The Debrief w/ Jocko And Dave Berke #27: Red Flags: When Egos Clash in The Workplace

It's common for egos to clash in the workplace. Here are some red flags to lookout for. 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 27 with Dave Berke and me, Jocko Willink. What we do on this podcast is we discuss our leadership consultancy, which is called Echelon Front, and we work with clients in every industry. Am I allowed to say every industry? I mean, it's pretty broad. It's very broad. We work with everyone from construction companies to manufacturing companies, to software companies, to finance companies, to insurance companies, to banking companies, to energy companies. I mean, it's the whole, it's everybody.

• 0:35Dave Berke?

  Legal, food. I'm thinking like, I can't think of one that we don't work with.

• 0:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sports, everything, everything. So we work with a bunch of different companies. We help them with their leadership and oftentimes we learn from them or we learn from interacting with them, or they'll have a problem that we haven't seen before and we will debrief those problems amongst ourselves. So that's what we do on this podcast. We debrief some of those where we think more people could learn and not make the same mistakes that someone else's make, made. And by the way, we do not talk about our clients directly on this podcast because we maintain the client, what are we, patient? No, the, the consultant

• 1:21Jocko Willink?

  client silence. We don't like to talk about our clients. We keep that stuff classified, for lack of a better word. So if we are talking about a software company, it probably in really real life is a plumbing company. If we're talking about a plumbing company, it probably in real life is a manufacturing company and so on. And the names are changed. So you won't be able to tell if we're talking about you, except for you'll know it's your problem. So no one else will be able to figure it out though. So here we go. What do you, what do you got? What do you got going on?

• 1:57Dave Berke?

  Yeah, this is a good one. I was looking forward to this and, and something you said I thought was good too, is we learn all the time. And one of the things I get to learn is we could be with a company, in this case, it's an engineering company. But even in a very, working on a very specific, very narrow problem with this company that we've been with for years, what you learn and get repeated over and over again is how applicable these challenges are. As unique as they seem, what I get to see is the application of this particular challenge to all those different companies and all those different industries and how similar they are and how much they apply in all different facets, not just in business, but in life. And so when we do get with a client, we start to dig into something and go through a little exercise where we really dig deep into a topic.

• 2:42Dave Berke?

  I get to learn a bunch, not just from them, but also how it applies elsewhere. And this was a fun one because we're working with an engineering company. Smart people, smart people, and they work very independently. Engineers typically get assigned a project and they get to dig into that project and they have a lot of autonomy to solve that the way that they want and use their giant brains and their great education and do some really cool stuff. But one of the byproducts of that is there can be some disagreements and there can be some egos. And there is not an industry in the world where that doesn't apply to. Well, the exercise we're going through, and as you know, the topic of ego and humility comes up with every client. It's a, it's a theme that we have to address and we have to think about all the time. Is we went through this little drill about what does your ego say?

• 3:27Dave Berke?

  And we, we talk about the idea of humility and, and we talk about humility being the most important attribute in a leader. We talk about what an ego is and why we have it and what we do with it. But this is a good one. We actually went through a little exercise of starting to write down some of the things that our egos say to us. And I thought why this was important is not just because the topic is such a critical one. You have to know what your ego is saying. It's not enough to just say, keep your ego in check. I mean, that's what you do, but you have to know how to do that.

• 3:54Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's a little bit of pattern recognition all day long. It's like when salespeople, they learn, they learn pattern recognition to overcome objections. You know, when someone says, well, I'm not quite sure if I can afford it. They've heard that before and they recognize it and they've got to come back for it. So this is a very similar thing.

• 4:12Dave Berke?

  And your, your, your ego default might be different than my ego default. The little thing your ego is going to say to you might not be the same thing that mine says to me. And so it's cool. So I, I picked 10, I wrote down 10. This is not an all exhaustive list, but I thought the way we wrote them down, or I wrote them down would be good. And I'm sure you'll have something to say about them as we go through it. And the first one that came up, what your ego says to you is. I'm right. I know that sounds very simple and pretty straightforward, but the I'm right, they're wrong in our conversation that we're disagreeing on about some solution or whatever might be. The entire time what's happening is in my brain, my little ego is going, you're right, Dave. Hey, in this conversation, you're right.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  You know, this, this brings me to the last podcast that we did, the last debrief podcast that we did where I said, hey, what I'm thinking is I'm wrong. You know, maybe I'm wrong. What am I wrong about? They must know something that I don't know. My instinct at this juncture in my life is to think they're right. That's my instinct right now. Now, listen, it was a hard, long battle to change what my internal questioning is going to be. But my ego has been told to shut up for so long. That thing has been beat down. It, it knows that taking this path of assuming that I'm right, it knows that's a bad outcome in the long term.

• 5:32Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's one thing I was actually just reading. I was actually just writing. I was writing a new chapter for a re-release of the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics. And I actually talked about that. I actually talked about the fact that your ego is going to be saying things to you. And if you listen to it, it's going to put you into a problematic scenario. So, yeah, watch out for that.

• 5:58Dave Berke?

  Watch out for that. I love the idea that we talked about instinct. We talked about inclination. We talked about tendencies and how we're kind of wired wrong. We are wired in a lot of ways to do the wrong thing. The ego is a great example. The story you just told is you weren't born having this, this magical scenario by which your ego says, hey, Taco, hang on a second. You might be wrong. You had to train. You had to beat that thing into submission. That's not how you were wired because you, like every other human being in the world, is wired where you have to train it to do that.

