The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #9: How To Prioritize and Execute While OVERWHELMED.

Jocko and Dave talk about leadership challenges presented to them at Echelon Front. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

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 Debrief Podcast, episode nine with Dave Berke and me, Jocko Willink. And we have a leadership consultancy, which is called Echelon Front. And what we do is we work with a bunch of leaders. We also have an online training platform where we discuss leadership all the time. And oftentimes, Dave and I will debrief the scenarios that we see, that we go through, that we solve. We'll have, whether it's a late night phone call, an early morning phone call, a midday phone call, to debrief some situation. And a while back, I thought it would be kind of cool to record some of these debriefs, and hence, the debrief podcast,

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  giving the opportunity for everyone to learn these lessons. So, Dave usually picks a couple of subjects, but this time, it's my turn. So I had a couple of subjects come up, and I wanted to talk through some of them. You know, I'm not even going to set up the scenarios, as they were. Dave usually sets up the scenario. I'm not even going to do that. I'm going to get right to the meat of what I wanted to talk about. So, the first one is what I call the prioritize and execute hamster wheel. We all know the idea of a hamster wheel. You're

• 1:23Jocko Willink?

  running in place, and you're not going anywhere. Here's the thing. People that we work with understand our principles. They know our principles. They know the four laws of combat. Cover, move, simple, prioritize, and execute, decentralized command. They know these things. And they execute these things. So, that's a very positive thing. But there are times where they might get a little bit caught up in the principle without taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture. So, in this particular scenario, there was an individual who was overwhelmed with what they were doing at work. And

• 2:05Jocko Willink?

  They were working and said time and time again, you know, I'm prioritizing execute, I'm prioritizing executing, but I feel, I still feel like I'm getting overwhelmed and I don't know how long I can keep this up and my effectiveness as a leader is going down. So I don't know what else to do. I've got all these things coming at me and I prioritize and execute every single day. And that was kind of the thing that, that made me think. I heard that comment. I prioritize and execute every single day. And actually this was on EF online. And you know, I was, I was listening and so Leif started to answer the question and Leif, Leif was saying, hey, listen, yep, you've got all these different things going on. You need to prioritize and execute. And Leif went through the scenario, the similar scenario that I talk about leadership strategy and tactics, which is when I originally talk

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  about detaching, which is you're on the firing line, everyone's looking forward and no one's making a decision. High port your weapon, take a step back, look around and all of a sudden you can see what to do. That's sort of the, that's sort of what you need to do in order to prioritize and execute. Cause if you're shooting your gun, you can't see any priorities. You're just seeing the target in front of your face.

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  Well, here's what's interesting about this thing. That right there is good, right? We talk about prioritize and execute, but that is a tactical level prioritize and execute. You're prioritizing and executing what's right in front of you. That's fine. But if you don't start looking at the bigger picture, if you don't take, you can't just take a step back off the firing line. Sometimes you have to step back off the firing line so that you can see what to do in that particular room. But then you have to take a step outside of that room to see what's happening in the rest of the building that you're trying to clear. And then you have to take a step outside that building so you can see what other buildings

• 3:55Jocko Willink?

  you actually need to clear. And then you need to step outside the city so you can look at what other cities need to be cleared. And then you need to take a step outside the region and see what other regions need to be cleared. And then you need to drill back down there. And what you need to do is you need to ask yourself if, is this priority that I'm putting at the top of the list for this moment that I'm in right now, does this actually support the largest priority that I've got out there? The big priority as I overlook the entire battlefield and I'm trying to move to the north.

• 4:31Jocko Willink?

  I'm trying to clear towards the north. I've got objectives to the north. And I'm in this room right now, and I've got to prioritize and execute what's going on in front of this room, in this room right now. But am I truly making progress towards the north? And does this priority that I've got right in front of me, does it support my goal of moving north to my objective? Because if I end up running around in this building, or yeah, in this room, in this building, in this block of a city, and I never actually progress forward, well, then that prioritize and execute all day long doesn't freaking help me at all because I'm not making any forward progress towards my strategic goal.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, Dave and I, you had a conversation about OODA loops inside of OODA loops. And it's the same, that's the same basic principle that I'm talking about now. You know, you're running an OODA loop of, hey, orient, observe, orient, decide, and act to beat this other fighter pilot, right? To beat this other jet. Observe, orient, decide, and act. Okay, I see where the enemy is. I'm gonna, I'm gonna adjust.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna decide what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do it, and then I'm gonna reorient myself, and observe again, I'm gonna reorient myself. And so I'm doing that rapidly. But guess what that gets me? That gets me a victory over that one aircraft, which is good. But if then I immediately look at the next enemy aircraft, that's the next thing. Okay, now guess what? Now I dogfight the next enemy aircraft. And I get, and I use OODA loop again, and it works good, and now I, now I see another enemy aircraft, and I do that. So you can see where I'm going with this. Meanwhile, if I took a step back and looked at my radar screen, or I talked to the E2, is that right? I talked to the E2 Hawkeye, what's it called? Yeah, that's it.

