“How can lessons learned as an Apache pilot in the military translate into aerospace engineering and the general world of manufacturing?”

Lead like a pilot means placing an importance on structure, guidance, and community, says Operation Lead’s Craig Coyle. A former Apache pilot, Coyle joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll on this episode of Manufacturing Matters to discuss this concept and its applicability to manufacturing today. The discussion covered workforce challenges, leadership during tariff disruptions, and dealing with the employee disengagement problem. In addition, the episode touches on manufacturing trends and technologies, AI adoption strategies, and a first timer’s impression of the Automate show.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. My name is Jimmy Carroll. I’m the vice president of operations at Tech B2B Marketing. And welcome to this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast. Today I have the pleasure of being joined by Craig Coyle from Operation Lead. Craig, thanks so much for reaching out and making the time, and it’s great to meet you in person.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:00:14] Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s awesome to be here at Automate and obviously get to have this conversation today.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:19] Yeah, of course. So it’s your first Automate, and we cheated a little bit because we did talk a little bit before the podcast. But for the sake of the discussion, what’s your impression of the show so far?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:00:29] Yeah it’s fascinating, the amount of technology and innovation that’s going on here and how companies and individuals across the industry are working together to advance the capabilities not just of our industry but of our whole society. The work we’re doing here, companies are doing here, is not just impacting manufacturing. It’s impacting everything.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:54] Yeah. It’s cool. Somebody was talking about it yesterday, and they’re like, if you’ve ever been up late at night — and I’m thinking specifically about my wife, and I’m sure a lot of people are in the same boat, in a similar boat — but if you’ve made a late-night purchase or just a random Amazon purchase and you get that the next day, robots have touched that. And it’s beyond that. AI is creeping into our everyday life, and robotics and machine vision and these other technologies, and like you said, it’s super cool. It’s very cool to see. Craig, you have a super unique background. So talk a little bit about that and what led to the creation of Operation Lead and what you’re looking to do with that.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:01:35] Yeah, it has been an interesting journey to say the least. When I was younger, I always wanted to be a pilot. And so I chased that dream. I kind of decided at a young age or kind of knew one of the quickest, easiest, maybe most financially responsible routes to chase that dream was through the military. And that kind of became the path that I ended up following. So I graduated from West Point. I was fortunate enough to study aerospace engineering there because I knew that I wanted to be a pilot, and that kind of led me into flight school. Next thing I know, I’m 23 years old and I’m living my dream life. I’m an Apache pilot in the United States Army. I’m in leadership positions, and next thing I know, I kind of fell flat on my face as a leader and really almost had a quarter-life crisis, if you will, because everything I ever wanted to do leading up to that point was to be an Apache pilot and to fly and to serve my country really. And then it quickly kind of shifted and my mission became, well, how can I become a better leader? Because the things I’m doing are impacting more than just one person. It’s either making their lives better or making their lives worse.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:02:44] And ultimately I continued on that leadership journey, and it really helped me make a big difference in the military. But I kind of realized that that wasn’t going to be the long-term career for me. I transitioned into the aerospace industry and saw a lot of the same challenges I saw in the military, specifically on production, factory, operation-level leadership. And it manifests in a lot of different ways. It can be production challenges. It can be quality, safety risks. But a lot of what we’re seeing, especially today within the labor challenges we have across our industry, is not just bringing people into our workforce but maximizing and keeping the workforce we have because — we just talked about it with automation, with all the advancements we’re seeing — we’re kind of seeing a labor pool that’s been flattened. And what I mean by flattened is, you’re not just competing with people that work at your competitor anymore for the labor pool. You’re competing with Amazon. Chances are pretty soon you’re going to be competing with McDonald’s. And so if you’re going to be stuck in this commodity game, you’ve got to learn how to do something different and pull yourself out of that. And that’s really the goal of what Operation Lead’s after.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:03:56] There’s a lot of questions I could ask about leadership that would be fascinating to me, but one of them that’s on the top of my mind, based on recent headlines in the news, is tariffs. And I know that we’re going back and forth a little bit. And it’s hopefully not a long-term issue. But in the short term, how do you think leaders can best prepare their businesses for any disruptions? And it’s not just tariffs; we’ve seen with other political strain and supply chain and COVID-19. What are some ways that you would recommend leaders to be able to protect against these types of disruptions?