A Thinker Who Draws, Illustrator, Sketchnote Artist, Graphic Recorder: Focused on spreading hope using #graphicrecording #sketchnoting #illustration #art #emotionalintelligence

I'm a thinker who draws, and you'll often find me with pen in hand, drawing while listening.  Illustrating concepts helps me understand information in a far greater way than just hearing or reading whatever content I'm learning. 

Throughout my life, I always found that I would remember pictures better than words alone. After nearly 20 years on a winding path of experience, I decided that this valuable skill could be used to help others understand better, too. Now I spend my days bringing conversations to life and creating art for clients of all kinds. Whether I am drawing live for your event, creating a tailored illustration for your story or book, or just drawing a daily quote about hope, I'm visualizing everything.

I believe that in a world filled with words, more pictures will always do. I've found that starting small and working your way is always best. Bring me your stories and watch them come to life in a new way.

RedTale Communications was founded in February 2020 to help people tell their stories through visuals and narration. If you are finding yourself in the same meetings over and over again or stuck in a project that lacks the creative influence and flow you desire, contact us to hear more about how we can help.

Wade Forbes

I design and guide leadership development strategies that improve decision-making, coordination, and operational readiness in complex, high-stakes environments.

My work focuses on the human domain of readiness. 

How leaders think under pressure. How teams coordinate across boundaries. How organizations sustain clarity, trust, and momentum through change. 

I help leaders move beyond individual excellence toward shared understanding that enables faster execution and better judgment when it matters most.

Currently serving with the United States Space Force, I work at the intersection of leadership development strategy, human-centered systems, and connective sensemaking. I partner with senior leaders, command teams, and emerging leaders to align people, purpose, and action in ways that strengthen mission readiness over time. This includes architecting development systems, integrating efforts across functions and stakeholders, and designing experiences that translate strategy into operational behavior.

My approach is grounded in evidence-based leadership development rather than personality or preference. I draw on doctoral research in organizational leadership, ICF-accredited coaching practice, and applied innovation methods to help leaders anticipate human-domain risks early and shape conditions that support trust, adaptability, and execution under sustained demand.

I am an ICF-ACC certified executive coach, Certified Professional Innovator, emotional intelligence practitioner, and TEDx speaker. I am also the author and co-author of multiple books and articles on reflective leadership, decision-making, productivity, and team performance. My work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2021 Secretary of the Air Force Leadership Award.

At the core of my work is a simple belief: Readiness is cumulative. 

Every decision, interaction, and development effort either strengthens or erodes the conditions for future success. I help leaders notice those patterns early and act deliberately so today’s outcomes expand tomorrow’s decision space.



The opinions and views expressed here belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of War or its components. Any mention of commercial products or services does not imply DoW endorsement.


Jason W.

Left the Air and Space Forces Association conference this morning…checked out by 0530, took a risk and I jumped in a car with someone I met when I got downstairs!


Back Story…

Saw someome with a suitcase and a backpack walking toward the door (didn’t know who he was*) walked up and asked, “Do you have room for one more if youre going to the airport?”

Looked me up and down, and hesitantly said, “Sure.”


Ha… It worked!

Saved the DoW $25.00  

(And, made awkward eye contact!)


*it’s ok… he’s a Chief!

Dr. Jason Womack

Strategist, Operational Readiness & Leadership Development Strategy | Architect of Human-Centered, Cross-Functional Systems Driving Alignment | Executive Coach (ICF) | AI-Enabled Leadership Partner | TEDx Speaker

No alternative text description for this image

Tomorrow morning, I'll facilitate a session for a group of professionals who were competitively selected from their peers to spend a week together solving hard problems.

They didn't ask for a facilitator. They asked for a moment that matters.

I've designed an experience that moves people from polite strangers to people who actually know each other. 

Not through games. Not through icebreakers. Not through a slide deck full of frameworks they'll forget on the flight home.

Through 
...questions that are worth answering.
...silence that is worth sitting in.
...the radical act of actually listening — not to respond, but to receive.

The era of the icebreaker is over.

I don't say that lightly. Icebreakers lowered the temperature in a room, made people laugh, and bought time before the "real" work started. 

But here's what I've learned after years of facilitating rooms full of high-stakes, high-performing people:

They don't need the temperature lowered. 

They need permission to be real.

