In this episode, I interview Dana Mehnert, president of Communications Systems for L3Harris.
We discuss the importance of setting an Azimuth aimed towards success, how to develop potential leaders, what makes for a world-class culture, and more!
Don’t miss this episode — it’s a good one jam packed with info and ideas for stellar leading!
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Dana Mehnert Interview
Robert Mixon:
So, today’s Level Five ‘Journey With No Summit’ podcast series continues with Mr. Dana Mehnert, the President of Communication Systems for L3Harris Technologies.
Dana, it’s great to have you here today and share your thoughts on leadership with our audience of leaders… leaders who aspire to be better leaders every day.
So, I’ll start with the question from the Big Six principles.
Those are:
Set the Azimuth — the mission, the intent and values and culture of your organization.
Listen.
Trust and empower.
Do the right thing when no one’s looking.
When in charge, take charge.
Balance the personal and professional.
Which would you say has been the most important aspect of those principles that stand out in your mind that you’ve observed, and tried to practice throughout your leadership journey?
Dana Mehnert:
Well, General, thank you for the opportunity to be here, and to be on your program. It really is an honor to be able to speak with you, and have the chance to just talk a little bit about some of the things that we’ve done on this journey with L3Harris. I’ve been part of the company for 36 years now.
You outlined six great leadership principles. They’re all very important. If I had to pick one, though, I’d have to say it’s ‘Setting the Azimuth.’
Really, the fundamental job of any leader is to set the strategic direction for their team and organization — and then ensure that you develop a sound strategic plan — and then execute it.
That’s what I really see as ‘Setting the Azimuth’ — where you’re going to go and then how do you get there.
In our business, we’ve always been very, very fortunate that our ‘Azimuth’ or strategic direction can easily be set around the mission and needs of our customers.
We support the military and first responders throughout the world. The products and systems we provide for secure communications and night vision are used in very, very demanding mission requirements.
Lives literally depend on them, where you’re out on the battlefield, or on the city streets.
That’s been very useful in aligning our mission, around very important customer needs. We do a lot of exciting things at L3Harris, and especially the communication systems business. But I think we’re best known as the world leader in secure radio communications and night vision.
Getting to that point, we had to set the Azimuth, or set the direction that: we wanted to be the leader.
In doing so, we’ve always been focused around the customer and specifically the end user of our products and systems. We strive to be able to put those capabilities in their hands.
Along the way, we had a couple of good, I would say mission statements, vision statements that got us there. When we were primarily in the tactical radio business for the defense forces, we had an expression that was called “no warfighter stands alone — always connected, always aware.” That really, I think, set a good azimuth for us to make sure that what we provided always enabled the warfighter to be connected.
So they were never out there alone, and they were always aware. As we expanded in the public safety market, though, the term warfighter didn’t really fit all of our customers. We got together, thought about what we really wanted to be, and we came up with a new vision/mission statement.
That’s the one we’ve used for a number of years now.
That is: “to be the preferred global provider of trusted communication solutions for those who defend, protect, and serve.”
It gets at having the solutions that they can trust, whether it’s the warfighter folks in the defense side of things… or in service and public safety.
That word ‘preferred,’ doesn’t mean we’re always going to be the largest, certainly doesn’t mean we’re going to be the cheapest, but we’re the preferred solution for people who need communication solutions that they can trust.
So, it’s helped set a good Azimuth for everybody in that direction of wanting to be the preferred company, to be the best at what we were so that our customers would prefer us. I think it was a good Azimuth for us to rally behind as a company.
So, I would come back and say, those are six fantastic principles. We’ll probably talk about some of them later on, when we talk about culture and other things. But I would say the most important for a leader is to set the strategic Azimuth.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. Thanks very much, Dana. On the flip side here, what was your biggest mistake as a leader, when you should have applied this principle and didn’t, or observed someone else where you had the opportunity to apply it and didn’t?
And, what did you learn from that?
Dana Mehnert:
Well, that’s a tough one. We only have an hour, and over 36 years, I’ve made an awful lot of mistakes! I’ve been very fortunate that for the most part, I think I’ve been able to learn from them, and I’ve worked with, and for, some very tolerant people who have given me the opportunity to make mistakes — and then learn from those mistakes, and hopefully correct them.
