Host - Pat Sweet: Hey everyone, pat sweet here. If you're like most of the folks who listen to this show, you're an engineering leader who is busy and probably not just a little busy, but extremely busy, like working overtime on a regular basis, hardly getting enough sleep, not getting the exercise you want. Work is just nuts. So if this describes you, you're in very good company and it's for that reason that I've put together a free guide, which I've what I think is very cleverly called finding the sixth day. And engineer's quick guide to making more time now. And it answers that call. It provides five practical, actionable steps that you can take very quickly to create that sixth day that you wish you actually had the run of a workweek. And here's the best part. You don't actually have to work the weekend to find that six day, that time is sitting there available for you to do important work, to do good work. And with this guide, my hope is that I can help you find that quickly. So again, that's finding the six day an engineer's quick guide to making more time. Now it's absolutely free and you can download it today@engineeringandleadership.com slash sixth day that's engineering and leadership.com/six T H day. This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 39.

Host - Pat Sweet: Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineers thrive today. I speak with speaker, teacher and author Peter Docker about his new book leading from the jump seat, how to create extraordinary opportunities by handing over control.

Host - Pat Sweet: Hello, everyone. And welcome to the show. Thanks for being here again with me today, I'm very excited about today's interview and I, I really do think that this will quickly become one of the most popular episodes of the podcast. This is, this is really, really good stuff with Peter Docker. But before we get into that, a few things that I wanted to mention, I have a very special opportunity to share with you related to today's show. So, so do stay tuned to the end of the podcast for that. You're not going to want to miss this really, really cool contest. We're going to run. Next, I wanted to share that I'm going to be starting a monthly webinar series, and this is going to be a way to kind of connect with the community on a monthly basis and cover some sort of topic related to the show, be it productivity, leadership management, all within the context of engineering.

Host - Pat Sweet: And it'll be a good way to, to go a little bit deeper with this stuff. And maybe more importantly, to interact with the folks who are in the community and hear firsthand, the kind of challenges you have, and really work through things in a, in a concrete way. So the very first of these monthly webinars is going to be called inbox detox, a three-step process to help get your inbox under control. That's going to take place on October 26th and you can sign up@engineeringandleadership.com slash inbox, detox webinar, and that's totally free. So do come and join us. I know if you're listening to this show, you're someone who gets email because you're an engineer and you have a connection to the internet, so there's no getting around it. And if you get email, that means you probably get too much email. So do come out inbox detox, October 26th, totally free, just go to engineering and leadership.com/inbox, detox webinar. That's it for now, let's get to today's main content.

Host - Pat Sweet: One of the struggles that many engineering leaders have is knowing how and when to let go and allow their teams to move forward with their daily work. It can be incredibly difficult to know how to transition from working in the team and really being a member, doing the work to working on the team itself. This leads to problems with micromanagement impaired team performance and a dearth of leadership and direction. Luckily, Peter Docker addresses this exact problem in his new book, leading from the jump seat, how to create extraordinary opportunities by handing over control. And today's episode. I speak with Peter about his new book, the importance of letting go and what it takes to be a fantastic engineering leader. Peter is a keynote speaker and presents all over the world, offering workshops and bespoke leadership programs. His career has included time as a professional pilot, leading an aviation training and standards organization, teaching post-graduates at an international college and running a multi-billion pound procurement project, a formal Royal air force senior officer he's been a force commander during combat flying operations, and it seen service across the world. He is also a seasoned crisis manager, a former international negotiator for the UK government and an executive coach. Here's my interview with Peter Docker, Mr. Peter Docker, welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. It's, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here today.

Guest - Peter Docker: My pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on,

Host - Pat Sweet: We were talking a little bit just just before hitting record and I just finished reading your book about, about jumpseat leadership and it was it was a great read. And I, I'm really excited to discuss this with you today, but before we go anywhere with that, why don't you help us understand how people understand what you mean? When you say jump seat leadership, what is that? And what differentiates that from, from other other models of leadership?

