Being Your Employees’ Wingman with Joseph LaMarca, Vice President of Communications at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

This episode features an interview with Joseph LaMarca, Vice President of Communications at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. Lockheed Martin is a massive company with over 114,000 employees.  And Joe leads a world-class communications team that’s responsible for employee executive communications, media relations, marketing, philanthropy and more. In this episode, Joe talks about how to build a supportive culture at work, communicate across silos, and be your employees’ wingman.Quotes*”There's a saying in the aerospace or aviation world, it's called ‘check six.’ And check six means that when you're flying and you're in the lead, you know that your wingman has your back. Nobody's going to come up from behind and knock you out of the sky. We do the same thing here. We have each other's back.”*”Do people feel valued when they come to work? Do they feel like what they do matters? That's really important to us. We focus a lot at Lockheed Martin on culture and creating an experience for employees where they can bring their whole self to work.”*”Best practice: engage. I know something about everybody on my team. I have over 200 people and I get to know them. I'm engaged with them on a regular basis.”*”Embracing new tools and technologies is important for any good leader or strong leader. Whether it's Box, Slack or Airtable, these are tools I have to learn because my team uses them and it helps us do our job better.”*”Empathy is really about understanding that everybody has unique experiences, unique beliefs, unique opportunities and challenges. And so trying to understand what those are for each individual and what makes them tick is highly important. I think about what do they need? How do I understand what those challenges are and how do I embrace them?”*”One of the things I always end a conversation with is, ‘What feedback do you have for me? What can I do better or different that will make this experience better for you?’”*”When I hang up my spurs at some point, I think if I can look back and say, ‘I know that I had an impact on people and I helped them grow and develop and succeed in life,’ then to me, that's the greatest experience I could ever have.”Time Stamps*[3:50] The Flight Plan: Get to know Lockheed Martin Aeronautics*[9:08] First Class: Best EX practices at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics*[23:44] Turbulence: EX lessons learned*[30:28] How to lead in times of difficulty or changeLinksConnect with Joe on LinkedInFollow Joe on TwitterCheck out Lockheed MartinThanks to our friendsThis episode is brought to you by Firstup, the company that is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up by connecting every worker, everywhere with the information that helps them do their best work. Firstup has helped over 40% of the Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, AB InBev, Ford and Pfizer stay agile and keep transforming. Learn more at firstup.io