What people are aching for is NOT connection through small talk. It's connection through truth-telling. The moment when someone says something honest, and the person across from them says, without words: 

I see that. 
I know that feeling. 
I've been there too.

That moment doesn't happen because you asked someone their favorite vacation spot. It happens because you asked them something that cost something to answer.

So here's why I'm doing this.

Because I believe the most underutilized resource in any high-performing organization is what the people inside it actually know - about themselves, about each other, about what's working and what isn't. That knowledge lives in the human domain. And the human domain is as important to get right as any technical domain.

When people are seen (really seen) they perform differently. They lead differently. They ask for help differently. They offer what they actually have instead of what they think is expected.

Here's what I anticipate happening.

Someone will say something that they have never said in a professional setting. Someone will listen to a peer and think: I didn't know we had that in common. Someone will leave with a connection they didn't arrive with... a person they can call six months from now and say: I need your perspective on something.

And at least 1 person will complete this sentence and mean it:

"If I were seen for all I bring, they'd know that..."

That sentence (and what gets written after it) is the point.

Not as an expert delivering content. As a guide, creating conditions.

I will model the vulnerability I'm asking for. I will hold silence when the room gets uncomfortable. I will ask the question that costs something to answer and then get out of the way.

Because connection isn't a nice-to-have. It isn't a team-building exercise bolted onto a busy agenda. It is the work. It is what makes everything else possible.

The icebreaker era is over.



(Shout out to ChatGPT for an image...)

Call it master-minding, #Connecting, mentoring… or whatever… I’m attending the AFA Warfare Symposium next week. 

You gonna be there? I’ve got questions…ideas… mentoring to receive AND to give!

#SpaceForce #USSF  #AirForce #USAF #AFA2026 #WarfareSymposium

#SundayNote #ReflectivePractice
I write and send “The Note” about once a week. This week’s reflection is titled “On Orbit.”
Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gysDzY2s

This week held two very different kinds of news.

At the Air and Space Forces Association events, I moved from room to room listening to senior leaders name what they are responsible for. The weight of it is real. So is the opportunity. I left each session doing the same work I ask others to do: find ourselves in the work.

Last week, two calls shifted everything.

(1) We lost an Airman to suicide.

(2) And my mom went back to the ER after a fall. Staples in her scalp. A CAT scan. 

Another reminder of how fragile things can be.

Somewhere between conference rooms and hospital updates, I logged 1,200 pushups for a team challenge and heard from four leaders who recently finished command. Celebration and crisis. Progress and uncertainty. All in the same orbit.

I keep watching for the signal in the noise. The steady thread that tells me where to stand.

If #reflection resonates, you can subscribe, and my Sunday Notes will show up in your inbox most weekends.

#Coaching
October 2025, I opened a limited number of three-session coaching engagements.

17 internal leaders stepped forward.
6 external leaders committed to to the 3-session cycle as well.
All twenty-three completed the work.

This is NOT just mentorship.
It is NOT only productivity advice.

It is identity-level leadership development.

Most leaders do not struggle with intelligence or effort.

They struggle with alignment.

Alignment between the responsibility they carry and the standard they hold themselves to.
Alignment between what they believe and how they speak.
Alignment between pressure and posture.

In three focused sessions, we examine:

• Where your current identity is constraining your performance
• Where your language signals hesitation instead of ownership
• Where your decision patterns no longer match the level you are operating at

The external results will follow:

Sharp conviction.
Clear strategic movement.
Stronger executive presence.

But the real shift is internal.

If you are serious about evolving how you show up as a leader, I have reopened a small number of coaching engagements.

Internal DoW teammates: https://tidycal.com/jw

External leaders: https://tidycal.com/jw


This work is for those ready to confront themselves, not just refine their tactics.

“We had out-of-date people doing out-of-date things.”

If our language about 2029 sounds like the past, we are not preparing.

We are preserving.

Within the first 30 minutes of a multi-hour offsite, I wasn’t just taking content notes; I started tracking sentence stems. Some I heard – over and over again – were:

“I think…”
“I believe…”
“When I started…”
“We have always been able to…”

By the 3rd hour, a pattern emerged. 

Experience is shaping the horizon more than first principles. The anchor to the past and present holds teams back from moving toward a future that is already looking way (WAY!) different than our past and present.

I got to thinkin’ about the research I’ve done over the past 20+ years. I am increasingly focused on working with the leadership teams I’m coaching to identify what they DON’T see (and what they can’t).

