The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #18: How to Overcome The Struggles of Decentralized Command

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• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Debrief Podcast, episode 18 with Dave Berke and me kicking it. The Debrief Podcast, what it is, is we have a business. It's called Echelon Front. We work with companies. We help them with their leadership inside their companies. And Dave and I often debrief about the clients that we're working with. And so at one point, we decided it would be good to share these conversations where we debrief and discuss solutions with other people. Well, with everybody, I guess, so that everybody can learn. So that's what this is. As far as our clients go, when we, when we give the stories about the clients,

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  we totally change them. You won't be able to identify who this company is or what company, you won't even know what industry they're actually in, because we protect the, the privacy of our clients. But we use a story wrapped around with a similar, similar story so that we can, so we can explain the situation that we face. And, and then we just press record and release it as the Debrief Podcast. That's where we start. So what do we got? Dave, what's the latest and greatest out on the front lines?

• 1:18Dave Berke?

  Yeah. And just, I guess to add that a little bit is, one of the things that makes us able to combine different things is that these problems are being faced in different ways across every company. They're all dealing with the same challenges. Now, there's certainly differences in the situations, but when we're talking about a particular topic, that's a topic that we talk about with every client that we work with. That's an issue that we deal with with everybody.

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  I kinda, I, for a while I have to be, for a while I had to remind myself to be careful about this. What I had to be careful about is telling companies, clients.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we hear this all the time. Because everybody thinks their, their, their problem is unique and they wanna, they want it to be unique and they want it to be like this hard thing that they only their industry or only their company has to deal with. And even though I'm nicer about it now, the, the truth is, as you mentioned, we, we hear, we, we face the same problems in all different industries. It doesn't matter. And the solutions are leadership solutions.

• 2:22Dave Berke?

  Everyone. That's what ties all this together is we talk to people and everybody is different. Every business is different. Every person is different. Every situation is different. That is all true. And in the exact same breath, every single problem is a leadership problem. And every single person in your organization from you, no matter where you are, if you're at the CEO or the newest employee and everybody in between is a leader that not only, not only has the need, but the ability to solve problems. So the cool thing about that is that that's, again, when I talk to clients, that's also a dichotomy because in the same breath, well, everything is unique and different. Everything's the same. And there is a middle ground also with how they, they talk to their people too.

• 3:08Dave Berke?

  And what's interesting is as I prepare these, I try to make them by topic, I guess. I kind of try to bundle them together so we could talk. You know, today I would be, hey, we're going to talk about decentralized command, but the truth is that there's overlap and even the things that I'm talking about in this particular case that connects to all the things that we teach, all the leadership challenges that we teach. Which is actually really cool for me because when I'm debriefing you, I, in some ways, I'm really debriefing you on a particular problem, but in reality, it's all the different elements that go into this. And probably the best part about this is I'll tell you what I did in this particular case or the interaction I had. And then you'll talk about something without us having been, we didn't like prep this, like here, Jocko, I'm going to tell you this on the podcast. I just tell you.

• 3:49Dave Berke?

  And then you take it and then you talk about something that you think about. I write that stuff down. And the next time I go back and interact with a client, I have more to talk to them about to help them solve these problems, which is, which is actually awesome for everybody, me included.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  I like it. What do we got?

• 4:04Dave Berke?

  We're going to talk about decentralized command a little bit.

• 4:08Dave Berke?

  And the thing about decentralized command is a lot of different things to talk about out there, but in this particular case, decentralized command isn't just giving your people things to do. When we define decentralized command, we define it by saying everyone leads. And if you were in a leadership role, I guess a traditional organizational leadership role, decentralized command isn't, "Hey, I'm just gonna give these things that I don't want to do, or these things that I shouldn't do anymore, and give them to Jocko, my subordinate, I'm gonna go do other things." That's not decentralized command. So, we're working with a company, and we're working with a team leader that used to be part of the team that was elevated out of that leadership, or out of that role into a leadership role. And he kinda came to me and said, "Hey, I have a little bit of a reputation of being a micromanager."

• 4:50Dave Berke?

  And his version of that was, he really likes to do the work. He likes to be down with the team and doing those things. And ever since he's stepped up and leveled up to a supervisor role of his team, he's kinda stepping on their toes, maybe getting in the way a little bit, and is generating a little bit of friction. And what he wanted to know is, "Hey, how do I, how do I take this new leadership role and not make it seem like I'm just pushing all my stuff off to my guys?" So, kinda fits in this idea of decentralized command. And the first thing about that, when I talk to, Leadership Strategy and Tactics talks about it, about sort of the mindset you take when I am on a team, and that I'm now the supervisor of that team. The first thing I have to realize is, I'm there to help the team win. That elevation

• 5:35Dave Berke?

  of my status isn't supposed to separate me, meaning that I'm better or more important, or I'm now elevated above my team, but I'm actually having more responsibility to make sure that they're successful. And at the same time, one of the other challenges that people face, and we saw this in the military all the time, is when you elevate up, you have to start thinking differently. You have to think more strategically. And if you're one of those people that spent all your time down there doing the job, and all of a sudden, you're being told to look up and out, that's actually not that easy to do. But I think where he was really struggling with this, "How do I have my people do the work without me, without them feeling like I'm just giving them work to do," is

• 6:16Dave Berke?

  When we hear decentralized command, one of the most common words that we connect to that, that clients connect to that is empowerment. It made me think of, and I don't even remember what it was, but on a podcast, I don't even know if it was a debrief podcast or just a Jocko podcast, that we talked about, you talked about empowerment and the root of empowerment, the root of what empowerment is, is you actually have to give your people power. So if you in a leadership role, in a supervisor role, this guy, this guy has power, he has power over his team, he has organizational influence over his team. And if you want your people to actually lead, you have to give them power, which means, if I, if Jocko, you work for me and I give you a task, I have to give you the power to do it the way that you want.

• 6:59Dave Berke?

