S3 Ep 77 Robin Caine: Fast Jets to Human Performance

Season 3 opens with Air Commodore Rob Caine, Head of UK Military Flying Training. We get straight into resilience, how stoicism and The Obstacle Is the Way shape his mindset, then into decision-making under pressure via the OODA loop. 

Rob breaks down “Combat Edge,” a holistic upgrade to UK aircrew training that blends coaching, psychological skills, and cutting-edge synthetic/AR environments so more people reach the front line ready to fly, fight, and win. 

We talk psychological safety, transparent debriefs, learning from mistakes (including Rob’s own QWI setback), and the basics that sustain high performance: sleep, nature, humour, and strong teams. 

He shares why Ubuntu—“we’re good because we’re good together”—guides his leadership, and how mentoring from day one builds better aviators and better humans. 

Reach out to Rob on LinkedIn

The Synergy Syndicate isn't another mastermind where you get lectured at. It's a sanctuary for high performers who are ready to go deeper. To ask the hard questions. To be challenged with compassion.

If you're ready to stop collecting advice and start creating real transformation, join our waitlist. The link is in the show notes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Resilience, Stoicism, And Mindset
• 3:50 Leadership Tenure And Continuity
• 6:40 Coaching Culture: From Skepticism To Structure
• 10:23 What Is Combat Edge
• 13:58 Rolling Out Psychological Skills And Tech
• 16:35 Decision-Making, Error, And Safety
• 20:13 Failure, Reach-Out, And Recovery
• 23:13 Normalising The Ugly: Psychological Safety
• 26:10 Purpose After Setbacks And Fit
• 29:00 Sustainable Performance: Basics That Matter
• 31:18 Ubuntu: Upward Cycles Over Zero-Sum
• 33:13 Transition Lessons And Odds
• 35:02 Closing Reflections And Where To Connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Welcome to Fortune Resilience, real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Aaron Hill. And join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today we're joined by Air Commodore Robin Kane. Rob, who's the REF's head of flying training. Rob is modernizing the UK. The Rose the Air crew, blending coaching, psychological skills with cutting edge, synthetic, and augmented reality training. So more people can reach the front line ready to fly, fight, and win. Rob, welcome to the show, mate. And season three kicks off with you today. No, likewise, mate. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. So I'm glad our calendars have aligned post-summer break and all the holes that have been dug. And here we are today. So Rob, kick it straight off to you, mate. The first question I'm going to ask you is what does resilience mean to you today?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

So I think it means a number of different things. I think the first thing about my view of resilience is very much based, uh, maybe it's a bit old-fashioned, but on stoicism, and maybe a more sort of modern version of that, which Ryan Holiday talks about in his book, The Obstacle is the way. So how we think about what's happening to us is under our control. And I think even though I'm the most positive person in NATO, uh I I read Ryan Holliday's book and went, wow, that really is fantastic in making sure that even when the most difficult obstacle comes into your life, how we then deal with it is framed by how you think about it. So I now think of every single difficult thing that happens in my life as an opportunity. And the fact that it's going to bump me off course is going to give me an opportunity to think more laterally. And you know, the Air Force is very good at training people to fly airplanes very safely. That's a lot of checklists, a lot of engineering knowledge, a lot of understanding of physics and systems. And that's very A to B. It's very linear. And that's quite right, it keeps us safe. But I love the fact that when I get forced off this linear pathway, I tend to learn more and I tend to enjoy more. The motorway is a very good way of getting you from a place to a place. But actually, the country roads are often far more interesting. And therefore, when I have those moments in life where the inevitable happens, where dark and difficult things happen, whether organizationally or personally, I can go down that country road, find something new, and I'll probably find that I might not even end up at the same destination that I originally thought of. But the journey has been more interesting. I've learned more on the way, and generally life is more colourful as a result. And I think uh my brother works for Deutsche Bank, and uh Matt always says it's a bit of a navy phrase. Um, you know, it doesn't matter what happens as long as it's a good dit, it doesn't matter what happens as long as it's a good story. So when things are going absolutely wrong, I'm in my mind, my brain's going, this is gonna be a great story. Because when we're 80 and we're with friends in a pub or at a restaurant, they won't want to know about when things were going well or when you had a a really simple life. We'll all be talking about the times where it all went a little bit wrong, and actually, the the more wrong, the the funnier and more interesting. And so I try and free frame my mindset with those things in mind. And then organizationally, and I think personally I try and do this as well. Is what are we doing to give you the foundations that allow you to have that mindset? That might be physical resilience, that might be psychological skills training, so you actually know how your brain works. You know, Daniel Kahneman, um, Professor Stephen Peters, lots of fantastic work about how you do decision making. And so those sort of core elements and preparing you for that with physical resilience, mental resilience are ways that you can then exploit the mindset side.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