• 6:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so this is actually what I wanted to say about this four, or this new chapter that I wrote. There's actually a concept in there that was a little bit new to me as I was writing it. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. And that is that fundamentally speaking, for the most part, your ego is a tactical thinker. Your ego just wants to feel good right now. And your ego is not a good strategic, long-term thinker. That's the way it is. So the short term thought is, I'm right, Dave's wrong. That's a short term. I need to tell Dave that he's wrong. That's a short term tactical thought. Whereas if I, the strategic thought is, first of all, Dave might be right. Second of all, what's priority over being right and wrong is the relationship that we have.

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm trying to build a good relationship with Dave because we have to work together and we have to try and assemble the best plans. We try, have to, have to come up with the best ideas together as a team. And if it's his ego against my ego, that's not gonna happen. It's literally not gonna happen. Just the same way that if you and I are in a boat and you're rowing in one direction and I'm rowing in the other direction, we're not gonna make any progress. If your ego is fighting my ego, we're not gonna make any progress. And since I can't control your ego and you're paddling really hard, the best thing I can actually do is say, it looks like he's heading west. Cool, we're going west or we're gonna go hard. And I actually paddle with you until you look back at me and you say, hey, you're on my side. And I say, yeah, absolutely. And I say, well, where are we going? And you say, well, going west. Do you see land out there?

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  Well, not really. Well, do you wanna take a look around? And now, since we're working together, we can actually get out the telescope and take a look around and see if we, oh, I see land over here to the south. Let's start moving south together as a team. Yes, that sounds like a great idea. The only reason I was able to do that is because I subordinated my ego and said, okay, we're paddling west, Dave. Cool, I'm paddling hard, I'm with you. And I support you enough, so you think I'm on your side and your ego says, you know what, I'm the winner here. I be, I, I get your little tactical ego, thinking that it got the big victory and then it can stand down and relax. And I go, hey, man, do you see land up there? And you're like, well, not yet. Hey, do you wanna take a look at the telescope? Okay, well, let's take a look. Oh, oh, actually, there's land to the south. Should we paddle that way?

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. So I'm gonna actually seed tactical victories to your ego so that I can win strategically. It's a very interesting concept.

• 8:56Dave Berke?

  That's awesome. Yeah, I like that. Um.

• 8:59Jocko Willink?

  Number two.

• 9:00Dave Berke?

  Yeah, number two. I'm better than them.

• 9:04Dave Berke?

  And this is a good one because especially, especially in this group, when you come from like, hey, where did you get your education from? You know, where did you learn this? How much experience? You have all these objective measurable metrics that can say, you put your resume next to mine and look how much more I've done. I know more than you. I'm, I'm better than you at this. And which means we should do it my way.

• 9:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I kind of, there's a certain situation that occurs in Gettysburg, the Gettysburg Battlefield. And, and when we go up there, I usually talk about the fact that the minute you are using your experience, your rank, your authority, whenever you're using those to win an argument, they, they don't work.

• 9:46Dave Berke?

  You're losing the argument.

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  You just lost the argument. And, and your statement of I'm better than they are is just a terrible thing to think. It inhibits so much progress. My instinct at this juncture in my life is they're better than me and they know something I don't know. That's the instinct I, that's what I hear my internal voice. I don't want to call it the ego, but that's what I hear inside my head is when Dave says, hey, Jock, we know we got this client. I think we should approach it like this. I think, well, Dave, Dave probably has a, probably has this thing figured out. And listen, someone might be thinking, yeah, but you know, Jock, you're probably just getting steamrolled throughout your life. And I come and hang out with me for a while. You can

• 10:30Jocko Willink?

  see that I'm not getting steamrolled in my life. I kind of get whatever I want in a weird way.

• 10:34Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Jocko Willink?

  So terrible thing for your ego to say. And to your point, pattern recognition, if you can say to yourself, when, when I look at Dave and go, Dave doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a lot better than him than this. This is, this is a pattern recognition for you. When you think that, check it.

• 10:54Dave Berke?

  I think that right there is why this was such a good exercise.

• 10:57Jocko Willink?

  That's a great exercise.

• 10:57Dave Berke?

  It helps that people think, oh, what is, what is my pattern that I haven't seen? So I can catch myself as it's happening. So I know to do something different. And the next, I'm going to go to the next one because you, I think the way you're doing this, which is the counterintuitive or the opposite thing you should do. The next one is, is super obvious. Don't listen to them. And just take the exact same template, which is the exact opposite of what you should do when somebody's telling you something.

• 11:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Dave Berke?

  The exact opposite of what you should do.

• 11:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's the, the joke at Echelon Front now where I have this, this, I don't know. Does it have a name where I pose, where it's like the pose, the listening pose, right? Where I kind of put my thumb under my chin and I curl my fingers and put them over my mouth. And what I'm doing is if someone's talking to me, I do that. And look, I kind of did it instinctively and I joke about it now. It was like, hey, if I have my hand over my mouth, I keep my freaking mouth shut.

• 11:49Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Jocko Willink?

  And it's a great thing to do. It's a great thing. You know what's, what's incredible? Listening is, uh, the, the team is mad. What should I do? Listen to them. The team is frustrated. What should I do? Listen to them. The team is complaining. What should I do? Listen to them. The team is making excuses. Listen to them. Actually, listen to their excuses. You know how powerful that is to sit there and be like, pull out your notebook and start taking notes when someone's making a bunch of excuses? Listen to what they're saying.