• 6:23Jocko Willink?

  The E2 Hawkeye above me and say, hey, you know, I've just downed two enemy aircraft. What is the status of the battle space? And the E2 says, hey, there's nine enemy aircraft coming your way.

• 6:43Jocko Willink?

  And you have just you and your wingman. Of course, you're probably going to say that's no factor. So we'll make it 30 enemy aircraft are coming your way. And now you say, okay, well, I can sit here inside this oodle loop and continue to fight these singular battles. But A, I'm going to run out of fuel and B, we're not making any real progress towards my goal. So we have to be cognizant that being, doing prioritize and execute, which is absolutely mandatory. Cause we have to, we have to, we have to figure out what's most important. We have to solve that problem. We can't solve all of our problems at the same time. And sometimes like in jujitsu, sometimes look, if you, if you don't protect your neck, you're dead.

• 7:25Jocko Willink?

  So sometimes you've got to win that tactical, you know, if I walk into a room and, and there's an enemy shooter. We, we have to solve that problem right now. That's gotta be a number one priority.

• 7:37Jocko Willink?

  Doesn't matter what's going to happen with the rest of the building. If we get, all get killed in this particular room we're in right now. Now, could we back out of that room? Sure. Could that be how I prioritize next? Sure, I'm going to leave. But to get caught up in the daily tactical prioritize and execute is not correct. And unfortunately, I lead people down this path all the time because it's such an easy example to give a tactical example of, hey, listen, when you walk into a room with a weapon, you've got an open door, that's a priority. You've got a civilian unarmed with their hands up.

• 8:20Jocko Willink?

  And you've got a hostile with a knife and you've got a hostile with a gun.

• 8:27Jocko Willink?

  Guess what? You need, you can't handle all those problems right now. You need to pick the biggest problem. What's the biggest problem? Hostile with a gun. Handle that one first. Next biggest problem? Hostile with a knife. Next biggest problem, open door. We don't know what the threat is, but we can see that the civilian's not really a threat. They got their hands up. So now I'm worried about this door. So I get cover on that door. Now I can assign somebody to handle that civilian. So it's really easy to explain that.

• 8:57Jocko Willink?

  But if we as leaders get caught up in a situation where all we do is go from room to room and prioritize and execute what's in these tactical rooms, we end up not moving forward. And that's why we end up feeling overwhelmed even though we are following the third law of combat, which is to prioritize and execute. So, part of that law is detach. So make sure that you are detaching far enough back and you're getting enough altitude that you can actually see if you are making progress toward your broad strategic goals.

• 9:42Dave Berke?

  When you made the connection to a dogfight, or that one against one scenario when you've got 30 other airplanes out there, that dogfight after dogfight, the way you described that connection to me makes sense with that's the hamster wheel. Because what we're all supposed to be trying to do is move forward in a direction, we're trying to move somewhere towards our strategic objective. And it sometimes seems impossible to be able to break the cycle of as you described, room to room in this tactical prioritize and execute. And I think the piece that I was, the piece that hit me when you, when you talked about this in real time was, if you take a step back, what do you see? And I was thinking, oh, you see everything. Well, actually, no. If you just take one step back, you just see a little

• 10:26Dave Berke?

  bit more than you've seen, or a little more than where you were. You use the firing line example, when you take a step back, what do you see? The firing line. Okay, then you have to take another step back, what do you see there? And, and that scale of how far back do you need to step away, that actually you might need to continue to take step back after step back. And as a leader, that's the freedom that you want when you're talking about other people on the team doing things. You want to have that freedom. And if you get caught up in the tactical piece of it, It's actually possible to think strategically while you're operating tactically. This isn't that we, hey, we're gonna stop dealing with the shooter or the hostile with a gun. We actually have to do that.

• 11:06Dave Berke?

  But you can actually think strategically and view things strategically by mentally stepping back while that's happening. And I think what the dogfight example, all those examples, the reason it gets exhausting and you don't see any way out of it is you're doing tactical for tactical sake, tactical for tactical sake, and that cycle never ends. And that's the hamster wheel is, how do I think strategically? Well, you can, you still need to handle those tactical problems, but you can think strategically simultaneously with those tactical problems. And that's what a leader is supposed to be able to do.

• 11:40Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's interesting, when you go far enough back from a dogfight, guess what you can see? You can see that what we need to do is create an aircraft that the enemy can't even come. You see what I'm saying? Like you can go back to the point where you're going, wait a second, why are we having dogfights? Why do we, why don't we have a system where as soon as we, you know, we monitor their airspace and as soon as they launch, we've got tracking drones that are just gonna go and take them out? That's stepping back. And I'll tell you where this, because we're bringing up so many combat examples, where you see this in the business world is, and even in the business world, everybody uses this term firefight, right? I've got a fire to put out, I've got a fire to put out today.