  I have to give you the power to do the things that you want to do so you can, you can do this particular task, this particular job, the way that you want. And if I really want you to think that I am actually giving you ownership, giving you power, is one of the best things I can do is actually reverse the roles and support you. Not to say, "Hey, man, you got this, you know, go do your thing, whatever." I could actually subordinate myself, even in a leadership role, to, to actually support you on this task in the way that you want to do it, rather than, "Hey, I didn't do it that way when I was in your role, I think you should do it like this, I know I'm the supervisor and I think you, I want you to do it my way." I have to give you the power and I have to give you the ability to do that task the way that you want.

• 7:42Dave Berke?

  And that might mean I need to support you. And I think the other gap that was difficult for him in this case was, it doesn't, it doesn't mean he abdicates ownership though. And so I think the balance for him was, I have to give you this task and let's say, I give you power, I give you the ability to run this, this particular project and then you under-deliver, you're behind schedule, you're limited over budget and we don't actually meet the expectations that we want. And I'll ask him, "Hey, who's, who, who is responsible for that?" And the answer, of course, is he is still responsible for that. So I think the biggest challenge for him, when it was coming to this decentralized command problem was, how do I let my team lead and still, still have them feel like they have...

• 8:27Dave Berke?

  I guess how they have ownership of the problem without him giving up that ownership. So when you're leading your team and you're now elevated up, the first thing you want them to know is that you're there to help them be successful. You're going to give them, you're going to empower them to be successful, but you as a leader do not give up the ownership of that outcome. And I think that balance was where the real challenge was for him. And if my team underperforms, it's still my fault in that leadership role.

• 8:54Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so I get it. So then what did you, what did you talk to him about? So he basically raised those questions, said, hey, listen.

• 9:01Dave Berke?

  Yeah, these are the, yep, these are the questions he's asking. Hey, how do I? How do I let my people run projects? How do I let them lead now that I am in a supervising role? And the first thing is, hey, if you're going to empower your people to be successful, you got to give them power, which means they have to be able to run the projects the way they want. So his team should be telling him, hey, this is the outcome I think you want. This is the way we want to do it. And it's, and what his habit was, he would go down there and micromanage all the different parts of the task. Tell them how they wanted to get it done. They were complying. And what that was doing was creating friction and they were kind of implying, hey, you are stepping on our toes. It's like, okay, well, so then he overshoots the mark, which is, hey, you do whatever you want. You don't need me, you're, you guys can do this. And then when the projects weren't

• 9:46Dave Berke?

  reaching the objective that he wanted them to reach, he was blaming them.

• 9:51Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  So then you, you balanced him out a little bit.

• 9:58Dave Berke?

  Yes.

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So, so here's a couple of things that I thought about when you, when you were talking.

• 10:05Jocko Willink?

  First, one, one thing that I find to be very, very powerful is let's say you're working for me, Dave, and I've got a task that needs to get done. Like the, it's a good move. It's a good move for me to say, hey, Dave, here's the task. You know, how do you want to do it? You make it happen, blah, blah, blah. That's, that's a good move. It's a solid move. Like we give that, we give that one the solid roof. But the actual next level is when I say, hey, Dave.

• 10:42Jocko Willink?

  Here's this thing that it looks like we have to get done. Do you think we need to do it? So I'm actually going to say, I'm gonna give you the choice if we even need to do this or not. And that might seem like a like a little a little difference, right? It might just seem like a couple of degrees off, but it's actually 180 degrees off. It actually gives, because you're talking about empowering. Is there anything more empowering than saying, hey, Dave?

• 11:14Jocko Willink?

  You know what?

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's we got a we got a bunch of dishes here that need to get cleaned. Go ahead and clean them however you want. And then, you know, you go, well, okay, well, I'm gonna whatever scrub them first. This is how I'm gonna do it. You're slightly empowered, right? But if I go, hey, Dave, you know what? Looks like these dishes are piling up. Do you think we need to get them done? Do you think we need to get them cleaned? Now, here's the beautiful thing. You can actually say no. You can actually say, no, you know what? I think we can leave them till the morning. And you know what?

• 11:47Jocko Willink?

  We can. We can. So I'm giving you a choice. And the choice is a real choice that you could actually be like, you know what? I don't think we need to clean them until the morning. And I could be like, because I won't let my ego get involved and I won't get spun up. I'll be like, cool. Get them done in the morning. Sounds good. Sounds good. Or you could be like, no, I don't think we need to do the dishes at all, right? That's not even a realistic answer. Yeah. Like, we have to. So I kind of, maybe it's a little bit of a, maybe it's, I'm asking you a question that's not earnest, because I'm saying, hey, do you want to clean the dishes? Look, we know you're gonna want to clean the kitchen. We know you have to clean the kitchen dishes. We know it has to happen at some point.

• 12:31Jocko Willink?

  Now, look, I could say, listen, I can get them done tomorrow morning if that's, you know, if you can't do them tonight. You know what? Maybe I'll just do them. That's okay. But with you take something that's a little bit more serious.

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  Hey, hey, Dave.

• 12:48Jocko Willink?

  We got this client and they're gonna need another another session this week. I think they need it. Do you think they need it?

• 13:00Jocko Willink?

  And by the way, I'm gone. So if anyone's gonna be doing the session, it's gonna be you.

• 13:03Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Jocko Willink?

  And here's the deal. You could tell me, no. And maybe I could say, well, do you think they're gonna get the impact that they need? And you can see where this is going. So you end up telling me, you know what? We need to do this session. You end up telling me, we need to do this session. And that is empowering. Now, look, it's not a trick, because if you could earnestly say to me, you know what? They don't need another session. You could probably convince me, be like, listen, hey, Jocko, they've already had two sessions last week, and we have one more follow on session next week. I don't think they need a session this week. And I could be like, okay, fair enough.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  That's fine. Most likely, the reason I'm asking you this question is because you know, and I know that the client needs another session.

