The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #19: Winning An Argument May Create A Bigger Problem

Winning an argument about who's plan is better does not guarantee the best plan to be implemented. 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 19 with Dave Berke and me, Jocko Willink. What are we doing here? We're debriefing leadership scenarios that we have with our clients at Echelon Front. We're debriefing scenarios that we talk about on Extreme Ownership Academy.

• 0:21Jocko Willink?

  And we just try and share. We want people to learn. We don't, we don't, look, I, I hope we, I hope we don't have a business in three years. I hope that everyone says, oh yeah, we know all this now. I hope that's where we're going. I hope that this information just gets disseminated and people grab it and they pass it on, they understand it fluidly in a short period of time and they just, they just transform their lives and businesses so that we can go out of business.

• 0:52Jocko Willink?

  That's what I hope for.

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  My hope is not too strong. I'm not worried about our future in a business. But that's what we're doing here. So

• 1:06Jocko Willink?

  this is us debriefing various topics that we had to contend with for our company, Echelon Front. So let's debrief. What do you got?

• 1:18Dave Berke?

  Winning an argument that your plan is better than someone else's doesn't, doesn't actually guarantee that the best plan is going to get implemented. And in fact, winning that argument might mean you created a bigger problem.

• 1:33Dave Berke?

  So this comes from a client we're working with. They're, they're in the tech space and they've got multiple teams inside this company. It's kind of a smaller company, but they've got different teams that focus on different things. And then these team leads all kind of meet, you know, on a regular basis to discuss and they kind of debate what they should be working on. So you have someone that as a team leader that works on like the user interface and that's a huge priority for them and the, the resources and time to improve that. You have another team that maybe works on the code of the, of the product in the background. You've got a team that focuses on the marketing of the sales and this is different teams and they get together and they discuss what should we be, what should be the focus on. But there's also a ton of overlap. It's a small company. They're all smart folks. So

• 2:13Dave Berke?

  you don't just get one task where you just work on this. You, you can interact with other, other people on the team, but you've got kind of this focus. And the leader of one of these teams who've been working with, Was discussing how they're he's having a hard time lately convincing that the other team leaders in this this group meeting is convincing them that what they should be working on is what he thinks they should be working on. And so there's kind of this growing friction across the team leads inside this company and these meetings are starting to become more contentious. They're less cooperative, there's less agreement and there's growing frustration and there's more conflict.

• 2:51Jocko Willink?

  So we got these various teams and each one of them is striving to be the focus of the company.

• 2:59Dave Berke?

  Yes. What we're working my team should be the focus. So the additional resources or how we prioritize what's getting done. Now, that doesn't mean that you on the code team will have nothing to do with it. You might even be helping working on this because again, it's a small team. So there's ton of overlap, but I'm going to sort of advocate for my my team's priority and the I think there's three or four different team leads. It's them and like the CEO and they have they have a bunch of subordinate folks that are that are working as well, but the conversations are, you know, relatively small group and it's they're becoming more contentious and you're pushing back more and you're advocating for your team more. And it actually reminded me of when I was at Top Gun and the time

• 3:40Dave Berke?

  that I spent on the staff there when we're instructors and we all had these individual assigned areas. They we call them in SME areas, which you probably heard the term SME subject matter expert. So I was given a a particular subject matter expert that I was individually responsible for and all the instructors had their own area that was theirs. But we're also all instructors. So we would all teach the students. We would all do different types of missions. I didn't just focus on that. But when it came to discussing prioritization for those SME areas, I was the I guess you say the advocate for that that area because that was my expertise. I in theory had more expertise than anybody else because I focused

• 4:21Dave Berke?

  more on that. And you've only got so much time. You only got so many resources. All the areas are important. There is no one area that's not important, but we might need to decide what we should be working on or what we should be applying those resources to. And what I learned at Top Gun and it took me a little while to figure this out. What I came to discover and I didn't figure this out right away, but the staff would go in and have these meetings and

• 4:49Dave Berke?

  They had a group inside the staff where the top most, I say top is top by seniority. The 10 most senior instructors would kind of have these staff meetings and they were the ones that were doing most of the talking. And the other junior instructors were there to kind of observe and listen and they can contribute if they wanted to and they're there to support. But in these meetings, there were people that had a really loud voice. Instructors would go in and they'd kind of have their story written out and their sort of their idea and their approach to this particular problem. And some instructors would go in and they'd be literally the loudest voice in there. They would talk the most, they would be the most forceful, they would sort of advocate the hardest.

• 5:31Dave Berke?

  And at first, if you kind of walk in the very first meeting, you see these people talk and it's sort of compelling, like they're articulate, they're well spoken, they're forceful and there's a little bit of an appeal to it. But what I came to discover was the more an individual instructor talked, the louder they were, the more forceful they were, the less they were liked, the less effective they actually were, the less people would listen to them. And so over time, I discovered like that first meeting, like that guy had, boy, that was, gee, that guy said that was awesome, all that stuff. And I would learn that that was sort of their MO. So every meeting, they'd come in and they'd kind of pound their fists on the desk, this

• 6:15Dave Berke?

  is how it should be, this is what we're doing, here's why, here's all the things we're doing. And what I would see is more meetings, I found, A, I found that less appealing and amazingly, everybody else did too. And so the loudest, most forceful instructors that were advocating the most were actually usually the least effective. They were the least effective in getting their point across and they were least effective in getting the outcome that they wanted.

• 6:40Dave Berke?

  And on the last podcast, I was, I was giving some story and we were kind of role-playing an example of me pushing back and, and you use, I think you said, "When I push back", or something along those lines, use the phrase, I think, "closed-minded", it shows that you don't, you don't have an open mind. And it's interesting because the louder you are, the more you talk, the more you reveal to the other people on the staff that you do not have an open mind about their opinion, their priorities, their projects, or whatever they're working on. So, I talked to him about, "Hey, this idea that you're going into a room and, and what they want is they want everybody to get in a room and they want the best idea to come out." That's what they want. Which, which is important, which makes sense. Of course, I want the best ideas.

• 7:20Dave Berke?

