The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #15: Bridging the Gap Between The Front Lines and The Top Leaders

Effectively communicate up the chain and down the chain. 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 15 with Dave Berke and me, Jocko Willink. Dave, let's debrief. What do you got?

• 0:10Dave Berke?

  Let me tell you what not to do when you first get promoted. Don't, don't tell your boss that they're not doing a very good job.

• 0:18Jocko Willink?

  Is that not a good way to come out of the gate?

• 0:20Dave Berke?

  No, it, it might be true, but it's probably not going to have the effect that you're looking for.

• 0:25Jocko Willink?

  But you just said it might be true. So if it's true, hey, man.

• 0:29Dave Berke?

  It might be, yeah.

• 0:31Jocko Willink?

  You know, I speak truth to power.

• 0:32Dave Berke?

  That's right. That's actually exactly what this is about. So we're working with the company. It's a, like a cybersecurity company. And one of the guys that we were talking with is actually pretty new to the company. He got hired in a supervisory role, sharp guy, got promoted to a management role, which is kind of one step up and it's, but it's still a step below like the executive leadership level. And one of the things he figured out very early on in his initial role before he got promoted was the executive leadership doesn't really have a good sense of what's going on down in the front lines. Things that he was seeing every single day.

• 1:07Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So we got Fred.

• 1:08Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  He gets to the company. Fred does a decent job, gets promoted.

• 1:13Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 1:13Jocko Willink?

  And while he was on the front lines, Fred realized they don't always connect very well with the C suite.

• 1:19Dave Berke?

  Correct.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  So he knows that. Got a little disconnect.

• 1:21Dave Berke?

  You got it.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  Cool.

• 1:22Dave Berke?

  Fred's now a manager. Fred's elevated up quickly from the supervisory role where he was just leading a team and now he's one level up. And what he's thinking, and look, this Fred is a good guy. And he really wants to bring the attention to the C suite of hey, what's going on? And what he's thinking is, hey, the best way is just to be honest, which is kind of what you were implying out of the gate. Say, this is what's going on. I just got to come out and tell you, boss. Hey, you don't know what's going on down here.

• 1:48Jocko Willink?

  And this is such a weird thing to talk about because we as human beings at birth, we start to get told, tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth. Hey, the best thing to do is to tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth. And you know what? I actually 100% support telling the truth.

• 2:07Jocko Willink?

  Let's go. Continue.

• 2:09Dave Berke?

  Yes. The truth is important. How you, um, I should say, how you wield the hammer of truth matters. So.

• 2:19Jocko Willink?

  I, I, maybe it was a couple of these ago where I said, if you tell the truth and no one's listening, does it matter? So let's think about that. If I am going, which I 100% support telling the truth. But if I'm going to tell you the truth and you're not going to hear it, or you're not going to listen to it, did I really do a good job of telling the truth? Answer is no. So I 100% support telling the truth. And yet, if I can't get my message across, if the truth is not heard, I failed to tell the truth. I'm supposed to tell the truth. If I don't get the message across and you don't hear it, I have not told the truth. It hasn't come across. It hasn't been transmitted. If you, if, if you say something and no one hears it, what good is it?

• 3:03Jocko Willink?

  You didn't say anything. If no one hears what you say, you didn't say it. Okay.

• 3:10Dave Berke?

  Check. So the first thing we, we kind of start talking about, and, and really he's, he's looking for a way to convey this message, which is actually a really good thing because he's asking, this is what I think I should do. Hey, can we talk about this? Perfect.

• 3:25Jocko Willink?

  So Fred's asking you, all right, hey, Dave, got it.

• 3:28Dave Berke?