• 13:44Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Jocko Willink?

  So there's a certain level of empowerment to say, to, to actually earnestly asking someone, do you think we need to do this? And if you do, then cool. How do you think we should do it? That's, that's my next level move.

• 14:00Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Dave Berke?

  So the, so the second half of what you said, and I guess you kind of imply like the dishes was some sort of like rudimentary example. But actually, it makes sense because you could, well, you could be actually working in the kitchen right now and listening to this. And of course, it makes sense. But the idea like, hey, these are things that we are going to need to use again to deliver whatever it is for our clients tomorrow. So you're gonna need these things, dishes or otherwise. But the second part of that, and of course, as I take the notes, is like, the connection to empowerment of, the empowerment of letting you decide how to do something versus whether to decide whether to do it.

• 14:40Dave Berke?

  The expansion of, of power on that is, that's a, that's a significant.

• 14:44Jocko Willink?

  Exponential.

• 14:45Dave Berke?

  Dude, that's huge. And

• 14:48Dave Berke?

  if you came back to me like, we're never doing the dishes anymore. Like, oh, man, like, now I have to think like, holy cow, how do I, how have I created a situation by which I used to do the dishes with this team? And now they don't, they think we don't even need to do it anymore. The likelihood of that is, is, I don't want to say zero, but it's so low. It would imply as if they didn't even think that the tools we use were necessary. So me saying, do you want to do this is really? Of course, we're gonna do this task at some point somehow. But the ownership of the, the control that you have to do it however you want to do it, when you wanted to do it. I, I'm hearing, when I heard you say that second part of it, I kind of almost laughed out loud like, how nice would that be to go? And listen, man, however you want to do this, the, not this task, but this, this.

• 15:34Dave Berke?

  I don't know if it's project or whatever, this whole thing that we're doing, however you want to do that is fine with me.

• 15:41Dave Berke?

  With the understanding that they're gonna know this all needs to get done. We, we, we gotta service the client, we gotta deliver this product, whatever we're doing at this company, we're doing this thing.

• 15:52Dave Berke?

  The difference between those two was, that's a big, big, big difference.

• 15:55Jocko Willink?

  Check this out, Delta Charlie, who I wrote about in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. We had done a hydrographic reconnaissance up at Red Beach, up at Camp Pendleton, freaking grueling, cold, out all night. We go in, we swim in, we mark the beach, or we, we'd mark our soundings on the, on the freaking slates. Do you know what a hydrographic reconnaissance is?

• 16:17Dave Berke?

  You've, you've explained it, I've never obviously done one.

• 16:19Jocko Willink?

  You're basically swimming in and you've got a little lead landing, you're figuring out how deep the water is and you're keeping your notes and everyone in the platoon's keeping their notes. And eventually you take all those notes and you turn them into, you turn them into the cartographer, who's another guy in the platoon, who then takes all that information and plots it out on a map. And then deliver it to the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps goes, yep, the beach is safe for us to land on.

• 16:40Jocko Willink?

  So we, we did that one night and it's freezing cold and it's miserable and the waves were big, it's a freaking hard job. We, but we did it, we got it done, we turned in this stuff to the cartographer, cartographer built the chart, gave it to the Marine Corps. Marine Corps executes an amphibious landing up at Camp Pendleton, they get done with their amphibious landing. That day and they go, you know what, we did a bad job. The Marine Corps said, we did a bad job with our amphib, the, the Marine Corps said the Marine Corps did a bad job with our amphibious landing, we need to do it again. Cool, reload. Guess what? Guess who else got reloaded? We did. So we're out with Delta Charlie in the boats, we go in, we just did a hydrographic reconnaissance the night before.

• 17:21Jocko Willink?

  And finally, someone in the platoon were getting ready to get in the water and somebody in the platoon says something along the lines of, hey, Delta Charlie, we just did this last night. Nothing has changed. Do we really need to do it again? Do we really have to do this again? And Delta Charlie did this move on us. He said, well, we don't really have to.

• 17:48Jocko Willink?

  The thing that he added was, he said, but would it be the right thing to do? Yeah. Oh, and I was so glad I wasn't the knucklehead that asked that question to put myself on report for being a wimp and not want to do another hydrographic contest. But then guess what? Then he gave us the choice of whether we wanted to do this or not. And then it's like, okay, and of course we were like, no, it would be the wrong thing to do. Let's do it. And we did it to the best of our ability. That's a big deal. And the sense of, the sense of actual empowerment is exponential. Now, here's the other thing that you ran up against in this question.

• 18:27Jocko Willink?

  I am not going to micromanage you, Dave Berke, if you're one of my guys. I'm not going to micromanage you. It's not going to happen.

• 18:38Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not going to allow you to fail. Totally. I am not going to allow you to fail. And I will start to get more and more and more intrusive.

• 18:51Jocko Willink?

  The closer and closer you get to failure. And a matter of fact, you're only going to get so close. You're going to start veering off a little bit and I'll be like, hey, Dave. Check, do a bearing check right now. And you're like, oh, got it.

• 19:03Jocko Willink?

  You know, I talk about brushing up against the guardrails of failure. Basically, with the minimum force required, I can give you an adjustment that you're not even going to touch the, you're not even going to touch the guardrails of failure. Yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna start to get a little off course and go, hey, Dave, how's that bearing looking? You go, whoa, go, yeah, check. Oh, a little bit off. Got it, boss. I probably wouldn't even say something. Hey, how's, what bearing are you on? And you tell me, you go,

• 19:28Jocko Willink?

  090. Yeah. And you were really on 084, right? You were six degrees off. You were going in the wrong direction. And I just asked you, hey, what bearing are you on? And you corrected it yourself. That's what's going to happen most of the time. Occasionally, I had a, I was on a training operation. And our boat, we flipped a boat in the surf zone, engine was flooded. And guys were like, okay, hey, we need to call the admin truck and have them come pick us up because there's no way we can do this anymore and blah, blah, blah. And

• 20:01Jocko Willink?