• 12:20Jocko Willink?

  And so you have a fire to put out, you have a client, you have a number of clients that complain about your product. And hey, Dave, we got, we got, we got so and so, they're complaining about our products. Okay, go, go, go straighten them out and get it set up for them correctly. Okay, got it. And then the next day, hey, Dave, we got two more clients, can you go get with them? Yep, yep, got them, we have, I'll spend all day, we're going out there. Hey, Dave, we got three more, we got three more complaints about the product. Okay, we're gonna go out there and fix it. I'll, I'll take one, you take two, got it. And, and that's what we do. And that's what we do. Hey, wait, this one is our big client. So let's both go there. That's the priority. So we prioritize and execute and then we'll get to the other ones later this afternoon. Okay, good job. We prioritize execute, high five.

• 13:01Jocko Willink?

  And this goes on and on, whereas what one of us needs to do is take a step back and say, wait a second. We have a systemic problem with our product. How do we get to our manufacturing and say, hey, guys, this is a problem with our product. Let's take a timeout. Let's get this product fixed so we can send it into the field. And we don't have to have these fires to put out anymore. There's your example. That's what we want. We want to take a step back far enough, not just to see that, hey, this is our biggest client. That's how we should go help first. That's, that's, that's good for the day. But make sure that at the end of the day, you take another step back and you say, wait a second.

• 13:44Jocko Willink?

  We need to give feedback to our manufacturing line so they can correct these problems. So we don't have to put out these fires every single day.

• 13:56Jocko Willink?

  That was my first thing for the day. Here's number two. So, so number two.

• 14:02Jocko Willink?

  This kind of got triggered from me during a, I think it was an EF online call. Yes, it was. So EF online call, the, the conversation was about someone, you know, that hadn't been performing. Actually, I don't even remember the route. It was something, you know, something, somebody hadn't been performing or someone had made a mistake or multiple mistakes. And so the, the, the conversation moved to, okay, well, what needs to happen is you need to have a blunt conversation with this person. Right. Which is a place that people like to get to. Because people think that, you know, when I finally, things get bad enough that I just sit Dave down and say, you know what, Dave? The way you put these things together doesn't work.

• 14:46Jocko Willink?

  And that's a problem. And if you can't figure out how to put these things together better, I'm going to have to fire you. So, so, so people like that, right? Because look, what's, what could possibly be more efficient than that, right? What could possibly be more efficient than a blunt conversation? Well, the fact of the matter is blunt conversations like that, what they actually do is put Dave on the defense. And Dave says, well, you know, actually, the reason I can't put these products together correctly is because the timeline that you've got me on actually doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And by the way, the two people you've got supporting me, they haven't been trained. And so you see where I'm going with this. All I did was create a negative relationship. And by the way, there's a 20 conversations that I should have had before this that weren't blunt conversations. So blunt conversations.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  Look, do you get to a point in situations where you do have to have a blunt conversation with them? Yes, you do. It does arrive. It arrives very seldomly. Prior to that, I would like you to try replacing your blunt conversation with blunt questions.

• 15:50Jocko Willink?

  But then I actually don't even want you to do that. Because a blunt question is, Dave, why can't you get your project done on time? That's a blunt question. It's also accusatory. It's also bad vibes and a negative question. So I want you not to use a blunt conversation and I don't want you to use a blunt question. I actually want you to use a nice, tactical, honest, revealing question.

• 16:15Jocko Willink?

  And I say revealing because what my goal is, is to reveal to me and to the person who I'm asking the questions of, what the answer is. Because it's always much better for Dave to figure out what's going on or what the problem is than have me tell him what his problem is.

• 16:34Jocko Willink?

  So I'm going to ask Dave questions. And you know, I've, I've been saying lately that

• 16:45Jocko Willink?

  listening is the most underrated tool of leadership. And I will tell you that I now believe that the second most underrated tool of leadership is asking people questions. Instead of saying, Dave, you didn't get this project done. It's, Dave, hey,

• 17:07Jocko Willink?

  can you explain to me what happened on this project and why we're going to miss the deadline?

• 17:13Jocko Willink?

  That's a question. That's not, that's not an accusation. And there's a big difference on how you phrase those questions. You, you have to actually ask real questions. Questions are any, here's another one. Hey Dave, can you, can you talk to me about what you're, what angle you're taking with Fred? And, and, and Fred, you know, his shortfalls with the last project? Can you explain to me the angle? Cause I, did I hear yelling? Did I hear you yelling in, in the office this morning? So these are just questions. And you go, yeah, well, I was mad. You know, Dave says, yeah, well, I was mad. Okay. So we're actually going to be able to mentor.

• 17:53Jocko Willink?