• 12:16Dave Berke?

  Listen. Yeah. I don't know when I started doing it. I, I am sure it is directly correlated to me coming to Echelon Front. But now, at the end of every muster, we have photographers and videographers, people filming and stuff. We get these pictures of ourselves that here's, here's the pictures of you from muster. And every muster photo, whatever collage I get, there's a picture of me, because you and I are on stage together. I'm standing there and my right arm is underneath my left arm and my hand is over my mouth and I'm just listening. And so I've created this habitual thing, which I can't point to, I don't. Remember like on this particular day, I learned this thing, but it is the exact same thing you described, which was the habit that you can create by going, oh, I should be

• 12:57Dave Berke?

  listening right now. And a great way to make sure I do that is I should not be talking. And me covering my mouth with my hand guarantees that.

• 13:07Jocko Willink?

  Yep. And what a nice little signal to the person that's trying to talk to you.

• 13:10Dave Berke?

  I am listening.

• 13:11Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I'm listening to what you're saying.

• 13:12Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 13:12Jocko Willink?

  The only thing better than that is pulling out your notebook and starting to write things down. That's a great way to do it. Don't pull out your phone and go into the notes app because then they think you're ignoring them and you're, you know, on Instagram instead of listening to what they're saying. So.

• 13:24Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, next.

• 13:26Dave Berke?

  Couple, a couple, you'll like this one. Um, it's not my fault.

• 13:31Jocko Willink?

  Wait, are you skipping? No one else can do this but me?

• 13:33Dave Berke?

  Yeah, because I want to put those two together because I wrote a couple down that we had people that are almost saying the exact opposite things and I wanted to lump those together. So I skipped that one for a minute. I'm going to come back to it. But it's not my fault. And I thought that was important, which was like these, you know, other than, uh, listen to them, you think about extreme ownership, there's no more obvious one, which was that's exactly the opposite of how you should, what your brain should be saying. Now, it, listen, it's telling you this, your ego, if you don't have this thing trained, especially if you're young, smart, aggressive type person, your ego is saying, that problem, that's not your fault. That thing that affected the team, that's not because of you. That issue that happened with this project is not as a result of you. So that's what's, it's telling you that all the time.

• 14:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And so Jamie Cochran, our chief operating officer, has training wheels for this one. And it's, we had an interesting conversation that she remembered and, and it's a good point. When she first, so she has this thing, when you're trying to take ownership, it's a method of saying, how can I make this my fault? And when she first told it to me, I was like, yeah, I'm not, I don't really like that. And she asked why? And I said, well, if I am quote, trying to make this my fault, that means it's actually not my fault. And I'm trying to figure out a way to make it my fault. And she, you know, we talked through it and eventually what I realized is it's a great methodology

• 14:57Jocko Willink?

  because it's like training wheels. It's like it's training wheels to say, this wasn't my fault, but wait a second. Okay, I'm gonna make this my fault. Eventually you won't need that step, but it's really good training wheels to get you there to your instinct not being it's not my fault, but instead your instinct being, hey, something went wrong. I'm in charge. It's my fault. Let's get it fixed.

• 15:20Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 15:21Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 15:21Dave Berke?

  Yeah. All right. These next two came up and I should have put them together on this list. I'm gonna go, I'll, I'll, I'll say them both and we could talk about it. One is no one else can do this but me. But in the same breath, we had some people as we were going through this, it was in a, in a group was, I can't do this. And what's interesting about that is it to me is I think

• 15:43Jocko Willink?

  What context was that in? What context was I can't do this?

• 15:47Dave Berke?

  A project that you're assigned and you don't have the experience, the background, the reps, you haven't done this before. And so sometimes your ego will go the opposite direction that, and, and to me, the connection to this is there's insecurity here. And even when the one, when it says, no one else can do this but me, there's some insecurity of, I don't want anybody knowing that Jocko was as capable as I am because I'm his boss or I'm his supervisor or I'm more experienced than him. There's no way he should be able to know what I know. And in the same breath, if, if we reverse those roles and I go, hey, and you do this with us, you do this all the time. And you told me about Delta Charlie, the first mission, you're the young guy, hey, you're, you're gonna lead this. If you are insecure or have never been in a position to do that, what you're gonna say is, oh, I can't lead this mission. I don't have any idea how, how to do the mobility and the, and

• 16:31Dave Berke?

  the hell. And your ego will say, dude, don't, don't do this because then they'll discover you don't know what you're doing. And you'll find a way to avoid doing that. So your ego can actually, again, it's the same thing that, that short term is

• 16:45Jocko Willink?

  Protective.

• 16:46Dave Berke?

  Protect yourself. Hey, you can't do this. You can't do this. Don't take responsibility for that, or, or don't volunteer for that project, or don't end up letting that be yours, because you actually can't get this done. You'll look bad in the end. And so you've got those two different bookends around the same thing. One is, no one can do it but me, and the other one is, I can't do this. Both of which are obviously wrong.

• 17:04Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, one of them is protecting, I, I, both of them are protecting the ego, but using different methodologies. So, I can't do this, meaning, hey, I'm not gonna put myself out there where I'm gonna fail.

• 17:17Dave Berke?

  Yes, exactly.

• 17:19Jocko Willink?

