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Scott and Kathleen Snook
205 Plays1 year ago
This is Move The Needle with Rob Kaplan. Where we talk to people who lead, innovate, and inspire. Today on the Move The Needle, Rob will talk with Scott and Kathi Snook. Together, they know a lot about leadership, academics, and family.
Kathi joined the first co-ed class at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she became the second highest-ranking cadet in the Corps and graduated with a degree in Engineering. As an Army Corps of Engineer Officer, she served in various positions, commanded an Engineer Company, and rose to the rank of Colonel. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics and a Doctoral Degree in Curriculum & Teaching, both from Boston University. Kathi’s personal and professional passions are focused on education and service.
Scott Snook is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School. He graduated with honors from West Point, earning the Royal Society of Arts Award for the most outstanding overall cadet in his class. Following graduation, he was commissioned in the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he served in various command and staff positions for over 22 years, earning the rank of Colonel before retiring in 2002. He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar.
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Transcript
Introduction to Leadership and Innovation
00:00:07
Speaker
This is Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan, where we talk to people who lead, innovate, and inspire. There's a real privilege of leading in the military that's such a mission-driven activity. In other words, life and death, there's a bottom line. If you're not competent, if you're not good at what you're doing, if you're not good leading, people are going to die.
Meeting Scott and Kathy Snook
00:00:34
Speaker
Today Rob will talk to Scott and Kathy Snook. Together they know a lot about leadership, academics and family. I first met Scott Snook over 20 years ago while he was writing a case study on Goldman Sachs and he interviewed me for that case. I subsequently got to know him and Kathy much better
00:00:59
Speaker
when I went to Harvard in the fall of 2005 to teach leadership and we were part of the same teaching group. Scott won the award for best academic student in his class. Kathy was among the first women enrolled in West Point.
00:01:20
Speaker
and in the first class of West Point, female cadets. What was it like to be in the first class of women? I know there was a lot of media attention, Cathy. How did you experience it? So for me, it was a great opportunity. I mean, I was a pretty serious student and an athlete, and West Point was such an amazing place to go to college, basically, and continue being a gymnast. I was a gymnast.
00:01:46
Speaker
I really didn't get it that this was going to be the first class that included women. I didn't think that was that big a deal. It just was a change that was happening. So we got a lot of attention from the press and from the other cadets there. So, you know, I had highs and lows. It was an amazing experience being
West Point Experiences and Challenges
00:02:05
Speaker
there. You know, I could tell some stories of some not so nice experiences, you know, but for the most part, my experience was positive. For people
00:02:14
Speaker
that simply didn't want women there. I just let it roll off my back. So I tried not to take things personally. Did the school try to prepare you and brace you for what you might expect? Not really. They just threw you in. Yes. I think they tried to prepare for having women come. And they did a lot of the right things. I have to say at West Point, you know, all of the academies had women come that year. So West Point did a lot of really good things to prepare for women coming.
00:02:42
Speaker
But you can't prepare for everything and you can't prepare for the human factor. The women in my class, they try to be the best they could be and always sort of proving that they should be there and just don't let it bug you. What in hindsight would you say is a big misconception about which experience?
00:02:59
Speaker
That's a great question, Rob. For me, the biggest surprise was if—and this sounds terrible, maybe actually reinforce the stereotype—but if you just kind of do what you're told, you can excel. In fact, I look back and say if I had gone to Penn State or to another institution that wasn't the military academy,
00:03:19
Speaker
plugged out. Because it was so much it was so structured. It really is structured and I enjoyed the structure and then four of our children went there and I told them like just if you just do your own work you're gonna do great. And Kathy for you biggest misconception. I'm not sure the misconception but it is a decision that you have to make that it will be structured. It will be a different college experience than probably most of
00:03:45
Speaker
your friends that went off to different colleges have. It was really tough for me physically. It was, I'm a fairly good student, but it was tough academically. But I would agree with Scott, if you try to do your best, put the effort in, you know, do the studying, do what you're supposed to do, you can really excel. The leadership experiences that you get at West Point, then beyond the classroom.
00:04:10
Speaker
are certainly well beyond what you would get a normal four-year experience at a university. Scott.
00:04:29
Speaker
won the award for best academic student in this class. They both were highly successful at West Point.
Developing a Relationship and Family in Military
00:04:37
Speaker
They ultimately met late in their West Point careers. Sparks flew and the rest of it is now history.