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:04:36] Yeah, I’m not going to try to be a tariff expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I try to look through the lens of what I was taught in the military, and in the military, we always look at things from a strategic perspective, an operational perspective, and a tactical perspective. The way I view a lot of these external challenges, the things that we can’t control, but as senior leaders, executives of our organization it’s our job to navigate our organizations through it. Well, the best way we do that is by maximizing the things we can control, so that when those challenges come that you can’t foresee, you’re positioned in a perfect place to focus all your effort and attention on that. Well, the way you do that is by building an environment that is incredibly effective, that is built off trust, where people are empowered to do the things that they need to do. Unfortunately, most senior leaders today spend 80% of their time trying to navigate workforce challenges. They’re actually holding their company back, instead of spending 80% of their time on the business, market challenges that they’re getting paid the big bucks to do. So whether it’s tariffs, whether it’s an epidemic, whether it’s AI and automation, and helping your company navigate this space that’s transforming every single day. I’m sure Automate looks a lot different than it did last year, right?  The opportunity that exists for you as a senior leader in your organization to actually maximize your ability to do that ultimately comes from the idea and the concept, which really comes from a lot of the Covey principles and 7 Habits. But how do you set yourself up to actually be able to focus most of your attention and time on that? You do that by setting your organization up to maximize your workforce, minimize the challenges you have there, and that’s ultimately scaling your leadership.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:06:41] What kind of lessons do you have in the past from the military or just from you work with Operation Lead where when it comes to mitigating concern, I’ve seen some discussions in headlines and LinkedIn and things like that lately about what not to say, what to say, what not to say. And sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly how to communicate certain issues with your workforce, or not to. And how do you mitigate concern?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:07:09] Yeah. You know, that’s tough because everybody comes from a different background. You never know what might trigger one person or trigger another person. And it’s really hard to navigate the fine line these days, especially the way politics have gotten really biased and divisive. And so I think, number one, having strong core values, core values that you don’t just have on the wall but that you actually embrace and scale throughout your whole organization. And so what does that look like? That means when you hire people, you hire them through the lens of your core values. It means you don’t just say things, but you actually follow up what you say with your actions. And I think when you create a culture of that and you create a culture of stopping, pausing, thinking before you speak, you create a culture of care. I think you create ultimately an environment where you don’t have to walk on eggshells with what you say all the time. And I actually think that’s what’s more important, because if you’re in an environment where you’re constantly worried about what you have to say, well, the issue isn’t what you’re saying. It’s the environment that you either created or that you’re a part of. And that’s really what the root cause or root challenge is.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:08:32] So interesting. So if you find some people, and again, through the lens of the military or operationally, whatever, but if you have some workers that you do feel that they fit these principles and your core values and they’re really good, they’re a valuable member of the team, but maybe they’re just like disengaged. And you’re finding disengagement. How do you fix that?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:08:57] Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to do it. I think number one, the most important thing you can do as a leader, at any level of your organization, it’s not the amount of things you do. It’s how consistent and disciplined you are in the things that you do. And that’s leadership things, not management things. And I like to explain the difference: Leading is what you do to empower and give clarity and direction and purpose below. Whereas management is what you do to serve the people above you. Now both are important, but someone’s only ever going to mandate that you do one of those things, right? I think the most underutilized tool to activate employees and teams and overcome disengagement is this concept of a mission statement. The challenge is, a lot’s been lost in translation from the military when it comes to mission statements. In the military, a mission statement, by definition, is a clear, tangible objective that you’re tasked to accomplish by a certain time, in a certain place, for a certain purpose. It’s the five W’s, and it scales throughout the entire organization. So, yes, the Army has a mission statement, but then each division in the Army has a mission statement, and each brigade in that division has a mission statement. And each battalion in each of those brigades all the way down to the company, to the platoon, to the squad level. And it’s a tool that’s used to scale clarity, scale direction, and scale purpose.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:10:35] And it’s ultimately a choreography, right? It’s synchronizing an entire military to accomplish both tactical and strategic objectives. Well, the challenge in corporate America is typically we see missions more as a branding statement. It’s something that we write on the wall. Might even be a little bit of legal jargon, right? Something we use maybe to try and excite people about the organization or attract them to the organization. But it’s not being used for clarity. It’s certainly not being used for direction. They are using it for purpose typically. But typically it’s just at the top. It’s not scaling all the way down to the folks on the front line. So that worker X, worker Y, worker Z know exactly what they have to do today, why they have to do it, when they have to do it, and why it’s so important. And I think when you create a culture where everybody is doing that and everybody over here understands what they’re doing, but they also understand the people over here, what they’re doing and how both of them fit what’s going on up here, then you’re starting to create an environment where people are on the same page. They’re committed to what they’re doing. They know what they have to do when they show up. Well, you’re probably going to have a pretty engaged team at that point.