  And no one else can do this. That no one else can do with this but me is a real common one. And if you're in a leadership position, and no one can do your job but you, you, you better start working on some other people that can do your job. Otherwise, you got problems. If you're the only one that can do your job, you're failing. You should have a couple other people that are in the running to be able to do your job tomorrow. That's what the goal is.

• 17:42Dave Berke?

  Yeah. That, I can't do this, is actually pretty closely connected in, in the same conversation, which is, you'll look dumb, or you'll be exposed. I, what do they call it? Impostor syndrome? Where, what I'm gonna, what, what you're gonna discover about me is that, when you dig into it, you're gonna like, it turns out, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm, I'm a total imposter. I'm faking this. I'm not capable of doing this. Your ego will, will tell you that if, if, if you get uncovered, that you don't know the answer to this question, or you don't know how to solve this particular problem, or this thing that should be easy to do, this task that you've been given, you can't do it, you'll look dumb, you'll be exposed, is very closely connected in this conversation, which is, don't take on that task, because if you do, and you don't do it well, you're gonna be, you're gonna be uncovered, you're gonna be exposed.

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  The one, one thing that's a little bit related to that, is the idea of saying, I don't know, which is a very tough thing for a lot of people to say. And the reason we think it's, the reason it's hard to say is because we think it makes us look stupid. It's a very similar thing.

• 18:45Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 18:45Jocko Willink?

  When the reality is, this is, again, when I, when I was in the young guy going into the SEAL teams, and we had to go through our oral board. So you had to go and break down weapons, and program radios, and do combat trauma care, and do, do, you know, pack parachute, like all these little things you had to do. And they got you. They would ask questions that no one would know the answer to, you know? And if you try

• 19:13Dave Berke?

  By design, right?

• 19:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, by design. So they're gonna ask you, you know, the, the max effective range of some rare Soviet weapon.

• 19:23Jocko Willink?

  And you could try and BS them and you're gonna fail. Or you can say, hey, I don't know, I don't know the numbers behind that, but I can, I know where I can look it up. And then you're fine. But that's a huge lesson to learn for life is to just be able to say, I'm not really sure about that. It's really nice not to have an opinion on everything. How many, how many things do you need an opinion on? What do you deserve to have an opinion on? I think there's very few things that I actually deserve to have an opinion on. I can probably think of a very small number of things that I'm allowed to have an opinion on, a legitimate opinion. I mean, I was just thinking to myself like jujitsu, like maybe I'm allowed to have an opinion of jujitsu, but I actually don't think I'm allowed to have an opinion on jujitsu, like what move is better here?

• 20:06Jocko Willink?

  Like Dean Lister can have an opinion on jujitsu. He can say, hey, but what's interesting, even Dean would be like, well, here's the situation. Like you can probably have an opinion about a fighter jet.

• 20:20Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Jocko Willink?

  Right? Like you can say, hey, the F-22 is a better dogfighting aircraft than the F-18, period. You can have that opinion.

• 20:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah. But, but it's funny, cause when you were talking about you and jujitsu, as soon as you said that, in my mind, I'm like, the irony is, is that there's no way you're gonna have an opinion because you actually at a point were like, I'm not gonna dig into this position and reveal my opinion because what I'm gonna get discovered is someone's gonna go, hey, Jocko, what about this? And you go, that's actually a pretty good idea. I mean, that's almost, you could, we could do a whole podcast on not having an opinion on almost anything to include the things you're an expert on.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  Allegedly.

• 20:59Dave Berke?

  Allegedly.

• 21:00Jocko Willink?

  The things that you're allegedly an expert on.

• 21:02Dave Berke?

  But, but I think all this connects back, and I was thinking like,

• 21:06Dave Berke?

  Just saying the words, "I don't know," and how powerful that is, not just for your own development of admitting to yourself, "Hey, I don't know how to do this. Jocko gives me this task and it's, you know, I gotta put this thing together. I gotta execute on this and I gotta capture the lessons learned and go, 'Hey Jocko, you know, I've done a really good job. I've learned how to do this. Listen, this part of this project, when do I gotta bring all this team together? I've never done this before. Can you just help me out and walk me through this? I don't actually know how to do that.'" That isn't just good for me. That actually is a good sign for you. Go, "Oh, this guy, Dave, he's not gonna try to, he's not gonna make stuff up or cover it up or not be willing to reveal to me just the phrase, 'I don't know.'" And that is a violation, that is an assault on

• 21:47Dave Berke?

  your ego to look to the other person in the eye and go, "Jocko, I don't know how to do this." It is an assault on your ego. But to your point, not just only how powerful it is, you can train your ego to say, "No, no, no, that's okay." And that's the tactical and strategic. The tactical is, "Don't admit it." The strategic is, "But when I say that, how much am I gonna learn? How much better am I gonna get at it? And if I'm early in my career, how much sooner do I learn this?" The power that's inside that and your ego is fighting against that, "Don't admit it. You'll look dumb." And how counterproductive that is in life to not be willing to do that.

• 22:24Jocko Willink?

  There you go. Right on. What's next?

• 22:26Dave Berke?

  Well, that was the, "You'll look dumb, you'll be exposed." The next two are, I guess, two sides of the same coin. And it's again, this is about tendencies. And this came up, I thought this was really cool, because it's a little bit, we talk about this at the muster when we talk the leadership loop. The one that your ego says, "It's not that bad." You look at a problem, you look at an issue, a setback, a challenge, something that didn't go well, and your ego's like, "Ah, it's not that big of a deal," which is, it's a way of saying, "Hey, hey, it's okay." Just protects you. It just, look at that and it, this is no big deal, which is really, part of it is ownership. And part of it is like, you don't have to admit to really doing anything wrong, because this problem really isn't that big of a deal.