  I want to be on a team where the best idea becomes the, the plan, or becomes the actual thing that we're going to do. But here's the thing about the best idea. I don't know what the best idea is. I don't know if my idea actually is the best idea. So, the two things I think were the biggest takeaways from this conversation is, he was starting to see that the, as time went on, he was becoming less influential. People were listening to him less. And we talked about this, you talked about this the last time we were, we were recording and we talk about it all the time is, if I want to, if I want to influence you, if I want you to listen to me, I have to listen to you. And I have to let you influence me, which means I might have to go with your plans.

• 8:05Dave Berke?

  I might have to listen to your ideas and go with them. And this discussion we have about trust, respect, influencing and listening, and the most important thing I can do to earn those things is keep my ego in check and trust you and listen to you and influence you. So, right away, this idea that if people are listening to me less, if I'm less influential, the first thing I should do is think about, "What am I, am I coming into these meetings? Am I talking the most? Am I the loudest? Am I advocating for myself the most?"

• 8:33Dave Berke?

  But this other idea too that's connected to that is like, I'm gonna go in there and I know my idea is the best idea and I need to convince you, I need you to see that my idea is the best idea. And again, something you've said is that when you and I get in an argument about what we should do, where we should prioritize, how we should approach this particular issue, you and I are arguing about the unknown. We're arguing about the future. We're arguing about something we actually don't know what will happen. And even, even the best plan, Dave's plan is the best plan, is still not a perfect plan, it's still gonna run into problems. And when those plans run up against friction and problems, I'm gonna need people other than me, people on this team, to be

• 9:16Dave Berke?

  solving those problems. And so what do I want from them? I want them invested in the plan.

• 9:24Dave Berke?

  So the best plan, if I, and I think the way I describe this, the best plan, if I were to define what the best plan is, the best plan is their plan. It's their plan, whatever that plan is. And if Jocko and I both go in there, and Jocko's got an idea about how he wants to do it, and I have an idea of how I want to do it, we could try to pick it apart, look at every detail, then try to come up with some numerical factor of your plan is an 87, mine's an 89, you know what? Mine's better, let's do my plan. Or I could actually not do that, I could go with your plan, I could listen to your ideas more, I could let you tell me what you want to do and support you more. And not only does that give me more influence over you over time, because I'm listening more,

• 10:07Dave Berke?

  you're willing, more willing to listen to me, when those plans get implemented and we start running into those problems, all that friction, all that resistance that's happening because we're arguing, it's not there. So when we run into the problems, that we'll, that we will find in every single plan, the best plan is not the best plan, the best plan is actually, on almost every case, whoever did their plan. And yeah, there's probably a ton of discussion, can I shape that? Do I want to influence that? Do I want to help course correct it? Yes, and the best way to do that is to have you, trust me, want to listen to me. So the more you walk into those meetings, the more you talk, the more you pound your fist, the more you advocate, exactly what he's seeing is what's going to happen. They're gonna start listening less, they're gonna start pushback more, the teams are gonna start to risk, different teams are gonna start to resist more, they're

• 10:52Dave Berke?

  gonna build those silos, and in the end, who's gonna lose? The company, the, the real team, the organization, is going to lose.

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  What a lot of that is boils down to is leadership capital, right? Every time you open your mouth, you're expending leadership capital. Other than the time when you say, hey, Dave, your plan sounds really good. I'll support you. Then I just gained leadership capital. So you've got the person at Top Gun that's rolling into everything with an open checkbook, just throwing, throwing freaking, you know, his credit card down on the bar and saying, drink up, everybody. He's just expending leadership capital all day long. And eventually he's in there, people know that his credit card isn't even worth, he doesn't have anything left in his bank account. So now when he has a legitimate idea that is truly impactful to the organization, he doesn't have any freaking leadership capital to get it done.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  So we nickel and dime ourselves to death. We spend this, we spend that. You know, you're damn right. They said we should only debrief for an hour. I said an hour and a half. Now we're doing hour and a half debriefs. Yeah.

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  And you expended all this leadership capital to an extra half an hour debrief. Is it really going to change the world? No, it's not. But there's something important that could happen and you won't be there. Now I got asked this question the other day.

• 12:17Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to a company, a client, and the question was something along the lines of, and this was a, I really liked this.

• 12:25Jocko Willink?

  Something along the lines of, but hey, Jocko.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes don't you have to advocate for yourself?

• 12:36Jocko Willink?

  This is the big fear, right? The big fear in life is if I don't advocate for myself, then I'm going to get trampled. Now, out of the gate, I can tell you.

• 12:55Jocko Willink?

  For all practical reasons, or for all practical occasions, no. Look, could you identify a time when you have to advocate? If you and I sat down and said, okay, let's review, let's talk, let's discuss this and find out, figure out a time when you have to advocate for yourself? I'm sure we could come up with something. I'm sure we could create a situation and create the correct variables where you have to advocate for yourself. I haven't been, I've been thinking about it for two weeks. I haven't been able to come up with one yet, but I'm sure we could. I'm sure we could. I'm sure there's a scenario where you gotta advocate. Do you sometimes have to advocate for your team? Yeah, you do sometimes have to advocate for your team. I get that.

• 13:35Jocko Willink?

  Here's the deal.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  The best way to advocate for your team and the best way to advocate for yourself is to advocate for the mission and the team as a whole, not just your team, but the whole team. The best way to advocate for yourself and your team is by advocating for the whole mission and the whole team. And by the way, every time, you want to talk about expending leadership capital? Every time you advocate for yourself, it's the, it's the, it's the grossest expenditure of leadership capital you can give. And people never, I see people all the time, they don't even recognize this. They think that A, no one noticed, they think that people, well, I understand he's gotta do that. No, no one thinks, hey, you know what? I understand where Dave's coming, he really needs to look out for himself right now.

• 14:23Jocko Willink?

  I've never thought that about anyone that I've heard advocating for themselves, never. I never think that. I think, oh, Dave's out there, Dave's looking out for Dave. Cool, check. That's what I think, and his leadership capital goes down. And now when he presents something legitimate to the team, I'm trying to figure out the angle that he's working to take out, to look out for good deal Dave.

• 14:46Jocko Willink?

  So, once again, we can sit here and we can, we can think about arguing. Now, here's what's beautiful. Here's why you don't have to advocate for yourself.

• 14:59Jocko Willink?