  Yes, we're talking, looking for a little bit of advice, actually being a little bit of a role play of how to have, how to have this conversation. And I think more often than not, when, when we work with clients, we think about, we talk about what to think about, and we also talk about what to say. So part of it is the way you're thinking and, and the other part of it is literally how you interact. And it's, it's both of those things. Cause like you were saying, you might have this intent in your mind that makes sense. Hey, I want to alert them to this problem. I want to help solve this problem. But if the way you actually convey that, if your behavior doesn't solve the problem, you're actually not solving the problem. So it's kind of a combination of both. And of course, I go to my, um, my go-to manual, we're talking leadership strategy and tactics. And the, one of the first things we're talking about is this idea of what conformed influence means.

• 4:13Dave Berke?

  And part of it is, hey, when you first joined this company. This idea of conform to influence is kind of natural, like, alright, hey, you're

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so just to pump the brakes here. The book is Leadership Strategy and Tactics. The tactic that you're talking about is something that is called conform to influence. Meaning, if you want to influence a group of people, you have to at some level conform to what they're doing, because otherwise, you're an outsider.

• 4:40Dave Berke?

  Right.

• 4:40Jocko Willink?

  And we don't have very much influence over groups that we are not a part of.

• 4:44Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  So we are conforming at some level in order to become a part of a group where we can thereby influence the group.

• 4:53Dave Berke?

  Yes. And I think part of that initially makes sense. So that explanation, obviously, is the explanation of, hey, you want to show up, you want to understand what's going on, you want to learn about the people, you want to see their problems, you want to figure out what's going on, and you also want them to see you, that you're there to be part of that team, which is what gives you the influence. But that philosophy, that leadership tactic of conformed influence, as you described, isn't just when you show up new. You could be part of a company, a part of a team, and this happened to me in the Marine Corps all the time, is you could be in the same place for years, and then you elevate. And you talk about this in Leadership Strategy and Tactics as well, is, hey, what do you do when now you've been elevated to a position of leadership?

• 5:38Dave Berke?

  That philosophy still applies. The promotion to a higher rank or a higher position is now not the license to stop being part of the team, to stop conforming. So the first move from this supervisory role to this management role, which is a different role in the same organization, one of the first things that we talked about is, hey, recognize what does that role mean for you now? And that doesn't mean on day one, like, okay, cool, I'm now a manager, now we're going to start doing things the way I want to do them. I finally got to this place where I got promoted, now I get to exert my authority or exert my influence in the way that I want. There is still this idea of

• 6:22Dave Berke?

  All those same things, but now it's at a different perspective. It's a different point of view from that higher position. And I think the other connection there is I wrote this comment down of, hey, there's another way to look at this problem is it may be that your executive leadership indeed does not know what's going on down there. That may be the problem and they actually might even know this. That might be why you've been promoted is to help them bridge that gap. Part of it is kind of figuring out, what do you think? What's going on at the C suite? Why aren't they down there? We talked about, hey, they're super busy. Hey, there's an acquisition coming. There's, you could insert a whole bunch of different things that are actually real legitimate reasons why. Now, does this mean the senior leadership shouldn't be down there? No, they should as often as they can.

• 7:06Dave Berke?

  But the idea that now I'm going to get promoted and go, hey, Jocko, you're my boss. Here's problem number one. You are not getting down to the front lines nearly enough as you need to. And that's a real problem with the organization is very different than, hey, this is an awesome role that I can be in because I can now bridge the gap and do a better job feeding you information that's critical and maybe helping you figure out when the right time is to maybe, hey, boss, we're doing a meeting on Friday. We're doing a big summary of this huge project and teeing up this section. You had 30 minutes to come down and spend some time with the team and actually helping solve the problem by telling the truth to kind of rethink of what you were just saying. But in a way, they're actually, they're actually going to help solve this problem for this leadership team.

• 7:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's awesome. It's awesome that these, you're doing a maneuver, right? What's cool is that you're doing a maneuver and, and what you have to do, if you're listening to this, your maneuver might not look exactly like this or your, your scenario might not look exactly like this. Oh, you got promoted and now you've got some truth that you need to speak. It might be the other, might be the reverse direction. Your team might have done something and now you, oh, I better just hit them in the face with it, with the truth about what's going. There's maneuvers that you can make that will make telling the truth actually effective. And that's what we're talking about.