00:04:45
Speaker
And so I got to know her as a friend first, and we were really good friends. And then eventually, we weren't supposed to date because she was my boss in the chain of command. And you're not supposed to date within the chain of command. That's fraternization. And somehow, near the very end, a couple weeks before graduation, we actually started dating. And then about two months later, we got married.
00:05:08
Speaker
And in the Army, if you're not married, there's no guarantee that you'll be assigned together. And so we pretty much had to have some very serious discussions about whether we did want to make the commitment to be married. Once we did that, we were able to be assigned in the same location. The most competitive part of West Point, and it surprised me, I didn't know that was going there, was
00:05:33
Speaker
your class rank and wherever you fall in your senior year, you get to pick your branch. There are only so many slots the department army gives West Point for engineer officers or aviators or tankers or whatever. And so you get to pick your branch and we both picked engineers and then
00:05:51
Speaker
Within your branch, I don't know how many engineers there were in our class, Kathy, maybe 20 or 30. And within that, then all 30 engineers, we were ranked from one to 30. And wherever you fell out there, you got to pick whatever assignments were available from the Army. And I picked Hawaii, you know, go figure that sounded better to me than Fort Polk, Louisiana. And so I was going to Hawaii and
00:06:15
Speaker
I don't know really why Kathy picked Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but she was going to Fort Bragg and that just wasn't going to work. And I'll tell you basically because it's warm and I don't like the cold. And so Scott, you had to adapt your pick. Yeah. So we were at the basic course together, which is a couple of months right after graduation when you learn how to be an engineer officer. And we were there at that class together and we were really getting to know each other. And all of a sudden it was like, wow.
00:06:43
Speaker
you know, in a couple weeks, Kathy's heading off to North Carolina, I'm heading off to Hawaii. So you had to take some action. Yeah. And so we literally call her a personal officer. And, and he says, long as you get married, send me a copy of the marriage certificate.
00:06:55
Speaker
And, you know, I'll switch your assignments together. And I went back that night. Kathy and I were sitting there spit-shining our boots. Kathy said, did you call branch today? I said, yes, I did. And then she looked at me and said, well, how'd it work out? And I said, well, I looked up at Kathy and she goes, well, what'd you tell him? I said, well, I don't know. What do you think? And that was my romantic proposal. That's a great, that's a great story. I love that story.
00:07:18
Speaker
Scott and Kathy have a very unique situation, much different than working couples in the private sector. When they're assigned or ordered to take an assignment, they don't actually get to say no because of family obligations. They have to say yes. And so imagine two army executives who each can be called on an assignment at any time and
00:07:48
Speaker
possibly at the same time, and have to make arrangements in advance for what to do with their kids, who's gonna stay with their kids, how are they going to manage their household, and they don't get to say no, they have to say yes. How does childcare fit into this and juggling all the other balls you need to juggle when you've got three, four, and then five children? For Scott and I, we're actually legally obligated to our jobs.
00:08:17
Speaker
And, um, as we're going through schools, we're incurring additional commitments. We can't just go in and say, you know what, we're, we're done. But your point is if you're, if you're in a situation where you're going to get deployed, you cannot say no because of a child situation. You in fact, um, you actually have to have a childcare plan filed.
00:08:36
Speaker
You have to have a plan for, if you get called, who can be there in a couple hours and take your children, and what's your long-term plan for being gone? In the final hours of the battle for Grenada, the Americans were still pouring in. More combat troops arrived at the new airport one way following another.
00:08:56
Speaker
Scott was deployed in Grenada and was a victim of friendly fire.
Friendly Fire Incident and Its Impact
00:09:02
Speaker
Scott wrote a very well-known book called Friendly Fire, which was based on his experience in Grenada.
00:09:10
Speaker
In fact, when I was wounded, they had, the army had an antiquated system of letting next of kin know that somebody was wounded. And since we hadn't been in combat for years, my father got a call, a call from somebody in the Pentagon that said, my name is Staff Sergeant Smith. Are you Luther Snook, senior? And in the middle of the night, and my dad's like, yes. And he goes, you have a son named Scott Andrews Snook.
00:09:33
Speaker
Oh, yes, yes. And he said, and he said, your son's been listed as a casualty. And that's the word they use. And my dad's just, or dad isn't, you know, going crazy. And he said, well, you know, he's been wounded, he's gonna be okay. But my father as a parent, you know, was telling me how tough what that was. And then all of a sudden, we had four children at one point, both Sean and Kyle are oldest or infantry officers, and they're both in combat at the same time. And it's much more difficult being a parent, having your children in combat.
