned out to be the right one and it was an awful situation, but you've got to make decisions, and at that point people start to, I've seen it a number of times where people are starting to panic. And the stress is creeping in and they're not thinking straight. So the first thing that I'll do is whether we've got five minutes to make that decision or five hours to make that decision. I'll turn around and say, Ryan, let's just think this through. What's the decision? Because sometimes people make decisions and they're thinking about the individual decisions. I say, just back up a little bit here. What's the worst that can happen? What's the outcome? What are we trying to achieve here? Who are the stakeholders or whatever? And just try and put some perspective in it. And say, you know what? You've got time. And so you can actually slow time down for somebody by just coming in without, I've seen it the other way where someone's hovering and they're pushing and they're pushing and actually then people, they shrink and their ability to think and make decisions actually goes the other way. But so you've got to come in and you've got to go, you know what Ryan, we're doing okay. Actually right now everybody's safe or the situation's under control, and what's the worst that could happen, right? And at that point tell me what you need, and if it's just for me to back off and give you time, do you need more resources, do I need me to stop doing that, put these people onto you, do you need an idea? Just tell me if there's any, so at this point, all I'm trying to do is how do I get to the outcome, not put pressure. And a lot of, again, younger leaders put pressure on thinking that you can squeeze and squeeze. No, people don't think well that way.

Ryan Eaton: So your role would be relieve the pressure from your team to get to the outcome, allow them to think to get to the outcome that you're trying to get to. Is that correct?

Richard Lett: And know that there's not going to be any blame. I have trusted you to do it. And I've trusted you with that outcome, whether it's an RFP or it's a response to a thing, whatever the outcome is, I still own the outcome, right? I've delegated, right? But I still own the risk because I've delegated to you. That's actually ultimately on me. So what I don't do is go in and say I don't want to swear on your camera, but I seen this time and time again where someone will come in and suddenly this is the whole atmosphere goes out the room. We've know that we've made a mistake and the next thing someone comes in, it's just like throwing blame around.

Blame is the most toxic thing in the world. Now, that's not to say, after all we're through this. That I'm not looking back, who did what, when, who's responsible for what.

Ryan Eaton: Evaluating where balls were dropped.

Richard Lett: Yes. So we will do in special forces type thing, you generally do two types of debrief. You do a hot debrief, right in the moment, as soon as the incidents and stuff over, before people get changed, before they go home, before they get showered, you just want everybody okay, just tell me initial thoughts and feelings, because if you don't do that's where certain things can creep in. You just, the hot debrief is all about the people that were part of that operation or that mission to say anything that they need or they want or get it off their chest, right? The second phase is, and it's always going to be off site, generally in civilian clothes, in a much more informal atmosphere. And this is like a cold debrief, right? And this is really important. So and everyone will celebrate success in the meeting by going drink or high fives and all the rest of it. Whether it's a week or a month later, you want to cycle back, put an agenda together and say, let's just work through. Where did this start? What happened? Who did what? Where did it go right? Where did it go wrong? What were the lessons? What could we have done better? What went really well? And then you do that in a very cool and now you're getting people to contribute and you'll be surprised the people that were behind some of the biggest mistakes we'll totally put the hand up at that point. Because it's a cold debrief, and what I'm asking them to do is I'm not looking to blame them, I'm saying, how do we, how do you help me, how do I help you, how do I help us get this right next time. And people know that they'll contribute to that.

Ryan Eaton: That's good.

Richard Lett: So hot debriefs, cold debriefs. Because it's always so much better if they can admit the mistake themselves instead of you having to address, it feels easier to anyone, if you can say I missed it on this versus someone having to come and tell you missed it to.

Ryan Eaton: The secret is to trick them into eventually.

Richard Lett: Admitting that. So then you can really, then you can really blame them, right?

Ryan Eaton: What do you think a great leader does in difficult situations that maybe an unexperienced leader does not do? The blame would be one I would probably throw into that bucket.

Richard Lett: What have I read about other people that I think are truly great leaders? And I think, what do I aspire to do? And it's slowed down. I think sometimes leadership, you get something,

Ryan Eaton: That's the good one.

Richard Lett: And the first thing you often you do is you offer advice, right? No. The first thing you do is you get involved. The first thing you say it's mine now. I'll deal with it. No, never take the person that owns it. Never take it off them. All right. Walk alongside them. Make sure that you're in the loop. Own the responsibility. So what I try and do, the first time something comes up, I slow down, make everybody feel that they can slow down, and actually, so you do that, you get thinking, no blame, let's get processed, let's bring people in, let's have a quick brief about what the situation is, because people make assumptions way too early. So they get up and running and quick, but they've never actually checked facts. So it's a fundamental thing as a detective, or in the first stages of an investigation, actually what has actually happened. And you'd be amazed how many people don't do that basic stuff so check what happened, slow it down, make sure people get support. Don't take it, don't take things away from people. Give them the resources and the support, but be involved.