Guest - Peter Docker: So a little bit to unpack there. I I'll just focus. First of all, on the term. Part of my background, I, I used to be a pilot and I used to be involved in training other pilots and the, the term leading from the jump seat stems from a story that's covered in the book where I just signed up a guy to become a captain. He just finished all of his training. And we're about to get airborne out of San Francisco and he had his own crew with them, but it asked me to come up onto the flight deck for departure for the takeoff, because it was very busy and he wanted an extra pair of eyes. And I sat on what's called the jump seats. And the jump seats is the seats on many large passengers jets that is immediately behind the two pilot seats.

Guest - Peter Docker: So you have the caps in the copilot or first officer, and then there's this seat, which is often spare, but it can be used for other crew members. And that's where I was sat and we'd got airborne and we're only a few hundred feet from the grounds when we had an emergency. And what I chose to do in those next couple of seconds, words dictates the outcome, whether we would survive us on the flight deck and also the other 140 people on board. And, you know, in that moment, as I needed to become a follower, Nolita, I needed this new captain, his name is Callan to sense that I had his back. And so this coined the phrase leading from the jump seat, because whatever we do in life at some stage, we're all going to take a step back. You know, we're going to retire from being a CEO, move on from our team or commonly. If we're a parent, you know, our kids grow up and they leave home and start to lead their own lives. You know, so seat leadership is all about lifting others up so they can leave and carry forward. Those things that are really important to us. And that's the focus of jumpsuit leadership. It's not about increasing or maintaining our own power. It's about empowering others.

Host - Pat Sweet: One of the, one of the things that really stood out to me that that story among, among others within the book is this recurring theme related to letting go recognizing a moment where the leader could intervene, could do something act. And, and the, the right thing to do in fact, was to sit back and allow the person that, that you've, you've built up over time and empowered to do what you know they can do. And what stood out to me is, is how difficult that is. And in my own experience and my experience with other leaders, how difficult it is to to see frankly, an emergency now your emergencies where you're 30,000 feet in the air, tend to be quite a bit more emergent than my own emergencies, where emails aren't getting through. Right. but, but all the same is that inclination to step in and be the hero and, and act is, is so strong. And I wonder if you could comment on why, what do you think that is? Why is it so hard for leaders to trust in the process, trust in the people that they've developed and, and, and sit back?

Guest - Peter Docker: Yeah. Well, first of all, it is human. You know, it really is to want to step in we, most people like to have some control over their own destiny or w what they're doing and that's okay. You know, we're not always going to get it right, but it's the intention, the trend, which is important. And the example of an aircraft emergency is helpful because it shows what can be done even when the ultimate is on the line, our own life, but it applies in business and in life elsewhere too. And the thing that makes us want to step in is fear, fear naturally occurs in us when our life, our livelihoods, our status or reputation is threatened. Now, our life being threatened us to react with fear is, is perfectly understandable. You know, we jump out of the way of the oncoming car or a dangerous animal or whatever it happens to be.

Guest - Peter Docker: It gets a problem though, when it's our livelihoods status or reputation, and particularly those last two status or reputation on the line, cause fear kicks in and fear there, it looks like it's about me. It's my ego ego is Greek for fry. It's about how we close down and just focus on ourselves, which, you know, is the fear reaction when our life is endangered too, you know, we've got to survive, but when we're in the workplace and it's our status or reputation or livelihoods, we have that same reaction and the ego kicks in, or we start to see the world's a place of scarcity and lack of opportunity, you know? And that's where this natural instinct of ego kicks in. And that's why it's so difficult to, to let go the resides. I like to let go. In the example I gave at the start of this call the emergency on the airplane is because of a number of things, not least the training that we'd given this, this new guy account. But also the relationship we have and between ourselves and thirdly where I'm sourcing myself from which wasn't fair, it was from something else it's called love. And there's something we can dive into if you like. Yeah,

Host - Pat Sweet: Yeah. That's I was, I was waiting for that moment for that, for that word to come up because because it's a it's a, it's a theme throughout the book. And it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty bold claim. In that it's not the kind of thing that comes up an awful lot in leadership books is the importance of, of love for leadership. And the way you position it initially in the, in the book is, is that love is an antidote to fear. It's the, it's the magical Luxor that addresses fear. What exactly do you mean by that?