  You don't have to advocate for yourself.

• 15:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, let me rephrase that. Here's why you don't have to advocate for yourself in 99.9% of situations.

• 15:10Jocko Willink?

  If you are in the 0.1% human, that is, your goal is to take care of yourself, it's going to seem like you need to advocate for yourself. And you're going to fail because of it, because that's what you're going to do. But, check this out. If I am advocating for the team and I'm advocating for the mission and we accomplish the mission and the team does well, what happens to me? What happens to me? My team, oh, my team just did well. Oh, the entire team did well and my team was part of the entire team. And that means my team did well. And guess what? My boss thinks, hey, Jocko's team did a good job supporting the overall mission. We won. Wow, seems like he's a good leader. Maybe I should promote him.

• 15:54Jocko Willink?

  So it's, it's as sad as it sounds. It is self. You are helping yourself when you look out for everybody else. I guess that shouldn't, I shouldn't say sad. It's, it's actually the beautiful thing, right? It's a beautiful thing that if you go and you look out for the team and you got the mission accomplished, you will get taken care of. You don't need to advocate for yourself. Advocate for the team. Advocate for the mission. And you're gonna win. But if you sit there and you think, well, I don't know. I better look out for me. Everybody's gonna see it. It's not going to help the team. It's not going to help the mission. And ultimately, it is not going to help you.

• 16:38Jocko Willink?

  So if you want to advocate, if you want to quote, advocate for yourself, the best possible way you can advocate for yourself is by looking out for your team and looking out for the mission. That's what you should do. And that goes to these situations where, hey, Dave's got a division and I've got a division. And I sit there and say, well, I'm going to get as much as I can. Actually, Dave, it seems like you've got a project that's way more important than the project. I'm more, how can I support you? I'm advocating for you.

• 17:08Dave Berke?

  So be careful of that.

• 17:11Dave Berke?

  All right. You got another one? Yes.

• 17:15Dave Berke?

  What do you got? It's a little similar. This is, I think,

• 17:20Dave Berke?

  we don't always explicitly talk about it, but we know that there's a component of humility and ego underneath everything we're talking about. Almost every situation you can dig and find, okay, there's where the ego is contributing to this. Oh, you mean like I gotta advocate for myself? That's right, yeah. So kind of a similar situation, only this was, so this is a financial company that have branches all over the country, branch managers, and they, they're in regions, so these branch managers work for a director. So like a director would have like seven branches. And there's a particular branch manager that we, is part of a larger project we're working on. And um, it sort of advertises himself as a, a, a person that's very direct by nature. Kind of explain, hey, I'm just a direct person. Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah.

• 18:06Dave Berke?

  Um, and I can't even, the best way to get to communicate is to get to the point.

• 18:13Dave Berke?

  He got recently in a, in a conversation, got chewed out by his boss in front of other branch managers, which obviously is not good, so. And I don't know all the details behind that, you know, is this person sort of routinely a, a, a, gonna chew out in public? You know, obviously something we, we tried, I'm gonna give some feedback, negative feedback, like you don't wanna do that in public as often. You don't wanna yell at your subordinates in front of the other people. What if it's directed to the point, though? You just tell them the truth.

• 18:42Dave Berke?

  And there's growing friction between this branch manager and his director. And the conversation was, and you probably already know where this is going, is hey, how do we get to the answer without wasting time? And the question of, hey, how do I get to the answer without wasting time? And what was added to that was, I'm not afraid of my boss.

• 19:01Dave Berke?

  So, again, we were kind of dealing with, with some of the same subjects, but the, the, the ego component of that, I think, was, was stronger, which is thinking about the direct approach from the other person's perspective.

• 19:21Dave Berke?

  Okay, I'm a direct person. So I'm gonna be direct with Jocko. Jocko needs some feedback, or he's got questions, or whatever it is. I'm a direct guy. Let me think about it from how Jocko hears what I'm saying, rather than from my own perspective. And so that idea of, can I be humble enough to actually think of it from a different point of view? Can I detach enough and go, "I'm gonna think about this less about the one who's communicating, and I wanna see what Jocko hears from me when I'm direct." And so I say, "Hey, when you are direct with your boss, you think she appreciates it?" "Well, no, but she does know the information she needs to know." "Okay, do you think she wants to hear that information the way they communicate it?" "Not necessarily." "So what information or what sort of evidence do you have that the way you're communicating

• 20:06Dave Berke?

  the truth of this information is not effective?" She yelled at me in front of my peers on a Teams call on the internet, or a virtual Teams call last week. So we started talking about the direct approach. The first thing we talked about is, "Hey, slow down, don't talk, and if you have to push back, the technique we talk about all the time is when you push back is in the form of questions." And the big, the big part of that, and I think it was the last time we were talking, is when you ask those questions, and we say you have to ask earnest questions, the thing that the ego, the hardest part that your ego will convince you of is that

• 20:51Dave Berke?

  you're asking those questions as a technique, as opposed to, "I'm gonna ask an earnest question," and my boss, or my peer, or anybody, it doesn't have to be your boss, might give me an answer that was different than mine, that might actually be right. And if I ask a question to kinda get a better understanding of what's going on, I have to have the humility to know that this information might be correct, that they might actually be right. And the critique, the immediate feedback, the immediate direct response, might actually also make it longer for me to get to the outcome that I want,

• 21:29Dave Berke?

  which is what's best for the team, not just this one branch, not just this one person, not just this one part of this director's entire region of responsibility.

• 21:40Dave Berke?

  But the entire team that they are part of. And I said, hey, the biggest issue you've got right now is you have someone, you have a boss that doesn't trust you. You have a boss you don't have a good relationship with. So how do we solve these other problems? The number one thing you can do right now is to build a better relationship with your boss. You getting yelled at is a sign that you have a bad relationship. So what are the things we do to build a good relationship? You just talked about leadership capital. We talk about these four things all the time. And we put them on to the umbrella. We talk about cover and move. We talk about teamwork. We talk about relationships and inside that is this idea of leadership capital. And the components of building that capital is just respect, influencing and listening.

• 22:19Dave Berke?