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:11:54] Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. My brain likes to work in analogies, and this is not at all a perfect analogy, but I’ve always thought about it in the sense of if you work at certain companies, you might feel like the guy or the woman at the bottom of the old ship shoveling coal to make the engine work. But people want to feel like they’re on the top level of that boat and have more direction on where it goes and what it might do instead of just feeling like just another worker, another cog in the wheel. So it’s good for everyone to kind of be aligned and be on the same page. And I think you’re right. Well, I don’t think you’re right — I know you’re right. Fit — like the culture fit, personality. Like a lot of times if you’re interviewing somebody or you want to know: Am I going to be able to hang out with this person and spend a lot of time with them? Do they agree with what I agree with? And I don’t mean politically or things like that. But as far as what the core values and the mission statement and what we’re all trying to do here.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:12:55] Yeah. And especially in industry, we don’t always have that luxury, especially when we’re talking about the labor pool that we’re using towards the bottom of our organizations. Especially because that labor pool seems to be getting smaller and smaller. And so what we have to do is, one, understand how to create an environment that helps empower and infuse those values into people. And that’s when leading by example really makes a difference. Because we’re not sending people to boot camp. We’re not forcing these values down their throats. So ultimately what we have to do is kind of force them to embrace them almost through osmosis.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:13:35] And it’s very challenging, given all the things we’ve been talking about: disruptions and tariffs and the economy swings up and down, and it can be a challenge to navigate through difficult times where maybe there’s tight spending or maybe there’s even layoffs, and you still have to be able to motivate everybody to stay on the same page. And I could see how your military experience here really applies to a number of different industries. So you got in yesterday morning. Is that right? AI is a topic that’s always very popular, whether it’s here at Automate or in the general public. I did a podcast yesterday. We had this one company that works in AI, and they said they’ve worked with a number of large companies lately that are mandated to use AI, which is an interesting concept to me, because people don’t want to get left behind when it comes to AI adoption. But in general, do you have any advice for leaders on their approach to AI and AI adoption?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:14:44] Yeah. You know, I haven’t heard of AI mandates before. I appreciate the perspective there. I would be curious to hear their thoughts on why they’re mandating it. But when I think of AI, I always try to look at it through the lens of what are the menial, mundane tasks that generally can produce complacency after you’ve been doing them for a long time that we can use AI to replace, or string tasks together, or we kind of live in a service-based-company world where a lot of people lean on virtual assistants. I think of it as almost how can I replace what a virtual assistant might do for me, on the back end, whether that’s any of those routine, I’m doing these little things every week on a cadence type tasks. Because I think the beauty of AI is that it adds this level of intelligence that we haven’t had before in automation to where it can start to take those tasks to another level, right? And basically allow us to be another order or another effect removed from some of those things that we just, let’s be honest, often dread doing. But the beauty there is that it should then free us up to spend more of our time, ideally about 80% of our time, on the things that actually move the needle as leadership. Because what AI is never going to do for you — it’s not going to do your one-on-ones. It’s not going to do your crucial conversations. It’s not going to help you inspire your workforce. It’s not going to hold your weekly team meetings where you provide that overarching team clarity for the week. And so I think the overarching principle with AI is how can you use it to help put you in your sweet spot more and more and more? I think as more companies do that and more leaders do that, I think they’re going to see a difference in their ability to engage and activate their teams.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:16:58] I saw an interesting quote somewhere, and I’m not stealing it. It’s certainly not from me, but I think you might find it interesting. It was something to the effect of: People’s jobs aren’t going to be replaced by AI. They’re going to be replaced by people who are good at AI and using AI to maybe improve certain efficiencies and take those team meeting notes or whatever it might be. And I could talk about AI all day, but I won’t. I did want to ask about your Lead Like a Pilot philosophy. And then part two of that question is: Do you have any personal cadence that you go through, like tricks or whatever, when you encounter an on-fire moment with work and things are urgent or something went wrong. Do you have a thought process that you go through that says, “All right, this is what I need to do. This is going to be fine. And here’s how I’m going to do it”?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:17:52] Right. Right. Yeah. So the Lead Like a Pilot system is really all built around the idea that engagement is what is going to help us resolve the retention issues we’re seeing in the workforce today. And I’m an engineer, right? A technical guy. So we’re always looking for patterns and sequences or things we can compare things to. And so for me, looking at the challenges we have in industry and manufacturing, it’s always been, well, if we’re having a string of safety issues, if we’re having a string of quality issues, that’s really a production issue. If we’re having production issues, well, that’s really a workforce issue because our workforce is in charge of producing the parts, whatever it is. Well, if we’re having a workforce issue, it’s either a leadership issue or it’s a turnover issue. And if we’re having issues with getting the right people or keeping the right people in the positions we need in order to produce the results that we need to keep ourselves in business, well, why is that the case? And for me, I always try to look at — our frontline leaders, frontline supervisors lead, especially in manufacturing, over 80% of our organization. Most of the time, it’s: “Who’s the best person on the line?” Bingo. “You’re the supervisor now. Good luck.”