00:10:02
Speaker
And you do, you actually, I know Kathy did it, but I literally would walk myself through, you know, coming home and seeing a sedan, a military sedan in your driveway. I would, when they were deployed, drive up the street and there's kind of a hill that would go up and we'd turn into our driveway and hold my breath as I turned in the driveway.
00:10:24
Speaker
and pray you didn't see the car. And pray I didn't see the car. And we ended up getting a call when one of our sons was wounded in combat.
00:10:35
Speaker
And that was, that was hard enough. Yeah. And it's a recall head injury from explosion. Yeah. So, yeah. He had had three concussions as an infantry officer and was in a pretty kinetic environment for the first couple of months. He was in Afghanistan and he was concussed by, he got a hit by a mortar. And then a couple of weeks later, he was in a truck and got hit by an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade, and was concussed again. He doesn't remember that. And then finally he's moving his guns around in the middle of a firefight.
00:11:05
Speaker
Stepped on an IED and improvised explosive device and it just crushed him and this guy's carried him LZ and we've got great battlefield medicine and armor and he came out of a tier one hospital, you know first rounds of surgery and was brought back to us and it was
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, and there's some guilt in that because I think about as a father, your first priority is take care of your children. You know, there's four of them that were put in harm's way, I think, because they were following their parents. And that was tough. I mean, he's recovered. The fiscal injuries recover, I think, faster than
00:11:42
Speaker
the mental ones. So he's suffered from some PTSD and some TBI. I mean, he's doing great. He came to Harvard Business School and he's working in healthcare and he's doing wonderful, but that's the hardest part. I mean, we always say we're as happy as our least happy child.
Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life
00:12:16
Speaker
So let me ask you, someone who has been in the military and then is leaving the military to go into the private sector, what advice and particularly leadership advice have you both given to people making that transition? There's a real privilege of leading in the military that's such a mission driven activity. In other words, life and death, there's a bottom line.
00:12:46
Speaker
If you're not confident, if you're not good at what you're doing, if you're not good leading, people are going to die. You know, if you're selling snack foods, how do people, you know, so there's meaning and purposes built into the profession of arms. And this next generation, Rob, as you all know, like they want to find meaning and purpose in work because they're spending
00:13:03
Speaker
most of their lives and their professional lives in a workplace. And trying to create that psychological safe place where they can find meaning and purpose in the business world is sometimes more of a challenge. In the army, it was easy because it was there. You love your brothers and sisters. You want to take care of them. You want to bring them home. You're doing it for your country. And so it's actually tougher, I think, to try to be creative and figure out how to tap into meaning and purpose in different business environments.
00:13:32
Speaker
all of a sudden you leave the military and it's like, well, what am I going to do? So one of the phrases that Scott and another colleague uses, do something that makes you sing. And I've often used that as I'm talking to people that are in transition or trying to look or
00:13:47
Speaker
women who have left work and then they want to go back to work. And I talk about this finding something that makes you sing. It's just such a wonderful phrase. You really can feel it. You know what it's not. And you know what it is. And you go off to do your job and you're like, am I singing? And
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. Where do you shine? Yeah. So let's talk about a few other topics. What would you say is the most important lesson ultimately from a career going through West Point and then a career in the military? What's the most important ethic that you learned that has stayed with you all these years?
Core Values in Leadership
00:14:29
Speaker
I really thought about this. I'll go first. I'm actually hearing what you said. I mean, your core values. If you want to lead, you have to be absolutely clear about what's most important to you. And I would never tell any of my students or executives what those values should be. When I say values, you said ethic. Rob, I'm talking about what is most important in your life. What do you value most? Authenticity. Absolutely.
00:14:55
Speaker
everything flows from that. Like what's the most like every boss that I work for every leader, whether it's a dean or a colonel, or a general, I want to know where they're coming from. And every time you take commands, like here's what's my leadership philosophy. Here's what's important to me. Here's what you expect from me.
00:15:11
Speaker
Here's how I like to lead. And then, and not necessarily military, but in the civilian world, then people can decide, well, your core values are 180 out from mine. That's not a good fit. And we shouldn't work together. And that's okay. But leaders, the absolute worst for me.
00:15:26
Speaker
is a leader where you can't get a beat on them. I'll take the my least preferred leadership style and a leader like a screamer like somebody's flaming all the time. I hate that. But if they're consistent flamer, I'll take a consistent flamer any day over
00:15:42
Speaker
Someone who comes in the morning says, hey, how was the wife and kids? How was your weekend? And then 10 minutes later is just screaming and you can't get a beat on them. At least I can adjust and we can make a decision and make things happen. So for me, it all starts with absolutely being clear about what's important to you and the ability to communicate that.