  And part of me was, I was like, it's gonna sound repetitive, but I don't, it's not repetitive because this is the, these are the things that sit inside these relationships all the time. The more your boss influences you, the more influence you have over your boss. The more you listen to her, the more she will listen to you. The more respect you show her, the more she will show you respect. And the more you trust her, meaning she says we should do it a certain way. You know, maybe she's right. Let's go execute her plan. The more trust you will build over time. And all of those things, all that leadership capital, what that does is it actually serves to reduce the friction in your relationship. Because there's less resistance, there's less to push back on, there's less to argue about.

• 23:01Dave Berke?

  And there's actually less reasons for her to chew you out. And all that over time, if you play this slightly longer game, which is not the direct approach, which I just tell you the truth or give you my two cents immediately. Is it will help you steer the team to the right outcome, which is what you want. So I guess there's a little bit of repetitive there, but we didn't talk about it. I didn't mention it last time, but the idea that your ego will convince you. Not only that you are right, but the best way to get to the outcome is to tell everybody else that you're right as well. Which we know doesn't work. It doesn't help. It doesn't give you what you need to help the team be successful.

• 23:46Dave Berke?

  And in the end, what it'll end up getting you is yelled at by your boss on a call, which we don't want. Cause it's bad for her, it's bad for you, and it's bad for all the, it's bad, it's bad for everybody.

• 23:58Dave Berke?

  So this was an indirect approach discussion, but the real piece of this was the humility to go, "Hey, you know what? If I talk like this, how does the other person gonna take it? And I need to change the way I, I need to change the way I talk, not that they just need to listen to what I'm saying, because this is the answer."

• 24:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's kind of a, uh, an ironic, proper usage of the word ironic. It's ironic that I just like to be direct, but then when someone's direct with me, I don't like it at all. And I didn't ha- quite have the foresight or the, or the, uh, introspection to say, "Wait a second, I didn't like getting treated that way, but that's what I do to everybody else." Which is, which is a crazy idea, right? But we make that mistake all the time. We make that mistake all the time where we think it's a little bit different for us. Well, I, the, I'm sure, I'm sure, you know, Dave likes getting that direct stuff, feedback from me. He must like that. It's like, no, think a little bit deeper. You know what's interesting about this?

• 24:57Jocko Willink?

  I've been throwing this word around a bit lately when it comes to leadership. The word, the word is weak. Weak. And people don't, it's one of the worst things you can tell a leader, right? That they're weak. You're a weak leader. Ugh, that's like a military. I wonder if they say that outside the military. "Hey, this person's a weak leader." But here's what's interesting. What's interesting is what we think is weak. Because there's people that you, we could easily convince, we could easily be convinced, and we might even think ourselves that if I listen to Dave, even though he's subordinate to me, I'm weak. Ma- ma- actually, it doesn't matter, subordinate peer, superior.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  If I listen to him, I'm weak. I'm being weak. If I show him some reverence, if I say, "Hey, sir, how do you want to do it?" I'm being weak. If I allow Dave to influence me with his plan, I'm being weak. If Dave comes up with an idea and I accept that idea over mine, I'm being weak. You can see where I'm going with this. And it's just all ego. It's all, it's all ego all day long. And we can't allow ourselves to, to...

• 26:18Jocko Willink?

  Be afraid of appearing weak and here's what's so messed up is what you think makes you look weak actually makes you look strong. Yeah.

• 26:28Jocko Willink?

  Hard for people to understand that. When you say, hey, that sounds like a good plan, man. Why don't we go with your plan? It actually looks strong. It doesn't look weak at all.

• 26:40Jocko Willink?

  Not afraid of my boss. I'm not afraid of my boss. That's the thing, right? That's a strong statement. Yeah. I don't want to appear weak and say, oh, I'm afraid of my boss. That would be a weak statement. I'm afraid of my boss. That's weak. No, so I'm not afraid of my boss. I'll do whatever I want.

• 26:57Jocko Willink?

  Horrible.

• 27:00Jocko Willink?

  All right.

• 27:02Jocko Willink?

  Time for my turn? It's your turn. Yeah. So.

• 27:07Jocko Willink?

  I got asked a question. Well, we're up at the council up in Washington state. A couple of the, um, a couple of the attendees at the council, which is a very small group, very intense sessions we had up there for a couple of days. But a couple of attendees had heard some of the stories from Leif and Andrew. And there were stories about me and, and cool stories made me sound pretty cool. Right? Thanks, Leif and Andrew for making me sound cool. But, but you know, the just basic stuff. But then these two attendees kind of, we were talking afterwards.

• 27:47Jocko Willink?

  And they said, you know, you, you have really good, you had, you have really good intuition.

• 27:55Jocko Willink?

  Meaning that I had this sort of instinct of what to do in tough situations. You know, got this really good intuition, leadership intuition. And I kind of, you know, I was like thinking, yeah, that's you're damn right. And I kind of told him that, like, yeah, you know? And I appreciated it, appreciated, appreciated Leif and Andrew making me look good. And, and then I appreciated the fact that these guys saw how just an intuitive leader, natural leader I was.

• 28:27Jocko Willink?

  But even as they were saying it to me and I got over the, the, the, the, the four milliseconds of thinking I was cool and then I thought to myself, well, that's freaking not cool at all.

• 28:40Jocko Willink?

  It's actually not cool at all.

• 28:43Jocko Willink?

  Because if I'm just good at leading because I have good intuition.

• 28:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, then what, what good is that? It's good for me and it's good for my immediate team, but it's not, I, I can't help anybody else.

• 29:02Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 29:05Jocko Willink?

  And I get, like I said, I get where they're coming from. It made sense because, because I am good at figuring out what to do. I could see how they came to the conclusion, oh, here's this story, Lace telling a story about this, that and the other thing, and Jocko did this. And it's like, whoa. And then Andrew tells stories, oh, Jocko did this. And like I said, it makes me look cool, whatever, but also it makes him think like, oh, they're, they're listening to these stories and thinking, okay, well, that's freaking pretty impressive. How do you do it? Oh, it's because you have good instinct. You, you kind of knew what to do.

• 29:36Jocko Willink?

  But if it's just because I have good instinct, if that's the reason why I'm able to pull this off, then what good is it for everybody else? What's good for whoever's listening to this right now? Cause what's good is it for people that want to lead better? If it's just, oh yeah, Jocko was, you know, he's got good instinct. Doesn't help. So I started thinking about that. I was getting a little paranoid.