How do I do that? 

I look at the books on shelves (at the office & at home), and in doing so, I tell them how they DON’T think. (How they do think, interesting… how they're NOT thinking? Moreso!)

When I pull a few books from MY shelves, patterns emerge.

Janis described how cohesive groups narrow thinking without realizing it. Not because they lack intelligence, but because agreement starts to feel like clarity.

Kahneman showed that intuitive judgment often substitutes familiarity for rigor. Fast feels fluent. Fluent feels right.

Rumelt reminds us that real strategy begins with diagnosis. Not ambition. Not optimism.

Zeihan points to structural realities in the supply chain that do not bend to legacy competence. Geography does not care how good we used to be.

And Zubrin’s work in space exploration makes a similar case. Progress happens when engineers return to first principles and rebuild from the ground up rather than refining an inherited process.

When I hear, “We’ve always been able to…” I do NOT hear confidence.

I hear convergence.

I’m focused on Connective Cohering, a way of using divergence & convergence that is more than mere brainstorming. It is a disciplined distance from biography.

Teams that converge too early optimize what already exists. They defend what made them credible. They speak about 2029 using vocabulary and examples of 2019…or in some cases, 2009!

If connective coherence is operational, it must be audible. It shows up in the questions we tolerate and the assumptions we surface before alignment begins.

I sit in rooms and listen for those signals.

If this resonates, invite me to observe your next meeting. I will track the language, and afterward we’ll talk about where coherence – and divergence – is collapsing into preservation.

You ready for a challenge? Comment with a pattern YOU defend when 2029 is discussed. A process. A reputation. A metric.

#ReflectivePractice
Journal  your response to this prompt for ten minutes: “When I talk about 2029, what do I instinctively defend?” Is it a process, a reputation, a belief, a metric? All of them? Name the pattern that narrows your thinking.

This week’s Sunday Note comes from 39,000 feet.

A decision I made in 37 minutes. A book that’s finally happening. And the reminder I keep having to give myself as my mom recovers from her stroke:

Don’t confuse what I want for her as advocating for her.

There are layers upon layers upon layers in that sentence. I’m still sitting with it.

If any of that lands, the Sunday Note is worth the read.

https://lnkd.in/gfeZxu49

When leaders say, “We do not have time to think,” they identify the moment thinking becomes nonnegotiable.

In a recent meeting, a couple leaders told me they are exhausted. Calendars are saturated. New requirements arrive weekly. Reflection feels indulgent. Yet in that same window, they were redesigning reporting structures, redefining roles, and reallocating resources.

The pace is real. The fatigue is real. The risk is invisible.

This is not a workload issue. It is a cognitive one.

Vego warned that bureaucratized systems hope fixed techniques and checklists enhance effectiveness, when in fact they replace judgment. Under pressure, structure becomes a substitute for thought. Templates reduce friction. Checklists provide a sense of completion. Slide decks create the impression of coherence.

They ALSO compress inquiry.

Kahneman’s research on fast and slow thinking offers a lens. Under cognitive load, we default to fast, automatic processing. It is efficient. It is necessary. It is also prone to limiting what we see. 

When tired, we rely on habit and bias. What feels like momentum may be “cognitive conservation.”

When time feels scarce, thinking IS the work.

I believe the best leaders do not think linearly. They think in layers.

Layer 1 = perception. What is happening, not just what is being reported? What is not being said? Where are assumptions masquerading as facts?

Layer 2 = interpretation. Because of what? What patterns are forming? How does this decision interact with identity, incentives, and existing commitments?

Layer 3 = reinforcement. What must be followed up so learning compounds rather than dissipates? What feedback loops are designed into the system so that today’s decision improves tomorrow’s judgment?

This architecture sits behind Three Ways to Connect. It is often read as relational guidance. 

It is also a cognitive discipline.

Making awkward eye contact is disciplined perception. It resists autopilot. It demands attention to signals beneath surface compliance.

Sharing a meaningful conversation is shared sensemaking. It forces the group to move from description to causation to purpose.

Finding a way to follow up, appropriately, creates reinforcement. It closes the loop so insight becomes institutional memory rather than a momentary insight.

#ReflectivePractice
Before making a decision, pause for 3 minutes and answer: What am I assuming? What would make this fail? What result am I trying to produce?