• 8:29Jocko Willink?

  All right, what else you got?

• 8:31Dave Berke?

  This one actually, this actually comes from EF Online. This was, this was kind of a variation of a question that we got that isn't totally different from some other questions, but obviously on EF Online, we, the, the, the questions that people ask when we're on EF Online, so we meet three days a week, we're on there for an hour, and, and we are there to answer people's questions for the most part, and they will either, in that chat box on, on the, the virtual meeting, or just straight up ask a question in real time. The questions they're asking are real questions that they're dealing with, and what's cool about that is that while unique, there's a ton of overlap, that meaning the questions they ask, people are asking a lot of the same questions. So this question was a question about someone who's got a senior leader in the organization

• 9:18Dave Berke?

  who they just don't like. They don't, they do not like, they do not respect this leader, but this particular leader has a lot of influence on whether this person gets promoted or continues to move up in the organization. And the question was kind of simply like, hey,

• 9:36Dave Berke?

  I'm the type, type of person that cannot fake liking somebody. I'm honest, which is why I've connected these two together, like, I'm an honest person. Hey, and, and is, is, I just can't fake liking this person.

• 9:51Jocko Willink?

  What I like about this is that double down. This is a double down on my personal virtues. Not only am I honest, which we all know is a highly elevated virtue that we all respect and admire, so not only am I honest, I am, I am also, I, I cannot be fake. I'm doubling down, my virtues are so awesome that I am 100% honest, and on top of that, I can't be fake, which puts me in this dilemma.

• 10:22Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Jocko Willink?

  This freaking horrible dilemma.

• 10:27Dave Berke?

  So the question was simply- Was this question the guy that was like, that actually specifically asked about shaking this person's hand? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cuz I remember the detail of someone saying, you know, would you, the question, I think it was actually directed, or at least a similar question was directed right at me saying, would you shake this guy's hand? And there is a little trap that was trying to be set for me, which is, hey Jocko, we know you're honest. We know you are not a fake person. And he's setting himself up to get the answer he wants to hear. So Jocko, would you shake this person's hand that you don't respect? Yeah, I mean, that's basically the question. Hey, should I deal, should I have a relationship with a leader

• 11:12Dave Berke?

  that I simply do not respect? Well, the cool part about that is like, the short answers are very straightforward. Yes, you should. You absolutely should. And the larger piece is, is there are some, there's a couple of components to this that I was thinking about. And, and I think a lot of this comes out on the answers in real time. But some of it is worth thinking about because of how much I've been thinking about lately, just the idea of respect. Just the concept of respect, me respecting another person. So kind of the first part about this, if I'm in that situation is, let's say you're that boss. I just, I just don't respect you. Am I, do I, am I gonna waste my time? I'm gonna keep it real.

• 11:56Dave Berke?

  I'm not gonna fake my way through this relationship with you. But I'm gonna take a step back and, alright, hang on. Jocko's a senior leader in this organization. Can he, can, can my relationship, more my lack of relationship hurt my team? Yes, okay. I don't want that. Can it hurt me? Yes. Can it hurt my ability of my team to be successful? I can make a list, a long list of all the reasons why just that relationship alone creates a whole bunch of risk for me and my people. Which, in the hierarchy of authenticity-

• 12:23Dave Berke?

  Which one is more important? That you keep it real? Or that your team is successful? And all those people on your team are successful. So there's a lot of reasons why navigating this relationship is actually something you need to do as a leader. Because this is what your team needs you to do. This is what they need you to do. Because if you're not there, if I keep it real and somehow Jocko says, "I don't like this guy Dave and the team that he's running. As a matter of fact, I don't like the way he talks to me. I don't like the way he even looks at me." You know who's a lot better? Joe. Cool. Guess who's now in charge of that team? So I lose all my influence. And you, there are so many stories that you have referenced, you know, from Hackworth and so many others of why you need to maintain that relationship.