• 23:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good one. You know when that happens is when like, some key person leaves because of bad leadership? And the, the reaction is, they're not that big of a deal.

• 23:14Dave Berke?

  This is not a reflection of a pandemic, yeah. This is not how the entire organization is.

• 23:18Jocko Willink?

  Oh, really? Was that how it is?

• 23:20Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's a good one. Or some... Thing starts falling apart. We'll get through this. No big deal. Okay, cool. That's your ego talking. That's a good one. I like that one.

• 23:29Dave Berke?

  Everything's fine. Nothing to worry about here. And then the opposite is anything that goes wrong. This is catastrophic. This is catastrophic. Your ego says, oh, you didn't hit that particular number. Or you didn't hit that particular deadline or the goals that we have. Everything is falling apart. This whole thing is, is, is burning down. And the other side where your ego scares you into thinking everything is a problem. Could be that person's leaving. Turns out, you know, their, their wife has a family in, in Michigan or, or Connecticut. They want to move, move back and it's like, hey, listen, Jocko, I love working here, but I have this opportunity and they go and you let that person go. It doesn't need to be a catastrophic event, but sometimes your ego will tell you, hey, that problem, that means this whole thing is falling apart. And opposite, like I said, two sides of the same coin.

• 24:14Jocko Willink?

  So I was having trouble connecting that one. But then as I thought through it, see, this comes down to just egos being egocentric, where what you think is going on in your little world is you think is

• 24:28Dave Berke?

  Represents the whole, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 24:31Jocko Willink?

  That's a, so as soon as, this is another thing that happens to people. Like for instance, let's say you're getting nervous about you got to go do a presentation. And if you fail the presentation, it's going to be catastrophic. This is a perfect example. So Dave's got to go present to this client. And if, you know, Dave's like so nervous and if he goes in there, if this doesn't go well, it's going to be catastrophic. And the reality is like, the people that are watching you present, they don't actually, they barely even care. You know, they don't, they don't know, they don't even know what you're going to say. So how can they judge you? So an interesting thing about doing a presentation is they don't know what you're going to say. So you go in there and say what you're going to say and it is what it is. But yes, if you let your ego

• 25:12Jocko Willink?

  get out of control, you think I'm the center of the world. This presentation is important. Everyone is hanging on every word. But I say, there's a bunch of people that are sitting on there looking at Instagram while you're talking. So you gotta, you gotta let that go a little bit. Calm your nerves. No one's that concerned about what you are doing.

• 25:31Dave Berke?

  And, and truly catastrophic things, there's just not that many of them. And the story, when you were talking about that, people will create a story. Hey, I'm going to give this presentation. It's not going to go well. And in four steps in their mind of like, I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my house, you know, and they will create this whole scenario by which this issue, which That presentation probably could get better. There's things to get improve on. They'll make it catastrophic and what it'll do is it'll almost guarantee because your ego is so out of control that you actually don't do a good job.

• 26:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. You're so freaking nervous.

• 26:04Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, good one. All right.

• 26:07Dave Berke?

  And we and the connection I why I like that was we talk about when when we're talking about decision making, especially in a leadership role is what we've got to do is and I get information from Jocko and I'm taking that input and I have to validate, you know, the how good that is. And if you are, we call you, you know, the you're perennially optimistic. Hey, everything's good. Everything's great. Everything's all this really good news. That you might be biased in that direction, or you could be the guy that everything is terrible and everything's catastrophic. I have to know what that inclination is. I have to know that you're biased in that direction, that nothing is that bad, or everything's catastrophic. And I have to take that into account. So I think this idea of recognizing your ego will drive you in one of those two directions. I really like that because it's really close to what we talk about with that leadership loop as well. And then this one I thought was really good, too, is the last one on this list is I'm not going to get through to them.

• 26:53Dave Berke?

  So we're having a conversation and maybe we're discussing what's the best approach to take on a particular plan or particular project, how we want to do, which way do we want to row? And I will give myself a reason. And the reason is I'm not going to get through to you, which is really my way of saying is you're not going to listen to me, which is a way of relinquishing the responsibility of explaining myself better, doing a better job, building a better relationship. So you trust me more. All the things I actually need to do to get you to hear me when the times that I need to talk to you, like, do you think there's land down to the south? What your ego will tell you is like, you're never going to get through to that guy, which is basically my way of saying, you're the problem. This is not on me. This is on them. I'm never going to get through to you. So don't waste

• 27:35Dave Berke?

  your time building good relationship. Don't waste your time developing what you need to do with that person because they're just stubborn. They're set in their ways that they're whatever they are. And it's a it's an excuse essentially.

• 27:45Jocko Willink?

  So to so to hone this one a little bit, I think it would actually be they're not going to understand, right?

• 27:53Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Jocko Willink?

  Because I'm not going to get through to them. I'm still saying, well, wait a second. If it's me, I can adjust what I'm saying. But if I just say, look, I'm talking to Dave this afternoon, I'm not going to get you. He's not going to listen to me.

• 28:03Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 28:03Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to I'm talking to Dave this afternoon. I'm not going to get through to him. Hold on a second. Why not? What can I do different?