Love it, mate. Love it. Um I'm I'm curious to know, Rob, um, in terms of stepping into this role, uh is there a uh when you take up this job, is there something that they're looking for in terms of what will you bring that's different and and and the danger of reinventing the wheel or taking what is working outside just to have a new project to be seen to be do something different and new?

SPEAKER_00: 4:45

Uh I I think one of the biggest strengths about the military is that we're moving around all the time, we're learning new skills, but it's also one of our biggest weaknesses. So often senior leaders will only be in a position for two to three years, which isn't very much. Um so to misquote, um Stanley McChrystal, the fantastic special forces general um who wrote Team of Teams, did a presentation to our leadership academy at Tedder recently, and it was a brilliant lecture about his book and his life. And at the end of it, a sergeant asked him a question in QA and said to him, What's the most important thing that happened to you in your career? And I was expecting some daring do story. And he actually said uh when I was a one-star, which which is the rank I'm at now, he basically was moved to the to a similar job, almost exactly the same job with a different title, which basically meant he was in that job for five years. And he said, without that, he wouldn't have made his work at three-star as successful because of his knowledge of the organization, the people. So I think for me, when the Air Force was looking at my role as head of flying training, uh, weirdly, um, they they did some really good succession planning, not because we were going to reinvent the wheel. Uh, I followed my very good friend uh Ian Sharks, Roxy, uh, who did the job before me, and I've actually followed in his footsteps on my previous role, and it almost feels like a rugby team, like a starter-finisher type of element. So that we might not have changed our tour lengths, but we have uh tried to stay consistent with the strategy, and that means that you know the team aren't just veering and hauling because of reporting on an individual like me. It's trying to go, okay, we're all heading in this direction. I'm trying to stay consistent with that direction. And if there are opportunities like our combat edge program that haven't been done uh as professionally um before, then I can just expand on that. So it's it's more expanding the radar uh bandwidth rather than anything else. So that's that I think is what they saw in me was the fact that I could take in this uh consistent approach.

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

Love it. In in terms of the coaching skills that that that that I'm guessed, the RAF get and especially uh um pilots. One one of my biggest not gripes, the things that I've learned about since leaving the military is you're right, it's an absolutely incredible machine and organization. Uh but I can't help but feel that sometimes it is a machine. It's there to do a very specific job. Um, and some one day when you walk out, uh, it's finished. Um and it really it's really interesting to me to see how coaching potentially can start to close that loop so that when we flick the on button for for work, that goes on. But then they're also given the tools and the opportunity, and like you said, the understanding to go off or to downregulate or to to start to open up. So are you noticing any uh differences or impacts now in in the sense of the guys that are both leaving um the effect of this this coaching, this mindset that that the RAF is offering?