• 13:06Dave Berke?

  And of course, there's a whole bunch of pieces in here that connect to ego and we can talk about a lot of different things and they're all relevant. But the thing that I've been thinking about lately, and it came from a conversation, and I don't know if you had it on Eiffel Line or on the podcast, I don't remember the origin, but it's the way, "I don't respect you." How do I actually cultivate respect? And what bothers me is you don't respect me either. And the idea that in order to gain respect, you have to give respect. And we talk about it with respect. We talk about with influencing. We talk about with listening. And there's so many things that we talk about is what I actually have to do is look at

• 13:51Dave Berke?

  you and think, is there not, is there, is there not one single attribute about you as a human being that I can't find a way to go, "Oh, you know what? Jocko has navigated through some pretty crazy times at this company over the last 15 years. He found himself in a senior leadership position." And the concept of respect of how this idea of respect and influence and listening and all these key things that make us effective leaders, how simple and difficult at the same time is to reverse that and go, "If I want him to respect me more and respect my position, what do I have to do? I have to find a way to respect him." And if I cannot find one single way to respect you, there is, I exclude any possibility

• 14:34Dave Berke?

  that you will actually do the same for me." Which... Is so obvious in one sense and then so counter to our, our, our nature of wait, if I want Jocko to respect me more, what do I have to do? I have to respect, if I want Jocko to listen to what I'm saying, what do I have to do? Oh, I have to start, I have to listen to him more. So we talked a little bit about in order to gain respect, what does he actually have to do for this leader to respect him a little bit more? Or to listen to him more, or to be able to influence this guy a little bit more, what he actually needs to be able to do, which is the exact same things in the opposite direction.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  The quadrangle, which is trust, listening, respect and influence. Now there's a, a little thing where I'm, you were brushing up against some guardrails a little bit and I knew it's, it's, so what you were talking about is, okay, what's more important? That I keep it real with this guy, like keep it real, like, hey, Dave, I don't respect Dave, so I'm gonna keep it real and not give him respect and keep him at an arm's length and let him kind of know that I don't appreciate his attitude? What's more important, that or to, what, what would you say about the team that, that, that you need to do, protect the team and do the mission, right?

• 15:52Jocko Willink?

  Or, yeah, I think you said, you said some words like that. But here's the deal. You are, you want to keep it, you, you said something about the hierarchy, right? There's a hierarchy, the hierarchy of keeping it real with the team is, you said the hierarchy of keeping it real with the boss, sorry. The hierarchy of keeping it real with the bosses is less important than doing the mission and taking care of the team. And what I was just gonna add to that is keeping it real with the team. Like your team, and here's where, here's where it boils down, and this just makes it so obvious to me. I've got 15 people that work for me, I've got eight people that work for me, I've got

• 16:34Jocko Willink?

  12 people that work for me, I've got 100 people that work for me. As a leader, those people are counting on me to take care of them.

• 16:45Jocko Willink?

  To take care of them in a bunch of different ways. Is that, obviously that doesn't mean a coddle. That means I give them the gear that they need. That means I give them the support that they need. That means I get them the resources that they need. That means I, I get plans in place that they can go execute. That's what I'm doing. That's my whole purpose. So in order to do that, in order to do, that's the highest purpose of me as a leader. That's the highest purpose of me as a leader is to take that team, take care of that team and get the mission accomplished. That is my highest purpose as a leader. There's, is there anything that's more important than that? Is there anything that's more important as a leader than taking care of your people? And executing and accomplishing the mission. That's what a leader is doing. That's what a leader is doing.

• 17:27Jocko Willink?

  Far and away, nothing else matters. But the next thing below that is pretty far down.

• 17:32Jocko Willink?

  In order to do that, to the maximum capacity that we can as a human, we have to have a good relationship with the guy we work for.