  That was, that was like a right turn into the guardrails to take, go through the guardrails and over the cliff, right? And I was, you know, hold on a second, what? You know, I'm a platoon commander. Hey, what'd you say? Well, we need to call the admin trucks. We got a down motor. I was like, no, no, no. We have a contingency. We rig for tow. That's what we do. We're in the freaking SEAL Teams. We have down motors sometimes and we have boats that get flipped on the beach. We right them, we square them, we set security, we right the boat, we freaking get the, this, the water out of it and we hook a tow line and we, we get this thing back out. The, the platoon was ready to surrender and fail. And I'm like, no, we're not doing that.

• 20:44Jocko Willink?

  So, use that minimum force required. Occasionally, do you have to actually do a course correction? Yeah, you do. And that was actually when I had first, I'd taken over a platoon from a platoon commander that had gotten fired. So they didn't have the, they didn't understand what we were doing as a, as a platoon yet. They, they, they thought that that kind of thing was like, hey, that's what happens. You know, you flip a boat, you call the admin truck and they'll come pick you up and it's, we'll go clean out that motor or whatever. No. If that would have happened a month later, we wouldn't have even considered that. Not even considered. So, those are good points. I like them.

• 21:26Dave Berke?

  I think too, you probably wrote about it in, in, in Leadership Strategy Tactics about even the technique of what do you do when you are elevated in, in your role and you gave your examples of two different guys and how they, how they respond to that. Because there's a variation of, some version of that happens in so many different places and we get questions about that all the time. And the, the move from tactical to strategic or, or the, the elevation from one role to another, in some ways can be like super daunting. Like, how do I think strategically and all these big things I have to do? And, and I think the way you just described it and those questions, whether they're earnest or maybe like a little more deliberate, the outcome is still the same is that your role is to make sure the team is successful.

• 22:07Dave Berke?

  And sometimes the team needs a tiny little adjustment, which means if you're going from being on the team to being the leader of the team and that team is a solid team, little, little course correction, maybe a small question, just a verification of the heading, or a team that you're in from the outside, you come from the outside and you join a team and that team isn't where they need to be. But in the end, That description is is all different ways that you just described to make sure the team ends up being successful.

• 22:33Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 22:33Dave Berke?

  That the team ends up winning. And I'm thinking about the example of had this team been another month, they would have kind of just understood what's going, what we're doing here, like how things are actually happening here on this team.

• 22:46Dave Berke?

  And how even in that role is is what you're getting them to be able to do so they can be successful. So as a leader, then you go, oh, my team no longer is going to run to the admin when we flip a boat in the surf zone. Cool. Guess what I can start doing now? I can spend a little less time worrying about what they're going to do with this particular crisis and I can start.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 23:05Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 23:05Jocko Willink?

  And you know what? Now that you mentioned it, I was a little caught off guard. In other words, I probably didn't see the indicators, the little course corrections that I needed to make of what was happening until all of a sudden, oh, hey, we need to contact the admin boat. That I was like, what are you talking about? I haven't gone admin in a training situation in my freaking life.

• 23:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Jocko Willink?

  So I don't know what we're talking about, but we're not.

• 23:27Dave Berke?

  It's not happening.

• 23:27Jocko Willink?

  Going admin, that's not happening. It caught me a little bit off guard because they were in a mode of, hey, you know what? If you things aren't going the way you call, call, call admin, call a little training timeout, have the trucks come and pick up the boat. Like, no. My, it takes a little while to establish that and get that culture of we're not going to call for admin.

• 23:49Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Jocko Willink?

  In any situation.

• 23:54Jocko Willink?

  Check. All right. What do we got? We got another one?

• 23:56Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I got a question from Extreme Ownership Academy is a is a question that got posted in the during one of our live sessions. And I like this one because it's a topic that a version of this has been getting asked a bunch lately. And it really involved about pushing back against leadership, putting push pushing back against the boss's direction. And this was a company that they they work out in the field, so they work, you know, outs literally outdoors and operations. Those can be kind of sketchy, it's in poor weather. And so they deal with some real physical risks. And the boss, who was actually in charge of the the company, she wanted to make sure that they're they're really, she wanted to get more tight safety protocols. So she was looking to ensure that the safety of her employees.

• 24:40Dave Berke?

  Was a higher priority. And what had happened is, at least the version of the question was, we were given these safety protocols that were way too restrictive, like way too limiting. It was going to make us need way more people, way more time, and we simply were not going to be able to do our job. So the question was like, how best do you go back to your boss and tell them, hey, we can't do this. This imposition on us, this restriction you give us, actually, we can't do that. And there was a discussion about, hey, we're going to gather some data. We want some experts from these different scenarios in the field on how different projects are done so they can give us feedback based on each individual case, kind of gather all the proof, all the data to show that I can now go back to my boss and go, hey, Jocko, what you're asking us to do, we can't do those things. And here's why.

• 25:26Dave Berke?

  And the answer was, hey, that that might work. That might be, that might work. But my inclination when we were talking to this person was, that's not how I would handle that situation. That's not the first move that I would make was go back and have my team, hey, here's the guidance from Jocko. I want you to collect all the reasons why this won't work.

• 25:48Dave Berke?

  And so the first thing was-

• 25:50Jocko Willink?

  Isn't it funny if you just think through a problem to what you just said, you already know that that's a bad idea. Look, you might not have figured out the solution to that, but you already know, hey, you got tasked with doing something by the boss, and the first thing you do is tell the team, hey, give me all the reasons why this won't work. Like, it's so obvious, right?

• 26:07Dave Berke?

