Jocko Underground: Teamwork (Cover and Move) Does NOT Always Work.

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 195 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. We have various questions from the troopers, the members of the underground. And we're going to provide guidance, suggestions, recommendations, courses of actions, and in some cases, in some cases, answers to your questions. Let's get into it.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  We're getting through this maze of life.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  Maze of life.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  It can be a maze.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sometimes you take a wrong turn. Sometimes somebody knows to tell you, go left, go right, go straight. Turn around, go back. Don't go down, don't go any further down that particular path. Go down this other path, the path of discipline.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Sometimes you can take one, two, three, four wrong turns and it takes more than just one correction, maybe two, maybe three corrections. See what I'm saying?

• 0:47Jocko Willink?

  Can happen.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  That's what we're here for.

• 0:50Jocko Willink?

  All right, what do we got?

• 0:51Speaker 01

  First question. Hello, Mr. Willink. My company buys in fully to extreme ownership. I have a question for you tied to cover and move. Is there ever a time in your experience that covering and moving becomes ineffective and the wrong move? Like if you help your team, your teammate, but they are inherently toxic and their involvement in most things are negatively affecting work? Or is that any conceivable or, or is that any conceivable scenario that cover and move is not the right call?

• 1:24Jocko Willink?

  Yes, of course. Anything that you do to an extreme can make it bad. And this is why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership because, because we wanted to make sure that everyone understood that. And this includes, includes taking ownership, even the idea of taking ownership. If you take that to an extreme and I'm going to own every plan, I'm going to own every decision and now Echo that works for me and my hierarchy, he now has no input because I'm taking ownership of everything. So even extreme ownership can be too extreme. So cover and move is the same thing. And if you have someone, uh, let's say they're showing up late all the time and you keep covering for them. Look, you show up late, Echo shows up late, I cover for them all day, right? All day, I got you. Hey, no big deal.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  But two days, three days, one week, a month, you're late, late, late, late, late. You don't learn. You interrupt my capacity. The team is ultimately going to suffer and the mission is going to suffer. So yes, there's a point where if you keep covering for someone.

• 2:28Jocko Willink?

  Where it becomes negative and not to mention if someone's doing something immoral, illegal or unethical and you cover for them, you're culpable for that behavior as well. So that's the clear one. But it sounds to me probably what this person needs is like the escalation of counseling. You know, like, and I'm not saying you need to go at them like head on, but asking some earnest questions like, hey, dude, how do you think other people perceive you when you act that way in the meeting? Like, I know you're trying to get your point across, but don't you think that you're making other people defensive? Or hey, do you think that your behavior right now, do you think that's helping like unify the team and helps us positively get the mission

• 3:10Jocko Willink?

  done? Cause like, what is it you're trying to make happen? Or like, hey, do you think that when you get that super negative in front of the team, do you like, what do you think that does to the team? You see what I'm saying? It's just asking some questions.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  And my goal in a situation like that is to try and help the person see how they're being perceived by others. Right? Not to tell them how they're being perceived by others, but to help them figure out how they're being perceived by others.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  That's what I want.

• 3:42Jocko Willink?

  And then, and then if you know that indirect approach starts to, it doesn't, you don't get anywhere with them and they keep behaving the same way, you might have to increase directness to make sure that the team's not negatively impacted. Right?

• 3:55Jocko Willink?

  So cover and move is great, but if I end up covering all the time for someone that's not doing their job, consistently not doing their job, consistently showing up late, consistently not performing, consistently being inherently toxic, then that is not good.

• 4:15Jocko Willink?

  So that's why we, we initiate that escalation of counseling. So that's the way it is. Just like everything else in leadership, just like everything else in life, you gotta be balanced.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this.

• 4:24Jocko Willink?

  Send it.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Let's say, well, you know, like-

• 4:27Jocko Willink?

  You got a little question about the maze here?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit. No, no, no. This is actually this total hypothetical. I can't think of any particular person who's like this, but I want to, I want to hear the idea of what if this person is toxic? So you know, some people, they can be like, kind of good at their job or whatever, or, or good enough, we'll say at their job. But they're toxic in the sense that they're super argumentative. Um, they're like blunt unnecessarily, maybe a little crass, maybe even like, um, they complain like a lot of, they're pessimistic, like just real kind of down to ruin some short-term relationships, you know, like kind of that kind of person.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  You know, insecure, the whole deal, right? And after a while, it's kind of like, yeah, they're kind of good at their job, but above and beyond that, they're just like, not the person to be around, you know? Like no one likes working with this person, kind of a thing. And we get, let's face it, that's not like some rare thing that when you think about it, it's kind of like, oh, we all kind of either have or do know something like this.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Is, okay, so consider this idea of, hey, we're gonna like not help this person. Or we're gonna kind of deliberately, straight up deliberately

• 5:32Speaker 01

  withhold cut the cover and move idea, you know? Like if, look, if, if I see this person about to fail on something, I'm not going to give them some easy advice. I'm going to let them fail, you know? And I'm almost kind of embracing and encouraging his failure, just so he can kind of phase himself out of that organization, we'll say, right? How much value is there to that? Or am I just being toxic now?