Ryan Eaton: Those are great. What's your biggest leadership principles you've learned in your time and whether it was here in insurance, whether Secret Service, what has been leadership lessons maybe that you passed down or you saw from people before you that have had the most impact in your life?

Richard Lett: One of the people I always reflect on was a guy called Peter Loughborough, he was like the commander in our unit. He was such a wonderful, just such a gentleman. And the perception of how he seemed to move through life as if he had 48 hours in the day. But I knew he was like the busiest person that I knew. But he always had a moment even if it's walking in the corridor or whatever, he always had that time for somebody and often an advice. And sometimes, I didn't realize actually how often, how subtly, it was passed me off because he didn't have time, but he always gave you something, always made you feel yes, you'd registered or heard it. And it's amazing actually how supportive that was knowing that, he knew and when you can see someone who hasn't got time for you but just stops for a moment, you can read that they don't have time. So your respect comes out for them to say, okay, I need to back off, I've got to solve this on my own.

Ryan Eaton: So good.

Richard Lett: But the fact that he gave you something, can just be, five seconds, ten seconds, of, can be so uplifting.

Ryan Eaton: One of my bosses here at Morton White, when I started, he used to go by every single morning with a cup of coffee. And he would spend the first 20 minutes of the day just going by and just saying hey to everyone. He might spend 30 seconds with each person, 10 seconds, whatever the case may be but you never know, he might stop with someone and spend five minutes with them because he said, I don't know what the rest of my day looks like I might be too busy to say, Hey, and I want everyone on my team to always know I care about him. And I love that. And it was one of those things I did it for a while and slow down now, maybe do it like once or twice a week but I love how he did it every morning just a quick, Hey, maybe take 20 minutes of his morning. But at the same time, everyone loved him when they'd run through walls for him.

Richard Lett: That's a great lesson. There's certain things, in the Navy, one of the heroes of the British Royal Navy was Lord Nelson, who, the Battle of Trafalgar, where, if there's any French or Spanish watching, I do apologize but we crushed the Spanish and the Spanish fish were vastly outnumbered, but he just led them into battle and before that he decides that he's going to wear his full Admiral's uniform with all the badges and he's going to warp the deck. So he had asked all of his sailors to be totally committed to the fight. And just to fight like, but he wanted them to know that if they turn around, he would see him there. Now, I don't think the story ended well because he was then a target and he was shot and killed by the French snipers out on the rigging. So I don't know.

Ryan Eaton: Pros and cons to everything, right?

Richard Lett: Pros and cons to everything, but if you put yourself up, you can be, you can take these things in arrows.

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: Now, but he had the bravery to know the most important thing there for all of his men in that situation was to be seen and that they knew that they were going to risk their lives and he was going to risk his too. And that didn't mean he had to lead from the front, he was behind but it's just that. So that's the love that I think people talk about in battle or combat that soldiers feel, I think in America's blessed, Britain's very blessed about how we do it for Queen and country and you'll do it for the flag, right? And the idea of freedom and independence is very strong, but actually on a unit level, when you're in combat, you do it for your brothers or your sisters and that when the heat's on it's a genuine feeling of love and there's probably a lot of people in the school who've done military service but when the bullets are flying or it's getting really unpleasant and you're scared, fear and love are so close and it's amazing your heart almost bursts when you see someone doing something to protect you or do something that you just want to throw yourself onto something and that's where combined with professionalism, common sense it's a very powerful thing and I think this is where the democracies, the free countries where the military are not conscripted, they do it for love. And I think I saw something in America. It's less than 4 percent of people in this country are able or willing, have either the mental, physical constitution and the preparedness to be in combat for America. And you think about the size of the army, you look at the population, you look at what's happening in some of the cities and one thing or another, you think there is only about 4 percent of America that is willing to stand up and die for America at any one time. All right. Maybe we'd count you, we wouldn't count me I'm just too old but that's the number, that's why these people are so special. And the feeling that they have on what they're prepared to do, we should love all of our vets.

Ryan Eaton: A hundred percent. Four percent.

Richard Lett: Four percent of this country is at any one time able, available, willing, and would. It's still a substantial number. But I think sometimes we don't realize, actually, the small percentage of our brothers and sisters that are willing to or able to do it.

Ryan Eaton: Oh, man. What would you say, speaking of age and 4 percent and people in the military, what would you say to someone new into leading, maybe? And this is a different question we didn't even talk about this one, but someone getting into leading, you mentioned that earlier, your first leadership role was going to be your toughest one from a leadership standpoint. What's something maybe when you got started in leading, you wish someone would have told you right when you got started?

Richard Lett: Actually how hard the actual leading piece would be. I was a sergeant in the police at 23. I was really young and I was put into a really busy East London station in Hackney and it was super busy. And I've been a very active cop and I got promotion based off my ability to interesting enough to pass exams, which goes to show what the competition was like but I managed to pass exams in the top ten of everyone that took it, so that gave me like an accelerated promotion into the position and I had the history. But when people see promotion, they look at all the things they need to get there. And I think the people often fail to, when I'm there, now what? And then at that point, suddenly it's like people, it's men and women, it's their careers that you're responsible for and decisions. And I think sometimes, that's why it's such a crucial thing because all of a sudden, they're transitioning from being one off to, and that's why that's so important. I think if you're a young agent, I think, I actually think everyone's a leader by the way.