Guest - Peter Docker: Well, PA everything that's important to us in life really important to us, everything is driven by the fear or love and what connects them actually is courage. Courage cannot exist without the catalyst of fear, but it can only be sustained by in love. I think we, we trip ourselves up a little bit because of the inadequacy of this word love in so many ways, because we, we use it in so many different situations, but what I'm focused on here is love in the sense of a willingness to put others first, to have humble confidence, replace ego, you know, humble confidence is where we're humble enough to listen to others, which is a great enabler because it stops us being the limitation on what we achieve when we can learn from others and a willingness to make a decision when we need to make a decision love is also about compassion and humility.

Guest - Peter Docker: It's about a willingness to see the world as a place of opportunity and possibility rather than scarcity, you know, so we always, always have a choice how we respond to a situation, you know, even the likes of Nelson Mandela, when he had nothing in prison for all those years, he could have chosen fear, but no, he chose love for something. Instead Malala chef side, who was shot in Pakistan in, in a teenage years, you know, she would have, could have easily chosen fear, but instead she chose love for something, for something she believed in. And this is why love is so such a powerful force. When we, we source ourselves from it, it helps us to overcome challenges and obstacles. That's fair. Just, isn't going to be able to sustain us for that long

Host - Pat Sweet: When you, when you invoke stories like like Malala or Nelson Mandela's I think it's, it's brilliant in that you, you see, it's easy to see in those extreme cases, it paints a very clear picture of how something like love and approaching your work and your life with the decision to love it. It makes sense. Yeah. One of the things that I wrestled with a little bit is taking those examples and, and zooming down to my morning scrum with my team, right. A bunch of hard-nosed skeptical unfeeling engineers. And I'm sorry to my team if they're listening. But I, I imagine it's, it's difficult in some ways to, to pitch this to a corporate audience or a technical audience, how do you, how do you help people operationalize this idea? How do you take that to the office in the morning? What, what kinds of things do you, do you recommend, or how might you, how might you guide someone if they're trying to address fear with love?

Guest - Peter Docker: Well, I think it, it always starts always things start with the person in the mirror, you know when we're clear on what we stand for ourselves, what's really important to us then that can, those things can act as a handrail at times when we don't know the answers. So when we feel out of our comfort zone and you know, I've applied these sorts of ideas, although I wouldn't have had the, this language at the time, but when I was leading people in, in combat flying aircraft, totally unarmed we were airing filling airplanes, and this was in the 2003 Gulf Iraq war. And you know what we did there, we, we chose ICER. We chose, I know all my people chose a love for something rather than fear of something. So in the most extreme circumstances this was very technical as well, you know flying technical airplanes.

Guest - Peter Docker: Then it was in this case, a love for our fellow soldiers who are on the grounds, who we'd never met, but we were relying on the air support that we enabled them to get for their lives. And it was that sense of duty and service to others. That's drove us forward. If you want a real technical thing, this is, I've always mentioned this because it's accessible for everybody to see jumpsuit leadership in action, the brilliant 1995, film Apollo 13, there you have a bunch of the most technical engineers you could imagine, but at the time faced with an unbelievably challenging problem of Apollo, which many listeners will recall had an explosion in space on routes to the moon. Now this was back in the seventies, but it's still just as relevant today. What drove those engineers on to find the solution was that absolute dedication to bringing those three astronauts home safe, they were in service of those astronauts and they would work every hour. They possibly could all aligned around the same commitments to bring these people home, to figure out what at the first instance seemed an impossible challenge, and they did figure it out and they did come home safe. And it was arguably then. And still now NASA's finest down.

Host - Pat Sweet: Absolutely. I think, I think many of us, particularly from a technical standpoint, look at a situation like that and think, you know, the stakes are as high as they get the time, the time limit is there was no delay to that project, right? The, the, you, you need to act and yeah, you paint a really, really interesting picture of how the situation galvanized the team. There was a very clear sense of the mission and what you were there to do. And what was interesting there was how the mission had to pivot all of a sudden this wasn't about getting people landed on the moon and back. This is about getting, getting some people home safe.

