Leadership in Challenging Times: A Conversation with Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin.

Thank you, Lori. It's great to be with you.

Well Lori, you're exactly right. This really is an extraordinary moment in history. And you know, I think what's different now is that we have three different forces that have come together. You've got the global pandemic, you've got the economic crisis and downturn, you've got civil unrest. And when you bring all of those powerful forces together, frankly, it's a time that just creates tremendous uncertainty for our society. It's stressful, it's very difficult for people across the entire society. So it is a very unusual time for us and very, I think, historic time. But you know, I think it's very tempting for people at a time like this to think that it is a situation that will be never-ending, that it's insurmountable. And I think what's really important is that leaders in government, in business, across society, academia, that it's very important for all of us to come forward with our perspectives and our ideas and to be optimistic. Because you know, this isn't, as you said, the first time in history that our country has faced challenges. And I think that business leaders particularly are well positioned to demonstrate that leadership. As a CEO, I know and I know my colleague CEOs recognize that it's often we're challenged with balancing risk and opportunities and coming up with solutions. And so I think what's really important and what I would try to do with my team is to outline a vision for where we're going, what is inspiring to the people in the organization, and how we can manage through this process. I mean, if you think about the things that we as a nation have faced in the past, I mean, we've had a lot of struggles in the past. You mentioned some of them. We've had the Great Recession, we've had the situation of World War II, we've been in cases of crisis of 9/11 and a whole range of threats that we've faced over the years. But we've always overcome, and we've overcome them because as a nation, together, we can address them. We have a lot of things that are in our power as a democratic nation. I mean, you think about our population and how resilient, optimistic, and innovative we are. You look at what people do in times like this, even today. I think it will accelerate a lot of technological change as a result. And we're strong and working together, I know that we can get through this challenging time and really be prosperous and continue to be prosperous as a nation. So I'm optimistic. I do think, frankly, that CEOs and leaders of business are in a position to help with that more so because they recognize the power of free markets, they recognize the power of innovation and entrepreneurship, and they come really with some special advantages of talking about their own companies, their own mission, their own way that they address the challenges that they face. And so I think it's a time in our nation that's a call to leadership to step up and do the important things that we do as leaders.

Well, I'll tell you that for us as a company, it was front and center for us at the very beginning when it was determined a global pandemic, when travel and things started slowing down. Because frankly, we are an essential service. We are working on national security products and capabilities that are so essential to our nation, and so we couldn't stop working. And we had people that had to be in the workplace every single day. We have about 105,000 employees, and you know, thousands of them, over 50,000 of them, were in the workplace every day because the work that we do is so critical to the national security and to our allies around the world. And so what did that call for? For us, it really called for us that we had to make sure that those people were protected and safe in the workplace. And my first initiative was to say, anyone who could work remotely, to work from home, please do that, so that we could reduce the risk and mitigate the risk for those who had to be in the workplace every day. And I think that, you know, recognizing that we are a company that is supporting national security, making that point to people how important the work that they do is, and that we are going to protect them, and that we're also going to be working with our supply chain and working with our partners in government to make sure that the whole industry that is supporting this important work is supported throughout that. And we also looked at how could we give back. How could we, in our communities, help with the challenge of the virus, of the disease? What could we do to help health care workers? What could we do to help communities and all the challenges that they were facing? So we increased our philanthropy, we increased our volunteerism, we looked at ways that we could actually produce things to support that activity. And I think all of those things at this time of crisis was inspirational to our employees. They knew their work was important. They knew that the mission of our company is critically important, so the purpose of what they do every day was critical. But they also knew that we were a large company that could help other companies, and so we helped small and medium-sized businesses throughout the supply chain. We helped our communities where we work and live. And I think again, that drew on the pride and optimism of our company through the crisis.

I think the first thing and the most important thing is to really establish what our priorities are. And that was to come out immediately to the team and to tell them our priority is the safety and security of our employees, protecting them in the workplace, and maintaining our operations because we had to have business continuity through this period. But also then having that based on the values of our company and the mission of our company to make sure that it was very clear this is why and why it was so important. And to establish that's the priority, taking care of our employees, but also priority was to make sure that we helped our community, our supply chain, and our communities where we worked and lived. And setting those priorities and then forming a team, we formed a world-class business continuity team that put together a playbook on how we were going to work through all of this process. And we're constantly communicating and making sure that employees knew what we were doing in the workplace. And also, you know, from a leadership standpoint, as a leader, it's important to outline the stability of the business, the optimism that we will get through this, that we are using the innovation and the capability that we have to make sure that employees were safe and that the work was getting done and we were supporting our important customers.

Well, even before the pandemic, I mean, we are facing one of the most volatile and dynamic and really unpredictable threat environment that we've ever faced as a nation and as our allies around the world. It is extremely challenging. You look at near-peer nations and what they are doing, you look at regional powers and the threats that they bring. I mean, those had not subsided. And when you couple that with a global pandemic that is across nations and causing so many challenges on budgets and communities and things, it really made us more concerned because there are those who would take advantage of that situation and they would test us in a situation like this in every domain, whether it's land, air, sea, space, cyber, cyberspace. And we saw that and we continue to see that. So you're exactly right, it is a very challenging threat environment that we face. And I think what's important is that we recognize the imperative that we continue to focus on providing our nation and our allies and friends around the world with the capabilities that they need, with the interoperability so that we can all address those threats together. That it's frankly imperative that we continue to support the defense of our nation so that our economies can thrive and grow. You know, if you have safety and security, then people will invest, people will do business, people will be able to have economic progress. But national security, the safety and security of citizens, is the first order of any country, of the United States, of our allies. And so making sure that we stay focused on that is something as a nation and as a supply chain, the aerospace and defense supply chain, the global security supply chain must constantly be focused on.

Well, we've definitely seen an acceleration of technology. I mean, those of us like here I am in my home, and many of us are in our homes today working from home parts of the week or some all the time because they can work remotely all the time. And I think what it's done is it has accelerated the future of work. You know, as a company, we were already working on digital transformation, we were already taking advantage of the technologies that have accelerated in recent years. And I think it's just taking that digital transformation of our business to a new level. And I think that's exciting. I mean, often what we found is that it has created new ideas and the ability to see that what we were working on, we can get there faster. We're looking at the footprint that we have in our workplaces, we're looking at where we would make expenditures on various technology tools, how they're working for our engineers, for our scientists, for our business professionals in our company. What's working, what we can take to a new level, how we collaborate better, how we are innovating in this new environment. And all of those things I think is something that my company, our company, as well as many companies in our nation and around the world will see that acceleration of technology. And to me, that's very exciting. I mean, that's just one example, but that's an example that says, look at even things like we're using the technology today for this conversation. I mean, it's just gone to a new level. It's increased the educational level of people and how they use it. It's accelerated the recognition that we need our students to focus more on science and technology and engineering and math because this is the future and the use of technology and digital technology in all facets of our society are so important. So we look at this pandemic of the negative side of it, but we should also look at the positive side of it, the things that has helped us, as I said at the outset, as a nation to capitalize on changes and get through tough challenges and to continue to excel and continue economic progress for our nation.

Thank you, Lori. It's been an honor to be with you today. Thank you.