The biggest mistakes I’ve made, and I’ve made them a couple of times, is really not following through on the plan to get you to that Azimuth point, or get you to that strategic endpoint. We’ve gone down business transactions or put together a plan, and then for whatever reason, you lack the resources, or there’s a change in plan, or perhaps you lack the organizational will, you don’t fully implement that plan. You maybe do it halfway.
Often that is done by not fully understanding your customer, and what their true needs are. Those big mistakes have been when we’ve done it, and I’ve done it halfway — not doing the full execution of the plan, or following through on the original plan to get to the strategic objective.
One that comes to mind, was an acquisition we made a number of years ago in the air traffic communication space.
We got enamored of technology with a company that had a very innovative design. We added that design, and we created a product that I think in many ways, was years ahead of its time.
We also had a plan to go out and do several other acquisitions and developments of complementary technologies that would have addressed the current state of the mission.
As is often the case, you get into things, and nothing ever goes quite according to plan. We fell upon some challenging financial times, and we didn’t follow through on those follow-on developments or those other acquisitions. As a result, we weren’t able to address the near-term requirements.
It took a lot longer for the market to evolve, and the innovative technology was probably ahead of its time and not as relevant to the customers we originally thought it would be.
I think had we followed through on those plans, we’d have been much more successful.
I think in other cases where I’ve looked, where I’ve made major mistakes, it’s been partially implementing a plan, not really going forward with everything you need to do to achieve that strategic goal and make the plan executable.
Robert Mixon:
Okay, well that certainly makes sense to me, Dana. I’ve been guilty of the same mistakes!
In talking about the development of leaders in an organization, how do you identify and develop a potential in your leaders or potential leaders so that they can grow to their capabilities?
I think most of us are very good at assessing performance. But potential is a tougher problem to solve, and I’d be very interested in your views here on how you identify and nurture that potential.
Dana Mehnert:
It’s a great question, General.
I think there’s certain characteristics that we look to identify when people that we think are going to be successful, whether they’re individual contributors or leaders.
Fundamentally, it sort of starts with a positive attitude, a can-do attitude, and then a strong work ethic.
Bill Stoltz was one of the founders of RF Communications, which is the origin of the communications systems business here at L3Harris today. And he had an expression that I always like to quote, it’s sort of: “attitude is everything and hard work is everything else.”
It sounds a little Yogi Berra-ish, but I think there’s a lot to be said for that.
If somebody’s got a can-do attitude, feels they can get things done, and then they’re willing to do the work necessary to make that happen. It’s hard to stop those kind of people, again, whether they’re going to be in a leadership position, or a strong individual contributor. Beyond that, in leaders, we really look for people that have first strong competence in their particular field.
If you’re coming out of engineering, you should be a good engineer. If you’re a finance person, you should be a good finance person.
And then, have the ability to engage with and influence other people, particularly across different groups.
And then, of course, have the drive and tenacity to get things done. There are a lot of different ways that we develop those talents, and we identify those talents. There’s a lot of really good formal training programs and development programs to recognize those capabilities in people.
One of my favorite ways, though, is to present people with problems and see how they handle them.
Give them opportunities to present their ideas or work. And then, most importantly, at the right time, get them in front of customers — and see how they react, see how the customers engage with them, and how they handle those situations.
Preferably, it’s in a situation where they’re out in the field, in a real-world environment, and they can see how the customer is using our capabilities, how they confront certain problems, and then putting them in more complex situations like that over time.
The development comes with… over time, progressively more complex or challenging assignments or programs. A variety of different assignments, particularly if you’re developing people for more general management positions — and looking for the people who take charge and provide value to customers in the organization.
In particular, those that can work well in teams and across teams, and set a vision and then motivate people from different backgrounds and different skill sets and functions to get together, with a common goal of meeting a customer requirement.
So those are a few of the things. We’ve got some great specific programs. We have rotational programs… Those are a few of the ways that I would say we look to identify potential leaders and develop them over time.