• 29:56Jocko Willink?

  And I'm thinking, well, okay, well, what actually is it?

• 30:01Jocko Willink?

  Because I know, well, this is what I had to decipher because I'm sitting there, you know, I got the little boost of ego of like, well, yeah, you know, I've got really good instinct, but then I'm like, wait a second.

• 30:11Jocko Willink?

  I, I wasn't born this way. Wasn't, wasn't born this way. I remember being in the SEAL platoon and looking around going, wait a second, what are we supposed to be doing right now? I remember that. I remember as the quote instinct developed, well, what wasn't instinct that was developing? It was leadership that was developing. It's not a, it's not a supernatural thing.

• 30:36Jocko Willink?

  It's the way you think. It's the way that I think. It's what my mind does when I have a decision or a problem to solve or a maneuver to direct. When I have to lead, I'm going to...

• 30:54Jocko Willink?

  What is my mind going to do? So I... Okay, what is my mind gonna do? This isn't just instinct. This isn't just intuition. There is a protocol that is taking place. What is it? Okay, you can probably guess the first thing I'm gonna do. I'm gonna detach.

• 31:12Jocko Willink?

  But I'm not just gonna detach. I'm not just gonna take a step back. There's more to it. Because taking a step back only gives you one perspective, one other perspective. So I don't just take a step back. I'm gonna move around.

• 31:27Jocko Willink?

  The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna oscillate. And I don't know if you have this in the... When you're flying an aircraft, Dave?

• 31:34Jocko Willink?

  When you're diving? We... The type of diving that we do? You're trying to stay at 12 feet, basically. And certain things can make you go deeper. And as you start to go deeper, you compensate and you start to go up. But most people overcompensate. And so you go 17 feet and you go, "Whoa, I'm way too deep." And then you go... So you make these adjustments to your rig and to the way you're breathing. And all of a sudden, you're at 5 feet. And you go, "Oh, my gosh, I'm too close to the surface. I gotta go back down." So you... So we call it porpoising, up and down like a porpoise. I don't know if that happens with an aircraft, but it does. Yeah, it does. And it's not a good thing. It's... It's not a good thing. We called it PIO. Which is?

• 32:18Jocko Willink?

  Pilot-induced oscillations. I love it. So what I want to do when I detach is I want to oscillate. I want to PIO. I want to... And what do I mean by that? I wanna go to 20,000 feet, 30,000 feet. But guess what? Then I wanna go right back down to 4 feet. And I wanna look at that problem. Then I wanna take a step back out to 12 feet. Then I wanna go to 100 feet. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna oscillate my altitude, up, down, close, far, close, medium. So I'm gonna oscillate, and then I'm not just gonna go up and down in altitude, I'm gonna maneuver around. I'm gonna look at things from different vantage points. I'm gonna see different angles. I'm gonna ask more questions. By the way, everything that I'm talking about physically,

• 33:01Jocko Willink?

  this is important, everything I'm talking about physically doing, I'm not just talking about physically doing. I'm talking about mentally being able to go to different altitudes, seeing things from different perspectives. I'm gonna check my flank. I'm gonna check my six to see what I'm missing.

• 33:16Jocko Willink?

  Which is a habit that I formed. I would check the flank like when I was doing an immediate action drill with a rifle in my hand. I would always check the flank. It was an instinct. And then I would check my six. It's an instinct that you get. You guys had to have something like that. Totally. Absolutely. And you're checking your flank, then you're checking your instrument, then you're checking this, then you're checking that, and you're just going through this cycle.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  And then I, I'm gonna question if my reality is even correct.

• 33:48Jocko Willink?

  Because I don't trust myself. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  But I did a podcast with Echo Charles a little while ago. I think it was an underground podcast. I was talking about the fact that we're all crazy.

• 34:02Jocko Willink?

  We're all crazy. This is a true statement. Do you know what? So we're all insane, I think. So the technical definition of insane means that what I think is reality, what I think is reality,

• 34:16Jocko Willink?

  is not reality. That's someone that's insane.

• 34:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, here's what's going on. Check this out.

• 34:24Jocko Willink?

  Is the reality that Dave Berke sees the same reality that I see? Is it? No, there's differences. You see things a little bit differently. And look, we're probably as closely aligned as two humans can get as far as what reality looks like to us. But still, my reality looks a little bit different. So therefore, you're a little bit insane, and so am I, because neither one of our realities is actual reality. The reality is a little bit different than what you see and what I see. So everybody's a little bit crazy. So I have that in my mind, too. I'm thinking all the time, when I think I know reality, I'm thinking to myself, well, I am actually a little bit crazy, and my reality might be different than Dave's. And it might be different than Leif's, and it might be different than whoever else we're working with.

• 35:08Jocko Willink?

  So I have that going on and then on top of all that, I don't find conclusions in my thought patterns. I don't get to a point where I say, okay, there's the answer right there. I don't find conclusions. I just find a new perspective and I don't think I'm done yet. I don't find a perspective and say, okay, this is reality right here. This is what it looks like. Now I can stop. Once I find a perspective, once I find that little section of reality, I'm immediately looking for another one. And so, and so I'm constantly running that, that through this loop. And I know we like running loops. I know we like running the OODA loop, which I'll talk

• 35:52Jocko Willink?

  about. And, but I've also got another loop that I'm running, like a little, a little combat leadership, extreme ownership loop that I'm running. So the OODA loop's real obvious. I'm running that one. I'm on Observe. And by the way, Observe, what are we talking about? I'm talking about oscillating perspectives. So Observe means moving around, looking, and, and, and trying to see other perspectives. That's what Observe is. Orient. How am I going to orient in a leadership situation? I'm going to ask questions. That's how I figure out where I am and how all this fits together. Then I'm going to decide what, what kind of decisions I'm going to, am I going to make? I'm going to make small decisions because I'm going to make them rapidly. And then I'm going to act. What am I going to take? I'm going

• 36:34Jocko Willink?

  to take action, a small action based on a small decision. And by the way, when I take an action, my anticipation is that I'm actually wrong. I have at least 50% of my brain that's saying, you know what? You could be wrong right now. You could be wrong right now. So you better check yourself and you better, you better start running this, this loop again immediately. I think there's people that make decisions and they think they're going to be right. 98% of their brain thinks they're going to be right. And I never think that.