SPEAKER_00: 8:02

Yeah, I hope so. And I I really hope we're going to expand on it. So back in sort of 2017, we were doing performance coaching, and I was one of the original air crew instructor coaches, and then they moved to performance coaches, and I was I genuinely I was a little bit cynical to start with. I was like, how's this how's this gonna work? Because we do have impenetrable jargon, uh, especially in the fast jet world, and we would have a psychologist come and speak to us, and sometimes I felt like we were speaking two different languages, and we probably were, but because we try to do that uh with willing volunteers who already had day jobs, it wasn't as sustainable as we wanted it to be. So it was pared down in 2017. So although we still do coaching and mentoring, um I I don't think we do it as far as we should do. So part of the Combat Edge program uh that we're rolling out now is to professionally introduce the very best of professional coaching and mentoring back into uh the Royal Air Force, the Army, and the Navy, because I'm responsible for all three services, so that when people come through training, they're mentored by superb instructors who have been taught mentoring skills. Um when we're going to coaching, it's really important actually for us to have some coaches who are professional air crew and can understand the environment, the jargon. But likewise, we want to come to people like you uh and people in Team GB, for example, with really fantastic professional psychological coaching experience, people who really know their onions. So we have this this um broad spectrum of help. Now, coming to what you were saying about um not just good for work and the machine, but it's good for the individual. So I'm hoping that from literally day one you're in the flying training system, we are giving you these tools, uh, these coaching elements to know yourself, to know your team, to know how to do things in a better way. So that yes, it's great for when you're doing stuff in work, but actually when you're out of work, you know when to relax more and how to do that. But also when you leave the military, you've got this wonderfully rounded way of working that will help you in every facet of life. I'm a huge advocate of Tim Galway's work, uh, who did the inner game of golf and the inner game of tennis. Now, as a coach, all he really boiled it down to was your performance is your potential minus interferences. And all we're trying to do with coaching is getting rid of those interferences. And so in his book, he often talks about this is about tennis, but actually it'll give you a whole bunch of skills that will be good in every facet of your life. So I'm a huge advocate of that kind of approach, and I'm seeing more and more people coming through the system desperate for that kind of approach in leadership and instruction, and desperate for that approach outside of work when they're looking at how they do their own business. So, yeah, I I think it's changed our mindset. It's almost going, This is the way we should do business, a culture change after about 107 years in the role uh of air power and space power. We're just going, well, this is how we get to a higher level of performance. So we're not just good, we can be seen as the very best at what we do.

SPEAKER_01: 11:23

You've mentioned combat edge uh a couple of times, Rob. Explain to us what that is for those that don't understand.

SPEAKER_00: 11:31

Um again, because classic Air Force haven't explained it, so my apologies. Oh, that's okay. Um so uh um so what I wanted to do uh as the head of flying training was to recognise that when we train, we've got fantastic equipment, synthetics, simulators, courseware, buildings, you name it. But that's stuff, right? That's the kit and caboodle that we we operate with. But we often forget in the military about people. And inherently, when you're training people, it's all about them, it's all about the human being in front of you. And sometimes it can feel like a sausage machine, you know, uh a production line. And although we have to focus on the efficiency and efficacy of that production line, it's easy to forget the people. And if we focus on the people, just like any business, um, we will be more successful, we will be more efficient, we'll be more effective. Those people we'll feel invested in and want to stay for longer, and if they stay for longer, we need to train less people, and we end up with happier people, uh, which means they're more productive. So it's a really virtuous circle. So we're taking some really great work that's been done in America with what's called a group called DET 24. Uh, they came up with a whole uh range of technologies in uh a program called Pilot Training Next. Um, we're also following some fantastic work that the Finnish have done in how they operate their mindset, and the Singaporeans have got a program called Pixel, and it's kind of fused those together into what the British always had a really good idea about cognitively training people. In other words, training the brain, not just the hands. And that's what Combat Edge is. It's a holistic program to support people through training. That will mean that hopefully we have less wastage, people who've fail out of the system, but we end up with fitter, stronger people. We end up with people who can exploit tech and AI, uh, and all of the human performance optimization and human performance mindset work that is best practice in many industries, from special forces to sport to business. And it's just really professionalizing that, but it's really holistic, it's not just focusing on one sector, it's focusing on uh a broad range of ideas that can nudge it forward. A thousand nudges that take us from top hundred in the world to top ten in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 13:59

And and how long's that program being being run and what's some of the things that you've seen uh since it it's been in service?

SPEAKER_00: 14:08

So we're we're running it uh in parallel with a whole run range of things. So um defense procurement is always complex, so it's it's uh it's not quite as simple as just going turn it on, turn it off. So uh we're doing things as part of that now, which is for our brilliant trainers, our instructors, we deliver what's called EIT, enhanced instructional techniques, which is all about how your brain works and how your students' brain work. We already teach them how to be great instructors, so this is like coaching and mentoring training at our central flying school at RAF Cramwell. So all of our instructors across every type of stream that we do, which are lots, um, come to there and get some really good professional development. We're also going to roll out um this year, uh actually this financial year, I should say, the psychological skills training element uh with a professional company of world-class coaches who can help our students from the moment they hit ground school, they get some focus training on how their brains work, how they can do decision making, and how they can operate in a more effective way, just giving them the core skills. And that's then topped up further down the pipeline uh as they get towards Fast Jets at RAF Valley in Anglesey. We also have a range of psychology-trained uh individuals, from pure psychologists to operators with master's degrees who will be our um psychological skills training coaches at each base, from RAF Cromwell to uh RAF Shawbury to RAF Valley, where we train everything from fixed wing to rotary wing to fast jets and as well rear crew in those. So that's what we're rolling out right now. Um I'm literally about to go to a meeting where we look at some of the other options, working with uh a wonderful company led by James King called Asex, and we're going to look at really what options we want to invest in. Some will be in eye tracking or heart rate variability, where we can see how people working at stress. We might look at how we train and select people so that we're getting absolutely the right people in who can deal with high performance and high pressure, literally from the get-go, and also look at how we do coaching and mentoring training. So we're doing really world-class professional coaching and mentoring all the way through the system and exploit all the wonderful things in AI and tech that are rolling out at the moment.

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

You mentioned some really interesting things there in terms of decision making, and something that interests me and my listeners as well is what happens when we make mistakes, how do we recover from them and how do we learn as well as managing stress? So speaking to those three things in terms of decision making, making mistakes and stress, what sort of things um do you teach nowadays that that help prop up those pillars of of performance there, Rob, for pilots?

SPEAKER_00: 17:06

Um so the decision-making side, uh, I'm a huge advocate of the Oda loop. So that is um Colonel John Boyd was a fighter pilot from Korea and wanted to understand why in his worse aircraft he was beating Russian MiGs more often. And he came up with this idea that um it was the decision-making cycle. Observe, orientate, decide, and act. And it seems so simple. Uh it's just a decision-making framework. But essentially, uh, he worked out that in his aircraft he had a bubble canopy, and he could see what the enemy was doing easier than they could in what was quite a tight canopy that allowed them not really to look behind them. So he recognised that observation phase is absolutely crucial in understanding what was happening around them and to build up situational awareness of what was going on so they could predict, orient what was going to happen next. Um, what my wife would talk about in horsemanship is knowing what's going to happen before what happens happens. And I really like that as a phrase, so that when you are in air combat, you can take those little shortcuts to be an advantage and win. So that we really do teach. And trust me, when I was learning to be a fire pilot, I had no idea what that meant. Absolutely no idea. I was like, of course I'm looking out the window. I just your brain hasn't got enough capacity when you're first pulling 7G or 8G to really understand what's happening. But as you get more familiar with the environment, you can pick up all the little bits of data that are happening, and you do it at unconscious levels. So you've basically put all those uh bits of data into your brain, it comes up with a oh, this is going to happen next, and you know whether to use type one fast thinking or type two slow thinking when it is appropriate to do so. So that's that we really do teach the U loop and a number of different decision-making tools to help our people. Um, when you talk about learning from error, I think one of the really big changes I've seen in the Air Force is psychological safety, but particularly around safety. Uh, in uh a couple of really serious crashes, one was in uh Afghanistan, a Nimrod crash. We lost uh uh basically a very expensive aircraft with a crew, not because of enemy action, but because of known safety issues. And we really revolutionized our safety system to make sure that we made better decisions. One of the things that came out of that was this idea of open, honest, and transparent debriefs. So if something's happened that's unsafe in the air, you wouldn't just brush that under the carpet. You and and you wouldn't really brush it under the carpet at a squadron level. You'd always go, all right, let's let's learn from that at a squadron level, but it didn't allow the rest of the organization to learn. And everyone was having these moments of learning, but they just weren't being shared. So by taking a different approach, um, what we've done is increase psychological safety. People know they can talk about their mistakes because humans do make mistakes, particularly in high performance environments. And therefore, I'm not going to get castigated, even as a squadron boss. If I make a mistake and I come into a debrief, actually everyone knows I've made the error. Everyone knows. So when I now stand up and put my hand up and go, I made this error, I think what I need to do to get it better next time is this. Has anyone else got an experience of that? And they can tell me their experiences so I learn faster. That's now seen as good leadership. Whereas maybe 30 years ago, everybody might have been a little bit more reticent to put the hand up first. Um so I think that's what's really changed is psychological safety. So you can have pure unfiltered debate. Patrick Lancioni from the table group talks about pure unfiltered debate, and I love that approach. That's what I think we've done. Um, the other part of stress, I think, is to recognize that um you need to have times when you're in the zone and working hard. We call it being in the bubble, and there are other times where you need to recover. And I think there's been a real shift in our senior leadership team going, you need to be getting out on outward-bound courses, you need to be having time with your family, you need to be taking your leave. It's no longer a badge of honour to carry over a boatload of leave in your year. That's a sign of bad organization and poor self-care. So I think there has been, we're not perfect by any means, um, but I think there's been a transformation in our mindset on those three things.

SPEAKER_01: 21:55

Is there any personal stories that you've got that are close to your heart in terms of setbacks or failures and mistakes, Rob, that you might be able to share with us?

SPEAKER_00: 22:03

Yeah, I think the first one is about reaching out. So uh when I was first on the tornado, I had a great time flying the tornado GR4. Wonderful airplane, wonderful force to be part of on operations and at home. It was just it's amazing flying an airplane at 600 knots at 100 feet, or doing it at night in cloud at those kind of heights. Um it's just, it's just it's dangerous and it's brilliant. Um, likewise in the air, doing um supporting special forces on the ground or uh troops in Afghanistan, those kind of things in closed air sport are very, very rewarding. Um, so I've loved my time on the tornado, but I was selected to do the qualified weapons instructor course uh many, many years ago, and I was actually the course leader uh for that. It's about a seven-month course, and it's really, really intensive. It's a bit like uh SF selection. It's really, really intensive. Long days, lots of detailed knowledge. Uh I had a great course with me, great instructors with me, and I actually um found some edges in my uh capability at that stage. I just probably didn't have enough experience at that point to be successful. So I went all the way through the seven months, and in the last week I failed that course in front of almost the entire Air Force on a big thing called the qualified ground school, sorry, CQY, the combined qualified weapons instructor course. Uh, and that was really hard for me. And I think it took me about two years to work out, you know, what what I was doing, what I was going to do next, and all of that. Um, and it I think that failure taught me more about learning, it taught me more about honesty, it taught me more about where I was strong and where I was weak than if I'd just squeezed through that course. Uh, that is very much an obstacle is the way moment. But coming back to the reaching out bit, I don't think I was handling it very well at all. And um, my wife, Arancha, is uh is a is a northern woman from Leeds. Uh she's a horsewoman by profession, she's really, really good at her job, um, has worked in all parts of that kind of uh that uh industry. But she was like a straight talking northerner, was like, I don't think you're dealing with this very well. And you're gonna have to talk about it. So I think that external support from someone who knows you really well uh was uh I think a bit of an inflection moment for me just to talk about it with friends, talk about it with her, um, uh, and then go, where am I headed next? And where did it lead to? It led me to, funnily enough, when I became an instructor on the Hawk, uh, there was an opportunity to do the uh Hawk Weapons Instructor course there. Uh I did that and ended up leading that course. So there became a full circle moment of being successful because of the failure. And I think one of the reasons I'm so passionate about my job now is because I want to help all the people, not just the high flyers, all the people in our system to realize their potential. And I would never have learned that so vibrantly if I hadn't gone through the failure and then the failure to reach out for help.

SPEAKER_01: 25:13

Yeah, highlights are really excuse me, really interesting point there. That that knowing all that you do, having all the experience that you have, still reaching out and talking about things is is is challenging. And that psychological safety that you alluded to earlier, um how sometimes unnatural that can feel. And I almost don't feel my experience is relevant because I left such a long time ago and things have changed so much. Um, but I do recognize, again, knowing all I do about mindset and having looked at all my past experiences, reaching out is is a challenge. And whilst again, I've my my slightly cynical edge here would come in and say, cool, you guys in HQ are doing that, you get in that, but it still takes a long time to filter down to the lads, to the to the girls, to the to the flight crews, to the people that are walking through the gate of the camp on their first day of training. How do you accelerate that, Rob, in an organization? I mean, yeah, I'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:15

I I think it's a I think you're absolutely right to be cynical about it because we do it when it's easy. Right? I've made a little bit of an error, I'll talk about it. When I've made a fundamental error that's really bad, do I talk about that? Um, so when it in when it shows me as not being very good or not being very professional, that's when it's hard. And so you've got to have both sides of that. First of all, you've got to recognise that you've got to be there to work and you've got to do the performance so that hopefully you're not doing things unprofessionally, but you also have to talk about it when it is bad. And I I think my experience is is exactly as you say. It took my wife to go, you need to you need to work through this because I wasn't really following uh good procedures in thinking about it in a different way. So I think it's very easy to do it in most cases, but in the most important cases, we don't do it. And I've seen that in mental health. Uh, I'm a trustee on a um uh a children's charity that focuses on communication and mental health and resilience um to help prevent mental health crises and suicide in future. And I think those things are really linked. How we talk about things, the good, bad, and ugly in life is really important because we talk about other countries and uh this concept of face, you know, um, I'm gonna hide myself. And we are brilliant at that, especially in Britain. So face is a really important thing. So we talk about the good, we sometimes talk about the bad, especially if it's a good story. But when was the when was the last time you genuinely talked about the ugly in life? And what's the difference? The bad's the things that are just you know, things that annoy you, but the ugly is the really dark stuff that we all have, where you go, who do I have I can trust that I can have a conversation with in a safe environment like a car or at night, and where we you sit down and you can go, I'm really worried about this. Now we don't do that enough. There is no nation on earth that does that enough. But um, I think that if we can uh explain and lead and show that that is absolutely fine, that there are appropriate times to do that, we're not talking about doing it when you're in crisis. Uh, I think the whole thing about excellence, it's a habit you do every day. The Aristotle quote. And that's exactly right. So if you do every single day, you can talk about the good, bad, and ugly in life. Then when you get to the crisis in 20 years' time, you can talk about the good, bad, and ugly in life with that trusted individual. So I think it is literally starting from very young interventions, loads of mental health stuff in schools, um, where we should be focusing on communication and resilience, not really about mental health. It's about communication and resilience rather than those other things, prevention rather than cure.

SPEAKER_01: 29:12

Yeah, and what I'm hearing takes me right back to the question I asked a few questions ago is practicing looking outside the cockpit. It's it's it's doing the reps, it's doing the work. It is doing the work. The sooner we start the better. Um, I I often wonder sometimes, do the people that are walking through the gates joining up, is it almost too late? Um probably not, but there's so much more impact, as you alluded to, that that we could have if we took it to to our teenagers, to to schools, to our kids.

SPEAKER_00: 29:43

Yeah, and I think there's been quite a few studies done about the effect of being in a in something like the scouts or the cadet forces uh or any sort of youth organization. Um, they have a huge impact on people's abilities, their ability to be resilient, their ability to be part of a group, to do stuff for a community. Service, all those really important functions. I think so you can start early. And I think the more we encourage our schools and our children, our parents to do that, I'm a parent, is I think a really, really powerful thing that we can pass on down. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01: 30:17

Some things take time. Some things take time. In terms of people that fail the weapon instructors course or have their hopes, their goals, their desires set on achieving certain things like that, what what happens after? How do you as an organization help instill that level of support or purpose beyond what they thought was possible in terms of yeah, that's not gonna happen now? How does the RAF support that?

SPEAKER_00: 30:45

Or what comes to you personally to so we s we select some really fantastic people at every rank. We're so lucky. And therefore, even if you have found that your uh skill set is not perfect for this role, uh it's actually good if we find that out really fast so we're not gonna waste your time. So it might sound harsh, but we want to find out where you're at really, really quickly. And that might be uh working under pressure very fast or working with performance coaches quickly so that we can really find out where you're at. Now, if you have the potential to be successful, we will find it and we will nurture it so that you get through. But if you don't and you um you fail, well, first of all, well done you for getting in there and being in stretch and trying. So that I hate people who come up to me and say, I could have. And you're like, Well, did you try? And they're like, No. You're like, well, then you couldn't of. Um, that sounds horrible, but it's kind of the the idea. So when someone has tried and they're they've found that that that skill set's not for them, well, our job is to get them to where they can be successful. So that might mean, so for me, I'm an okay fast jet pilot, but I can tell you for one, I'm a terrible helicopter pilot. So I might have someone training to be a fast jet pilot who actually is more suited to work in the very specialized and complex world of helicopters, working very closely with the army, for example, or in multi-engines, doing the amazing work we saw from HCAR in Afghanistan with Ot Pitting, getting people out uh under very dangerous circumstances. And they take different skill sets, of course they do. So actually getting you to where you're being successful is the Royal Air Force's job, uh, and it's the armies and it's the navies, and it's what we pride ourselves on trying to do is support people to those next roles. And if they go, that's not for me, I'm out, I'm gonna go and become a uh you know, a director for a bank, that's fine, we'll help you get there too.

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

Yeah, and it's important things there is in terms of for myself and and listeners as well, is recognizing strengths as as well as weaknesses and having the adaptability there. Rob, something uh uh a lot of the the people that listen um uh uh struggle with is sustainability. Most of us can do sprints, um, and when the pressure's on, we'll work hard, but uh often that plays into many things. Uh what's some of the things that for you personally that you do, the the basics that you look after, be that in your own life or as a as a as a pilot in terms of sustaining that that that performance?

SPEAKER_00: 33:19

Um so I think I've kind of fallen into some good practices um rather than knowing it was good practices, so I think the Air Force gave me some really useful skills. Uh so I'm not saying everyone should go off and do survival training uh or climb mountains uh or or go and do the conduct after capture course, uh, which is which is quite uh resilience inducing. Um but so that those are good foundations to start with. Um but I would say that I think um so for example, my wife uh, as I said before, is is as a horsewoman, we have horses. I never thought I'd end up having horses because I'm I was quite scared of them when I was younger. Um, but in the morning it means that we get up at six o'clock every morning, uh, we get the horses in, we are doing stuff manually out in the field uh with our Labrador, and that being out in the green every morning, um, doing stuff that doesn't involve work or an email or anything, is absolutely fantastic. Because the horse does not care if you're a high-ranking person or a low-ranking person, it doesn't care about your day. It's basically going, Are you here to take care of me? Uh and and it's a give me up, give me the food. So that is a brilliant thing, I think, that's kept me level. And likewise in the evening, because you know you're getting up at uh six in the morning, you go to bed at a good time and you're consistent with your sleep and your recovery time. Um, so the combination of being outside and good sleep patterns, I think has really, really helped me. If I know my people at work will probably go, um, you're not very sane. Um, but I think it's kept me more sane by having that kind of environment. Uh, the other bit I think is just having a bit of a sense of humour. Um you can laugh about things when they're difficult. Having a laugh when you are under pressure, uh, I think the Marines cheerfulness under pressure is something I absolutely admire. When I see people who are under extreme pressure and they can still have a small joke, it's just a little bit or else or smile is just absolutely fabulous. So I really try and do that in my own life to see the ridiculousness of being in a situation and just smile. It's something I didn't do 20 years ago. So I think that's really useful.

unknown: 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:37

The final one. Yeah, go on. Sorry, Rob, sorry, after you uh the the final one, which is simply being around good people, so whether it's your friendship group or whether it's at work, being in in part of a team is such a wonderful feeling. You can go to work and you know you're going to get um some great feedback. I was laughing at my command board a couple of weeks ago that um uh I didn't have to worry about getting 180 or 360 feedback. Um I got it every day that I'm in those meetings. There was very little sycophancy, and I was asking for more sycophancy uh and sucking up, and I didn't get any even when I asked for it. And that's a brilliant place to be where people can genuinely talk, you can feel supported. And the bit that the the military do really well is mission command, where you give people the opportunity, you don't abdicate, you give them your intent about what you want to achieve, you don't tell them how to do it, what you just tell them what you want to achieve. What my surprise through life is these amazing people go off and do 10 times more than you would have ever thought of. They do it in cleverer ways than you would have ever thought of. So when they come back and tell you what they've done, I am continually impressed, and it's a lovely place to be.

SPEAKER_01: 36:54

Yeah, love it. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of really interesting things, and it's fascinating to me is that how similar they are, but how personalized those basics are. And I and I guess we don't always get to do those given with work or constraints or or location, but but tick enough of those boxes and until we can get back, um, is what sticks out at me there. Rob, something we talked about in our previous conversations is the the the phrase Ubuntu and what that means to you. And I'd love to give you the opportunity just to talk about that, um, because I know it's something that's that's close to your heart.

SPEAKER_00: 37:30

It really is. So uh I was I was born in South Africa. My mum and dad are Welsh. Uh that my dad uh was working out in South Africa as a geologist. So my brother and I were born out there. We actually um left and then came back when I was uh about nine years old, and so the Zulu and Causa cultures were um were very um prevalent in South Africa, even under apartheid, they're very powerful sort of histories, and uh the Zulu and Causa uh sort of cultures have this idea of Ubuntu. Um, and uh I was like that's so interesting about what it is, and essentially it basically means we're good because we're good together. Uh, there's lots of different phraseologies, there's lots of different teams that have used it, but um in international relations theory, there's this idea called uh zero-sum game, so uh a realist view of the world. In other words, I can be successful if you fail. And uh you you can see that is is quite prevalent at the moment. And I don't like that way of working because what that is, is a downward cycle. And you might win for now, but you won't win long term. You might win the battle, but you won't win the war. Whereas if you realize that we're all here to help each other, uh then we can all be successful together. And so it's not about competing against someone who's in a similar role to me, who might be better than me and is going to go further than me. I help them in that environment. And they will help me in my environment. And so if everybody's doing that and paying it forward and helping each other, and that is the experience I've had both in the military and in the coaching world, where I see it's really prevalent, where people help each other out. It's not a zero-sum game. Uh people always give you their time. Uh, I think that's a really powerful message about how we should lead going forward, because then it's not a downward cycle, it's an upward cycle, and everybody wins. Everybody wins, uh, in the good times and the bad. So Ubuntu for me is about helping each other um to be the best that we can be. And if we all do that, we'll we'll all be more happy and successful.

unknown: 39:44

Love it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:45

Rob, as we as we start to wrap up, is there anything that you'd like to mention or a question that I've not asked you that I might that that that would be valuable for yourself or for uh listeners?

SPEAKER_00: 39:56

So I I think I'd like to ask you one. Um so uh I think when you've been in the military for a long time, um, you have certain ways of working. Now you've done that, and now you've worked all across um business and coaching, uh podcasting, you've you've done fantastic work. What were the lessons that you've come up with as you've transitioned from the military into civilian life and in business life uh that might be quite useful for people I'm training and for people like me?

SPEAKER_01: 40:27

Yeah, great one. So I think I think what jumps out immediately me uh immediately at me is the ability to separate myself from the result or the work or the job or the title or the role. And you can go down the big long list there. Um it's an understanding of who I am and and a deep uh knowing, even though that can be questions of I am enough as a person, and and that's a reflection of a lot of work and a lot of internal uh questions and a lot of support to get me there. Um so it doesn't matter if if I win, lose, or draw, physically it doesn't change me as a person. Um and and I can move on to the next day, knowing, like you said, that I've today I tried my hardest. Um sometimes that might like give that might look like giving 110%. Sometimes that might be 10%. Tomorrow's a new day. So yeah, knowing that I'm enough, and and that comes down to lots of work and tapping into becoming more and more present to myself and my surroundings. Um I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 41:34

I love that. Um I think the final one I would I would probably do is is what advice would I give myself to the 11-year-olds who wanted to be a pilot, to the sort of uh the young man who wanted to join the Air Force? And I think the one bit I would say is um don't worry about the odds. So the idea that if you told me that 15,000 people apply for um the 120 places um of being a pilot in the Air Force, for example, um if I'd known those odds, I might have been more worried about it. But I was stupid enough not to know the odds. So if I was there now and I found out those odds and were like, don't worry about the odds. If you want to be a Formula One driver, then only one person can make that happen. That's you. Um if you've got to have a lot of luck, and you might not get all that luck. But don't worry, set off on the journey because um through adversity to the stars, Paradwared Astra, uh, which is the Air Force's mantra, um, either you will have a great journey and you might make it to where you want to go, but you will have a greater journey than you would have had if you didn't try. So I I just like that advice. It would be it would have been nice um to get that when I was probably about 19 years old. Um and and not too worry about if you don't make it as a as a fast jet pilot. Like you said, you are you still enough? When I look at my friends from school, they didn't care whether I was a fast jet pilot, they didn't care whether I was an officer in the Air Force or whether I stacked shelves, they actually didn't care at all. But I thought they did, and that was that was basically silly. So don't worry about the odds, just go for it.

SPEAKER_01: 43:12

Yeah, take the step. Act. So it closes out the loop that you're you're talking about in terms of yeah. Rob mate, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak to you today. Um, where might people uh find out a bit more about you or or reach out if they be interested in uh speaking to you about something that we've talked about today?

SPEAKER_00: 43:30

Um so I'm on LinkedIn, uh just search for Rob Kane. Um I'm I'm always happy to help people try to join the Air Force, for example, or join the military. Uh I've had loads of people reach out to me that way, ask for him for advice. Uh and um I'm very happy to take that as uh as an opportunity to help people going forward in the Ubuntu style that I talked about.

SPEAKER_01: 43:51

Love it. Well, thanks once again for your for your time, Rob. Um yeah, thoroughly enjoyed today's conversation. See you around. Thanks very much, and I really appreciate it.