 

Craig Coyle: [00:19:14] And so we’re putting people that have no experience in leadership in the leadership roles and then handing them the keys to 80% of our organization and expecting things to work out. So the idea of the Lead Like a Pilot system is, well, what happens if we start to treat leadership at that level like a profession? Because you wouldn’t just hand the keys to someone off the street to a helicopter. You wouldn’t hand the scalpel to someone off the street to do surgery. You wouldn’t hand the gavel to someone off the street to be a judge or to be an attorney or to defend you if, God forbid, something happened and you’re in that situation. If you look through the lens of how all these professions — engineering’s another one. You wouldn’t just say, “Hey, congratulations, you’re an engineer. Sign on the dotted line here on this design.” If you look at what’s comparable between how all these professions develop people, there’s structure in place. So as a pilot, I went through flight school. I knew exactly the maneuvers I had to learn. There’s guidance. I had an instructor pilot. Most every single one of these professions have some sort of mentorship or coaching or instruction involved. That’s walking people through that structure. Associations are typically leading the war in this case. But some companies are doing it, especially larger companies are doing it. But what I think really amplifies the ability to see success, especially in this new leader population that really affects our engagement, is this idea of community. And I say that because I don’t think becoming a leader is a transactional journey of developing skills. It’s actually an emotional journey, right? It’s the same journey we face when we want to start a workout routine, and we’re super excited for the first two weeks, and then on week three, it’s Monday morning, it’s 5 a.m., our alarm goes off, we hit snooze and we roll over. Because we get super, super excited, we’re going to change the world, we’re going to be way better than the last guy when we get promoted and selected for these roles. And then 60 to 90 days in, we can’t answer all our emails. We’re way behind on work. Our manager’s breathing down our neck. This is way harder than we thought it was going to be. Reality starts to set in. And what’s the first thing that falls off our plate? Well it’s the leadership things that actually engage our team, because no one’s going to force you to do them.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:21:43] We just kind of end up in this cycle of churning through new leaders every 12 to 18 months, end up with a disengaged workforce. And then we start scratching our heads, saying, “Nobody wants to work in manufacturing anymore.” You know? So the Lead Like a Pilot system: structure, guidance, and community. It’s based off how I was developed as an aviator but also what I saw as an aerospace engineer, what I’ve seen people in other professions experience and thought, “Well, shoot, why don’t we do that with leaders?” And then to your question about reacting to fires and all this stuff, I always like to view it through the lens of how I might respond to an emergency in the aircraft. Pilots, we spend 80% of our training on emergencies. We have simulators, and 90% of the work we do in simulators is responding to emergencies. That’s why simulators exist. And so the idea for a pilot is, one, do you know the types of emergencies that can exist? And you understand and you memorize exactly how you need to respond to them. Two, once you do that initial response, you stop, take a breath, and make sure that was the right response. Because in a lot of these situations, whether it’s leadership or whether it’s in the cockpit, it requires an immediate and instinctive action.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:23:03] But once you’ve done that action and you’ve saved yourself initially, you want to stop, take a breath, bring logic back into the equation, and make sure you’re approaching things the way that you truly want to approach things. So my number one piece of advice to people, especially entering into leadership but all leaders, is there’s a good chance if you sat down for an afternoon, you could think of about 80% of the challenges that might come across your desk in the next six to 12 months. Well, what would the ideal version of you do in those situations? Just think through it. And the act of thinking through it ahead of time gives you the ability to use logic instead of emotion when you’re in a fight-or-flight type scenario. And then you’re going to act in alignment with the leader you want to be instead of the leader that your emotions take control over. And that ultimately makes a huge, huge difference in the trust you develop in your team, in the care you develop in your team. And people are watching. It’s in those moments that you define who you are as a leader and ultimately define your culture. And so you’ve got to get it right. It’s challenging, but that’s your job. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:24:16] That’s really good. That kind of boils down the the whole conversation to me right there. That’s the main soundbite. That’s good stuff. I do want to ask you, because we’ve talked about these fires and these emergencies and these disasters or navigating difficult times, but there’s a lot of good going on too. What are you most excited about in manufacturing today?