• 37:05Jocko Willink?

  So that's the first loop that we're on. It's your basic OODA loop. And then I'm gonna run it again. And I know we don't have to run the whole thing. I know that this is, you can run part of it and you can, you can backfill in other sections, but that's what I'm doing. But then I get this combat leadership, this kind of, this kind of extreme ownership loop that I'm gonna run. And it's real.

• 37:27Jocko Willink?

  Straightforward. And I, I gotta, I gotta tell you this.

• 37:31Jocko Willink?

  I made one adjustment to this as I was, as I was coming here today. This one adjustment, because it's a big deal for me. The one adjustment that I made is, uh, the first thing that I think about.

• 37:43Jocko Willink?

  The first thing that I think about is time.

• 37:48Jocko Willink?

  I am acutely aware of time. I pay attention to time. I am always tracking time because time is the thing that we can't adjust. We can't control it. We can't get it back. If we don't pay attention to time, it will bite us. So the primary thing that I'm thinking about in my head. Well, let me rephrase it. The first thing that I'm gonna think about, the first little checklist, I'm thinking, okay, how much time do I have? What's, how much time do I have? What is the clock doing? And I have to revisit that all the time. I was thinking, you know, I was, I was brag. Is that right word? Yeah, I brag that I was never late in the Navy for 20 years.

• 38:32Jocko Willink?

  How come? Because I'm always paying attention to time. Always thinking, hey, this is gonna take a little bit longer. Hey, I need to move a little bit quicker. Always paying attention to time.

• 38:44Jocko Willink?

  So time comes first. Then guess what comes next? Cover and move. Am I supporting my team and the teams around me? That's a little sanity check. It's a little loop, it's a little check. Am I supporting my team and the teams around me? Am I doing that? If I'm not doing that, I got a problem. The simple.

• 39:02Jocko Willink?

  Can I make this more simple?

• 39:05Jocko Willink?

  Can I make this situation that we're in, can I make it more simple right now? What about right now?

• 39:11Jocko Willink?

  Because things are trying to become more complex. That's what's trying to happen. I'm constantly saying, okay, how can I simplify this? Prioritize next to you. What's the priority right now? Here's, here's a little additional information. What's the priority right now? What was it?

• 39:31Jocko Willink?

  And most important, what's it gonna be?

• 39:34Jocko Willink?

  I'm looking for the, what is go- I know what the priority is right now. I already told everyone what the priority is, but I'm not thinking about that anymore. Now I'm looking, what is the next priority gonna be? Cause I got the team, when I say, hey, we need to get in that building? Good. Guys are moving to that building. I'm not thinking about that anymore. I'm thinking, what's the next priority gonna be? Decentralized command. Check this out. Here's a little, here's a little loop to run on yourself.

• 39:59Jocko Willink?

  What can I task out and to who?

• 40:03Jocko Willink?

  That's, we are in a firefight. We are in a critical situation. What can I task out? Stoner, go take that building right there. Get on the rooftop. It's done.

• 40:16Jocko Willink?

  What can I get off my plate? Hey, Dave, take my radio man, go freaking get comms. Cool. That's not on my plate anymore. I'm not worried about it.

• 40:28Jocko Willink?

  Is the team gonna be able to act without me? Without communicating with me, without asking me for a decision?

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  If I say, hey, Dave, go make comms with, with the aircraft? Cool. But did I just empower him to do anything with that? Dave, go make comms with the aircraft. Get the freaking, get the enemy shut out on the west over there. Cool. You don't need to talk to me again. Cause I know what you're gonna do. You're gonna get bombs on target.

• 40:58Jocko Willink?

  After that, what am I doing? I'm thinking about my ego and I'm thinking about humility. Because wait a second.

• 41:07Jocko Willink?

  What role is my ego playing in the decisions that I'm making right now? Am I putting the team before myself? Am I putting the mission before myself?

• 41:17Jocko Willink?

  Am I making a mistake? Right? Am I making a mistake? Am I wrong?

• 41:26Jocko Willink?

  What about my emotions? There's a little check. Are my emotions under control? Are my emotions impacting my decision-making process? Have you ever caught yourself in the act of making an emotional decision?

• 41:42Dave Berke?

  Yes, absolutely. I know exactly, and I'm more than like thinking of the feeling of when you catch yourself.

• 41:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Dave Berke?

  I was getting spun up there.

• 41:49Jocko Willink?

  Ooh, getting spun up there. Didn't like that.

• 41:55Jocko Willink?

  Imagine if you're not running this loop in your head. You just bypass all these things.

• 41:58Dave Berke?

  Check to see if you're doing it.

• 41:59Jocko Willink?

  You're bypassing all these things. You're not covering move. You're not worried about any of these things. You're not keeping things simple. You're not prioritizing next to you. You're not decentralized command. You're not paying attention to time. You're not paying attention to your emotions. Here's another one. Perspective. Right? I'm constantly running my mind thinking, wait a second. What is Dave seeing right now? What is Leif seeing right now? What is the enemy seeing right now?

• 42:24Jocko Willink?

  Cause I know Dave's in that building. I know Leif's over here. But what is it? What? So what does Leif see? What does Dave see? What does the enemy see right now?

• 42:36Jocko Willink?

  Oh, and by the way, is there an easier way to do what we're doing? I'm constantly asking myself that. Asking myself, hey, is there another? Is there an easier way that we could get this done?

• 42:46Jocko Willink?

  Wait, why are we? Why are we exposing ourselves over here? Why are we? Why are we pouring our resources over there? Is there not an easier way to get it done? And then what about?

• 42:57Jocko Willink?

  What about this question? And this is one that gets left off the plate all the time. When it comes to leadership, decision-making.

• 43:07Jocko Willink?

  This one's so obvious, but let me throw it at you. What's our mission?

• 43:14Jocko Willink?

  What's our mission? What is our long-term strategic mission? And does whatever I'm doing right now support it? Cause you end up making one small decision, another small decision, another small decision. All of a sudden, you're doing something that has nothing to do with the reason that you're out there.

