Ignite! Shifting the Face of Inclusion with General Martin Dempsey

General Martin E. Dempsey’s official government photo.

NOTE: At the bottom of this blog, please see links to my previous blogs about past Ignite sessions.

For the past few years, the Levin Jewish Community Center in Durham, North Carolina has offered a unique innovative series called the “Ignite Talks,” a networking and educational forum offered to members of our local community. Through talks and interviews with business and community leaders, (often very high power, nationally-recognized leaders), the series provides a unique venue to promote social responsibility, community building and continuing education.

Another outstanding session on November 19, 2018 featured General Martin Dempsey, who served as the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Barack Obama.

Mr. Dempsey’s Topic – Radical Inclusion. I was totally intrigued with the combination of this particular topic and speaker given the US Armed Services oft-reputation of struggling with some issues around diversity. And I was fortunate enough to win one of his books, “Radical Inclusion – What the Post 9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership.” I look forward to reading it and writing a blog about it in 2019.

I was so pleased to be one of the winners of General Martin Dempsey’s book.

Some of the main points of Mr. Dempsey’s discussion at the Ignite Session include:
• Everyone is some kind of leader somewhere in the lives, and everyone shares the same impediments to leadership.
• Inclusion is a key theme in leadership as the world continues to change rapidly.
• Leaders are under much more scrutiny these days.

Three key reasons why inclusion is so important for leadership:
• We need to seek knowledge from a wide circle of diverse expertise to lead in a complex world.
• We need partners!
• Joint inclusion solutions are more affordable. It is often more expensive to “go it alone.”

Additional points made included:
• You need to be confident enough in your leadership to delegate and give up control.
• It is very important to be open to continually learning. Example: President Obama would frequently ask his staff to “surprise him” by providing some new input that he didn’t already know.
• Leaders know how to imagine and energize people intelligently and innovatively.
• Leading through influence instead of exerting authority may take longer, but will result in stronger buy-in.

I thank Ignite and General Dempsey for all these wise insights, and I look forward to more of these Ignite Sessions in the future.

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My earlier blogs about past Ignite sessions:

From October, 2017, “The Art of Money” with David Rubenstein, one of the wealthiest people in the world.

From December, 2014, “Three Women Igniting Social Change in Second Careers.”

From December, 2013, a blog about two very different community and business leaders who spoke at two different Ignite Sessions, “Local Leaders as Social Innovators.”

My annual visit of DADT and LGBT Diversity in the US Armed Forces

It seems that I write a blog on this subject about once a year. This would be appropriate since I am in North Carolina, a state with one of the highest concentration of military establishments and business. We have two major bases in our state: Camp LeJeune for Marines and Fort Bragg for the Army. In fact in 2011, when the US Figure Skating Nationals were held in Greenboro, NC, Men’s Champion Ryan Bradley,

Ryan Bradley wowed the NC crowd at the Greenboro Coliseum with his spectacular "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" short program enroute to winning the 2011 US Figure Skating championship

Ryan Bradley wowed the NC crowd at the Greenboro Coliseum with his spectacular “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” short program enroute to winning the 2011 US Figure Skating championship

who is always known for choosing numbers that resonate with the home state crowd wherever he competes, skated his winning short program to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” dressed in appropriate attire (see photo).

In early 2011, I wrote a two piece blog about the demise of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (aka DADT) that Congress passed in late December, 2010. In Part 1 (link), I wrote about why this move was good for the US Military and in the long run would result in a more effective military with the very best of diverse talent. In Part 2 (link) I wrote about the training and work needed ahead to implement a military consistent with the new inclusion policy. Then at the end of 2011, I revisited this issue and wrote a blog on the overall positive impact in the first year after the removal of this discriminatory ban.

Now it is two years later. There have been many positive and heartwarming stories of how the US military has adjusted well to the inclusion of same gender couples. Many of us saw and celebrated over the beautiful article (link) and photo

US Marine Corps Capt Matthew Phelps proposed to his boyfriend Ben Schock in the Grand Foyer of the White House (Credit: Mike Tapscott, American Military Partner Assoc.)

US Marine Corps Capt Matthew Phelps proposed to his boyfriend Ben Schock in the Grand Foyer of the White House (Credit: Mike Tapscott, American Military Partner Assoc.)

of a male US Marine proposing to his boyfriend at the US White House at the conclusion of his tour of duty. Personally, seeing a loving couple positively glowing in the love for one another warms my heart no matter what the gender mix (man and woman, man and man, woman and woman). Other articles and studies have shown that the much ballyhooed possible morale decline never incurred; in fact studies point to a more effective military. (Link to Hoffington Post article.)

However, even with the positive progress, negative episodes occasionally crop up. One recent example (link to article) happened here in North Carolina when a military spouses group denied membership to the wife of a female Army lieutenant colonel.

Ashley Broadway (left) with her wife Lt. Col. Heather Mack

Ashley Broadway (left) with her wife Lt. Col. Heather Mack

This illustrates that continued diversity and sensitivity training is required, especially for enterprises associated with and providing services and supplies to the US military. We certainly do not need the hard feelings, negative publicity and public outcry that occurs from these episodes. Fortunately, a later report (link) indicated that so far at least the US Marine Corps has quickly addressed this issue.

Diversity and Inclusion across all sectors of society has a compelling positive rationale and business case, so let’s all continue to push for this same inclusion and the accompanying benefits in the US military.