Robert Mixon:
That’s great insight, Dana, and I appreciate that. In an organization, I think you all are somewhere on the scale of 48,000 people at this stage in the game. I’m sure it’s complex to find the ‘diamonds in the rough’ and nurture them.
So, I think you’ve given us some great benchmarks to look for in the people in our organizations as well and have those qualities of that attitude and the work ethic involved.
In your view, then, what are the characteristics of a world-class culture?
… I’ve sort of been focused very heavily on culture in this stage of my life, but, as culture is an ecosystem — that you have in the communication systems of L3Harris Technologies, what do you think are the hallmarks of a world-class culture?
Dana Mehnert:
In my view, a world-class culture aligns the mission of a business or an organization with its customer’s mission.
They’ve got a strong set of core values, and then creates an environment and a set of business processes and reward system that enables and encourages its people to work together to complete that mission.
In L3Harris, we’ve got a culture that’s built on a foundation of very strong core values.
There are three of them, integrity, respect, and excellence. If I look at integrity, it’s kind of self-explanatory. It’s very high ethical standards that you never compromise.
It’s honesty. It’s also accountability, accountability to the customer, accountability to your internal and external customers, and for your own performance.
Respect is about having a safe workplace, so that everybody knows that we’re thinking about their safety and that they’re going to come home at night, safe and without injury.
It’s a commitment to the community.
Then it’s about inclusion, and that’s very, very important as we see today.
We all have got a lot of work, I think, across the country to do better on inclusion, and it’s a value that we’re committed to, as respecting all of the employees of L3Harris.
Excellence is about flawless execution.
That’s what you strive for. You can’t always do things flawlessly.
We’re human, and there’s always going to be mistakes, but then it’s about continuous improvement.
How do you address the root cause of those mistakes? How do you get better every day in everything that you do?
Part of that is innovation. As a technology company, innovation is core at what we do. Then building upon those values is a very strong foundation.
I think world-class culture is one that enables people to do their very best and do what they need to do to meet the customer’s mission requirements.
In our case, agility is a big part of it.
We talked about innovation…
We’re all about creating solutions and capabilities that, our customers can rely on in the most demanding of circumstances, where their lives are literally on the line.
They need to have a better solution than the adversary they might find out on the battlefield. So innovation is key to that, as is agility, and being able to get a usable solution in a customer’s hands when they need it.
Oftentimes, one that they haven’t fully conceived a requirement for, but being innovative, understanding their needs, and putting it in their hands in a way they could use it. So those are a few of the elements of what I think a world-class culture is.
Robert Mixon:
That’s terrific, Dana. How do you measure the health of a culture? What are some of the indicators to you as a senior executive, senior leader in a large organization, that your culture is healthy?
Dana Mehnert:
Well, being a customer-centric culture, I have the great fortune of often talking to our customers almost every day.
You get real-world feedback — is what you’re doing usable? Do the customers like it?
Do the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and first responders out there, get value out of what you’re doing? Is it meeting their mission requirement?
Then there’s obvious business performance and any strong business culture, measures of the business and all of the typical financial metrics.
You got to stay in touch with the people, talking to your folks, whether it’s, out on the factory floor, or salespeople in the field.
We do a lot of different surveys to measure the pulse of our customers. We track retention data. We track attrition data.
It’s a combination of those things.
So, are you doing well with your teams and employees?
Are they engaged? Are your customers valuing what you’re doing?
We do customer surveys, but there’s no substitute, in my opinion, for getting out there in the field and seeing, how the person who’s actually using the product… that you might have thought as an engineer was a wonderful product and did so many great things, and find out they use a tenth of them, but there’s something they want that you’re not providing.
So it’s a series of those things, that I think provide touch points and really being able to synthesize all those different touch points to gauge the health of your organization and whether you’re making progress.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. That certainly makes sense, good sense to me. That’s a very viable set of benchmarks that you’re looking at and listening to, right?
As we talked about the second principle, listening to the organizational pulse.
Who would you say is your hero or heroine as a leader and why?