Connection to Mission | Connection to Current Context


Here’s a link to Vego’s article: 
https://lnkd.in/grqwYSbs

Read the whole story: 
https://lnkd.in/gjdibwYD

TL;DR: Between highways, workshops, a memorial ride, and honest conversations, I felt a shift. I am choosing presence over performance, clarity over guessing, and standing in my truth while allowing others to stand in theirs.

Eye contact… it’s the FIRST step (of just three!) to actually #Connect. 

For those who are in a position to coordinate a convening/gathering of people, let me ask you… 

“Are you setting the environment to increase OR decrease the likelihood that people connect?”

I will tell you, when I sit in a room, and I stare at the back of people’s noggins, it is #HarderToConnect 


PS: Don’t confuse #proximity with #CONNECTIVITY

Ok, two big favors comin’ your way. 

1) We are working to continue getting speech therapy (we’re in between applying for the next round of visits). 

Would you write our Mama a letter? A couple paragraphs, a quote, a fav scripture? She reads them out loud. 

#SpeechTherapy !!!

DM or Text me!

2) If you would read the update, here it is…along with our ask for helping out my Mom and sister…

 https://lnkd.in/gF5GzjvS

#PromptJam
Here’s the plan for the next few months. I’m hosting these “pop-up” prompt jam/pick-up-games. 

If you’ve thought, “I wanna get smarter on this stuff,” then stay tuned. I’m not #teaching GenAI prompting… I’m inviting my friends and peers to spend two hours at a time wondering how they could be better at prompting. 

You in?

PS: which ONE of the six sessions seems most interesting to you?

Something happened at work this week. A project went sideways, a meeting felt… off, or maybe a small win went unnoticed. Now what?

Most of us are “Event Driven and Deadline Focused.” We move to the next thing without mining the last one for what it’s worth. Experiences accumulate, but learning doesn’t.

I’ve spent years developing a framework to fix this, called the ABoSt Ladder. It’s a 12-rung conversational model for turning any experience into meaningful action.

I’ve captured it in a short book, and I’m looking for a few sharp readers to give me honest feedback before it goes to the publisher. I’m not looking for proofreading—I’m looking for resonance.

Feedback Ask: Could you read the 3-page introduction about Sarah, a leader who just finished a project that felt like a win but left the team bruised? I want to know: does her situation feel real to you?

Look for the page that begins: The Event Something happened. Now what?

Here’s a link to the current version: https://lnkd.in/gCSKKZTQ 

#leadership #management #debrief #corporateculture #feedback

Open article: The Debrief by Dr. Jason 'JW' Womack.pdf by drive.google.com

#ConnectING #ForceDesign #OperationalReadiness #Leadership

I just watched this video on a Deloitte study https://lnkd.in/g9qkRamg 

(Deloitte Summary of 2023 Global Human Capital Trends
which highlights the main findings and implications for work and organizations.)

If an evaluation system CANNOT tell us how our workforce is actually being used, it is not a performance tool. 

It is a storytelling exercise.

An annual box to check that says “something” happened.

//

We keep asking a strategic question:

“What are our people doing with their time, and what capability does that create?”

Then we fund studies, launch surveys, and build temporary data calls to rediscover what we could have been collecting all along.

I think of what Ray Dalio did in the early days of Bridgewater Associates … recording and scoring EVERYthing. (If you haven’t seen his TED talk…I dare you!) 

What Diane Schaefer points at is something important:

Not evaluation reform, but process (re)design.

Deloitte’s 2023 Global Human Capital Trends report found that 60 percent of organizations are redesigning work itself, not just jobs, because capability visibility is now a competitive advantage.

(Link: https://lnkd.in/g8j-MeK9)

By the way, tha was 2023. Ancient history in the scheme of the present!!!

Visibility is not a morale issue. It is a readiness issue.

It’s why I disagree with the way most orgs do “connection…”
B
B
B
B
P
R
A
A
C

(See below…)

Imagine if every annual evaluation produced structured data on:

• Actual time allocation ranked by percentage

• Additional duties absorbing capacity

• Proficiency level against defined standards

• Measurable mission impact

Across a force, that becomes signal. Over time, that becomes pattern. With discipline, that becomes force design intelligence.

Here is the harder layer.

If people repeatedly document misalignment between assigned role and actual work, and nothing changes, what message does that send about standards, stewardship, and leadership credibility?

Connection to Mission erodes when effort and architecture drift apart.