  We're going to be able to lead. We're going to be able to build relationship with questions. Instead of blunt conversations. Here's the thing about questions. Here's a beautiful thing that's, that's wrapped up inside of a question. What's beautifully wrapped up inside of a question, as long as you pose it correctly, as long as you pose it honestly, wrapped up in a question is humility.

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  Wrapped up inside of a question is humility. Which is an amazing thing because we're talking about you need to be humble all the time. So when I say to Dave, Dave, hey Dave, can you explain to me what happened on this project? What, what, what, what it was that caused this timeline to get missed? That's a legitimate question and wrapped up in that is the fact that I don't actually know. You don't know. That's actually wrapped up in there that I don't know. I'm, I'm humbly asking you a question. So the idea of utilizing questions. And you know, Leif, Leif tells a story in one of the books about he's, he's spending time in the back of the train in the kill house.

• 19:00Jocko Willink?

  And I say, hey Leif, what, what are you doing back there? And I don't say, Leif, what the hell are you doing back? I say, hey Leif, what are you, what are you doing back there? And in my mind, I'm thinking, hey, look, I don't know what he's seeing down there. The, the, the leader on the front line is always correct. I say, hey Leif, what are you doing back there? And he says, well, I've always been told to be in the back and I say, okay. Well, okay, can you tell what's going on up in the front of your assault team? Do you know what's going on up there? And he says, no, I don't know what's going on up there. I'm way back there. Four or five rooms ahead of me down the hallway. I don't know what they're doing. Okay, well, if you had to make a decision right now about what they should do, do you think you could do it if you're not really even sure where they are? No, there's no way I could do that. Do you think maybe you should or could move up a little closer to the front?

• 19:45Jocko Willink?

  So you can actually see what's going on? I'd love to do that, but I just, you know, they, they always told me to be in the back. Okay. So that's what I'm saying. Those are just questions. Those are legitimate questions and I use those kinds of questions all the time in so many different situations. If you can take and put a, what is it in, in Spanish, you know, that they put the question mark in front and in the back of the sentence, which I think is a beautiful thing, especially when you're reading. Cause sometimes you're reading something and you don't know until you get to the end of the sentence that it was supposed to be a question. So you, your tone has to change right at the end of the sentence, which is a pain when you're recording a podcast and you see a question mark on something that you didn't know had a question mark on the end of it. So what you should do is you should put that little Spanish question mark in the front of your thoughts. And instead of saying, Dave, you missed the project.

• 20:29Jocko Willink?

  You didn't square your people away. You say, hey, Dave, it looks like we're going to miss this project again. Hey, is there something that's going on that is causing us to miss this timeline for the second time? It's a legitimate question.

• 20:45Dave Berke?

  Yeah, there's a fine line there too. Cause when you're asking that question to Leif, you have to be asking it with that. He might give you an answer go, here's the reason why I'm back here. And it might be right in that case.

• 20:57Jocko Willink?

  Could be right.

• 20:57Dave Berke?

  There is a time that he's supposed to be there as opposed to, well, I'm going to use this technique to ask questions, but I already know the answer. Just my way of getting through to this guy. If you ask it, you say it's wrapped up in humility or what's wrapped in this question is humility. If you can do that, then the question you're asking Leif. He might come back and go, I'm doing it for these reasons. Go, oh, hey, good to go. That's actually a really interesting point. I never even thought of that. There are times I might now add to my repertoire that I'm going to be back in this formation. Or it could be that he doesn't know, like you just said, but the only way to get to that answer that he wants to listen to is to actually have the humility to ask it. Not thinking you already know the answer.

• 21:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What if Leif looked up at me and said, hey, you know, oh, I, I, I led the last couple from the middle. I got my J O up there. I got, I got the lieutenant J G up there in the middle of the train. I'm letting him make the calls. Okay, cool. Right on, man. Sounds good.

• 21:45Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  Get him trained up. I like it. That could have been, and, and that means if I would have said, Leif, what the hell are you doing in the back of the train? He would have said, I'm letting my J G freaking get some runs in, idiot.

• 21:55Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Jocko Willink?

  Right? So, so, so this idea of utilizing questions and then, so use the second most underrated leadership tool first, which is ask questions and then use the second, or and then use the first most underrated tool of leadership, which is actually to listen to what the answers are.

• 22:21Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 22:24Jocko Willink?

  The next thing I wanted to talk about

• 22:27Jocko Willink?

  was alignment.

• 22:30Jocko Willink?

  Why does it always take longer for me to get through my stuff? Alignment. So

• 22:36Jocko Willink?

  here's the deal with alignment. And it's strange because I've had to bring this up recently in a couple of different occasions. And the first thing I did was ask myself this, you know, and the reason I have to bring it up is because alignment is freaking important from a leadership perspective. What alignment means is we are both going in the same direction. We are going toward the same broad, strategic, long-term goal. That's what alignment is.

• 23:11Jocko Willink?