Guest - Peter Docker: Yeah, it was, it shifted, they shifted the context. You know, the, there are only two things in this world. There is content and there is context. Content is like all the puzzle pieces on the table of a jigsaw puzzle. But without the picture on the box, the context, they don't have meaning. And as leaders, particularly actually people who are in a technical field, such as engineering, typically you've progressed in your field because you've been good at knowing the answer, you know? But then you get to the stage where you're looking after the people who have got the hands on the tools or work in the problems. And your job is to paint that picture on the puzzle box and make it as clear as possible. So as others who are marshaling the, the puzzle pieces or they themselves, and the puzzle pieces can figure out how to come together.

Guest - Peter Docker: Now, what happened with Apollo 13 was the picture on the box started off as being, let's get three astronauts to the moon, the two of them down on onto the moon service lunar service and bring them back again. That was the picture on the box. But after the explosion, they needed to change the picture on the box. And years ago, I had a, a challenging jigsaw puzzle, whereby if you'd turn the puzzle pieces over, there was a different picture. On the other side, they still came together, but they formed a different pitch, like took on different. And this is exactly what happens with Apollo 13. So if we haven't got our team aligned and we don't feel they all working with us to towards whatever challenge it is we're facing, maybe it's a time to pause and say, well, do I need to, aluminate the picture on that jigsaw puzzle Bo box? Do I need to create it, or do I need to shift it? Because that is the key to create a space where people can come together using their knowledge, their ability to learn their way through. So the solution that you're seeking or the outcome you're hoping for.

Host - Pat Sweet: Absolutely. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting was that this, this idea of the, the, the picture on the puzzle box, I thought that was a great, a great way to imagine the role of the leader. And it's easy to think that everyone everyone's working with the same mental model, everyone has this idea of this picture on the box. When in fact, it's very easy for people to have their, their own views, their own versions. So w once you, once you paint that picture, what are the other things that you have to do as a leader is, is provide hope. And this is another one of the big themes in the book is, is to, to really convey that sense that we can do this. And, and if you, if you zoom back to the Apollo 13 example, that, that must've been a core component of that, of that mission, shifting the picture, and then saying, listen up folks, this can be done.

Host - Pat Sweet: And, and w you refer back to that line from the movie failure is not an option. And, and the, the team clearly bought in, which is what is remarkable because, because the stakes were so high and, and the context shifted so much that it would be very rational, frankly, to, to, to, to lose hope. How do you, in, in a, in a practical sense, convey hope to a team of people, what kinds of things can you do when you recognize that, that maybe the team that you are leading lacks hope or lacks a sense of we can do this?

Guest - Peter Docker: Well, it comes back to the mirror, actually, pat, because for me, hope is not so much about what we're doing. It's about who we're being as a person, you know and I distinguish hope over optimism. This goes back to Admiral Stockdale and Jim Collins, and good to great brought this up. You know, Stockdale was a a prisoner of war and prisoner of war. And he distinguished between hope and optimism and hope. The difference between hope and optimism, optimism has got a low, like a timeline to it. You know hope though does not have a timeline. Hope is about a belief in and after. And that is so much more powerful. And, you know, to date example, moving forward from Apollo 13 is Elon Musk. Now, whatever we think of Elon Musk, he does maintain hope, look at his space program and look at his electric vehicle program with space X.

Guest - Peter Docker: You know, his first launch was in 2006. It exploded 30 seconds after liftoff. Same thing happened in two, in 2007 with the second launch, same thing again in 2008, his fourth launch that works thankfully, but then on his birthday in 2015, his rocket exploded again, when it was carrying a double payload for NASA up to the space station. And somebody said to him you don't want, you know, why, why why'd you how'd you keep on going? And he said, when something is important enough, it's worth doing anyway, even when the odds are not in your favor. So this to me is an example of commitment who is absolutely committed, still is absolutely committed to forming his picture on the box, which is getting the human race on to Mars and the sustainable future for humankind. And he maintains that hope against the odds and it's who he is being. It's how he occurs to people, our belief that the will be an after in this case, they will be able to look back at some stage and say, yes, we got people on, on the planet. Mars, you know, it's like standing at the top of the mountain rather than standing at the bottom.