  It is. And even the way you just said that, and that was really the crux was like, they didn't have the solution yet. And what you just said was exactly the point of, well, we actually need a solution for this. We don't know what the solution is. And

• 26:21Dave Berke?

  a great way to make sure that the solution is imposed on you, rather than figuring it out, is to tell your leadership that their ideas are bad, that we were not going to do this, and here's why. And so the other approach was, and listen, this is a good team. This is like, not some big dysfunctional issue where they couldn't have a free flow of information back and forth. They're not working for a tyrant who is demanding compliance. So the first question was, hey, let's just first figure out, what is, what do we want? What is trying to get accomplished here? Does the boss want us to be no longer financially solvent? Because safety is the most important thing and we're going to bankrupt the company? No, we don't want that. Does the boss now want us to have quadruple the time requirements? To get the same job done? No, that's not what the boss wants.

• 27:06Dave Berke?

  So if you could take a step back a little bit and just first think, what is the outcome that they want? Does anybody think we should be? Does anybody reject the idea that we should be more safe? No, we're all on board with that. We all want safety. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants their people to get hurt. And then the other part of it is that what I want my boss to understand is that I am actually on board with the plan. Now, I don't know about the specific solution of this case on this job. I don't know that yet. But your intent for me is to be safer, have a better safety record and ensure that our operations are have a better, a better safety outcome? I am absolutely on board with that plan. And the best way I can actually come back to you with a solution is go, boss. And this was, this was sort of the response of, hey, maybe a better approach is to go, hey, boss? This sounds right. This makes sense.

• 27:50Dave Berke?

  We want to apply better safety measures here. Let me take this. Let me go back to my four project managers. Let me tell them what we're going to go do. Let's implement this and I'll come back to you and let you know how things are going as we start to do this. And if we see any resistance or areas where we're struggling? We'll try to work through it and get you some feedback on things that we might need to change to meet your intent. And so the whole point of that was the risk of pushing back right away? What I risk by saying, I'm not doing this? Is actually you saying, no, you are going to go do this. And now you're directing me to do? You're now giving me the solution that we actually don't have. And I don't want that. I want you to think that I'm on board with your plan and I want you to give me the latitude?

• 28:32Dave Berke?

  To make that happen the most effective way as we can. So we know the boss doesn't want us to make less money. We know the boss doesn't want to ruin the company. So we want to support her intent in this particular case. And what they were running into was we have to tell them right away. Cause the fastest way to get to this conclusion is go, hey, Jocko, this isn't going to work. We can't do this. Here's, here's reason A, B, and C. So we're not going to do this as opposed to? Hey, that makes sense. We want to go implement this. Let's go be safe. We'll go run it with our teams. And then I'll come back and give you a debrief on what we're seeing from each of these different projects and how we can continue to solve this. I love that look.

• 29:08Jocko Willink?

  Well, as soon as I tell you what you said, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna go, damn it.

• 29:13Dave Berke?

  Okay.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Cause the thing that you said was, and it's not, it's not a hundred percent incorrect, but you're gonna, you're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about. You said, hey, well, I'm saying this because I want my boss to think that I'm on board with the plan, right? And I know you didn't mean it.

• 29:27Dave Berke?

  No, but yeah.

• 29:28Jocko Willink?

  And it's actually, it's actually not inaccurate, right? It's not inaccurate to say, I want my boss to think that I'm on board with the plan. But the reason that you want your boss to think that you're on board with the plan is because you are on board with the plan.

• 29:37Dave Berke?

  I want my boss to know I'm on board with the plan.

• 29:39Jocko Willink?

  That's what we want. We want my boss to know I'm on board with the plan. And even when you said, even when you said to me, like, we're do, if we do, if we do a,

• 29:51Jocko Willink?

  whatever, if we did a scale, one, one end of the scale is like, boss, this is never gonna work. The other end of the scale is, hey, boss, I'm all, I got it, gonna go execute. You picked a middle ground, which was, it was even leaning toward, hey, boss, got it, I'm gonna go execute. You said, hey, boss, hey, I'll take this to the troops, we'll, we'll, we'll go execute and then I'll give you ever, give you some feedback on what's working and what's not. That even that right there is a little shadow, is a little indication that, oh, so Dave's already got resistance, you know? I'm probably just gonna, I'm just gonna say, oh, hey, Dave, this is what you want me to execute? Cool, got it. Let me, let me review the notes. Got it. Let me bring it down to the team. We'll start it, we'll start it immediately. Let me get this thing implemented.

• 30:33Jocko Willink?

  Not even giving you an indication that I've got a, I have a potential issue with this.

• 30:39Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Jocko Willink?

  Because then when I come back to you there, it's just gonna confirm the indication that I gave, which was, I didn't really want this thing to work anyways.

• 30:46Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Jocko Willink?

  So instead of my boss quote, thinking I'm on board with the plan, my boss is actually thinking I'm not on board with the plan. And then they're gonna confirm that as soon as I've run my mouth, coming back and saying, well, actually, we did an assessment. It's gonna take four people to do this job now instead of two and, and whatever. So how do we do this? Has this been this game I've been playing with Echo for a little while? It's actually the last two underground podcasts that we've done where he's, he's made these indications that you have to, you have to be able to act a certain way, like almost like you're gonna, you're, you're in a required, you know, you need to go to acting classes, so you can act like your boss, so your boss will believe you. And the fact of the matter is, this isn't an acting class. Dave gives me instruction. Dave's my boss. Dave's giving me instruction.

• 31:31Jocko Willink?

  My assumption is, hey, he wants the company to make money. He wants to be safe. Like, those are good things. I'm on board. I'm on board with everything you just said. I don't have to act. I don't have to pretend I like your plan. I like your plan. And, and you know what? And here's the other note I took down is, you hear me talk a lot about asking earnest questions, which is very important. And it's a real thing. And the difference between an earnest question and a question, there's a big difference between those two things. Me asking my boss an earnest question of, hey, Dave, can you explain to me why this particular protocol is being used? Because right now, it seems to me like it's going to, it's going to utilize a lot more people. If that's an earnest question, because you might say, yeah, Jocko, I tell you what,

• 32:14Jocko Willink?

  we've got an insurance situation where if we have another safety incident, we are going to get shut down. And I go, cool, got it. Now, if that wasn't an earnest question, and I go, Dave, what are you doing having us have four people do this instead of one? This is ridiculous. Why would you, why would you do this? It's not an earnest question. So earnest question, asking an earnest question is excruciatingly important. And let me tell you something else that's excruciatingly important. Making an earnest effort.