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, I think it would depend on the situation where,

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  you know, how much have you tried to help them? How much have you tried to steer them in the right direction? And I have said before to people, like, they're going to dig their own grave. Like at a certain point, you're like, hey, they're going to dig their own grave and, and you actually don't want to get your hands in the dirt, right? So that does apply sometimes, you know, you always make a concerted effort to try and help someone, of course. You want to help people out. You want them to, you got, you got them hired. I mean, not just, just beyond like the human component of like, hey dude, if I see you going in the wrong direction, I'm going to try and help you. And I'll first start with an indirect question like, hey dude, you know, everyone notices when you're late, like you, is everything okay? You know, the whole thing, we've been through a thousand times. But not only that, but as a business, you know, you hired the person, you put in the effort,

• 6:46Jocko Willink?

  you've given them, you've issued them their laptop or their gear or whatever like they, like we want people to be successful. But if they start to be where I thought you were going to go with this question was like, hey, if they're negative attitude, but they're a good performer, what do you do? Well, you get out your scale and you weigh, you know, what is the, what is, is this a net positive or net negative? And if it's net positive, okay, we try and help the person. But if it's a net negative, well, we don't really want that, especially once we've tried to make it a net positive. We've tried to make those adjustments. We tried the counseling, we tried to talk to them and just still ends up being a net negative. At a certain point you go, okay. And then it's like, well, we're going to let them dig their own grave. And you know, how long does it take someone to dig their own grave?

• 7:29Jocko Willink?

  Usually when they're that toxic that they can't be corrected, it doesn't take them that long. So yes, sometimes that is an appropriate course of action. And the other thing that's kind of, I guess what I use the dig in their own grave is sometimes I've told you, I've been indirect with you, I've escalated directness and I've literally now told you like, hey, if you keep acting this way, you're not going to be here anymore. And you still don't listen to me. So it's not until you start to dig, you, you start looking around going, oh, wait a second, I can see where this is going. And you self-correct because you were able to realize that what I was saying wasn't just my opinion, it was for real. So for me, the last sort of step in, in counseling, in the escalation of counseling, the last

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  step is like, okay, good luck. And you watch them dig their own grave. And on the way out, you know, as they're digging, you're like, hey, do you notice it's getting dark around you right now? Do you notice that there's like depth underneath your feet? Do you notice that there's a big pile of dirt next to you that's going to cover you? Do you, do you realize that? Do you realize that like you haven't gotten any calls? You haven't got this person, you have, this thing has happened, you haven't gotten the whatever, like all those things are adding up. You're not getting invited to the meeting. You haven't been asked to take lead on this project, all those things. You know what that is? That's you digging your own grave. So sometimes the reality doesn't set in until they've start to dug their, dig their own grave a little bit. And that's sort of my final, uh, I would say my final step in escalation of counseling

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  is like, okay, dude, I'm telling you like this isn't going to work out well. I had a, I was working with a CEO that I told, hey, if you keep acting like this, you are going to get fired. And he said, they can't fire me. I created this company. I was like,

• 9:15Jocko Willink?

  okay. I was like, listen, dude, I'm telling you, like, the board does not, it's not your company anymore. It was your company. You did create it. Good job. It's not your company anymore. And if you proceed like this, you will get fired. And by the way, the board told me, you will get fired. I told him that. I'm like, the board told me you will get fired. This isn't me making stuff up. He got fired.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  So, yes, can you go too far with a cover move? You can go too far with any of these concepts, but that is how I would handle it. A little escalation of counseling. And eventually, do you have to let someone dig their own grave? Yep. I mean, you can also just fire them. You can also be like, hey, look, we've done everything for you. This was your last warning. You didn't heed it. You're out of here. You know, because the escalation of counseling goes into written paperwork. It goes into, you know, a personnel improvement program. It's like the whole nine yards. Yeah. And by the end of it, it's like, yeah, you're not going to be here anymore.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's,

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I'm thinking of being actually in the situation because like there's such thing as people who have like a bad attitude and do all these things, yet they do technically do their job.

• 10:20Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And basically someone who rubs everyone the wrong way, in every possible way aside from on paper, you see what I'm saying? Like, you know, the guy at the meeting who's,

• 10:30Jocko Willink?

  And there's also, there's also people that you go, okay, cool. The person's a really good performer. I'm going to isolate him as much as I can. I'm going to let them kind of do their, do what they have to do to get the work done, mitigate as much as I can with the rest of the group because they're, you know, they have a bad, they have a negative attitude and I can still let them do that. So, so yes, I will try isolation as a component. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen,

• 11:01Jocko Willink?

  Go to jockounderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors and we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen

• 11:46Jocko Willink?

  this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.