Host - Pat Sweet: You talk about this, this disbelief this, this, this core thing that you really do feel in your bones. And, and it it reminded me of, of these these dual ideas that you present the, this difference between acting with authenticity and acting with integrity. And I well, maybe I'll let, I'll let you explain the difference between the two and why it's important to act with integrity. But maybe also how hope plays into that. Because I, I imagine there being a little bit of tension there if, if there ever were doubt in your mind about about the mission that you're pursuing, but, but let, let, let's go back to authenticity and integrity. What, what's the difference between the two

Guest - Peter Docker: You know, when I was rising this path up, the term authenticity is always legal mail. Yeah. It, it, it always didn't seem quite right. It's talked about a lot in business and in leadership circles, but something about didn't quite feel right to me. And I think the nub of it for me was again, what am I experiences going back to 2003, leading during the, the Iraq war I, as the senior person looking out to mind 200 or so people, you know, I had my doubts, I had my figures, I have my concerns. I had a whole bunch of unknowns that I was playing around with and challenges, and to be authentic would have been to share all that, what I felt with Maxine, but that would have helped them because it would have stoked their fears or doubts. Yes, this is not about ignoring the reality of the situation.

Guest - Peter Docker: Not at all. It's about putting as Seth Godin says Seth Keynes, by help here, I've mentioned in the book because he talks about authenticity. We give up the, the right to be authentic when we're about four or five years old, you know a four year old kiddos screaming because he's hungry, that's authentic, but, you know, as we grow up, we need to put a filter on that. And when we're in a a role where people are looking towards us for guidance, looking forward towards us for hope and belief, and to paint that picture on the box, then we need to put in a filter and that's called integrity. You know, having integrity with what is expected of you in the role you've chosen to take, take on. Part of that is hope. Part of that is supporting people. So as they can figure out the challenges, part of it is recognizing, you know, what you're faced with, but also being absolutely committed with every fiber of your body, that you are going to reach the top of that mountain, whatever your mountain is that you're climbing. Because then it creates a space where your people can walk alongside with you and help you figure out how you're going to get there.

Host - Pat Sweet: I really liked that, that parallel, you draw to, to a little kid because it reminds you of a conversation we have with our own daughter. Who's now who's, who's about to turn seven and we'll, we'll tell her quite often all feelings are okay, they're there, there's no such thing as a bad feeling, but you have to learn how to choose your response to that feeling. Now that you're turning seven it's, it's less okay. Now to freak out about being hungry. It's okay to be hungry and to be upset about being hungry. And, and now that I think about it, I think based on what you're saying, it makes sense leaders need to recognize in themselves those feelings and then choose their response. You talked about not feeling what you do or not thinking what you do, but being particular about what you, what you project to the outer world and,

Guest - Peter Docker: And how, yeah, I think there's some useful techniques that coming come to play here. And we can go back to the aircraft example I can tell you from experience that even when you're in a simulation, when you have an alarm that you've got an engine fire, your heart will skip a beat. Yeah. And what happens in a big aircraft when you have an engine fire alert, there's a big red light that flashes and a very loud bell, very loud bell. There is no getting away from it. You you've got an engine fire, you know, and this is where it links back to what we're talking about earlier. Pat, you know, our natural instincts will be for fair to kick it. And when fear kicks in, we either freeze, fight or flight. Well, you know, I can't physically find an engine fire. I can't well I can freeze and that's what will happen to an untrained person and train pilots flights.

Guest - Peter Docker: I I'm sure, you know, the passengers would get a little upset if you left the aircraft at that stage when lane needs you most. So our reaction would be one of those things, freeze, fight or flight, but what's is done in the aviation world is a lot of training where you learn what are called immediate actions to deal with something like an engine fire. And these are drills. So as you know exactly what to do, and the benefit of that is it's a response that has been considered on the grounds without a big red light in front of the bureau, alarm bell, going off by engineers and pilots who know the systems well, and they figure out the procedure that you need to follow all cool and calm and collected in the room. Then we train people to have that response triggered by the alarm and the, the, the, the lights, and so acts as a reaction there, but the speeds of reaction and what that does, it takes the place of the freeze fight or flight.