• 28:09Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  So if you let your ego say they're not going to listen. Which is a beautiful excuse.

• 28:16Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Jocko Willink?

  They're stupid. That's a good one. They're dumb. I think I need to tighten myself up on that one. They're idiots.

• 28:28Jocko Willink?

  Then you have no way out. So.

• 28:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 28:31Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 28:32Dave Berke?

  Well, and listen, like I said, not an exhaustive list by any means. We know there are more. And I think the cool lesson that came from this, at least the way we talked about.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  I bet it's a relatively finite list. I bet you it's more finite than you might initially think. I think your ego has got like four phrases that it just freaking. And I, and I bet the more egocentric you are, the less phrases you have. And the more, and the more powerful they are.

• 29:01Dave Berke?

  Okay.

• 29:01Jocko Willink?

  So there's people that just go through life and it's like, everyone is an idiot.

• 29:05Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Jocko Willink?

  And like, there's their deal. That's all they hear. Check.

• 29:11Dave Berke?

  Indeed. And the point behind that was. Before you ignore what your ego is saying, making these awesome tactical moves that are actually just strategic disasters.

• 29:23Dave Berke?

  You gotta listen to it. You have to learn what it's saying. You have to open your own mind to hear what's going on in there. And the whole point behind that is if, if you don't know what your ego is trying to do to you, which really is to protect you, but it's for all the, you know, it's all the right reasons and all the wrong ways. You have to learn. You have to learn that habit and, and you've, I've even seen you make the explanation. I do this now, which is you go, oh. Oh, I see what's going on here. And you, you're, you're actually acknowledging, oh, I hear what you're saying to me. I hear you ego. I hear you. You're trying to convince me that he's the problem. You're trying to convince me that he's an idiot. Thank you. Now I can tell it. I'm not going to do that. I can now, now I could ignore it.

• 30:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Dave Berke?

  But I gotta, I gotta learn to hear that first. And you keep talking about, you know, where you are and what your ego is saying. That's been trained. And it's, it starts with knowing what it's saying. So you gotta listen to it before you ignore it.

• 30:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Pattern recognition and voice recognition. It's like really voice recognition. Like, wait a second. I know you.

• 30:27Dave Berke?

  Yeah. I know. I hear you. Anyway, that's it.

• 30:30Jocko Willink?

  Good stuff. Um.

• 30:34Jocko Willink?

  So I got asked the other day, you know, I was just kind of got done with a little fundamentals of leadership talk, maybe an hour I've been talking and get to some Q and A and I get asked this question and I kind of, I had talked a little bit about, well, the question that I get asked is basically, how do I give direct orders without seeming like a dictator? And like I said, I'd been already been talking for an hour. I had just talked to this client about authoritarian leadership and how the priority is building relationships and how every interaction that I have with people as a leader is meant to strengthen our relationship, not diminish the relationship. So I'd just gone through all this stuff. And so clearly

• 31:19Jocko Willink?

  this had landed with this individual. They heard me say like, oh, I want to interact in a positive way. And yet this person said, okay, I get all that, but how, you know, I get the, I get the relationship building. I get treating people with respect. I get listening to them and being influenced and giving trust to get it. I understand all those things, but, and it was literally like that. It was literally a but. And a lot of times a but as an indicator that you, that I as an instructor really haven't, I haven't pulled it off. So I get all that and then I get, but when I do have to give a direct order, how do I do it in a way that I'm not hurting the relationship?

• 32:03Jocko Willink?

  And as soon as I heard that but, and then I heard the question, I was like, I realized that basically nothing I had said had sunk in. I had failed to convey my message as a leadership instructor about relationships and about being a silent leader and about keeping an open mind and about not being a tyrannical authoritarian. Because you see, if you have to give an order, if you have to bark an order at someone, you've already messed up. If you have to yell at someone, you've already messed up. If you need to go direct as your first attempt to get someone to move in the right direction,

• 32:46Jocko Willink?

  if your first attempt, your first salvo is a direct order, then you're making 92 other mistakes as a leader. You've already messed up so bad.

• 33:01Jocko Willink?

  That you are in the wrong spot. You, you just should not have to bark a direct order at someone on your team. You just shouldn't have to do it. Now, okay, you get a, a, a dynamic situation, a

• 33:20Jocko Willink?

  chaotic situation where no one knows what's going on and you gotta put some word out. Does that occasionally happen like in combat? Yes, it occasionally, once in a while, in a rare time, happens in a combat situation, in a high-stress situation. People are frozen up, people don't know what to do, there's a leadership vacuum, and you gotta bark out some orders to tell people what to do. Does that happen once out of every 10,000 orders or directions from a leader? Yes, it does. But if that's sort of the first thing that comes to your mind during a leadership

• 33:57Jocko Willink?

  course of instruction is like, okay, I get all that relationship stuff, but what do I gotta do when I'm supposed to bark? When I need to give someone a direct order? That's not a good sign. So what are they missing? How, how do we? What are you missing? So let's think about some of those 92 mistakes that you might have made.

• 34:16Jocko Willink?

  So if you're a person that right now is thinking, yeah, but sometimes you gotta just tell people what to do. I get it, I get what you're saying. But I'm telling you, you're messed up.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  Let me ask you some questions. Have you made sure that they know what the mission is?

• 34:29Jocko Willink?