  Now, why don't I, if it's so important, which clearly that's important, why do I end up not talking about it very often? I can tell you the answer. Because in most cases, in most cases, people are aligned, right? So,

• 23:32Jocko Willink?

  if we have alignment, we, we are both heading in the same direction, we're all heading in the same direction. But if we have problems, if we start experiencing problems getting to a resolution, if, if we can't agree on a plan, or we can't agree on an idea, and I've got my ego in check, and, and you've got an open mind, and we're still not getting there, we still are not getting there, this could be a problem of alignment.

• 24:04Jocko Willink?

  Which is, which is a serious problem. So, if I'm in charge of Dave,

• 24:10Jocko Willink?

  and we're aligned about wanting to kill bad guys, and wanting to protect our guys, and wanting to accomplish the mission, then, then our vision and our ideas and our plan should be close enough, that when you bring a plan to me, guess what? We can use it! We can use it because we are trying to accomplish the same thing. If we're trying to accomplish the same thing, look, your plan might be a little bit different than my plan, but it's gotta be pretty freaking close.

• 24:39Jocko Willink?

  Now, could you come up with a wildly just freaking ridiculous plan? Yes, you could.

• 24:45Jocko Willink?

  And then if people come up with wildly ridiculous plans, then it's really obvious, you know, and all I have to do is ask you a couple of questions about your plan, and it becomes pretty obvious that it's not good. But if you come up with a plan that's not wildly ridiculous, but that's somewhere in the ballpark, and we can talk about it, then we can reach a compromise that will make some kind of sense. So, so, that's what should happen. But if there is not alignment, if we're not aligned, this can become a problem. And this is what I was saying on, on EF Online the other day. If Dave, if, if we're on a deployment, and Dave thinks that zero risk is acceptable.

• 25:27Jocko Willink?

  If you think we can take zero risk, or if Dave thinks that we don't have to follow the rules of engagement, hey, the rules of engagement are for somebody else. If that's what you think, if Dave doesn't believe in cover and move, if you think, hey, you know what, I'll just send my element out there by themselves, they don't need anybody to cover for them, we have a problem. We are not aligned. Those are fundamental misalignments. And, and we will not be able to come up with a plan that we both agree on. Because we're not aligned. So when we talk to companies, and this stemmed from the fact that on EF Online, a guy was

• 26:09Jocko Willink?

  asking a question, and I could see that what he was saying, and what he was saying he was hearing from his leadership, it was blatantly obvious that they were not aligned. They were not aligned. And so, how are we going to come up with a plan? How are we going to come up with a plan that we both agree with when we're, when we don't even, we're going to two different places? It doesn't work. So if I run into this situation where all of a sudden, you know, Dave has these issues with what I'm saying, or I'm sensing that we're not aligned, you know, maybe I say, hey, Dave, wait a second, let me just make sure I understand this. You're saying that we can accept no risk whatsoever to, that's what you're saying is

• 26:54Jocko Willink?

  we're going to run combat operations, but we can accept zero risk. Right? And Dave, you know, because what I'm trying to do is bring Dave into alignment. Right? I'm trying to get you to say, yeah, look, I'm nervous about, you know, getting my guys hurt, but you're right, you know, like, there's going to be some risk and we can mitigate as much. Cool. Now we can come up with a plan, because we pulled you in alignment. If you think you don't need to follow the rules of engagement, I say, Dave, wait a second here, are you trying to say that we don't need to follow the rules of engagement? And that we can just go out on the battlefield and behave however we want, and we don't care if our guys end up going to jail for breaking the rules? Is that, is that where you're at?

• 27:36Jocko Willink?

  So I'm asking, once again, I'm using a question to ask you this question, and for you to go, no, man, I don't want my guys to go to jail, I get it, I get it. Look, some of the rules of engagement seem too strict, but I definitely don't want any, okay, cool. So let's, let's work those into the plan, and let's make sure we're following them, and we get alignment. We can move towards that. If you don't think cover and move is important.

• 27:56Jocko Willink?

  Do I attack you? No, I might ask you a question. I may say, wait, hold on a second, Dave. You're saying that you want to put a maneuver element out on the battlefield? With no one to protect them? You just want them out there naked by themselves? Is that, is, because that's this plan that you're setting up? They're, they're by themselves. They, no one can support them. Everyone's too far away. And you go, no, no, I don't know. The guys need support. Okay, so. If we see that there's misalignment, then, then my job is to, is to. Get that alignment together, right? Is to bring it there.

• 28:35Jocko Willink?

  If.

• 28:39Jocko Willink?

  In most cases, like I said earlier, the reason why this doesn't come up very often. Is that in most cases we're aligned. Like even those examples I just gave, like, oh, look, there's gonna be risk. Yeah, I know, there's gonna be risk. There's, so it's not like we're talking, most of the time. We can get there. And it's the same thing in business. It's the same thing in business, because in business. Hey, uh. Dave. Listen. You want to be profitable, right? You know, we want to be profitable. We want to take care of our clients. We want to do things in an efficient manner. We, we want to take care of the people that are, that are, that are our employees, right? Right? Those are all like really simple, easy things to align.