Guest - Peter Docker: It gives us something to do, which then, I mean, it's only a few seconds, but it's just enough for our brains to assimilate the situation we're now in and start to think clearly about what's next. And it's the same in business as well. You know, if we look at well engineering applications, or let's say on the internet side, if we have a data breach, you know, these things are things that can be planned for where we can write down what our response is going to be and train it and practice it, such that when, and if it does happen, we can go into that mode and it gives us something to do when otherwise fear would take hold. So that's the difference between a reaction and a response, and there's a time and place for both, but often we react when we'd be better off responding.

Host - Pat Sweet: I really like this idea and it reminds me of a conversation. I had a David Marquet on, on the show here, a few episodes back episode 31. And Marquet was in charge of the USS Santa Fe, a us nuclear submarine and a really, really cool story. And in his most recent book leadership, his language, he, he talks about the difference between blue work and red work and how red work is doing the business. It's it's heads down, it's hammer out, whatever it is you do. Blue work is the, is the pause and the stepping back and the thinking about the work. And it occurs to me that coming up with responses to stimuli is that's blue work. That's not flying the plane. That's like you said, on the ground thinking through how are we going to deal with these things that may well happen, that they are, they are known risks.

Host - Pat Sweet: One of the things that I think is, is particularly difficult for leaders today is to find the time for blue work is to find the time to choose those responses and think through with their team how are we going to deal with this? If it comes up, you're, you're too busy dealing with the stuff that has already come up, you're stuck in red work. You, you, you mentioned that that time is one of the most important things you can use to invest in your people and, and working on your team. How do we come up with this time, Peter? What, what, what, what does a leader have to do to do this and this important work of investing in people and investing in in that blue work, in that coming up with, with responses?

Guest - Peter Docker: Well, you know, this, when we, when we think of time and applying time, we often have a distorted picture in our minds as to how much time we're talking about. And because a lot of this is connected to who we're being, how we're occurring to others, how people perceive us, how we show up. It, it doesn't need to take very much time at all. Again, going back to 2003 and the Iraq war one might assume I was very busy and indeed our walls, but I made time to brief my different shifts of aircraft maintainers working 12 hours on 12 hours off. I brief them each and every day, even if I had nothing to tell them because it was spending some time with them. I would I would just find time to sit down with a pass on the most junior guys and check in that he or she was doing all right, you know, and how things were at home.

Guest - Peter Docker: It doesn't actually take that much time. And here's the thing pat that I've learned. And I, I believe it's all linked. We, we all, we all have some sort of desire to want to make a difference or be significant, you know, and this is linked to the time piece because we often think to be significant, we need to do something big, you know, the headline, but actually that's not my experience at all. It's about the small stuff. And I it's about being the pebble in the pond. You never know how far those ripples will go. And some of the most significant times to me, the other person involved, probably doesn't remember them at all. You know, giving an example. And this is all about caring, finding time, creating those, those pivotal moments. When we came back from the Iraq war I was a little bit tired to say the least we've been out for several months.

Guest - Peter Docker: And thank heavens. I brought back everybody who I took out with me. When we landed back at our base, we had the press and the family reunion, et cetera, et cetera. And everybody had dispersed the, my wife had taken our car back and I was in a little runaround. We used the only NFL's I have my two young children in the car with me at the time I was about to drive off. And there was a knock on the window. There was this guy, John, who was wore my aircraft engineers while the aircraft maintainers. And in one army had his wife and in his other army had his newborn son who just met for the first time.

Guest - Peter Docker: And I wound down the window. I suggest John, what is it? And I said, so, cause I was just so you know, both is it's I just want to say, thanks for bringing us all home safe. Now that was a significant moment for me. It took a couple of seconds of John's time, but that's something I will never forget because in that moment, Pitsa mised the sense of juicy, the sense of service that John has in that he was away doing what he was employed to do whilst his wife was at home having that finished child. And that will always stay with me, you know? And I think working the other way that I've had people come up to me and say, oh, I'll remember when you did, or you said, I, I don't remember it because it's a fleeting moment, but for them it was just the right thing.