• 17:42Jocko Willink?

  So it completely, the, the mission of a leader to take care of the people and execute the mission, that completely trumps the fact that you have to eat a little bit of crow and be humble and treat somebody with respect.

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's not even a freaking comparison.

• 18:02Jocko Willink?

  So

• 18:06Jocko Willink?

  that's what we need to do. Now, the other thing is,

• 18:10Jocko Willink?

  again, that setup of like, hey, I'm an honest person and I'm not fake. And therefore it is, it is against my character. It is against my character as a human

• 18:26Jocko Willink?

  to

• 18:28Jocko Willink?

  act in a way that's not real. It's the same boat, right? Yeah. My character as a leader is I'm going to take care of my troops. But here's the other thing.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  I'm not being dishonest. I'm not being fake. You know what I am being? I'm being a winner. I am going to win. That's what I'm going to do.

• 18:50Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and when I, and that phrase, keeping it real, I should be careful that that is in quotes. That's the, I don't like you and I'm going to keep it real. So you're going to know, hey, I'm not going to shake your hand, boss. Like, come on, man. Like, that idea of keeping it real is, is the joke of, I'm so honest, I can't help myself but tell you, actually, I don't respect you to the point that I will not shake your hand. You can't shake your boss's hand and thank him for coming down and seeing what's going on down here no matter what. So, yeah.

• 19:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you kept it real. You made it harder for your team. You made it harder to accomplish the mission. You made it harder for them to get promoted. You hurt the overall productivity of the whole organization. Good job. You kept it real.

• 19:33Dave Berke?

  And you have less influence. He's not going to listen. You have less, all those things go down.

• 19:37Jocko Willink?

  Strikeout after strikeout after strikeout. All right, I guess it's my turn. So we use the phrase sometimes, take the high ground or the high ground will take you. Solid advice, solid advice, solid guidance. There's no replacing it, right? Once you give up the high ground, it's very, I shouldn't say there's no replacing. It's kind of like trust, right? Once you give up trust, it's immediately gone. Now, can you build it back? Yes, you can. You can build it back over time. But, you know, if I break your trust as a leader or as a subordinate, I go to zero,

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  right? I go to, if I really break your trust, I go to zero. And sure, there's gradations of that where I kind of let something slide a little bit and your trust goes down. But if I truly break your trust, I go to zero. Now I have to rebuild it. If I give up the high ground, it's very similar. Sure, there's some gradations, but pretty much I'm gonna have to go and get that, earn that high ground back. So we need to hang on to this high ground. And we need to protect it. And, and yet it is so, so very tempting just to get down from that high ground and get in the mud and start slinging. It is so tempting to do that. And if you do that, you end up with mud and slop on your

• 21:04Jocko Willink?

  feet and on your hands. And it's not even because you got hit with mud. It's not. It's because you got in there and you started picking it up and now it's covering you.

• 21:15Jocko Willink?

  So don't do it.

• 21:18Jocko Willink?

  Do not do that. You gotta find something positive. And here's a, an ancient saying, I believe this is an ancient saying. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say it. I'm gonna one up that thing. If you don't have anything good to say, think of something good to say. Think of something good to say. That's gonna allow you to stay on the high ground.

• 21:43Jocko Willink?

  And this is where,

• 21:46Jocko Willink?

  this is another thing we have to remember. Being on the high ground is

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  in many respects, it's almost like having rank.

• 22:01Jocko Willink?

  Cause when you're on the high ground, you have authority. You have a level of authority because you're on the high ground. You're in a position of power because you're on the high ground.

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  And even if the person that you're dealing with

• 22:15Jocko Willink?

  is in the low ground and they're in the low ground 100% by their own choice, right? They're there.

• 22:26Jocko Willink?

  They're in that low ground, you're on the high ground. When you're in that position, just like rank, do not abuse that authority.

• 22:36Jocko Willink?