 

Craig Coyle: [00:24:37] I think just the technology. The unique thing is we’re the industry that’s developing the technology. But then we’re also, typically, the first industry to implement it as well. And as we continue to evolve, and we hear the conversations all over Automate, what people don’t realize is that automation, AI, it’s not necessarily taking jobs away. It’s just creating new jobs. And to see the opportunities that it’s going to create and to see how organizations navigate that. And then as a byproduct of that, to see how organizations that get this leadership side of the equation right, to see the impact that they’re going to have on the world and the people that are inside their four walls. That’s what excites me, because, and I’m sure you have, I’ve been in some really toxic environments and I’ve seen how much that can take away from your life experience. But I’ve also been in really great environments, and I’ve seen how much better your life gets, just because you’re around a good leader and good people. And so I think — and this is maybe a really optimistic view of the world, but sometimes you have to have that — I think we’re in such a unique position, especially in our industry, to have that impact on people’s lives. And it’s really a great opportunity for a lot of leaders.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:26:01] I love it. Craig, what else haven’t we talked about? We’ve covered a good amount. But is there anything we haven’t talked about that you want to mention or if you want to let people know where they can learn more.

 

Craig Coyle: [00:26:12] I appreciate the opportunity. It was a great conversation. I’m super active on LinkedIn, so come check me out at Craig Coyle on LinkedIn. And we host webinars and potentially have a podcast coming out in the near future. So check us out at operationlead.com.

 

Jimmy Carroll: [00:26:27] Very cool. Yeah. And if anyone has any questions for Craig, I’d be happy to pass them along. Reach out to us at manufacturing-matters.com. And thanks for tuning in.