• 29:26Jocko Willink?

  And, and if we have those alignments. Then. We should then be able to work through. Some of these. Differences of opinions, because what we're doing is we're both going in the same direction. So. If you and I can have a conversation about what it is we're trying to make happen, then we should be able to get to a point where we can resolve our disagreement, because we're both trying to get to the same place. But if you are having conflict, and the reason I have to bring this up is because if you're having conflict after conflict after conflict that are difficult to solve, and the way that I end up solving them is by saying. By ordering, Dave, shut up and do what I told you to do.

• 30:11Jocko Willink?

  If that's how I resolve it, then we have an alignment problem. Well, if I've put my ego in check, if I've seen your perspective, right? If I've detached, if I've done those things and I still, we can't get to a resolution? If I've flanked and looked at it from a different, and we still can't get to a resolution? Now I need to start pulling on the string to figure out if you and I are aligned in where we are trying to go.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  Could it be that you as a subordinate have a, have a goal? Your long-term goal isn't quite as elevated as mine. You know, where you're looking at, hey, Jock, why'd you want to make my bonus? I want my team to get their bonuses this quarter. You know, and you're like, hey, I'm cutting some corners right now, but I want all my guys. Now it's my job to say, hey, Dave, you know what? Makes sense, man. Makes sense. I'll tell you what.

• 31:07Jocko Willink?

  If we make those short-term sacrifices right now, we're going to end up paying next quarter. So I'll tell you what, let's take a look at the compensation. Let's see what we can do, because if you're just gonna, you know, turn out bad product so we can make up, so that your team can get their bonuses this quarter? I've done a bad job of compensating you guys and incentivizing you guys correctly. Let's do this. Let's take a look at that compensation plan so that right, right now? Look, getting a lot of product out this quarter is definitely important, but there's something that's more important than that. And that is not getting a bunch of returns. Because if we get, we sell a bunch of crappy product this quarter, and you guys all get your bonuses and we're all, and you're all high-fiving, and then next quarter, we start getting a bunch of returns on our product?

• 31:50Jocko Willink?

  Look, I know I can't take those bonuses back from you, but trust me, the reviews will come out and we will be in for a strategic loss. And all of a sudden, Dave's nodding his head and going, yeah, you know what? Got it. So I need to do something to pull our alignment together. Could it be that you look at me and go, I don't, hey, it's not my company. I don't care how much money they make. Okay, now we have a problem with alignment. And now we could get to a situation where we're not compatible.

• 32:19Jocko Willink?

  Right, all the powers of persuasion that I can muster can't overcome your personal agenda. And if we have that, if it comes to that, if we cannot get aligned, then we have a serious problem. Hey, if it so happens that your goal, your short-term goal is aligned with mine just by luck, that's great. We would never even notice. We would never even know that. But if it's not, and it's off, and I can't convince you, persuade you, explain to you, then we might have irreconcilable differences where now what I have to do is figure out how to get you out of the situation.

• 33:01Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and you have to know, you have to know if that misalignment occurs, because that's what allows you to figure out where the difference is between, simply put, your way and my way. If I'm going to sit down and I'm from like a position of genuine humility, go, "Hey, listen, I'm not following your intent over here. Help me out." And I don't have, I don't know if we're aligned. I don't know if what you're doing is actually supporting the overall objective, because that might be different for you than it is for me. So I might be solving a completely different problem. But if I know that we're aligned, then you and I can have a conversation about what you're doing, if it supports the larger strategy, supports that alignment, then it's much easier for me to go, "Oh, you know what? That makes sense, because you're going to the same place that I'm going. We can do that."

• 33:45Dave Berke?

  So that understanding of the alignment is critical, because you could have a difference of how to do something with alignment, and that's, that's a conversation we can have. No factor, "Hey, tell me what you're doing here. Help me understand that better." That's a really interesting point. Let's do that. Have you thought about this and this adjustment? And we get to the same end. But if we're misaligned, that conversation never gets resolved, because you're going somewhere else. And if I don't know that ahead of time, this conversation isn't going to get us, isn't going to get us anywhere.

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  Yes, but here's my point, is that one of the ways that you discover that you're not aligned, look, you go into many conversations, and you, you might not know beforehand that, that Dave's not, I might be looking at you going, "Hey, man, I see that you're, you're selling a bunch of product right now, but I also see that the, that you're getting the product created in a very short period of time, and that's making me wonder what's happening." I go into that conversation. I don't know that we're not aligned. It's not until I start pulling the thread and we can't come to agreement. So what happens is people go, I got my ego in check, right? I'm seeing what their perspective is.

• 34:53Jocko Willink?

