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Gender, relationships, how training has changed, should civilians adjudicate military cases, creating safe spaces for learning & development, and much more is discussed with 3 retired military professionals who were in charge of addressing sexual assault in their roles in the US Military. * You are invited to join our community and conversations about each episode on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast and join us on Twitter @CenterRespect or visit our website at http://www.MutuallyAmazingPodcast.com** SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE TRANSCRIPTION LISTEN TO THE SHOW BELOW via Audio, and/or Read the Transcription Chuck Marks is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where he held command at many levels, serving in locations as diverse as Afghanistan, Germany, Washington, and the Red Sea. Throughout his 30-year naval career, he served as a surface warfare officer, a fiscal policy advisor, a strategic planner, a Middle East, NATO and United Nations specialist, and, most recently, an expert on the impact of destructive behaviors--sexual assault, suicide, domestic violence, substance abuse, and gun violence--on military culture and mission readiness. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, attended the Sorbonne University in Paris, and holds a Masters Degree from the National Defense University in National Security Studies. He regularly speaks on topics pertaining to corporate culture, diversity and inclusion, social responsibility, and public policy. Mike Kontio is a Senior Executive Coach & Trainer, Program Manager, and Military Veteran with 22+ years of proven leadership, civility and communications experience in the United States Army. Serving his last 16 years in Special Operations, Mike has developed an unsurpassed ability to build global multi-disciplined cohesive teams capable of delivering extraordinary results in volatile, complex, challenging and ambiguous situations. Mike is an intentional leader with a passion for people, culture transformation and challenges that have lasting impacts and value. Mike is a purposeful leader with a resolute track record for leading in extreme pressure situations and complex environments; consistently exceeding audience expectations. He is a trusted agent, skilled at developing and cultivating key relationships and establishing effective collaborations that unify teams. As a Program Manager, he developed and delivered custom training to create mission-ready, "can-do" culture and result. Mike has served as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Program Manager for his command. Mike has specialized training in many areas including: University of Louisville Leadership Management, Behavioral, 360 and EQ Assessment Instructor, Teambuilding/Confidence Course Instructor, Senior-Level Leadership Technical and Management Development, Recruiting, Selection, Assessment & Talent Development, Basic Leadership Management Development, John Maxwell Coach, Mentor and Teacher, Conflict Resolution & Crisis Response, Advanced Leadership Management Development, Computer, Telecommunications and Network Engineer, CompTia Security+, Network Systems Switching Operator-Maintainer, and Lean Six Sigma. He resides in Fayetteville, NC with his wife and children. READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPTION of the EPISODE HERE (or download the pdf): **IMPORTANT: This podcast episode was transcribed by a 3rd party service and so errors can occur throughout the following pages: Mike Domitrz: Welcome to the Respect Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz from mikespeaks.com, where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions, and the US military create a culture of respect, and respect is exactly what we discuss on this show, so let's get started. Mike Domitrz: Hi. This is Mike here, and I've got a little special notice for this episode because it's very unique in that this episode is over twice the length of a normal episode, so I want to give you a heads-up. You might listen to this one in two parts. Normally, our show runs right around the 30-minute mark. This one's going to run you right around an hour 15, an hour 20, so you could break it into three. You could listen to it at once. Mike Domitrz: Here's why I did not break it up. It is such a unique conversation between these three professionals from the US military, discussing sexual violence, respect, training, program, gender. There's so much there that I didn't want to cut it. I didn't feel it worked well. I thought it was really great for those who want to be able to listen to this all the way through as it naturally occurred, so here's the episode for you. Mike Domitrz: Welcome to this episode of the Respect Podcast. We've got a really exciting lineup here, and I said, "Lineup," because this is not a one-on-one interview. This is three retired individuals from the US military who worked specifically in addressing sexual violence within the US military. Now, they're coming from different services, different branches, so we're going to hear a variety of viewpoints and discussion