Dana Mehnert:
Well, I’ve got a lot of heroes. I’m fortunate to have been surrounded by a number of wonderful people and getting to work with them every day. So, I’ve got a bunch of different heroes on a bunch of different levels.
On a personal level, I would say my mom. She raised five of us by herself, put four of us through college, was one of the smartest and hardest working people I ever knew. So on a personal level, there’s nobody quite like mom.
On a macro level, some of the great world leaders. I think about people like Lincoln and Mandela, who overcame tremendous adversity and led their nations to a peaceful outcome in really extraordinary times.
On a professional level, though — our customers are my heroes.
We’re very fortunate that we get to work with so many great people across the world, the young men and women who are out there in the armed forces, and as first responders… really, really heroes.
I’ve had the great fortune over time, to be able to interface with a lot of our leaders in the U.S. military, as well as our allies, and then get to work with many of them, as they come into the business.
One of the great things about our culture is we attract and greatly value people coming in from the military, whether they’re senior general officers that I get to work with in our business development organization, or a lot of the young folks coming right out of the service, that will be working in field service or in product development.
We’ve got almost 500 people stationed worldwide that are field service representatives, and they’re out there every day, often in harm’s way, working directly with our customers stationed at their bases, keeping their systems running, enabling them to meet their mission requirements.
So I’ve got a pretty wide range of heroes, and I’ve been fortunate to be able to work with so many wonderful people that I really do consider heroic over my career.
Robert Mixon:
Well, that’s quite a list, Dana, quite a list. I really like the fact that some of your heroes are the ones who are the boots on the ground, at the point of the spear. I think that’s great, great insight for all of us here to remember that you don’t have to be in a position of great responsibility and authority to be a hero.
So, what advice now would you give an aspiring leader to learn how to grow their skills in a positive, empowering, inclusive way?
Dana Mehnert:
A number of different things… and some of them sound kind of trite, you know. First, is be the best you can be at what you’re doing. Whatever role you’re in, people are going to notice you based on how well you do that.
I think getting to the next role, is really based on how well you do in the current role. So if you’re an engineer, be the best engineer. If you’re a salesperson, be the best salesperson.
Be good at what you do.
Be inquisitive. Learn from the experiences of others.
One of the challenging things, particularly early in my career, I thought I had all the answers. I was a smart person coming in, I knew it all, and I wish in retrospect I would have taken more time to learn from some of the people who were trying to help me.
A lot of times you look, and you think people are trying to tell you what to do, as often as not, they’re offering you friendly advice based on some of the hard-fought lessons that they’ve learned.
So listening to people, being inquisitive, reaching out to do new things.
Challenge yourself, if you’re given an opportunity to go do something different, go for it.
Getting out and getting a breadth of experience, particularly early in your career, so you can learn what it’s like for other functions, learn how to get a variety of things done, build that network, make those connections.
You absolutely have to have integrity and commitment and accountability in what you do.
People will always remember if you don’t meet a commitment. You have to have that core foundation of trust.
Probably one of the biggest is just tenacity. Don’t ever, ever, ever give up.
I can look in many, many instances in our business where we lost procurements, we were counted out, we didn’t win the first time, and either through stubbornness or tenacity, we just didn’t give up. We kept fighting, and that got us to be the position we’re in today as number one in our core markets in tactical radio communications and night vision.
Dana Mehnert:
Well, that sounds really positive, too… because I think that part of what I hear you say — and that’s a little ‘back briefing’ for you today — is that, you’re looking for leaders, and you want to help grow leaders, and you encourage leaders to get out there and get after it, to be tenacious, to be aggressive, and yet still be willing to learn and willing to take some risks to make a mistake. I think we call that ‘failing forward.’
How do you typically see your leaders handling or dealing with mistakes?
Dana Mehnert:
Well, you might get different views depending on who you talk to. I think we handle them pretty well because, as I mentioned, we’ve failed a number of times. We, I think, pride ourselves — even though we’re the world leader now — we always sort of have a bit of an underdog mentality, highly agile, and you got to try things.
I think we’re pretty tolerant of mistakes, not repeated mistakes. You look for people to learn from what they’ve done or frivolous mistakes, but you value people taking chances. You can’t be innovative without taking chances.