• 43:29Jocko Willink?

  And then guess what? And then I run that loop again. And I think this is the, I think this is the key part of my quote intuition. My leadership intuition. I think the key component of my leadership intuition is that I don't mentally stagnate. I don't get caught in a rut of thought. I, on the battlefield, you have to maneuver if you're gonna win. You have to, you can't stay still. You can't get stagnant. And it's the same in life and business and in your head of making any kind of decision. If you get caught in a one channel of thinking, you are going to get crushed.

• 44:13Jocko Willink?

  You are limiting your vision. You are, and when you limit your vision, you limit your possible solutions. You live it, limit your possible decisions that you can make to win. You get caught in one channel of thinking.

• 44:28Jocko Willink?

  When the GPS came out. When the GPS came out. I don't think I had, I didn't have the, there was one prior one that was issued in the field. But I used a GPS system called, I think it was called a PSN8, PNS8, PSN8. Satellite navigation, something.

• 44:45Dave Berke?

  Yeah, Precision Navigation System, whatever.

• 44:47Jocko Willink?

  Eight.

• 44:47Dave Berke?

  PNS8, something like, I think I know what you're talking about, yeah.

• 44:50Jocko Willink?

  So at the time, I don't know if they had the full sat, the full, um, what did they call it? Satellite constellation. They had the constellation of satellites up. I don't know if they had all of them yet. But there was like, there's supposed to be 24 satellites in the constellation. And they only had, maybe they had 15. And each one of those satellites is on a different frequency.

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  of megahertz so when you would turn on the GPS that initial GPS only got one frequency at a time and by the way if you only know where one satellite is you have no idea where you are so that that that GPS when you turned it on it would search for a frequency and it would tune itself to one frequency to listen and if and it would wait for 20 minutes before it would shift to the next one and sometimes I mean you couldn't even manually say hey here we are where's the satellites you couldn't do that it had to find itself and it would

• 45:56Jocko Willink?

  take sometimes it would take four hours to to figure out where it was now once it knew which satellites were up and which ones were in the constellation then it could start maintaining keep track and it would shift as one would fade it would go to another one now on your phone and my phone that those things are tracking as soon as they're tracking 24 frequencies it finds itself immediately always knows where it is because it's keeping all those channels open well you gotta think of your mind like that if you get stuck on one of these frequencies if you get stuck on one of these channels you're not gonna know where you are and it's not hard here's what's scary it's not hard to get stuck it's not hard to

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  get stuck just you know whether it's your emotions whether it's you get stuck in one perspective whether it's you get you don't pay attention to time you get stuck in one of these ruts one of these channels and you're not going to be able to make good decisions

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  so that's the quote intuition it's not intuition I'm not I'm not I'm not I don't have a superpower

• 47:11Jocko Willink?

  I ran this loop. I ran these two loops, basically.

• 47:16Jocko Willink?

  And if you run them quick and you don't get stuck in a rut, you're going to see more and you will be able to lead correctly.

• 47:25Jocko Willink?

  What do you got, Dave?

• 47:28Dave Berke?

  I got too much to talk about on this podcast, but I think the note that I wrote down, the biggest thing for me to think about on what you just said when you were talking about oscillations, at the very beginning, you were talking about oscillations. And I said, hey, you know, there's a version of that in the airplane, too.

• 47:45Dave Berke?

  Is the difference between the oscillations that we're talking about is, is the one you described at the beginning and the one I described with PIO, those are reactive. I'm at 12, I'm at 17, supposed to be 12, and I'm reacting. You were talking about being proactive with those oscillations. I'm at 12 feet, and if I stay at 12 feet, all I'm going to see is the world at 12 feet. So I am going to move to 17 feet. And yeah, okay, there's an aviation version. I'm at 10,000, whatever. It doesn't matter. It is this, it is the forcing myself to proactively move to a different point of view to see what the world looks like. And I was thinking about how comfortable it was like, because in my aviation brain is, okay, our plan today is we're going to go from point A to point B at 30,000 feet.

• 48:29Dave Berke?

  Cool, I'm going to go 30,000 feet, and I'm going to stay there. I'm not locking my autopilot and not move one foot off it.

• 48:35Dave Berke?

  And how much of the world I won't see and how comfortable it actually is a pilot like,

• 48:44Dave Berke?

  if this is 30,001, I'm like, oh, that's kind of annoying. I want to dial that down to exactly 30,000 feet. When we were landing aboard the aircraft carrier, we would fly something called the meatball, which is a big yellow light that's sort of oriented to another series of lights that are, you know, across a horizon line that are green. If I put the yellow light in the middle of the green lights, I'm right where I'm supposed to be. And the worst thing you can do when you're landing aboard the carrier is be reactive to this ball. If I'm low, I'm so behind and I gotta throw a whole bunch of power. And I'm not gonna put it right back in the middle, I'm gonna end up going super high. And then I gotta pull this power back off and bring it back down. And I'm just reacting to the position of this light, which is really the reaction of the position of where I'm supposed to be, which is not on the right path to where I'm supposed to go.

• 49:27Dave Berke?

  But if I'm actually flying and I see what we call a centered ball, which is that's exactly where I'm supposed to be, I don't leave it there. I actually proactively, I'm gonna just, just a little bit of power to push it, just a little bit up and I'll bring power. So I'm gonna control, I'm gonna proactively control where I am. As opposed to being reactive and how easy it is to get complacent with your position because of the work that it takes to move away from where you are. Hey, the company's doing really well here, this, we're in a really good place, you guys, let's kinda just ride this for a while. Let's just stay where we are. As opposed to, I guess what it boils down to, certainly when I think of you, is the discipline that it takes to force myself to look at other things.

• 50:13Dave Berke?

  When we could just stay here, this is kinda good, let's just end. The different perspectives that you see when you proactively oscillate as opposed to the reaction, which is a very different thing than we're talking about of, I'm off, so I'm reacting and I'm behind and I'm just moving around and, and, and that how different it is to, I can't stay here, I don't see everything, I have to go somewhere else. And I'm gonna directly, I'm gonna direct myself to do that. Which, and what you're talking about too is, is there's a physical component, but it's really the, the brain is the hardest part of it. I'm gonna force my brain not to, not to agree that what I see is everything.