  Because if they don't know what the mission is, guess what you gotta do? You gotta bark an order at them. That's what you gotta do. That's what you gotta do. They don't know what the mission is, they don't understand why they're doing what they're doing. And when, when something changes, you gotta bark an order at them. That's what's gonna happen.

• 34:44Jocko Willink?

  Have you let them come up with a plan?

• 34:48Jocko Willink?

  Because if, if I, if I let Dave come up with a plan and something changes, Dave adjusts the plan. If I came up with a plan and now something changes, I gotta bark an order at Dave. He can't, doesn't know what to do, cuz he, I came up with the plan, it's my plan. I have the deeper vision. So I'm the one that's gonna have to bark an order. Let me ask you this. Have you trained your team to make decisions?

• 35:14Jocko Willink?

  Because if I haven't trained Dave to make decisions and make things happen, he's not going to make decisions, he's not going to make things happen. And guess what I'm gonna have to do? Bark in order. It's, you know, going back, I did an FTX a while ago and I was talking about the fact that when Seth and Leif, who were my two platoon commanders in Task Unit Bruiser, when they showed up in Task Unit Bruiser, they had actually been trained not to lead. And there's a bunch of ways that they do that in the SEAL teams. They train those junior officers not to lead. Hey, you don't know what you're doing. Hey, get in the back of the train. Hey, you're inexperienced. Hey, the chief handles this. They train, they literally train them not to lead.

• 35:55Jocko Willink?

  And it's a bunch of ego that trains people not to lead. Unlike Tony Affrati, who is, who is Leif's chief, who was like, hey, Leif, sir, you put this word out. It's better to have it coming from you. Oh, okay. His ego is just so strong. He doesn't care. But if you are not training your people to make decisions, guess what you're gonna have to do? Bark orders.

• 36:19Jocko Willink?

  If you've trained people to make decisions, you don't have to say anything. You don't have to bark orders because they already like, look like Dave's looking back at me like, hey, I got this. I'm gonna move over here now. Cool, great. Instead of me going, hey, Dave, move over there now. Why? Because I actually trained him not to lead. So if you're not training people to lead, you're gonna have to lead them, which sometimes means I'm gonna have to communicate to them in a dynamic way, in a very short, uh, curt fashion, which means I'm barking orders at people.

• 36:48Jocko Willink?

  Now, can something happen that was so totally unexpected? That now, and Dave at his level on the battlefield can't see what I say, and I say, Dave, you need to get back to building 34 now. Can that happen? Yes, that can happen. Should be rare.

• 37:05Jocko Willink?

  Have you made sure that your people know the end state?

• 37:11Jocko Willink?

  Do they know where they're going? Because if they don't know where they're going, you might need to bark at them and tell them which direction to move in. Because they don't know where they're going. They don't know where they're going. So you're gonna have to tell them where to go. No, Dave, move to the right. Okay, well, I'll move to the right now. If he would have known that we were ending up, looking to end up over the right, he would have moved by himself without me saying anything.

• 37:39Jocko Willink?

  Have you ensured that your team feels confident that you will support them? When they make decisions? When they are default aggressive? Does your team think you will back them up? Cause if they don't think that, guess what? They're not making a call. They're not making a call. And guess who's gonna have to make the call now? You are, and you're gonna have to bark orders. Have you created a precedence? That when someone on your team makes a call? You're gonna give them the support that they need?

• 38:20Jocko Willink?

  Because if that's the precedence, if every time Dave makes a call, I say, "Got it, Dave. Here's the support you need." Guess what? I'm training him like one of Pavlov's dogs to go out and make decisions. Cause he knows I'm gonna give him the support that he needs. Or have I trained him that when he makes a call, I'm gonna second guess him? Cause if Dave is expecting to get second guessed, he's not even making a call. Then guess what I gotta do? I gotta bark orders. Which is terrible. Be careful of little half suggestions without any explanation.

• 39:04Jocko Willink?

  Like Dave says something like, "Hey, Jocko, I think we should go over to the west." And my response is, "I don't know if I'd do that." You ever had that kind of leadership? I'm covering my own ass by halfway negating your call, but I'm still letting you go do it. These are the kind of leaders that you won't get decisive subordinates. You will end up having to bark orders all the time. Cause Dave only needs to hear that one time before he shrugs his shoulders and says, "Looks at me and says, 'What do you want me to do, boss?'" Cause he doesn't wanna hear, "I don't know if I'd do that."

• 39:39Jocko Willink?

  Horrible. If there's something I don't think Dave should do, I'll be like, hey, Dave, have you thought about this? And Dave says, I did think about that. And here's my response. And here's what we're going to do if that happens. Okay, great. You got it covered. Or he says, oh, no, I hadn't think about that. That actually makes it seem like a bad idea. Let me think about it more.

• 40:00Jocko Willink?

  But to give the cover my own ass. Response, I'm training people not to make decisions.

• 40:09Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 40:12Jocko Willink?

  Ultimately, how are you interacting? With your team? Because if you interact correctly, all the time, then every time you interact with your team, you're actually training them to be able to step up and be able to lead.

• 40:34Jocko Willink?

  Every time you let someone make a call, it helps them learn how to make calls.

• 40:41Jocko Willink?

  So every time you let someone make a call, every time Dave says, hey, Jocko, I think we should hit the target from the north. And I go, sounds good. I trained him. Like Pavlov's dog to make things happen, to make decisions.

• 40:56Jocko Willink?

