In July, I rode my bicycle across the state of Iowa as part of RAGBRAI. RAGBRAI posts that it America’s oldest and longest multi-day recreational bike ride. There were a lot of things that were impressive. The comradery, the logistics, the efforts by individual cyclists, but one thing stood out to me: The Air Force Cycling Team. The US Air Force Cycling Team call themselves “The Guardian Angels Of The Road.” They exemplify their core values of “Integrity, Service and Excellence.” The team is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Aside from being granted permissive leave status, the team is entirely self-sufficient. Riders are not sponsored by the Air Force and must purchase their own cycling kits and gear. If participating in RAGBRAI, active duty riders get an alternate duty location for the week. This means their official place of work for the week is the RAGBRAI route!
I found out these facts out after the ride. However, each and every day, I saw the actions that showed their commitment to their values.
At first, I saw lots of their jerseys out on the road. Unsurprisingly, they were always in impeccable kits. If I were wearing white, there would be grease smears on it almost immediately – even if I never actually touched my chain. Second, whenever there was someone pulled off to the side of the road, it seemed within seconds, there was an Air Force member there, too. Often two or three. It didn’t really register until I was biking up a steep hill and my chain decided that we should stop. I pulled over and looked down to see just which swear word would be appropriate. Before I had even decided, I heard “Is it a bike issue?” “Yeah, my chain,” was my response. Again, before I knew it, there was an Air Force rider there, looking at it with me. Luckily for me, it was a whole lot of nothing. I popped the chain back on with nary a Rated-R word. But he had a whole toolkit there in case I needed more.
I climbed back on and looked at the hill ahead with a grumble to then hear “Everything good?” He was waiting to make sure I was set before getting on his bike. “Yup!” and then a moment later, my helper was next to me to make sure. So this guy stopped in the middle of a big hill, offered help, and then confirmed any issue was no longer a problem, and he did it voluntarily. That was impressive enough, but then I had the opportunity to talk to him. I had questions.
He had retired from the Air Force and was in a civilian job. So not only did he buy all of the gear, he took a week’s worth of personal vacation days to ride his bike across Iowa and help people along the way. Yup, they slept in tents, carried a bunch of tools on their bikes, and had a lot of jerseys to get washed each day. A couple of more pleasantries, and then he talked about what really hit home for me. He liked his job, but he was disappointed in one specific aspect. His “team” didn’t feel like a team. It was a group of individuals who were working at the same time in the same place with nominally the same goal, but at times, it didn’t feel like the actual same goal. Often, it felt like the goal was “How do I succeed?” rather than “How do we succeed?” Well, we’ve all been there, haven’t we?
The interesting thing is that we don’t have to “be there.” He talked about how one thing he appreciated about the Air Force was that while everyone had their own jobs, each job was part of the team. For example, if someone took over your job, your first task was to make sure they knew how to do it. All of it. You don’t hold back information. You don’t wait to show others how good of a job you had been doing because the “new guy” doesn’t do it as well. And when you move into the new job, you are soaking up as much as you can. Both the trainer and trainee are trying to get the new guy up to speed as fast and as well as possible with as few of the inevitable speedbumps as possible. That way we can all keep moving towards our goals and rewards.
It makes sense that’s how the armed forces work. Units work better as units, not as collective individuals. But it isn’t limited to the military. For profit companies benefit from that, too. We’ve been lucky enough to see it first hand with our two veterans who have worked here. Our prior paralegal, Air Force vet Richard, postponed his retirement to ensure than his successor had all the tools and knowledge that he could provide. Were there speedbumps? Of course! Did she retain 100% of everything that was said? Of course not. Was she able to feel more comfortable and confident in her role than if he had just left a manual and a “Good luck!” note? Absolutely. And we benefitted from that. Guaranteed that his time in the Air Force informed his approach.
Our legal project manager, Lethina, is an Army vet. Is she more disciplined than me? Without a doubt. I bet she makes her bed every morning. But what she also does is makes sure our team knows our goals, our roles, and our action steps. She ensures we understand what we need to do and how to do it. If one of her teammates doesn’t understand, that isn’t a mandate for Lethina to teach the lesson. It is her job to make sure the person who needs to teach knows about the gap and check to make sure it is addressed.
I relayed this to the Air Force rider, saying that we’ve appreciated our veterans getting us on their team-based wavelength. That’s when he really showed his smarts. “Yeah. We can try, but the team has to want to get there, too. We can’t do it alone.” Right. Building a team mindset requires wanting a team mindset.
Thank you to the Air Force Cycling Team for providing 109 friends and guardian angels for a week of cycling 100s of miles across Iowa. Thank you for the words of wisdom that stuck to me for a lot longer than the odor from cycling socks. Thank you to our team for wanting to be a team. And finally, thank you to our veterans, Richard and Lethina, for providing such great examples.