Ryan Eaton: I agree.

Richard Lett: There's a concept of there are leaders and there are not. The point is, nothing gets done unless people spot things that need to be done and actively do something about it and step up and do it.

Ryan Eaton: That's right.

Richard Lett: So I say everyone from Leclerc, whether it's receptionist, HR, the sales team, everyone like that, everyone's a leader in my view because they'll see an email, they'll see a problem, they'll see a question, they'll recognize it and they'll do something about it. That's leadership.

Ryan Eaton: I agree. Oh, that's good. That's good advice. Getting to the end of the podcast here from a time standpoint, what's something that you would suggest to maybe people on the podcast listening right now from growing their leadership.

Richard Lett: So if they want to grow in it, maybe they got a team, maybe they're just leading themselves, maybe they're leading their family. What do you think are some of those steps? Obviously, you talked about slowing it down just a little bit, making sure there's trust and culture but maybe let's say they don't have control over some of those type things.

Ryan Eaton: They're leading themselves well, but they're not over people right now. What would you suggest from how do you grow yourself and get yourself in ready for that time when they do step into a leadership role in their company?

Richard Lett: So the thing that I reinforce pretty much every day, every meeting I go to, is what is the mission, let's say for Leclerc. In our mission, It's to ensure that every person, every community in America has a well trained, supported life and health insurance agent to guide their needs. And yet we don't sell anything. And yet our mission is all about the member. And I remind the people every day, so when I talk about what should you do, think about the mission, why are you here? What are you doing? Is it a paycheck? I am always looking for signs that people get the mission, right? I'll do the culture. I'll make sure they get paid and all the rest of it but, I want people that get the mission, because once they get the mission, then all the rest of it happens is magic. So the first thing I'll say to anybody who wants to be a leader, fully understand why you're there, what's the opportunity within that business, what's the mission, and then spot and look for opportunities to fulfill that mission. Because this is a fundamental principle of leadership, and I'll finish on this. So much they think leaders are going to direct. And actually, the core things, the fundamental change after the First World War in all militaries, certainly Western militaries, is it's not this top down leadership anymore. What happens is, on a unit level, is that you just say, this is our goal this is our outcome, this is where we're going, right? This is the mission. And at that point, you know that the famous, the original saying is no plan survives first contact with the enemy and more famously in America, they talk about, getting hit on the nose.

Ryan Eaton: Yeah.

Richard Lett: Was the boxer?

Ryan Eaton: Yeah, I'm not sure which quote that is. Everyone's got a plan, they get punched in the nose.

Richard Lett: Yeah. Mike Tyson.

Ryan Eaton: Mike Tyson.

Richard Lett: So that was just a modern version of that phrase. But it's so true. I have a plan. But if I have got people to know where they're going destination, then at that point, as long as they follow the mission and they're all going to the same place, I'll see you there. So I could actually, at that point, just tell me what you need from me, and I don't just sit back, it's not pure lessons.

Ryan Eaton: Tell me where you want to go, and I'll find the opportunities and be someone who finds those opportunities.

Richard Lett: To go over the fence, they'll follow the path.

Ryan Eaton: Yeah, that's good.

Richard Lett: The original plan was to go there, but it's not a straight line.

Ryan Eaton: That's good.

Richard Lett: And the only way you'll get there as a company and be really successful is everybody makes their own way to that destination based off the obstacles and the opportunities they see along the way. And that is the key to me, to leadership. Make sure that everyone at unit level all the way through knows where we're going and feels empowered.

Ryan Eaton: I love it.

Richard Lett: To get there themselves.

Ryan Eaton: Man.

Richard Lett: Otherwise, it's just too much hard work for me I can't look after two three hundred people every day and tell them what they do micromanaging is just the worst. I'm not built for it.

Ryan Eaton: No, I'm not either. Richard, you're the man, brother. Guys, if you can listen to this podcast and not think that this guy has to be one of the most interesting people you've ever listened to, I'd shut it off right now.

That was awesome, man. I love the stories and last night, what you shared with us and everything else. I love the business we're in.

Richard Lett: Oh, man. I love the business we're in.

Ryan Eaton: Insurance is phenomenal. Your history, though, and what you're doing in the insurance industry now, I'm so glad we were able to have you on the show today. So that was awesome.

Richard Lett: Yeah, I'm sorry. I go on a little bit, but.

Ryan Eaton: No, that was great.

Richard Lett: Thanks, I've loved being here.

Ryan Eaton: Look, thank you everybody for listening today. Remember Insurance Leadership Podcast a good plan today is better than a great plan months from now. Thank you very much.

Richard Lett: Thank you for serving your community.