• 32:45Jocko Willink?

  Earnestly going to try and do what we've been asked to do. To go and really say, okay, hey, this is what the boss needs. This is the outcome they want. Here's the recommendation on how they gave us, on how we get that done. Cool, got it. And I make an earnest effort with my team to make this happen. So all those things are good. And, and essentially, this, these, these, this topic,

• 33:13Jocko Willink?

  we want to win. And it's so much more, it's, this is the thing. You might think, well, it's more efficient just to say, hey, boss, I don't think this is going to work.

• 33:23Jocko Willink?

  It's actually not going to be more efficient. What you just did is you just built a boundary between you two. You went to, you're now on opposing sides. We're not on the same team anymore. It's me against you. This isn't going to help you.

• 33:35Jocko Willink?

  Earnest, if you've got some earnest questions, ask them. And then if you make an earnest effort, the feedback that you get is going to be legitimate. And that is actually going to help the team, help the company, help the boss, and help you.

• 33:52Dave Berke?

  I was watching your facial expressions as we were talking, like we're looking at each other, literally, we're like on, staring across the table from each other. And if I, if I know, if you know me well, I'm your subordinate, you know me well, or vice versa, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. If we know each other well, the, the, the subtlety of the comment of, "Hey, I'm on board, this is good," and then I'll kind of let you know what's going wrong. The subtlety of that actually, is actually really obvious if we, if we, if you know what you're, what I'm, what I usually, how Dave usually reacts. My normal reaction is like, "Cool. Got it. No factor." Like, that's usually the length of our conversations when you say, "Hey, let's go do whatever," and I'm like, "Roger." There's not, there's not a lot of like, discussion. So now all of a sudden, like, "Oh, that's,

• 34:37Dave Berke?

  wait, hang on a second." But I also wrote down too, as I'm, as I'm listening to what you're saying is, what does it say if I push back immediately? Like, immediately. Now, you know, there's risk of, of friction, all those things, and, and first, for you and I in real life, like, I, I don't think the risk of me pushing back is like going to fracture the relationship and cause a real hardship between you and me and our roles in the organization. But what it tells you is that I didn't actually really think about what you said. Because there's no way I can hear what you said and immediately come back and go, and, which is basically me saying, "You're wrong." When I'm pushing back, "Hey, this isn't going to work, or this won't work." The, I'm less worried that, "Hey, did I put

• 35:19Dave Berke?

  up a barrier between me and Jocko that's going to not be manageable?" than I am basically saying, "Hey, how about, how about I take five minutes? How about I take five minutes and just think about what you said?" And this came up on Extreme Ownership Academy just last week, which was, people were talking, "Hey, if the boss says something that doesn't make sense, ask questions." And what I had interjected goes, "Actually, I said, you don't have to ask questions right away. You can just think about it. Take 10 minutes. Take a day. Just go back to your desk and think about it. And 90% of the questions that you had, you can probably answer," and you used the word earnestly, and that's the right word, it was, "if you can genuinely just try to figure out what he means." And Jocko tells me something that doesn't make sense.

• 36:03Dave Berke?

  I actually don't need to ask a lot of questions because I can just go, go, hang on. All right, what did he say? What's the situation? What did I think? Oh, okay, I think I got it. And then I could go back and maybe ask a question or a question there, but if I push back right away, it's me telling you I'm not really listening. And I've already kind of got the answer. Um, anyway, I wrote that down. The way you, the way you were describing that is if someone pushes back immediately, what you're telling that other person is you're not really listening to what they're saying because you already know the answer.

• 36:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what you're telling him is I have a closed mind.

• 36:33Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  And I haven't listened. My young, my youngest daughter, I don't know where she got this from, but it's awesome. She says, got it. If you, if you ask her to do something.

• 36:43Dave Berke?

  You're wondering where she got that from? Yeah, that's, we'll never figure that one out.

• 36:47Jocko Willink?

  I don't, I don't think I use the, I might say, Roger that. But she says, got it. And she puts this little tone on her voice, got it. And then she does whatever it is. It's freaking legit. That's, that's the open mind. That's going to go try and earnestly implement a plan. And then when the plan doesn't work or you get some pushback, you know, two hours later, hey dad, you wanted me to do this and here's some problems I'm running into. Can you maybe give me a course correction? Or do you mind if I do this instead?

• 37:17Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  And then what am I say? What do I say? Oh, it didn't work and that's what you're going to do? Got it. Go ahead.

• 37:24Dave Berke?

  That's awesome.

• 37:26Jocko Willink?

  All right. Um, I guess it's my turn.

• 37:28Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 37:28Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  Bruce Lee, martial artist.

• 37:37Jocko Willink?

  He kind of attempted to move martial arts toward a vision of

• 37:46Jocko Willink?

  no form or formless form. He had these little quotes like using no way as way or no limitation is the limitation.

• 37:59Jocko Willink?

  Had some guiding principles around his martial art. Guiding principles of simplicity, directness and freedom. Which he tried to unify in the sentence, the form of no form. The form of no form.

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  Now, did he truly understand this? I don't know. I mean, this is in the 70s. But I would say if you looked at the UFC and what the UFC has kind of proved out, there's no more real one style champions. You have to be well-rounded. You can't just have one form. You have to be, you have to have wrestling, boxing, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai,

• 38:41Jocko Willink?

  which is a way of saying you have to have all styles, which if you have all styles, it's a way of saying you have to have no style. You can't, you can't just have one style. Now, to say you have no style doesn't mean, or to say that you have no form, doesn't mean that you take someone off the street that doesn't know anything about fighting and they're going to somehow win because they have no, no form. That's not, that's absolutely, clearly absolutely not true. The opposite is actually true. It takes practice to get there. It takes discipline and experience and it takes technique. And if you, if you dive deeply into discipline and technique and practice, that is when your fighting style becomes the form of no form.