  Do not abuse that authority.

• 22:40Jocko Willink?

  When it comes to rank, like if we, if we look at rank, the good leader is gonna treat people with respect all the times. At all times, right? A good leader is treating people with respect all the time. That's what they're doing. It's the same thing here. And if you come across, if you're on the high ground and you come across like you're better or you're superior or you're a cut above, that means you're arrogant now.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  You're arrogant now.

• 23:07Jocko Willink?

  And you know why you come across as thinking that you're better or you come across, your actions come across as you're better or superior? You know why that happens? Because you actually believe you are.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  You think that because you're on the high ground, you're superior and that, that is gonna come through. That smell is gonna come through. That tone is gonna come through. And when it comes through, which it will,

• 23:37Jocko Willink?

  well, guess what happens?

• 23:40Jocko Willink?

  You surrender the high ground.

• 23:45Jocko Willink?

  When you think, when you're on the high ground and you think you are superior because you're on the high ground, you are in the process of giving up the high ground and you are getting covered in mud.

• 24:00Jocko Willink?

  And so then how do we? How do you avoid this? How do you prevent yourself from believing that you are superior? Which is what we need to do. Well, one thing that we all need to do

• 24:23Jocko Willink?

  is have perspective.

• 24:26Jocko Willink?

  Is, is try and see the perspective of the other person that you're dealing with.

• 24:31Jocko Willink?

  There's a, a correlation I was thinking about with jujitsu. And jujitsu, you really have to be careful with this. And people lose the bubble on this all the time.

• 24:41Jocko Willink?

  In jujitsu,

• 24:43Jocko Willink?

  you are not a better human being because you can tap someone else out. And I know that sounds crazy, but guess what? It's not even just that you're a better human being. You're not even a better fighter.

• 24:59Jocko Willink?

  You're not even a better fighter. It's just that, it's just that you've trained more.

• 25:07Jocko Willink?

  It's just that you've trained more. You started earlier. You got the hours in. You got the days in. You got the time on the mat. And if you flip those roles around and you gave that other person 10,000, 10,000 hours of jujitsu and you only had 100, you would freaking lose.

• 25:28Jocko Willink?

  And they would tap you out.

• 25:32Jocko Willink?

  So when you're on the high ground and you are looking down your nose at someone else, you need to recognize, you need to recognize that

• 25:46Jocko Willink?

  that you could be there too.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  And don't be so arrogant to think that you could never be there or that you wouldn't be there.

• 25:57Jocko Willink?

  Don't get caught in that trap. It is,

• 26:00Jocko Willink?

  it's a, it's a trap with a, with a beautiful piece of bait on it.

• 26:10Jocko Willink?

  And it's wrong.

• 26:13Jocko Willink?

  Don't abuse the power of the high ground. I'm not saying give it up, but don't abuse it. Stay humble. And instead of getting down in the mud, do your best to lift others out of it.

• 26:36Jocko Willink?

  I think that's probably a good place to stop for today. And if you want to

• 26:42Jocko Willink?

  dig deeper into all aspects of leadership in any arena, you can join Dave and me and the rest of the Echelon Front team at efonline.com, where we solve problems through leadership. And if you want leadership guidance inside your organization, if you want to be one of these clients that we talk about, and by the way, when we talk about clients, we promise the clients that we are talking about, the stories we are telling, they are completely unrecognizable. In the industry, in the personalities involved, we, we treat our clients as top secret information. But if you want our help, you can go to echelonfront.com and explore the options there. I've also written a bunch of books on the subject of leadership, Extreme Ownership,

• 27:26Jocko Willink?

  Dichotomy of Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Got some other podcasts as well. One is called Jocko Podcast, one is called Jocko Unraveling. And then we also have 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 from

• 27:50Jocko Willink?

  originusa.com.

• 27:54Jocko Willink?

  And thanks for listening to the debrief. Now go lead. And this is Dave and Jocko. Out.