This is not about fixing forms. It is about treating performance systems as sensing mechanisms inside a living organization.

One experiment this week:

Ask your supervisors to estimate how their team’s time is distributed across core mission tasks, administrative requirements, and additional duties. Force a percentage. 

Then… compare answers to the REALITY of what the workforce says. 

If the numbers vary widely, you do not have clarity. You have assumption.

That gap is where redesign begins.




Bowling
Birthdays
Beer
Barbaque
Promotions
Retirements
Awards
All calls
Conferences
…is how MOST leaders do “connection.”

HAF/A6, Senior Enlisted Advisor for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter Comms & Cyber Systems | Air Force Career Field Manager (1D7XX) | MSIOP | Transforming Career Management through Organizational Design

If you know me, you know I have a habit of trying to redesign entire systems somewhere between the office and my driveway.

There’s something about a long commute that convinces my brain it’s fully qualified to solve world peace, education reform, and at least three processes before dinner.

One idea, though, has been bouncing around in my head for years, and it’s not about fixing the evaluation system. Yes, as leaders we all recognize there are frustrations with evaluations. But that’s not actually the problem I’m trying to solve.

The question that keeps coming back to me is much bigger:

How do we redesign or optimize the processes we already execute to generate the data we need to optimize our force - continuously?

We routinely spend enormous time and money conducting workforce studies, hiring external analysts, running surveys, and building temporary data calls all to answer a basic question:

👉 What are our people actually doing with their time and what skills do they need to do it?

And here’s the part that keeps bothering me:

We already have a process that touches every single member of the organization every year.

Performance evaluations.

But we don’t use them to understand the workforce itself.

The military is different from most industries. We aren’t profit-driven, we’re manpower-driven.

Requirements drive force design.
Force design determines resourcing (people).
Resourcing determines cost and capacity.

So if people are our capability… why isn’t our primary personnel process designed to tell us how that capability is actually being used?

What if evaluations weren’t primarily about ratings or narratives at all?

What if they simply captured four things:

1. What work did you actually spend your time doing?
Ranked by reality, not wording skill.

2. What responsibilities did you carry beyond your core job?
Supervision, programs, additional duties — the hidden labor that absorbs manpower.

3. What level of proficiency did you operate at?
From developing to expert, based on clearly defined standards.

4. How well did you perform?
Mission impact. Reliability. Making others better.

Now imagine collecting that structured data across the entire force every year.

Instead of periodically commissioning expensive workforce studies, the organization would continuously understand itself.

We could see:

• Where manpower assumptions don’t match execution
• Which missions quietly consume the most time
• Where automation would have real impact
• Which skills exist and which ones we only think exist
• How training, requirements, and reality diverge

This isn’t about fixing evaluations.

It’s about recognizing that the information we keep paying to rediscover should already exist simply by virtue of how we run our organization.

Maybe the real opportunity isn’t redesigning forms.

Maybe it’s realizing that our evaluation system could be the most powerful force-design data platform we already own… if we chose to use it that way.

Thank you Dr. Elizabeth Vaughan Moyer, PMP for sharing some time and getting us to talk about really, really important things…

Connecting > Connection

https://lnkd.in/gX7THYdG

Open video: Feel Disconnected? Why AI Can’t Fix Loneliness on youtu.be

Feel Disconnected? Why AI Can’t Fix Loneliness

#Debrief #ProjectManagement #TeamCulture
After a project or a critical event, most team debriefs fall into one of two traps:

1     The Vent: A circular conversation where everyone shares their story, but no action follows.
2     The Fix: A rush to solutions before anyone truly understands the root cause.

Both are necessary, but neither is sufficient. The real learning lives in the middle.

My forthcoming book, Something Happened, introduces a 12-rung conversational framework called the ABoSt Ladder to navigate this middle ground. It’s structured in three tiers:

•      ABOUT: What can we agree happened?
•      BECAUSE OF: What can we agree it means?
•      SO THAT: What will we agree to do?

I’m in the final feedback stage before this goes to the publisher.

Feedback Ask: Could you look at the 2-page chapter on “The Two Traps” and tell me if this distinction resonates with the meetings you’ve been in? Does the ABoSt framework seem like a practical alternative?

Here’s a link to the current version: https://lnkd.in/gCSKKZTQ

 #LeadershipDevelopment #HighPerformingTeams

You’re seeing this so vote… would you say that you are:

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Jason W.

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