  I'm detached and, and I still can't reconcile Dave's plan with my plan. And that's the point of me bringing this, this whole idea up is because the answer could possibly be that we are not aligned. And if we can't work to get alignment, if we can't bring alignment together, we are going to have a situation that cannot be solved. Look, now if I can compromise, I say, you know what, Dave? That's a good point. You know, we can make a bunch of money this quarter and what we'll do is we'll, we'll set some of that money aside and we'll, we'll be ready for the, for, to give refunds out. Well, look, maybe I can do that, you know, but that's, that's hopeful, but there are going to be times

• 35:38Jocko Willink?

  where you are not aligned with the person that you're working with. And if that happens, you have a real problem and you may have to

• 35:50Jocko Willink?

  bifurcate the, the relationship and move in different directions.

• 35:54Dave Berke?

  Now that, that actually is even clearer in my head is that it's the alignment might be, might be what you discover is wrong when we're going through this. That, that might be the, like, oh, it, it, the way you said is I have to have done all those other things.

• 36:09Jocko Willink?

  Yes. Yes. And that's why we don't know. That's why I don't talk about it very often. The reason I don't talk about it very often is because 97% of the time.

• 36:16Dave Berke?

  I've got a big ego and.

• 36:17Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, oh yeah, my ego is in the way and Dave actually has a perfectly good plan, but I just wanted to do it my way. Cool. That's done. Or, or you know what, Dave? Now that you showed me your perspective. Okay. Now I get it. Or now that you see my perspective. Okay. Now I get it. Or now I detached and take a step back and I go, oh, well now I see what's going on. Okay. Cool. Got it. So any of those problems solves 98% of these things. You throw on a flank in there and now we can really solve a lot of problems. But occasionally, very rarely, you, you, you, you put all those things through the mechanism to check that they're okay. And when you look, they're still, we can't come to a conclusion about this. And when that happens, we are not aligned. And if we're not aligned, this should, again, this should happen so rarely.

• 36:59Jocko Willink?

  But if we're not aligned, we have a real significant problem that may not be able to be overcome.

• 37:09Jocko Willink?

  So pay attention to it. And also that means make sure that you explain to people what it is we're trying to do. Make sure you often explain what our strategic goal is. Make sure people understand what the vision is. Cause if they don't understand it, huh, you can't hold them. You can't hold them accountable or you can't expect for them to come up with plans that support your strategic goal when you're not even explaining what the strategic goal is. Which is also a good thing that happens, right? I start talking to you, Dave, and you're not agreeing with me. And I start pulling the thread on this thing. And, and finally I figured, oh, you're heading over here. You're heading, you're heading, you know, you're heading due west. And I didn't never even told you, oh, by the way, we don't want to head west. We want to head northwest.

• 37:53Jocko Willink?

  And you go, oh, okay. What's northwest? Oh, there's a, there's this goal. Oh, I thought you just were looking at this goal over here. That's only a mile away to the direct west. I thought that's where we were going. Thank you for telling me. So sometimes these conversations can lead us to bring alignment, which is great. Which is super. And if it turns out that you don't have alignment, that's a problem. Yeah. All right, I think I got one more of these things to cover. This is flanking. And on, on one of the last podcasts, which you already mentioned, I think on the last podcast, which is this idea of how ego and detachment and perspective are sort of,

• 38:37Jocko Willink?

  they're, they're tools that we have to employ in order to make things work. Right? If we talk about cover and move, but our ego is out of control, it's not working. If we, we talk about prioritize and execute, but we're not detached, it's not working. If we talk about decentralized command, but we don't know the other person's perspectives, it's not working. So there's these, there's these things that we have to do. We kind of have to put into check. We have to run that mechanism in our head to make sure that we're seeing things. Now, as I thought about those three, I thought about one more thing on that list. And that thing is flanking, which is a term that I use it all the time. I use it in jujitsu.

• 39:20Jocko Willink?

  I use it, I talk about, you know, in, in the business world, I talk about on the battlefield, we have to flank, right? He who flanks wins.

• 39:27Jocko Willink?

  He who attacks from an unprotected angle is going to win. Who he who doesn't attack straight head on and attack the main defenses of the enemy is going to win if you come to the side, if you flank. So that's what it is. But

• 39:53Jocko Willink?

  flanking is not just attacking from a new direction.

• 40:02Jocko Willink?

  It's also seeing from a new direction and beyond that, because seeing from a new direction is just, it could be explained as just perspective, right? So if I see something from your, your direction, that could be described as perspective. But here's the difference. When I talk about perspective, when I talk about seeing it from your perspective, I'm implying that I'm seeing it from someone else's angle, from your angle in this case. If I say, I'm going to see Dave's perspective. Okay, now I'm, I'm, I'm seeing it from your, from your position.

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  But there's a limiting factor there.

• 40:44Jocko Willink?