• 39:27Jocko Willink?

  Where it doesn't matter what happens, you're going to be able to deal with it because you can operate in any capacity.

• 39:38Jocko Willink?

  And your form becomes no form. Now, what if I told you that the best form of leadership was no leadership?

• 39:54Jocko Willink?

  If you start to think about it, what's the highest form of leadership? The highest form of leadership is I don't have to talk. The highest form of leadership is I don't have to give you any kind of signal. I don't have to give you a look. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything as a leader.

• 40:13Jocko Willink?

  And there's a whole spectrum. Look, if we were to say,

• 40:18Jocko Willink?

  we want to go indirect, we want to use minimum force required as a leader. The minimum force required is I didn't do anything. Dave just took his team and made it happen. I didn't say anything or do anything. There was a situation, there was a problem, there was a mission, there was a task. Dave saw it. I didn't say anything. I didn't look at him.

• 40:38Jocko Willink?

  And he took his team and executed that, right? That's the, that's the best form of leadership. No leadership at all. No leadership. Dave already understood what to do and he went, took his team and did it. Now, maybe I have to lead a little bit. Maybe there's a problem going on and I look at Dave and I look at the problem and Dave goes, oh, got it. Maybe I have to give him a head nod. Like, hey, that you see that over there, I give you a head nod, you're like, give me a head nod back. Got it. Maybe I say one word.

• 41:05Jocko Willink?

  You know?

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  Flank. Dave's like, cool. It's not as clean as I want it. Because normally, in an optimal situation, Dave is flanking. I look at him to tell him to go flank. He's already flanking. He's already moving. Maybe I have to give him a sentence. Right? Hey, Dave. Flank to the west now. Okay.

• 41:29Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I have to yell at Dave. Dave, hey, you gotta flank. Maybe I have to run over and grab you and, and physically take you and point to you where you need to go. This is, again, this is the worst. This is getting worse and worse. I'm not saying you never have to do that, and I did have to do that at times. Maybe I actually have to do it myself. This is the worst form of leadership. I'm not leading anymore, right? I'm just doing. Now, do I occasionally have to do that as a leader? Yes, I do. Dave's, Dave doesn't understand it, so I grab his team, come with me, and I lead. But you can see that, you can see that escalation. You can see that spectrum of, of how we're leading. But for the optimum, for the optimum, for

• 42:11Jocko Willink?

  my optimum leadership, I didn't have to do anything at all. I just was there and Dave knew what to do. It's the, it's like the muster. We go to the muster, which is our, our, our leadership event.

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  Which we have a thousand people at.

• 42:28Jocko Willink?

  There's 10,000 decisions that get made about the muster.

• 42:34Jocko Willink?

  There might be more, actually, there's probably more. I make four decisions for the muster. So there's where it's gonna be, there's the event, there's the food, there's all these things. The AV equipment, the stage set, all these things. I don't make any of those decisions. I show up and I get on board for the ride.

• 42:54Jocko Willink?

  So ideally, I'm not doing anything. And then it escalates from there depending on the situation that occurs and what I haven't done a good job enough preparing my troops to do.

• 43:11Jocko Willink?

  So this leads me into the fact of, we hear that term, a well-oiled machine. A well-oiled machine. This team operates like a well-oiled machine. And that's cool, I get it. It sounds great.

• 43:28Jocko Willink?

  But that's not what we want.

• 43:31Jocko Willink?

  Because a well-oiled machine can't adapt.

• 43:37Jocko Willink?

  It can't evolve. It can't react to contingencies, it's not fluid. It can't make decisions that aren't pre-programmed. A well-oiled machine cannot make a decision on something that hasn't been programmed to do. In other words, a machine cannot think.

• 43:54Jocko Willink?

  Our team, our organization, has to be able to adapt and evolve and react and make decisions.

• 44:03Jocko Willink?

  In other words, we want an organization. We want an organization that is like a living being that can actually think. That's what we want, that's what we have to build.

• 44:15Jocko Willink?

  That's what we have to build. And it's like, you know, I'm talking about a machine. It's like another thing you could look at is kids. Right? Do you want to raise your kid where they just obey orders as directed? Now, we think we do. We think that's what we want as a kid. We want our kids to be, hey, if they would just do what I told them to do. We think that, but that's not what we want. That's not what you want. You don't want... That person, that kid that you raise will not be able to contend with the world. They can't react, they can't problem solve, they can't think. So we don't want that. And we don't want our employees to be like that either. We don't want employees that just obey. Even though we think we do. You think you do. You think you want employees that just shut up and do what I told them.

• 44:59Jocko Willink?

  If they would just do what I told them to do, we would be so much better off. No, that's not what we want. If we build a team that can't think, then we have to think for them.

• 45:10Jocko Willink?

  And that means we're looking down and in instead of up and out. That means we are not leading.

• 45:19Jocko Willink?

  So we want to lead without leading. That's what we want to do. But as I said, just like with the martial arts, it doesn't mean you don't have to do anything. It takes discipline. It takes practice. It takes experience. It takes technique with us and with the team. It takes work.

• 45:37Jocko Willink?

  You have to cover a move. You have to keep things simple. You have to prioritize and execute. You have to use decentralized command. You have to take ownership and you have to be default aggressive. But you also need the underlying philosophical platform to implement those strategies and tactics.

• 45:55Jocko Willink?

  You have to have the underlying philosophical platform for these things to exist.

• 46:07Jocko Willink?