00:15:59
Speaker
You said that way better about the values. I mean, I was thinking more simply like the honor code at West Point, you know, you will not lie, cheat or steal and not to go to that, but just the fact that in the military, you need to be trusted. Your word needs to be true. People need to have confidence in you. So you have to work hard to be competent. Yeah. So I guess that is about values also. I mean, Swiss topics, best parental advice you've given or received.
Parental Advice and Unconditional Love
00:16:27
Speaker
Well, go to the best parent first.
00:16:29
Speaker
You just love your children. Oh my gosh. Rob, I got to tell you this story. She's got to love them. I got to tell you this story. We go to this little resort. I don't know if you heard it. Atlantis in Bahamas. And there was a couple of years in a row. We'd take the kids down there before Christmas. And I don't know, the kids were seniors in high school through college or one out or something. And my boys are all boys. And they were in this suite next to us. And I remember we went over one morning
00:16:54
Speaker
And we walked in, it's like a tornado hit the place. There's underwear laying around and socks and jock straps and empty beer cans. And we're literally like so embarrassed. Kathy and I are pretty like we like things clean. And there are kids left this room terrible. And I'm gonna be and there's a knock on the door and the maid comes in.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I was mortified. She comes in and I was like, I'm so sorry. You do not have to clean up our kids mess. We're going to read this up before you have to clean it. This woman comes over and we're standing there mortified. And she gets between Kathy and I puts one arm around Kathy, one arm around me.
00:17:32
Speaker
and said, mama, daddy, you just gotta love them. You just gotta love them. And I can't tell you how many times I've told my boys, I said, look, the love is unconditional. You know that. We love you unconditionally. Respect.
00:17:47
Speaker
That one you got to earn. And in fact, sometimes I just told one of my sons this the other day, I said, you know, I love you, but right now I don't like you very much. But that advice from the maid. Great advice. With two boys myself, I'll keep that in mind. Just gotta love them, Rob. Best leadership advice you've given. I don't know if you've heard me teach this, Rob. It's the last lesson I teach in every program is everyone has an asterisk next to their name. I believe everybody is incredible.
00:18:14
Speaker
where it's a person sitting next to me on the plane or on a bus or the woman who walked into our suite at the Bahamas. I believe everybody has good in them. I'm going to look for the good first until it's proven wrong. And that has changed everything. I believe every one of my students has an asterisk next to them that they're incredible. And I believe they're better than they are. In fact, every person who's gotten more out of me than I ever imagined I could, whether that's an English teacher or a priest or boss or the dean,
00:18:44
Speaker
They believed I was better than I thought I was. They said high standards held me accountable for them. It was tough love. I might not have liked them at the time, but they saw something in me and they truly believed I had
00:18:57
Speaker
great potential. And so for me, everybody I interact with, and I ran across this way too late in my life as a teacher and as a person, but like, it's changed everything. Every one of my MBA students, they have an asterisk. In other words, I just believe they're incredible. And if you look for the good, you're much more likely to find it because you can look for the bad. You'll find that too. You know, if you think about the leaders that you really respect and they have all the qualities and characteristics that Scott's mentioned, if you do something wrong and you
00:19:27
Speaker
you're worried you're going to disappoint them. That leader has done something right. If you do something wrong and you're worried you're going to get your butt chewed, maybe that's not. And it goes to parenting too. I don't want to disappoint my parents.
00:19:41
Speaker
I respect them and love them so much. And the same as the leaders that I respected, I never wanted to disappoint them. 20% today, something in that neighborhood of elected officials in Congress have a military background. If you go back 30, 40 years, it would have been as high as 70%. What do you think the impact would be on the Senate
00:20:07
Speaker
House of Representatives are elected officials if a much higher percentage of them had done military service. I believe some sort of mandatory service and certainly not the military. We have gone to an all-volunteer force after Vietnam. I would hate to be a leader in the military with conscripts where people were forced to be there, but some sort of service. I just wish
00:20:31
Speaker
Every young person had the opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves. It doesn't have to be military. Then if they're a politician, they at least realize what it felt like to be part of something bigger than themselves where it wasn't just about them. To your specific question around politicians and military service,
00:20:50
Speaker
The obvious one is we'd have a lot less wars if political leaders had to fight them. And then certainly if they have children whose lives are on the line, they think a little more deeply about entering armed conflict, a country into conflict. So there's a lot of ways to get there. And I think that's the most sobering, the most sobering piece if you've never served or none of your children have served that decision to not take that decision lightly. Best marriage advice.