Guest - Peter Docker: Just the right time, maybe hand on the shoulder, or just hanging out, doing, you know and it's not difficult. Se what drives that, what enables us to do that is to really truly care care or to a human level. And any of us who are parents or any of us, who've been kids. I think we all have, we know when we're in the presence of someone who truly cares, it might not be that they have much time. It might not be that they do much, but we can sense it. And that can only be created when the person offering that care really does care. So that's the answer to how how'd you find time, it's the fleeting moments and caring enough to search them out and well

Host - Pat Sweet: That's right. And if you are looking for those opportunities, you will find them and he realized that it doesn't have to take four hours a day to demonstrate to your team that you care an awful lot of magic can happen in those, in those moments.

Guest - Peter Docker: There's one quick story on this, which I love, which is you know, back in 19 77 0 2 space probe launched by NASA called Voyager. And they have long since left our solar system and they're traveling on 40,000 miles an hour or something ridiculous. Now it's going to be another 40,000 years until they come anywhere, close to another objects or leave, and then it's going to be 9 trillion miles away. I can't even comprehend it. But the thing is this tiny blue speck that is earth and our son, even though there are so small. And so seemingly insignificant have guided those two probes throughout their journey and will continue to guide those probes. And I think we have an opportunity as there's people who choose to leave in whatever context, as a parents, as a CEO, as a team leader, we have the opportunity to be that tiny blue speck, where the little inputs that we make, the little moments that we create continue to guide our people long after we've disappears over the horizon.

Host - Pat Sweet: Yeah. It's quite quite something quite something Peter, I'm sure we could talk for another, another several hours on this. The topic is endlessly interesting to me and the book is great. But I want to give people an opportunity to, to dig into it for themselves. Could, could you remind me when when the book launches and where, where people can go to to pick it up?

Guest - Peter Docker: Yeah. So the book leading from the jump seats, how to extraordinary opportunities by handing over control it's released on the 19th of October in most parts of the world in the states as a few days later it's available for pre-order worldwide through all the normal places. And we can put a link on your show notes. And yeah, I'm just excited to share with people because I think there are a few things in there that are gonna help.

Host - Pat Sweet: Absolutely. And no problem at all. The links will definitely show up in the show notes. Mr. Peter Docker. Thank you. Once again, this has been an absolute pleasure.

Guest - Peter Docker: Likewise, thanks. I've enjoyed our

Host - Pat Sweet: Conversation. Thank you, me too. Take care. Okay. Thank you so much, Peter. I really, really appreciate your insights, your ideas some really fantastic stuff. All, all drawn from some incredible personal experience, professional experience, and really distilled down into a fantastic book. I can't can't recommend this highly enough as I was listening back on our conversation. One of the things that I thought was important to take away from this was that at some point we all move on from our leadership roles. We, we either retire. We take promotions are on a more personal note. We have kids who, who eventually move out. So at some point you've got to take that back seat. You've got to climb into the jump seat and jump seat. Leadership is all about empowering others so that they can take over when the time comes. And it's important for us to recognize that that time will come, whether we prepare for it or not is a different question altogether.

Host - Pat Sweet: It's incredibly important to prepare for that. But so many of us don't don't think to, or even if we do, we don't really know how. So this book really provides some, some fantastic guidance to that end. Another big idea is that fear is what makes us want to step in and not allow someone else to take the reins. When you see some sort of problem, when you see some sort of situation where, you know, you know what to do about it, and you're worried that the people that you have previously empowered or been building up, aren't able to, it it's that fear that is speaking to you and saying, well, you better jump in, or this be a disaster. The problem is if, if you allow fear to dictate your actions, the people you are trying to build up will never get there. You have to be willing to let go.

Host - Pat Sweet: In fact, you even have to be willing to let little bad things happen. Now, certainly a lot of the examples that that Peter talked about during the interview and in his book relate to not little bad things happen when they talk to, they speak to really big, bad things happening like airliners going down. And I really liked that he examined the ideas he presented in those extreme contexts because it really paints a clear picture. But I think it's important to note that you don't need to be in a life or death situation to practice these ideas. In fact, most leadership situations don't involve airline passengers going down, frankly. So it should be even easier for most of us to let go. I think that's really, really important off the top of the show. I mentioned that I had a, a special opportunity to share, and I'm really excited about this.