  Every time I make the call, every time I say, hey, Dave, we're hitting the target from the north, get in line. I just trained him not to make a call. He's learning. He's in the habit now of waiting. He's in the habit of not making calls, which leads to me barking orders.

• 41:17Jocko Willink?

  And the interesting thing about this is this inform, this idea of informal training, which we talk about, we just got done talking about them at the muster, which is, hey, man, you know, I can sit down with you for seven minutes and do a role play on some leadership situation or some contingency scenario. And that seven minutes of training is totally legitimate.

• 41:39Jocko Willink?

  But on top of you got formal training, which is, hey, Dave, we're going to go to a two-week class on how to make decisions. Then we got seven minutes of me saying, hey, let's talk through this scenario and what decision would you make? And that's also training. Then life is training. Just living life is training and life and work, life and work are all just training opportunities. So every time we need to do a proposal for a client, it's an opportunity for Dave to do that proposal. Every time, every time there's a question from a client, there's an opportunity for Dave to take and lead

• 42:23Jocko Willink?

  on that answer. Every time we do a mission, it's an opportunity for Dave to come up with a mission plan. These are real world things. These are what happens every day. And by the way, this happens with your kids every day. This happens with your employees every day. This happens with your team every day. Everything that's going on around you is an opportunity for you to train. Everything, everything is training. Life is training. Take advantage of those opportunities. We had, uh, we were getting ready to, actually it wasn't me. It was when I came back from deployment and now I was running training so training, training detachment. And we were paying contractors to set up these big

• 43:03Jocko Willink?

  complex intel scenario for our intel people to train. And I said, hey, we have access to all the intel that's overseas. Why don't we have people actually trying to figure out what's going on overseas? We don't have to pay a bunch of contractors to create a fake world of insurgents. Just use the real material and let them actually supply information back overseas. So life is a training scenario. If you conceive of it that way. If you only look at life as the test itself, you miss out on a lot of training opportunities. Do you occasionally get a test? Yes, you do. Do we occasionally get a test at Echelon Front? Do we occasionally rarely get an actual test?

• 43:50Jocko Willink?

  Yes, we occasionally do. Once a year, I'd say. Like Jamie's got someone specific where she'll be like, "Hey, I want you to talk to this client." Yep, got it. She does that to me once a year. Every other client,

• 44:07Jocko Willink?

  someone on the team's talking to him. This is who's talking to him. Once a year, she says, "Hey, here's this client. Here's this opportunity. I want you to talk to them." Yep, got it. All the other times is training for people. And that's how we get good. That's what we're doing.

• 44:29Jocko Willink?

  So,

• 44:32Jocko Willink?

  if you are in fact giving people direct orders and barking orders and telling them exactly what to do, you are actually training them not to lead.

• 44:42Jocko Willink?

  You are also training yourself. You're training yourself not to trust them.

• 44:49Jocko Willink?

  You're training yourself not to delegate. You're training yourself

• 44:54Jocko Willink?

  to look down and in

• 44:57Jocko Willink?

  instead of looking up and out. But if you let people lead, if you let them come up with a plan, then you're training them to trust you. You're training them to come up with plans. You're training them to take initiative. And you're training yourself to trust them. And you're training yourself to detach. You're training yourself to delegate. You're training yourself to accept 80% solutions, which you should.

• 45:24Jocko Willink?

  You're training yourself to look up and out.

• 45:28Jocko Willink?

  And you are training all your subordinates to be able to take your job, which is what we're doing.

• 45:38Jocko Willink?

  So, if you're in the habit of bossing people around or of giving direct orders or of telling people what it is they need to do, take a step back, detach, and start training your people to lead instead of training them not to lead.

• 45:57Jocko Willink?

  And that's what I got. Anything?

• 46:02Jocko Willink?

  It's a big deal.

• 46:02Dave Berke?

  That's a good one.

• 46:03Jocko Willink?

  It's a big deal. It's a good way to go through life. It's a good way to go through life if you're constantly training people to step up and take your place. Man, it's good. So good.

• 46:15Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I think the thing they said that that resonated and hit the most is you're also training yourself. You're training yourself not to trust them. You're training himself, you're training yourself not to apply decentralized command and all the things that sit underneath that. The relationships, the communication, all of those things. Every time you're barking in order, you're training yourself. That's a pretty powerful thing.

• 46:41Jocko Willink?

  All right. That's it for this one. Thanks for joining us, everybody. If you want to get into these a little bit deeper or you want to talk to us directly, you go to extremeownership.com. You can join our online leadership academy. We talk about this stuff. This stuff is what we live for. And what we have lived for, for a long time. So extremeownership.com, come and check out our academy. I can see you on there. Dave will see you on there. Leif will see you on there. JP, Jamie, we're all on there. We'll answer your questions. We'll talk through your problems. We will learn. We will teach. There's also a bunch of courses on there you can take. So check those out as well. If you need leadership guidance inside your organization,

• 47:22Jocko Willink?

  you can go to echelonfront.com. We have a leadership consultancy. I've also written a bunch of books about leadership. And have another podcast called Jocko Podcast, so check that one out. And if you want to support any of those podcasts, then you can go to jacofuel.com, jacostore.com, echelonfront.com, originusa.com. You can get yourself some drinks, some protein, some boots, some jeans, some rash guard. You can pretty much get what you need.

• 47:53Jocko Willink?

  So check those out. And in the meantime, thank you for listening to us debrief. Now go lead. This is Dave and Jocko. Out.