00:21:19
Speaker
Scott's obviously done reading and research into, um, in his field of sociology and things like that. But there are a couple of things that we've talked about that, that are pretty amazing. One is don't keep score. It's a really hard thing to do sometimes and yet a really great thing to do. And, um, so don't keep score. The other one that's very interesting. Don't keep score means I'm doing more than you or you need to, you know, I did this or,
00:21:47
Speaker
How many times did you pick up the kids or even to that degree or whatever but don't, don't keep score. And the other thing is, and he's, he mentioned sort of this but that you actually have an opinion of the other person
00:22:01
Speaker
that you feel they're better than they think they are. Yeah, there's this famous marriage study, Rob, that said what makes great marriages is, and when I shared this with Kathy, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is why it works. I believe on every dimension that Kathy is better than she thinks she is.
00:22:18
Speaker
And for whatever crazy reason, I believe that Scott's better than he thinks he is. And that sets up and the key is that we believe and we do believe it. I mean, she is absolutely amazing more than she would admit to herself every day. And then down at a practical level, Kathy came up with this rule early in her marriage. And it's been tested a few times. You're laughing. You know what it is. Yeah, no matter you know, we have a great relationship. But
00:22:43
Speaker
There's times, right? She has this rule that we never not sleep in the same bed. You know, we're in a house together. In other words, under the same roof. Some nights are like, you know what? I'm just going to sleep on the couch tonight. I just can't look at you. I mean, every night we've had a disagreement about something and I just want to like, I'm just going to stay out here on the couch. Okay. Now, truthfully, we can count those nights on one hand, right? Right. Doesn't sound like you fight a lot.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, but there's times when we've had a disagreement and we may go in the same bed under the same roof and turn our backs each other. Because that's just the rule that we decided and that's worked quite well. I like it. If you had to give a suggestion to folks listening on one action they could take to make a positive difference in their community or in the world, what advice would you
Community Service and Local Impact
00:23:35
Speaker
give them?
00:23:35
Speaker
This idea of service, and we said it doesn't have to be in uniform. And so in my local town, I ran for school committee. And so I did that. That was my foray into politics. Not sure I'll go there again. Did you win? I did.
00:23:52
Speaker
Okay. And then I lost. What? I lost when she won because it was just miserable, Rob. Small town politics. You understand why, why it doesn't work in Washington. It's just so miserable. It was challenging, but, um, I felt like I made a difference and I felt like I contributed. So I had left the school committee. And, um, so then it currently, as I'm retiring from sort of my education part-time and consulting stuff, I serve on a private special needs school board.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I also serve on a local scholarship committee. Look for your passions again and then, you know, find something that where you can give back. For those who say, gee, I don't know if I can really add any value. Oh.
00:24:35
Speaker
Everyone can add value. Here's the thing, Ron. We used to discuss this at the Business School. You know, the mission of the Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. There was a debate we'd have. What qualifies for making a difference in the world? I mean, doesn't have to be something, as you mentioned, something huge. I mean, Rob, your career.
00:24:54
Speaker
done amazing things at the highest levels. But it's usually local are the things you're most proud of. For me, it's literally every interaction. This goes back to the people who are around you right now. It could be at a restaurant, how you treat the person who's serving you, a total stranger that I ran into today in downtown Boston that looked like they were struggling. And for me, that's
00:25:16
Speaker
That's how I think about it. I don't think about any more, especially in the next chapter of my life. My challenge is to try to do a little less preaching, a little more practice than what I've been preaching in every, every time I interact with another human being. So on that note, Kathy and Scott, thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your leadership. And it's been a pleasure to talk with you on moving the needle. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Rob. Enjoyed it.
00:25:47
Speaker
Next time on Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan. I was a Texas-born, Republican, conservative, bi-cultural, bilingual dude from Miami. You know, that may sound normal, but in Florida politics, that was different. Just because Jeb Bush ran for president and was governor of Florida, don't think you know everything about him and how he moved the needle in Florida politics.
00:26:20
Speaker
Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan is produced and edited by Sam Zaff and Scott Richardson, and I'm executive producer Renell Golden. We want to thank Michelle Brown and Zorik's team from Hello Studios for help with production and logistics. Do not forget to subscribe to Move the Needle wherever you get your podcasts and to Rob's YouTube channel. Until next time, this was Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan.