TRANSCRIPT
Jan Rutherford: Hello everybody. Jan Rutherford here with Self Reliant Leadership. Good morning. I’ve got a very special guest that I’d like to introduce today and it comes by way of my good friend, Andrew Parish, over in Dublin, Ireland. He’s introduced me to Vice Admiral Mark Mellett, the current Chief of Staff of Ireland’s defense forces and for those of you unfamiliar with Ireland’s defense forces in that rank, Mark Mellett is the highest ranking person in Ireland. He’s been in the service for a number of decades and let me bring him on to the program and Admiral Mellett, welcome.
Mark Mellett: Jan, great to be with you and all your watchers and it’s a privilege to be here. Andrew’s a great friend of mine, a real innovator. We’ve known each other now for over a decade and done a lot of stuff.
Jan Rutherford: It’s really an honor to have you on the show and right before we went on, we were talking about a mutual friend, somebody that I’ve had the privilege of interviewing a couple times.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, your interview with Marty Dempsey and probably the last time I met Marty was around here with my predecessor, Connor Boyle, and Marty’s such a gentleman, really proud of his Irish blood and has a remarkable career and continues to give remarkable advice on leadership.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, and this photo that we’ve got, you’re in it with General Dempsey. When was this taken?
Mark Mellett: That was about 2012, 2013. It was actually the Navy Notre Dame game and I’m quite sure because actually, one week ago or it was maybe 10 days ago, we will have the next Navy Notre Dame match at the end of August at Aviva Stadium here in Dublin. Unfortunately, COVID knocked it out. So I had been doing a lot of work with Notre Dame and with Annapolis to get this match up and running. It’s one of the prices of the COVID pandemic. But please, God, we’ll move on and we’ll get an opportunity to get together again at a future point.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, absolutely. In the photo that I’ve got here, you can see if I point right, I don’t know if you can tell what that’s a map of.
Mark Mellett: I do, yeah, yeah, very good. That’s where there are no snakes.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, it’s no snakes in Ireland because St. Patrick banished them on the top of Croagh Patrick.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, yeah.
Jan Rutherford: Right, and speaking of Croagh Patrick, you’re from County Mayo Castlebar.
Mark Mellett: That’s right, yeah, yeah, and I’ve climbed Croagh Mt. Patrick many times and it’s just a beautiful climb. There’s a lovely church on top and you get a real opportunity to reflect and look out over the beauty of Clew Bay out towards a clear island, where Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen, is so famous and she was a remarkable woman leader, back over 400 years ago.
Jan Rutherford: Wow, and yeah, I’ve climbed it once and I thought it was going to be a piece of cake because I’m used to climbing mountains in Colorado and it was not an easy climb by any stretch and coming down was pretty slippery and [crosstalk 00:04:20]. Go ahead.
Mark Mellett: Up to the shoulder, it turns into quite a steep climb then with a lot of shale and every year, there are some injuries on it so it’s not one for the light hearted.
Jan Rutherford: No, no. Well it’s slick and slippery and it doesn’t look like there’s been any improvements in 1,000 years. When I was coming down, everybody kept asking, “Where’s your stick? Where’s your stick?” Like, “What are you, mad?” I said, “I can’t take a stick on a plane.”
Mark Mellett: Yeah, yeah, but you should’ve hired one for about a dollar or euro at the place.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah.
Mark Mellett: They’re normally available.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah.
Mark Mellett: And if you get that …
Jan Rutherford: I should have, I should have. So my grandmother is from Moore Hall, which is just South of Castlebar so we’re …
Mark Mellett: That’s beautiful. It’s beside Lough Cara. As a youngster, we used to go fishing brown trout in Lough Cara and they’re just the most beautiful trout because unlike normal brown trout, which are actually brown, these are silver, almost like a sea trout. They’re just a beautiful, beautiful fish. My grandfather used to fish there. My father used to fish there. I used to fish there as a youngster and I’d love to be back there now.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah.
Mark Mellett: In May for the May Fly, you can fish with the May Fly, which is a really unique and old way of fishing.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah. If you’re headed South to Moore Hall, the last cottage, the last houses before you get to Moore Hall, that’s the Murphy’s, that’s my family.
Mark Mellett: Wow.
Jan Rutherford: And they’re still there.
Mark Mellett: Geez.
Jan Rutherford: So we’re probably related somehow.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, Mayo is quite a small County so somewhere along the line, there was a linkage.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah. Our friend Marty Dempsey’s hails from Castlebar and County Mayo.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, Castlebar and there’s a connection in Donegal, I think as well.
Jan Rutherford: That’s right, that’s right. Well I had a few things I wanted to ask you about, a little bit on self, a little bit on others, but one of the things I wanted to start out with that might get people’s attention a little bit is the dreaded word “politics.” Here in the United States, it used to be, “Hey, you just didn’t talk about religion and politics,” and it’s even permeated the military. I can’t imagine it’s a lot different there. As a professional, a man in the profession of arms, how do you deal with that these days in managing a lot of young people that have strong opinions and all those items come up? I mean as a leader, how do you manage through that and walk the fine line and stay out of trouble?
Mark Mellett: Yeah, it’s an art. It’s not a science and it’s not easy. But I always go back to Clausewitz, and he has a very good point of view, which says, “There can be no other way except to subordinate the military to the political.” That’s the fundamental of democracy. So there’s a clear delineation between the military and the political. They’re like oil and water, they cannot mix. With that being said, you have to deal with it from a few points of view. First of all, you have to understand politics because that’s the realm in which policy is formulated and out of that policy comes your objectives. You’re in the business of developing a strategy and if you can’t have a policy/strategy match, you’ve got a problem.
Jan Rutherford: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mark Mellett: So you have to inform the political in terms of what’s in the art of the possible. Sometimes objectives, our policy will be set that is challenging and you have to develop a strategy and if you can’t, you have to package your advice in a language that’s understood by the political. The other piece, I suppose is quite challenging, is sometimes your subordinates are those who are interested in your business don’t understand why you’re not more militant, perhaps, if it’s just a case of looking for resourcing or with regards to deployments or whatever. Loads of people have a view on what you should do, often without the accountability or the responsibility or demanded and that’s a difficulty with being a chief because they will all tell you what you should do.
Jan Rutherford: Right.
Mark Mellett: But then there’s a very good, Dominic Ortega, he was actually a farmhand in Spain and Dominic was a farmhand who every Saturday went and sold garlic at a local market. One day he went to the local market and the bull fighter didn’t turn up at the bull ring and Dominic climbed in and he fought the bull. In the years that followed, he became quite a famous bull fighter until a certain writer, Ernest Hemingway, had a reflection. And Ernest Hemingway knew a lot about bull fighting but he criticized Ortega as not being really from the true blue-blood of the bull fighters. And that does hurt Ortega to some degree but he responded in a very good manner, which was used in the pen. He said the bull fight critics gather in rows in the enormous plaza full.
But there’s only one man who knows and he’s the man who fights the bull. And it’s what a chief is. He’s a bull fighter. While all those who were sitting in the plaza full have a view, at the end of the day, there’s only the bull fighter and the bull. You have to actually operate in that space until the fight is over. But the critical piece, going back to politics, it’s another profession. Your subordinate too is in a democracy and you need to know that delineation very well. That’s the fundamental of a democracy.
Jan Rutherford: So it’s really understanding what your values are and having the discipline to adhere to those is what I’m hearing you say.
Mark Mellett: Absolutely. That’s an area which I think is critical for a military, is actually having your values qualified, have your values in action, looking for your value’s champions. That’s what we spend a lot in our own military doing because the values are the cement that join the team and actually give you that cohesion in institutions. Our values go back to the foundation of the military, which is over 100 years old. They’re there about moral courage and physical courage, respect, integrity, loyalty, and selflessness. We put a lot of effort into having those values in action. We have an award system for our value champions. In fact, later on this year, I hope that we will make those awards.
Last year, the present of Ireland gave those awards to our individual values champions within the defense forces. It’s a matter of trying to infect others with those values.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, and my understanding is it takes some doing to join the military in Ireland. It’s pretty competitive and selective, is that correct?
Mark Mellett: It is, it is competitive. We’ve been going through a challenging time in terms of a lot of debate with regards to remuneration. But that matter is moving well and the government, in its current program, has decided to have a commission on the defense forces and we’re currently looking at that under the leadership of our minister. Then at the end of that, the government is committed to an independent mechanism for pay determination. I think that’s a great point to land because one thing about a soldier, he’s different to many other parts of society. First of all, you don’t have a union. You’re subject to military law. You will never withdraw your labor and you’re subject to a unlimited liability. Our business is going into harm’s way.
The critical piece for a military, there can be no ambiguity with regards to the call in the military and democracy. The government must always be certain that when it puts its hand over its shoulder for the arrow of its defense forces, that they’re there without fear or favor to respond to the requirements of government and its citizen. That’s a big responsibility in terms of a military force to be available at all times to do that.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, there’s a lot of talk these days, particularly in the U.S. about generations, about the concept of entitlement and a lot of times when we talk about leading oneself, we use words like “discipline,” you use that as a value, and “sacrifice.” I’m wondering what your thoughts are, as a senior leader to young people these days about entitlement and discipline and sacrifice when it comes to serving the greater good.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, it’s interesting. I suppose one of the biggest rewards anybody can get is to give. It’s actually the act of giving and in our own organization, those who serve, I actually think they get a reward from service to the state. Now does it matter of a loyalty to the state and it does it matter of a reciprocity for that loyalty? But I am convinced that actually, being a servant of the state is one of the most noblest professions. I always make the point that our defense forces are the key component of our security architecture. But more than that, we’re actually part of the bedrock on which the sovereignty of the state stands. We’re part of the framework that provides for the institutions of a civilized society. And a civil society is where people are free where the institutions of state function and where the vulnerable are protected. It doesn’t happen by accident. It happened because institutions like ourselves and the military or our police forces make a sacrifice to provide that framework for the state to function.
Sovereignty and sovereign rights that are not upheld are more imaginary than real. So it’s critically important that you actually have that understanding of the linkage between the sovereignty of the state, the ability of a state to determine where it wants to go and the insurance guarantor, that is the defense forces of that state.
Jan Rutherford: And you use the word “sovereignty” and that’s not a term that a lot of Americans hear and use often. You’re independence, Ireland’s independence was gained basically a little bit more than 100 years ago. So do you think the fact that that’s a lot more recent changes your perspective on what that means and there’s more of an appreciation for it in how fragile and delicate it can be?
Mark Mellett: Yeah, I think 100 years ago, my institution was at war. We were in a war of independence for our state and that’s the legacy and that’s the institution our defense forces was born out of. So we have in our DNA, my forebearers, who were in this institution, they go back to the fight for the independence of that state. But more than that, they also had the bitter taste of civil war that followed on from that independence. That’s a real baptism of fire for any state, to come out of civil war. It wasn’t a prolonged civil war but from a political point of view, the institutions still stand, not from a military point of view. So I think the foundation and the furnace in which we were forged is important. But it’s also remembering where we have come. And to move on in terms of recognizing our position as an institution of the state, our subordination to the political of the state and our requirements in terms of the state and its interests.
Ireland has huge interests in terms of its global interests. Most recently, one of the great decisions was the decision that Ireland should take a seat in the security council with the UN and that’s built on, I suppose, the legacy of an outward looking state that has values, that has actually interest in other actors, in other states within the world. But it’s also built out of where we come from, a state that itself was once suppressed, a state itself that had its own family, a state itself that is haunted by a legacy of immigration, and a state itself that actually had a delicate birth 100 years ago and understands many other states in the world, where they have come from. There’s an empathy then between our state and many of these states throughout the world.
So I’m looking forward when we take overseas in January of next year for our two year term on the security council, that we’ll be able to bring to bear some of our views in terms of values, not just from a national perspective, but try and influence and bring those to bear in other areas where the institutions of civil society may not be as well vetted.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah. Most people might not really understand the requirement for a military in Ireland and thinking it’s most like Switzerland, that it’s very neutral and who’s going to invade Ireland? And I wonder if you could just share briefly some of the missions that your forces conduct all around the world and how that serves the state’s interest.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, well for over 60 years, we’ve been participating in particular in UN missions over almost 70,000 individual tours of duty in some of the most challenging theaters in the world. We’ve, as a force, stood up to violent extremists. We’ve freed hostages. We’ve seen many hundreds die. In fact in recent years in the Mediterranean, we’ve directly rescued over 18,000 people out of the water in the Mediterranean. We’ve actually facilitated the rescue of 23,000 people and we’ve seen hundreds of people drown. We’ve recovered many bodies. It is an extraordinary service that the women and men have given in all the environments. Right now, we have troops in Mali, where recently there was a coup, as you’re aware.
The reason I’m not in my naval blues is because I’ve just come from a mission rehearsal exercise with our troops preparing for Syria. In the next week or so, those troops are going to quarantine, which is a UN requirement, for two weeks, COVID related quarantine, in a training camp before getting deployed out to Syria to Camp Four, which is just to the West of Damascus in one of the most challenging theaters in the world. Overall at the moment, we have about 360 troops nearly, I’m sorry, 560 troops in 13 missions in 14 countries. It’s just a very large commitment from a very relatively small force. But it’s part of our values as a state. We do it in response to decisions of government and we do it primarily in partnership with two institutions. Actually, the UN or the EU and we’re also involved in Kosovo and in the Balkans with NATO. So always operating through a UN mandate.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, and a lot of what you’re doing comes from a humanitarian perspective. The other thing I wanted to touch on is in past lectures, you’ve talked a lot about diversity and inclusion and I’m wondering what your views on that are as a leader in trying to change and make progress in those areas.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, it’s a challenge but I suppose about 10 years ago, I was involved in a research cluster with some universities, university college Cork, and Cork Institute Of Technology and a lot of enterprise. We had this hub created and we were looking at innovative ways in which we could make the Navy better. I remember a young PhD, a student, a female who was not in the services at all, and she made a remark as to why didn’t we try something in the way we went about our petroleum. It was an analytical approach using dynamic scheduling and you’d be much more efficient in terms of where you put your effort. I remember reflecting and at that stage I had 30 years’ service and I said, “How come I never thought about that before?” And it was just that kind of moment whereby it was the different perspective coming into the groupthink of the Navy at the time.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah.
Mark Mellett: And then I put a mirror up to the organization. And at that stage, I think I looked and I saw 94% male, 6% female, and I said, “The balance is not healthy from the point of view of getting those different perspectives.” That was the first piece but the other piece was then I began to look and said, “Where are all the other communities?” And it was then I began to think about the different communities there, whether it be Kosher, whether it be Creed, or even generation in terms of age, sexual orientation, how do we provide for the diversity within that? And it was in the years that followed then that we became much more, I supposed, engaged in creating the environment whereby nobody felt uncomfortable in the military, that we were really driving diversity and more importantly, inclusion.
Somebody, I think, once said, “Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.” Very often institutions will have a diversity and inclusion strategy but the critical piece is to ensure that it is actually actioned and that you provide for all the different perspectives that exist in society whereby people can give their totality and not feel in any way they have to conform to be somebody else that they’re not naturally. Yes, we have a disciplinary process and we all sign up for that. But the actual uniqueness of every individual should be allowed to blossom in an organization. That way you get the best in terms of return. Whether it’s male or female, whether it’s gay or straight, or whether it’s European or Asian, there should be a place in the institutions like the military so that we operate with each other knowing that our strength comes from the diversity of perspectives within the organization.
There’s a point beyond that and I’ll just finish it here. It’s not just about the internal diversity within the organization. It’s also about how your organization makes it externally because the military is not an end in itself. It’s part of an orchestra and whether it be at the NGO community or whether it be investment, whether it be the diplomats or the politics, the military is one, if you like, part. It could be the strings section of an orchestra. So therefore, we need to be able to operate in diverse environments. That’s why within our own military, I keep on advocating that we’re not just warriors, we’re also diplomats. And what I mean by being a diplomat, we’re the ones that actually pull the diverse external actors into the rope to get a common view on a matter.
And the final piece is, and this goes to the way knowledge is exploding. We have to be scholars. So also, and our sailors, our men and women have to be warriors, diplomats, and scholars.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, it strikes me that in the United States, the military is less than 1% of the population and unfortunately, it’s become a family business. Most of the people in the service have a relative that served and that’s sort of the cycle and most are from the South. In Ireland, a country of about five million people, it’s interesting because you’ve already talked about innovation hubs and different things. My perspective is the military in the United States is sort of a cocoon and it’s one of the reasons that when they transition out of the military, they have so much trouble because they have not been integrated into society at all. It sounds like in Ireland there’s a lot more integration that you’re almost counted on to interpret the meaningful outside, the meaningful outside, the country and the world and what that means to the state. Would that be correct?
Mark Mellett: No, you’re absolutely correct. I mean we can look at all the challenges in the world as they currently stand and there are many. I think this is about the tenth success of year whereby we’ve a general decline in terms of peace and security, according to the global peace index. But on the positive side, there’s a massive explosion in terms of automation, in terms of robotics, in terms of data, in terms of knowledge. It’s moving so fast that no organization can rely on having the answers to its challenging problems within its organizational boundaries. So, I have a philosophy that you need to cede power to gain power. What I mean by that is it’s truly meshwork that increasingly, you’ll find the answers to your challenging problem. So the sophistication of your meshwork from the military in terms of how it engages the higher education institutes, how it engages the modern militaries, how it engages with the institutions of civil society, how it engages even with other state actors. That’s where the actual interplay in that meshwork gives you access to answers to problems you have within your organization.
So if you’re continually looking in terms of closed innovation within your organization for answers, the rate of generation of new knowledge is so fast, that it’s most likely the answer is somewhere else outside your organization. The trick is to have a broad meshwork whereby there’s a reciprocity and a communication and a collaboration. That goes to the heart of our own philosophy, not just in terms of our military. In terms of external engagement but even our state and the adherence to that fundamental, what I think is important principle of multilateralism. Ní neart go cur le chéile is an Irish phrase. There is no strength without unity. That goes for states and that’s, even if we look at the security that has been in Europe for nearly 75 years, notwithstanding the wars in the Balkans but in the general sense, it has come from that cohesion that has been built up with now 28, going down to 27 states working together in lockstep, not perfect, but actually have that multilateral approach to actually do things together.
If you look at some of the challenges over the horizon, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, there is no way those really huge vectors are going to be addressed unless there’s a multilateral framework. That brings us right back to the institution of the UN and the sustainable development boards. That’s the only show really that’s going to give us that lockstep manner in which we can deal with them.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah. It’s interesting. I think you just described networking the best way I’ve ever heard it described. As you were speaking, I was visualizing nodes and neural networks and somewhere in your office, you’ve got a whole map of how all this is connect and where the weak points are where things need to be shored up.
Mark Mellett: Yeah.
Jan Rutherford: Do you see it? Do you see that sort of visually?
Mark Mellett: I do, I do. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across the writer [Echart Tolle. He has written, “The Power of Now” and “New Earth.” It’s really worth a read, “New Earth” in particular. But he spends a lot of time dealing with one three letter word called “ego.” In my experience, one of the biggest impediments to networking, one of the biggest drivers of silos are egos who actually are more obsessed with their own view of the world than the actual sophisticated, actual requirement to actually do it in the context of a multilateral or a network framework. I go back to my point, you gain power actually by ceding power. But that means you need to show vulnerability, you need to put your hand up and say, “I need help here.” I need to be willing to actually do the business in terms of getting that support.
But it goes back to my opening, very opening point in regards to you get, I suppose, gratitude from giving it and it comes back to you in the context of development. I think that’s a key point of Eckhart Tolle makes, in particular in “New Earth,” is the whole issue of watch the eagle.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, it’s interesting when you say that because I’ve taken MBA students to Ireland for years and we put them in startup companies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and one of the things that every student group says is about culture and the values of Irish companies. You’ll walk in and they’ll say, “The first thing they said to us was, ‘Check your ego at the door.'”
Mark Mellett: Very good.
Jan Rutherford: Right, because we know, you nailed it. Pride is a vice and it can be a virtue but often times, it’s a vice. In the executive groups that I tend to work with, most of them are not good about raising their hand saying, “I need help.”
Mark Mellett: Yeah, yeah.
Jan Rutherford: It actually creates a weaker team when everybody says, “I got this.”
Mark Mellett: Yeah.
Jan Rutherford: And you said it not only as a team but as a diplomat, as a state, that there’s ways you need to reach out and a lot of the problems now are so big they can’t be solved by a single entity.
Mark Mellett: I think it is one of the most powerful things to be able to do, to create that environment where somebody feels comfortable in saying, “I’m not comfortable with this,” or, “I have a concern.” We used to have in our __ practices years ago, a line that said, “Nobody will be ever wrong for calling an even that they feel is not right.” I suppose the drive with my team we’re trying to move towards is the institutionalizing of a just culture, a culture whereby it’s inevitable that mistakes happen in complex organizations. The opportunity in learning and the sooner you can get to the point whereby you start harvesting learning, the better.
In complex organization, mistakes do happen. But in the main if the culture is right, people are not setting out to make mistakes. There’s a point I have in, I suppose, development of the mindset here. We can have one of two types of soldier. We can have a directed automaton or we can have enabled autonomy. Enabled autonomy is where I want to go whereby we empower people.
Jan Rutherford: Right.
Mark Mellett: And there’s a level of risk. But when you have enabled autonomy, you have to accept that you share the risk. You’re not going to troll the innovator under the bus as soon as something goes wrong because you have enabled autonomy for a week or two. But then all of a sudden, people would say, “Actually, I’m not being supported,” and they go back into just looking for directions in the left and right and being very rigid. Whereas if you want people to blossom, you have to enable that. But you also have to share the risk with them and you need to create a culture where people have the opportunity and are empowered to put their hand up and say, “I’ve got it,” or, “I need help,” or, “I’m not happy.”
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, I think you’ve hit on the key things that build trust on team. Often we say, “It’s vulnerability. That’s what builds trust on a team,” and to a degree, it is. But the other thing that you said is you’ve got to cede power. You’ve got to let people make decisions and that really says to people, “Oh, I’m trusted. I’m empowered. I’m responsible for those outcomes. I have to own that if I mess up, if I make a mistake.” So I think that’s well said. Admiral, I want to ask you another question that might be a tough question. When we look to the future, you and I are a similar age and we’re at a point where there’s a little bit more runway behind us than in front of us. A lot of what we’re thinking about is our legacy and we’re thinking about proteges and things like that. What is it that you think we haven’t gotten done yet and what’s your counsel for those people that are the ones that have a good 20, 30 years left in their careers?
Mark Mellett: I think first of all, it’s something that’s a reflection for me but if I look back through my career, I’ve had really a great career. I’ve had a tapestry of lives and tapestry of service. One regret is at times, it went so fast that I didn’t value the present. I didn’t stop for a moment and listen and take stock of what’s here and the beauty that is around us. In this rush sometimes in terms of progress, we forget and we don’t see actually what we have. The danger with that when you don’t see what you have and you don’t value it the way you should, you can make decisions sometimes that are actually not sustainable. You can be wasteful and the one thing of our generation, to some degree, we’re terrorists for the next generation. We have consumed resources at a rate that is absolutely unsustainable. We have set a legacy for the next generation which is almost a gigantic burden in terms of, as they try to deal with the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.
In many ways, and there are various views on this, a lot of what has happened on our watch, in this generation is irreversible in the context of the damage done to ecosystems, vulnerable marine ecosystems and flora, fauna. So what I would say is that we need to actually take stock and start, I suppose, as leaders, start looking at how we can facilitate and help that slowing down and valuing the present. While at the same time, really looking at how we avoid the externalities and what I mean by that is the unintended consequences that we don’t feel is our responsibility but actually, it is. And so much of our actions. And we need to internalize those with the view that we know the total cost of things we do today because the resource is finite.
So that’s the learning over my decades find the truth and the evidence around me in terms of, I’m a sailor. There is no doubt that the storm track of the North Atlantic has become more ferocious in my life. I’ve seen that in my decades at sea. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in recent events in terms of this island in terms of weather events. And we see it globally, in terms of the Sahara. Africa as a continent is bearing a price that actually, it didn’t generate. But it is probably the most impacted continent in terms of climate change. Then we see it in other continents in terms of the Arctic and Antarctic in terms of the ice caps.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah. It’s interesting to me, in the United States, you went off and you’re a military person, really speak as an environmentalist, as you are. Again, as a seaman, as a sailor, you’re somebody that’s seen it. The other comment you made about slowing down. It’s interesting in the expeditions I lead with executives and military veterans, the takeaway is always, “We need to slow down to speed up.” To take time …
Mark Mellett: And I say that because, I say climate change is probably the greatest threat to security. So we’re back in my business now. Climate change is a greater threat to human security and the other one, which we alluded to briefly, was gender gap. There is an inextricable link between gender gap and interstate and intrastate violence. It is extraordinary, the correlation. So the two areas where we can really act upon is the climate change but also women, peace, and security and I’m glad that that’s one of the key strands that our ambassador in New York, Geraldine Byrne Nason is going to lead in the context of the SECCO Security Council seat.
Jan Rutherford: Yeah, excellent. As we’re rapping up, I just want to show you a couple comments that have come in. This one’s from Lynn Harris. I’m not sure if you covered that, but maybe we could address that for how does ego play a part in the military decision making in your experience?
Mark Mellett: Yeah, I think ego drives the creation of silos and silos undermine trust, efficiency, and effectiveness. Often when you’re trying to bring two disparate groupings together, what you find is if you don’t get it right in terms of the top, there’s a preciousness and a protectiveness of the culture and the enterprise that’s in the silo. It’s the ego that you have to actually deal with until you actually say, go back to seeding power to gain power. It’s the ego you have to deal with to actually say, “You can retain your cultural identity. You can retain your competence but actually you get a force multiplying effect when you bring the two together, where the outcome is actually greater than the sum of the parts.”
But you need to always watch the ego because that’s the impediment to bringing those groupings together.
Jan Rutherford: It’s so interesting you say that. We interviewed a woman recently who led an expedition in Antarctica for a year with 120 people, mostly men. Of all the problems that she encountered, the bacon wasn’t cooked right, somebody had a problem with somebody. The basis of all the problems was somebody felt disrespected… ego. Ego got in the way.
Mark Mellett: Yeah.
Jan Rutherford: So it’s interesting. I wanted to show you another comment that came in. The damage to the ecosystem is tragic as well as poor leaders who deny science and facts. So thank you. And Lynn said thank you. Great point about the effect on culture. It’s been such a pleasure and an honor speaking with you. I only wish I had a panel of people that could ask even more extraordinary questions. What really resonated with me was not just the warrior part of the military but how seriously you take the diplomacy part and the fact that you’re advocating for scholarship and to be well informed is… Before we go, Admiral, I wonder if there’s anything else you’d like to offer, especially for young people that are listening and taking on leadership roles. After all, you are a mailman from Castlebar. I know you can tell a good story.
Mark Mellett: Yeah, I suppose at the end of the day, I have to say how proud I am of the women and men in our defense forces, in the Army, in the Navy, in our Air Force. We do put a huge amount into developing them. There’s a remarkable career for everybody. In fact, our junior leaders are developed to a level six. Our senior leaders and junior noncommissioned leaders to a degree level. We really see that our institution and it’s linkage with regards to the sovereignty of the state is fundamental to the security of the state. I hope that we can continue on getting great men and women to join our organization. It’s just been great talking to you this morning, John.
Jan Rutherford: It really is my honor and thank you for all those years of service and I have to wave the tricolor for you and I hope we’re back in Ireland in 2022 and we’re able to meet you in person and again, if you’re ever on this side of the pond, we’d love to host you.
Mark Mellett: Jan, listen, thanks very much and I really enjoyed the chat and I’ve really enjoyed some of your other interviews. I always get learning from them. Thank you very much.
Jan Rutherford: Oh, thank you.
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