• 50:54Dave Berke?

  The conclusion that I've drawn isn't right, because there's not enough information, I've gotta go somewhere else.

• 50:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you want my instinct, that's my instinct. My instinct is, I don't have a conclusion right now.

• 51:05Jocko Willink?

  When you're, when you're parachuting, if you have a malfunction with your parachute, they give you a lot of warnings and a lot of training that, hey, don't get sucked into that problem, because what you'll do is you'll sit there and try and fix your parachute, fix your parachute, fix your parachute, fix your parachute, fix your parachute, fix your parachute, and you hit the ground and you die. What they tell you is check your parachute, check your altimeter, check your parachute, check your altimeter, check your parachute, check your altimeter, 2,500 feet, cut that thing away, get your reserve out. I know that you guys have to have things like that where if you aren't, if you allow yourself to get fixated on any aspect of your aircraft or any aspect of the enemy, you're, you're taking that thing into the dirt.

• 51:50Dave Berke?

  Totally, 100%. And that there's a whole nother segment I wrote down here and I'll try to do it quickly because I don't want to talk too long because I'm, I'm trying to digest in my brain what you're saying is there's kind of two sides to that. One is we, we call it fixation, we, it's target fixation, but oh, I've got a malfunction on my gauge or whatever. And if I focus on that one thing and I lose sight of everything else, I will literally, literally fly into the ground and kill myself. Even if it's the altimeter, because there's other cues that I can look at when my altimeter isn't working to make sure I don't hit the ground. There's vertical speed, there's angle, there's a bunch of things. So I, I can't get fixated on any one thing. But I was thinking even in the terms of the word that you used at the very beginning of

• 52:31Dave Berke?

  instinct is if that's the answer, then I can't teach it, which is awful. But we also know that that's not true. But when we start teaching and we do this all the way up to the Top Gun level and the very beginning level is I need you to learn, you gotta check your flanks and I need you to learn, you gotta check your six o'clock. You need to learn that skill. And so what I will do is say, when you go through an engagement, you push through the engagement, count to 15, look over your right shoulder, count to 15, look over your left shoulder. And what I do is I sort of, I introduce it through rote mechanics that you're going to do it at 15 seconds. And what that eventually evolves into is you, you, you, I don't look at my watch anymore. I don't have to set 15 seconds. I don't count in my head, one, two.

• 53:16Dave Berke?

  It becomes instinct. But what you'll find is that if I set, if I go into the debrief and I look at your camera, you'll push through this engagement and I will, in my brain, count to 15. And without a clock, without, you will do exactly, and people go, oh, great instincts, Jocko's got great instincts. No, that was taught, that was a skill and it started with the rudimentary, set your clock, look over your shoulder, check behind you. And you do it enough and enough and enough. And then what will start to happen is you'll start to go, man.

• 53:47Dave Berke?

  I think I've missed this, I have not checked my six in enough, recently enough. And you'll start to look over your shoulder. And what will come back to me is like, Jocko, it's almost like you knew the enemy was rolling a, you know, that they'll attribute it to great instincts. But it's not, it's your brain saying, dude, you haven't been looking at other places. And so we teach that and it starts with this very rote thing and it turns into instinct. And yes, I guess, look, I would be lying if I didn't say that there are some people, I guess, have some intuition about things. There are people that have some good intuitions about things. But this is 100% teachable, 100%. At least in terms of getting people better at doing it.

• 54:29Jocko Willink?

  What's crazy is in the aircraft, like I've flown an F-18 before.

• 54:34Dave Berke?

  Flown in an F-18 before?

• 54:35Jocko Willink?

  In an F-18, ooh. But you know, it's got all these warnings, these audio warnings, warning altitude, altitude. And there you go. So even a guy that's been highly trained is gonna get, can get sucked into and has to have a voice come and tell them to, to check your altitude. And guess what? There's no warning lights in leadership that you're gonna, there aren't any. So if you just decide to focus and start getting emotional or your perspective gets locked into just what you're seeing or just what your boss is seeing or, or you lose track of what the, there's nothing that goes, hey, what's your mission? What's your mission? There's nothing that said, you're getting emotional, you're getting emotional.

• 55:19Jocko Willink?

  There's nothing that says, this is your ego driving this. There's nothing that says, check the clock, you're gonna run out of time. Think about, this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. This is the loop that my mind is running and it's happening instinctually because I've trained it that way.

• 55:39Jocko Willink?

  And it all starts, and the key component of it is to be able to detach. If you can't detach, none of this other stuff is going to happen. It's not going to happen. Look, you could actually detach and write these things down on a, on an index card. And be like, cool. Next time we have a issue at the company, I'm going to pull this out and I'm going to, as I'm talking, I'm going to sit there and, and, and, and I'm going to go through this checklist and make sure that I'm following this protocol. You could do that and it would actually be helpful. And if you do that long enough, eventually you'll realize, hey, it's going to seem like instinct, but what you've really done is trained yourself. Yeah. Oh, you feel your emotions spiking up. Oh, it's my, there's my ego.

• 56:24Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I, I've, I'm only looking at one, but I need to check my six right now. I need to understand Dave's perspective. Am I, wait, can I simplify this right now? Those are the things, it's a loop and it seems like instinct, but it's habit. It's habit that was formed. Check. All right. Another 57 minute debrief, get some, um, good place to stop. Hey, if you want to dig deeper in all aspects of leadership in any area, you can join Dave and myself and the rest of the Echelon Front team at extremeownership.com, the Extreme Ownership Academy. This is what we do all the time. By the way, leadership is not like a, an injection that you get and now you're good to go.

• 57:07Jocko Willink?

  It's more like going to the gym and you have to work out to stay in shape. So come to the leadership gym and get a leadership workout. Extreme Ownership Academy. And if you want leadership guidance inside your organization, check out echelonfront.com. We've also written a bunch of books. Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership, which I wrote with my brother Leif Babin, also Leadership Strategy and Tactics. Got some other podcasts, Jocko Podcasts, Jocko Unraveling, Grounded, and Warrior Kid Podcast. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can get some gear from jacostore.com or originusa.com or jacofuel.com. Thank you for listening to us debrief.

• 57:52Jocko Willink?

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