Failing early and without a lot of cost, is a good thing because you try ideas. So, I think we’re pretty tolerant of those kind of things.
We’re not tolerant of letting customers down.
You can’t make mistakes when it comes to your integrity in dealing with your customers or the stakeholders, but clearly going out and trying new things, new technologies, new markets, new areas. I think you’ve got to be tolerant and willing to take some mistakes and understand you’re going to fail in a lot of instances before you succeed.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. Thanks, Dan. What, in the last three months that have changed our world, what’s one big idea you think sticks in your mind that you’re taking forward in your leadership journey ahead?
Dana Mehnert:
One of the things I’ve learned for the last three months is just how tremendously resilient and committed our people are. If you had told me three months ago that we’re going to have half of the people out of the workplace for three months and we’d keep the wheels on the business and not miss any customer commitments, I would have thought it was completely crazy.
I’ve been tremendously impressed by our people who do still need to come to work… and the production floor and a number of instances, and then I mentioned those 500 people that are out there every day with the customer.
They’re willing to do what’s needed to do to meet those mission requirements of the customer and to help the company keep its commitment.
So, the resilience of an organization is really the big idea, and listening to people, listening to what’s working, what’s not working, and adapting quickly. We worked really hard to put protection measures in place very quickly, work pretty hard to enable work from home, adapt to the right things.
We’ve been very fortunate, I think, in this state and in this county, in this area, that our governmental leaders have been great and have been consistent, provided sound advice and support. We’ve worked with them, but, the big idea I take away from the last three months is just, staying close to your customers, staying close to your people, and the resiliency.
I can’t thank our customers enough either, because they have been very good at working with us where we’ve had some issues.
We provide the next generation state-of-the-art night vision goggle system that is urgently needed in the field by the customers. When COVID came along, the inspectors from DCMA were no longer allowed to travel, so they couldn’t come into the factory. Well, our team used a series of cameras and computer programs and things, and they enabled them to come up with a fixture… they could actually look through the night vision goggles and do the tests and measurements they needed remotely over the computer without going to the facility.
So, that innovation and that resilience of people to come up with ideas and find solutions to problems.
Again, being willing to listen to your people and act on their ideas and solutions quickly.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. That’s terrific. That idea of resiliency, I think, is a key takeaway, David.
Is there any other topic you’d like to share with the audience here about your leadership journey, and advice you’d give to them?
Dana Mehnert:
No, probably not a lot on my leadership journey.
If anything, it would just be the statement around … we have a fantastic business here.
The origins of our business, as I mentioned, started in 1960 in Rochester, with the four local entrepreneurs that created RF Communications.
We’ve been blessed at that local level over a period of time, of great leaders who have passed strong values down to us.
We’re standing on the shoulders of great people. As part of that journey, RF Communications was acquired by Harris, and then we merged this past year with L3.
Today we’ve got a fantastic global company, 50,000 employees, $17 billion.
But we’ve got these strong local roots that go right back to those four founders.
I think that gives us, the moral and ethical compass, the global orientation, the agility and the entrepreneurship that we’re applying to what’s now a very large $5 billion communication systems business within L3 Harris.
It’s an honor to be part of that. We’ve got the best employees in the business, completely committed to our customers.
We’ve got wonderful customers, and it’s just an honor to be part of that and look forward to being a member of the community, and L3 Harris and the communication systems business continuing to be successful and part of the business area here in Rochester for many years to come.
Robert Mixon:
Well, Dana, it’s been wonderful to talk with you today and share some of your insights with our leadership audience.
I want to encourage all the folks out there in the Level 5 podcast family to continue to stay with us as we go forward in our ‘Journey With No Summit.’
We’ve had the privilege of conducting a number of interviews such as this one, Dana, with distinguished leaders who have been there and done that, and I think we’re all on a journey of learning as leaders.
So, Dana, thanks again for joining us today and for being part of this conversation and contributing to the growth of others.
Dana Mehnert:
Thank you for the opportunity, General, and thank you for your service to our country.
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