  And the limiting factor is that it's someone else's position. When I talk about flanking, it's about seeing things

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  from a completely new direction, from a completely new position that no one even occupies. No one's there.

• 41:08Jocko Willink?

  And it's not just seeing, because seeing is the, is the metaphor, but it's actually thinking about things from a completely new angle, a completely new direction. And, and I do this all the time.

• 41:24Jocko Willink?

  I do this all the time. When I think about problems, I'm not only thinking about it from the perspectives of the people that are in the problem, I'm thinking about it from other perspectives that, that can't be pointed to. You can't point to that position because it doesn't exist. And that's my goal. That's what flanking is, to be from somewhere that no one expected.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 41:51Jocko Willink?

  When I answer questions, when I solve problems, I do this. So, so I was trying to think of like basic ways to break this down. Oh, there's a leak in that pipe. You and I are in the, in the kitchen and all of a sudden we see a drip on the floor, open up the, open up the um cabinets underneath the sink. We see the little water pipe coming up and it's, and it's leaking. What do we do? Well, okay, hey, you got plumber's tape? Can we, hey, you got some waterproof tape? You got some epoxy we can put on there? We put a, we put a bucket underneath. That's what we, hey, I'll just hold it for a while, right?

• 42:28Jocko Willink?

  Which, those are all solutions.

• 42:33Jocko Willink?

  What's the flank? The flank is, hey, yeah, I'll go outside and shut off the, the, the main water. Right? I'm just gonna shut down that problem. Neither one of us are outside. But how can we look at it? From that other angle? How can we, how can we detach? How can we step back? How can we see something from an angle that no one else is seeing it from? Here's a common question that we get. And this is, this is, again, I'm trying to just think of the, of the easiest examples. And part of the reason I'm thinking of the easiest examples is because

• 43:05Jocko Willink?

  you can't manufacture inspirado to quote tenacious D. You can't, you can't just say, oh, I'm gonna think of a cool flank. It's like I have to be put in that situation where you say, oh, this is what's going on? How, but here's a common question.

• 43:19Jocko Willink?

  How do, how do I get, how do I get the troops to buy into the plan? Right? People say, oh, you know, how do I get my troops to buy, buy in? And sort of the rote answers are, well, you know, you need to explain the why, make sure that they understand why. Hey, you need to make sure they understand the long-term strategy. Hey, you may need to make sure that you connect the, these are, these are my answers, by the way, too. I'm not saying that these are bad. But hey, you know, you need to connect the thread of why and make sure that they understand that when the team wins, this is how it benefits them. That's how you can get them to buy into the plan. And all those are, are correct.

• 43:46Jocko Willink?

  What's the flank answer? And here's, and this is one of those flank answers that I probably gave for the first time, seven years ago, or whatever, when someone said, you know, how do I get people to buy into the plan? And, and I heard someone said, well, you know, explain the why and explain the strategy and, you know, give them an order to do it, or whatever they were gonna say. And I said, actually,

• 44:06Jocko Willink?

  let them come up with a plan.

• 44:10Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's, it seems real obvious right now because I wrote about it leadership strategy and tactics. But I remember the first time I said that to someone, it was like, oh, wow. And I still get that, you know, if we're working with a new client that I've never worked before and they go, "Hey, you know, we're just having trouble getting buy-in from the troops. They don't want to buy into the plan. Well, how do we get them to buy in?" Let them come up with a plan. People are blown away by that. People are blown away by that. Why? Because it's, it's a totally different perspective. It's a totally different angle to hit them with.

• 44:46Jocko Willink?

  So don't just see or think of a flank as a different way of attacking things or a different way of seeing things. Think of it as a different way of thinking about things.

• 45:02Jocko Willink?

  And if you can do that, it will open your mind.

• 45:10Jocko Willink?

  Once again, my turn took a little longer. Good place to stop. And if you want to hear us talk about this stuff even more, or you want to ask us specific questions about what we're talking about, maybe you want to bring your problems or your issues to the table and see what we have to see. See if we can flank those. Well, you can join Dave and me and the rest of the Echelon Front team at efonline.com, where we are live, we are there, you can ask us questions. We, you've probably been doing, look, it's, what is it?

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  September 2020, you are probably doing Zoom meetings with people in your organization, with your family, with your friends, whatever. We're doing that too. You want to talk to us? Come on, efonline.com. We solve problems through leadership. If you want. Leadership guidance inside your organization, inside your company? We do that as well. We have a leadership consultancy. That's what we do. We go in and get people's leadership aligned inside companies. If you want that, go to echelonfront.com. I've also written a bunch of books about leadership. Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership, and Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  I've got some other podcasts where I talk about these types of things. Jocko Podcasts, another podcast called Jocko Unraveling, a podcast called Grounded, and The Warrior Kid Podcast. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can get some gear from jacostore.com or originmaine.com. Thanks for supporting us and thanks for listening as we debrief. Now go lead. This is Dave and Jocko. Out.