points here. Mike Domitrz: I'm going to get right into this because, first, we have Chuck, who is known as Captain Charles Marks in his military career, but we've been able to work with each other and, amongst his friends and his peers, he goes by Chuck, so we're going to introduce Chuck in a moment. We also have Mike Kontio with us. He worked with Special Forces, Fort Bragg, dealing with the sexual violence, SHARP program, and then with him is Guy Allsup, also from Fort Bragg, but separate areas. We'll let them explain how that all worked. Mike Domitrz: All working with sexual violence, Chuck, we'll start with you. Can you give everybody just a quick background on your work in this area for the military? Chuck Marks: Yeah. Hi. This is Chuck Marks. My background is I'm a career Surface Warfare Officer in the Navy, which means I'm a ship driver by trade. I've had a command a few times and, for the last five years, I served as the fleet sexual assault prevention response officer where I was in charge of implementing all the programs and all our long-range plan for the Navy on countering sexual violence. Mike Domitrz: Awesome. Thank you. Mike Domitrz: Mike, can you explain your role? Mike Kontio: Yeah. Thank you for having me on this afternoon, Mike. I have been in the organization called Joint Special Operations Command for the last 16 years. The last five years, I've been in charge of a program, the Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Response Prevention program. As of late, we saw ourselves more as a climate design versus a SHARP program, focusing on primary prevention. Mike Domitrz: All right. Thanks, Mike, and, Guy? Guy Allsup: Hey, Mike, also, thanks for having me on the show. I work with the 18th Airborne Corps specifically as the SHARP program manager. I actually got to work some with you and I got to work some with Mike, which was awesome. I saw my role in SHARP as how did I enable training for our victim advocates or our SARCs, or sexual assault response coordinators, how did I help them understand facilitation through throughout training and then how did I also help get them the resources and tools they needed, because I had ... I was sitting higher in the sky from my seat, so I was able to push resources to people who needed it. Mike Domitrz: All right. Thank you very much. Now, our listeners might be wondering, "Hey, Mike, that sounds like you have three men representing all the services. it doesn't really sound ... It sounds diverse in their roles and what they did. Why isn't there more of a gender diversity, maybe an ethnic, cultural diversity?" and it's a great question and one we want to address especially in the Respect Podcast. Mike Domitrz: Here's the situation. In order for me to bring three people on and to be able to get on and have a full conversation, I intentionally sought out retired individuals who I knew could speak openly, and you might be wondering, "Why retired?" Because if these three were not retired, they would need to get full permission from public affairs in a representative role of the US military to be able to have this conversation, and that's a lot more red tape potentially and can impact how people are able to talk openly, so what I did is I turned to clients who had recently retired, and that's why we have the group we have. Mike Domitrz: I'm very aware of the lack of diversity in that area, and I think it's important we address that because, normally, we would definitely be intentional about making sure there was more diversity as far as ethnicity, culture, gender, but, in this case, this was best-case scenario, and we have three amazing people on, so let's dive right into this, because you gentlemen know this is a big ... That's a big part of everything we're discussing is having diversity in these conversations and having representation and everybody at the table talking about it. Mike Domitrz: What I'd like to do on this episode is talk about the perceptions of the military versus reality, how we got to where we are today. Where are we today, and where do you see us going forward? What do you three think are the most difficult stereotypes that the military is facing, and that could be true or could be false? If it's okay, we'll start with you, Mike. Mike Kontio: I'll start with, Mike, that I believe that currently, from a military perspective and from my lens, I'll speak from my optic, is that I think it's the best it's ever been, but I will say that I don't think it's good enough yet, meaning, there's still more work to be done in how we look at the problem and how we address it. Mike Kontio: For example, I think that, by and large, I question whether we are committed to ending sexual assault, and I ask this question to leaders or officers and say, "Are you committed or are you interested?" because it's two different things. If we're committed, we work hard. If we're interested, the work is hard, and I'll ask leaders often, "Do you believe that we can end sexual assault?" and I believe with every fiber in my body that we can if we're committed, now, recognizing what it will take to get there and that the pronoun is intentionally said, "We," collectively. Mike