Host - Pat Sweet: If you liked the interview, if you're interested in Peter Docker and his work and in his new book Peter has very graciously offered to send out a signed copy to one of you, someone listening to this show right now, it's very, very easy to sign up. Just go to engineering and leadership.com/jump seat contest, that's engineering and leadership.com/jump seat contest, and you will be entered to win one free signed copy of Peter's book leading for the jump seat. So again, if you're interested in getting a copy engineering and leadership.com/jump seat contest like I said, free to join free to enter. I'll be picking a winner very, very soon. Like Peter said, the book comes out very soon. So I want to make sure that we pick a winner quickly and get that book out to you. It's going to be a lot of fun. So thank you once again, Peter, for the chat and the the signed book is going to be a lot of fun next up, of course, we have the engineering and leadership mailbag,

Host - Pat Sweet: You know how this works. This is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read everything you send me. And I promise to read my favorites right here on the podcast. I've got a few messages from folks who subscribe to the engineering and leadership, weekly newsletter, people who are part of this engineering and leadership community Nissan from India reached out to share his work and promoting engineering work for various schools and institutes in India. So thank you very much for reaching out. Great to hear from you. And Terrence also wrote to share a bit about his work in renewable energy and underwater equipment. Both Terrence Nissan, we're, we're just writing to say hi and, and share a little bit about themselves. And that's awesome. I love hearing from people. You don't need to have some pressing leadership issue to reach out.

Host - Pat Sweet: I'm always here and always love chatting with folks. Finally we had Daveed Crivelli who wrote on LinkedIn and he said really enjoyed this episode. And this got me interested in becoming a mentor and, and he's referring there to the episode with an Saffy to previous episode, number 38, and check that out in the archives. Divvied goes on to say the examples that a Nan Saffy showed seem mostly geared towards a software to me, whereas I'm interested in the mechanical slash aerospace and similar areas. Did you come across anything similar? All the platforms linked seemed to consider engineering as software only. Well, thank you very much divvied for, for your note. I'm really glad you enjoyed the episode and an end had a lot of really interesting stuff to say on mentorship and coaching and the importance, both for the person giving and the person receiving the mentoring or the coaching.

Host - Pat Sweet: It really does go both ways. But I think the vid has a point C Nan's background certainly is in software. So a lot of the experience that he had to share related to his own experience, that's not a knock on a Nan at all, does he's speaking from what he knows, which makes sense. A lot of the, the tools and platforms that exist right now, at least those that I'm aware of really do seem to cater predominantly to folks in software. That's true. So I guess I would say David you're, you're not making it up. There is I think a bit of a gap in the market as far as that goes engineering as we all know is much, much, much broader than software. So I guess I would put it out to the community if anyone in the community knows about a platform or anything that really does cater to, to matching non-software engineers, to coaches and mentors.

Host - Pat Sweet: I'd love to hear about it. And if if you want to write me on LinkedIn, that would be great. And I would promise to share any resources I get in the next episode. But if nothing comes back, that that might be an interesting opportunity for us here at the engineering and leadership headquarters here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to to come up with something and fill that gap. So again, David, thank you very much for your comment. Really do appreciate it. And thank you again NAND for for all your advice last episode. Thanks once again, to all those who reached out, if you'd like to chat with me or leave a comment, please do find me on LinkedIn or leave a comment in the episode, show notes, and just go to engineering and leadership.com/episode 39.

Host - Pat Sweet: That's all the time we have for the show today, I'll be back soon with our next episode. If you enjoyed the show, I would love it if you would subscribe so that we can continue this conversation, it's been a lot of fun so far. And if if you wouldn't mind leaving a review would be super helpful for me. It helps me understand what's going well. What's not going well and helps others find the show as well. For more information and links to the resources mentioned in today's episode. Again, just go to the show notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 30 until next time. This is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

Host - Pat Sweet: You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet. If you'd like to learn more, go to engineering and leadership.com where you'll find more free articles, podcasts, and downloads to help engineers thrive. That's engineering and leadership.com.