  What does that underlying platform look like? Well, you have to build relationships. You have to build relationships. You have to trust, listen, respect, and influence up and down the chain of command. And by the way, note, in order to trust, listen, respect, and influence, we have to give those things away. In order to give those things away, guess what we have to do? We have to put our ego in check. I can't, if I, if I can't put my ego in check to treat Dave with respect because he's below me in the chain of command, why should I have to treat him well? You're gonna fail. If I can't put my ego in check where Dave can influence me and be like, hey, you know what? Dave, your, your, your plan sounds good. Let's do it your way. If I can't put my ego in check, I can't make that happen. I can't build that relationship. So my ego has to be in check. I have to build leadership capital.

• 46:52Jocko Willink?

  I have to utilize the indirect approach. And even though we think, oh, if we have a good relationship, we can just go direct. Not true, unfortunately. Not true. And, and actually I shouldn't even say unfortunately. It's fortunate. You know why it's fortunate? Because when you attack someone, you're showing them that you have a closed mind. And you know what? You do have a closed mind.

• 47:15Jocko Willink?

  So the platform is relationships. The platform is communication.

• 47:21Jocko Willink?

  We have to be able to communicate with people. We have to communicate in simple, clear, concise manner that everybody understands. We have to utilize every medium possible to communicate. Because different people receive information in different ways. And for communication, also, we have to use the indirect approach.

• 47:40Jocko Willink?

  We have to make sure we're aligned. And you touched on this, Dave, like as you climb that ladder of alignment. Where, wait, oh, do you think that the boss doesn't want us to be safe? Or doesn't want, wants us to go bankrupt because we're being so safety conscious? No, that's not accurate at all.

• 47:58Jocko Willink?

  That's not accurate at all. We have a unified strategic objective. And sometimes we have to climb the ladder of alignment until we get there. And with that, I have to fill this note on the indirect approach. Because part of the indirect, part of the indirect approach is that you'll never stray from the truth of where you're going.

• 48:18Jocko Willink?

  You don't, you don't, the indirect, the indirect approach is not lying. It isn't little maneuvers to set someone up. That's not what it is.

• 48:31Jocko Willink?

  The indirect approach is how you are going to get to that end state.

• 48:38Jocko Willink?

  And then last, we have, we have culture, which is the ultimate form of decentralized command.

• 48:46Jocko Willink?

  And, and it's the laws of combat and the intent behind the laws of combat. When you do cover and move, you're not doing cover and move so that, I'm not doing cover and move for Dave so that Dave takes care of me. No, that's not the intent. The intent is I'm doing cover and move so I can take care of Dave. You see that little subtle difference? I'm not, I'm not hooking up Dave so he hooks me up. That's not the purpose. That's not the purpose of cover and move.

• 49:12Jocko Willink?

  I'm keeping things simple. Why? So that the team understands. It's for them. I'm doing this for them.

• 49:22Jocko Willink?

  Prioritize and execute.

• 49:25Jocko Willink?

  There's an application, there's an intent of prioritize and execute. Guess what? Guess what the number one priority is?

• 49:35Jocko Willink?

  The team and the mission. Not me.

• 49:39Jocko Willink?

  That the intent of this, the intent to prioritize and execute is that it's the team and it's the mission. The baseline prioritize and execute is it's not for me. That's the baseline of prioritize and execute.

• 49:53Jocko Willink?

  And decentralized command. Why am I doing that? Am I doing that so Dave can do all the work and I just get to coast? No, I'm doing it so that he gets ownership. I'm not doing it to take care of myself. I'm doing it to take care of him.

• 50:07Jocko Willink?

  So that's the, these things become part of our culture and culture. We gotta, we gotta model the correct behavior and then we gotta propagate the story. So everybody understands who we are and what we are.

• 50:19Jocko Willink?

  These things are, these are the platforms, these are the philosophical platform that we build the rest of, the rest of our leadership approach on. And by the way, here's another thing about the indirect approach.

• 50:32Jocko Willink?

  This is key and this is the difference. When somebody pushes back on the indirect approach, let me tell you what, the indirect approach only makes sense

• 50:42Jocko Willink?

  if you think strategically. If you don't think strategically, the indirect approach doesn't make any sense. It will never make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to, to use the indirect approach if you think tactically, if you think short term. The indirect approach doesn't make any sense because it's going to take longer. It's going to look like it's going to take longer. And tactically, it's going to seem like it's going to take longer. But the indirect approach only works if you have a strategic perspective. And when should you have a strategic perspective? You should have a strategic perspective all the time because if what you're doing doesn't help your strategic goal or help you move you in a strategic direction, you shouldn't be doing it.

• 51:22Jocko Willink?

  So these are the ideas that make up this philosophical platform.

• 51:29Jocko Willink?

  So that you can move in a direction where your leadership is no leadership at all.

• 51:37Jocko Willink?

  And every one of these ideas is difficult. But we have to understand where it is we are trying to get.

• 51:48Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 51:51Jocko Willink?

  Let's keep working on our leadership.

• 51:54Jocko Willink?

  Anything on that, Dave? Nope.

• 51:59Jocko Willink?

  Right on. All right. Well, um.

• 52:03Jocko Willink?

  Probably a good place to stop then. How do we do? Said we might be a little bit long. Looks like we're a little bit long. Hey, if you want to dig deeper into any of these aspects of leadership, you can join Dave, me, Leif, the rest of the Echelon Front team. We have an online training academy, Extreme Ownership Academy, extremeownership.com. We solve leadership. We solve problems through leadership.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  If you want our guidance inside your organization, you can come check out our leadership consultancy at echelonfront.com. I've also written a bunch of books on the subject of leadership. Extreme Ownership, The Economy of Leadership and Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Got some other podcasts. My main podcast, I guess, is Jocko Podcast. Also have Jocko Unraveling, Grounded, and the Warrior Kid podcasts. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can get some gear from jacostore.com or originusa.com. And thank you for listening to the debrief.

• 53:06Jocko Willink?

  Now go and lead. This is Dave and Jocko. Out.