Domitrz: What do you think of the stereotypes that are out there in regards to that? Do you think people don't believe the military is committed? Chuck Marks: Some of the things that we have started to address in our program is we really look at this hard at the beginning, and I think the comments that Mike made are spot-on, but to build off of that, we started from this place where there was this perception that all assaults are identical, meaning, all assaults are the worst case, all assaults are rape, and when we really start to analyze the types of assaults we experience in the military, we find that there's a continuum of things from unwanted touching and kissing all the way to the more [inaudible 00:07:01] types of assaults. There's not a one-size-fits-all solution to countering all of those various types of assaults. Chuck Marks: I think the second thing is is that the military is unique with a problem that is far worse than that of society, and that's something that's been a running narrative in the press. When we actually go in and analyze the incidents in the military and compare them to society, we find that the military assault rates are far lower than that of society despite the fact that we're 85% male, and that means that, potentially, the risk is a lot higher. Chuck Marks: We know that our assault numbers are significantly lower, but it does not mean we're going to rest because we have to really go after this problem because it erodes really how our small teams fight and operate because it undermines across these small teams, because the majority of assaults we're experiencing in the military are soldier-on-soldier, airman-on-airman, sailor-on-sailor, marine-on-marine. It's peer-on-peer types of assaults. Mike Domitrz: Let's pause there. What about the person who says, "Well, your numbers show that the military is lower than society, but that's because people in the military are more afraid than people in society to come forward due to retribution, retaliation, the old-boys'-club mentality of the military?" No, I'm not saying, hey, that's true. Obviously, I work with all of you, and I know how the systems are built to try to combat that, but how do you respond to that? Mike Kontio: Very quickly I would say that we assess pretty accurately the assault rates in the military, and that's done through biannual surveys, and we know that the accuracy of those surveys is incredibly high, and I would tell you that in open US society there's nothing comparable to it, and I also know that, when we first started this journey five years ago in great earnest and detail, we were getting about one out of 11 to one out of 12 sailors in the face of the Navy coming forward to report their assaults. Mike Kontio: We know that, today, we're getting one out of three coming forward to report their assaults, so there's been almost a five-fold improvement in reporting rates when it comes to reporting the assaults, so we have a pretty confident ... high confidence level in the number of assaults that are occurring in the military, both reported and unreported. Mike Domitrz: Guy, we'll turn to you. What do you think? Do you think there are any perceptions out there that are impacting how people view the military and how much reality there is to those perceptions? Guy Allsup: If I back up for just a second, to your first question, I think when we went and looked at training and we stopped saying, "Okay, I think everyone's going to be guilty," because that's a perception that plays a role in this conversation, so then I show up to training and I sit down and I automatically am defensive because I'm waiting for you to tell me that I'm a guilty person. Guy Allsup: I think when we started having people show up to training and we said, "Hey, here are ways that you can have a great and healthy relationship. Here are ways that you can have a healthy work environment," to "What if we started discussing ways that we can enable these relationships, these work environments?" I think we started shifting the training around, and I think that started changing a lot of the perceptions. Guy Allsup: I would tell you, numerous times, when we brought in yourself or we did training, interactive trainings where we had audiences of maybe up to 500 people, people loved it. People loved it because the conversation wasn't, "Hey, we think you're guilty, and here's what the punishment for the crime is going to be." It's going to be, "Hey, here are things that you can concretely do to have a better daily working relationship, working life," right? Mike Domitrz: Let's pause there. Let's pause there because you're describing something that I'm very passionate about, as you're aware, which is going to a how-to approach versus a what-not-to-do approach, and I think that's what you're referring to. For years, this was a not-to approach not just in the military, in universities. It was, "Don't rape," and, "No means no," but there was no pro-activeness of, "Well, are you asking them in the first place so they can say no?" There was no skill building for that to take place. Mike Domitrz: Now, I'm talking with th…
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