The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #8: Getting The Team to Perform When the Leader Is Not Around

The team performs when the leader is there, but when the leader leaves, the team's performance dips. 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 eight with Dave Berke and me, Jocko Willink. And if you're just tapping into this podcast for the first time, we have a leadership consulting company and we work with all kinds of different businesses and different leaders. And we have an online training platform and what we do is solve problems through leadership. And Dave and I often debrief situations or scenarios that are unfolding. And sometimes those conversations are good. So a while back, we decided, let's just record some of these conversations as we debrief, so we can share the knowledge with as many people as possible. So that's what this is. This is a leadership podcast, talking about

• 0:44Jocko Willink?

  how to solve problems through leadership. So with that, Dave, let's debrief.

• 0:52Dave Berke?

  Right on. We've got a, working with a company, there's a team leader that supports multiple projects, kind of like a roving PM. So she has multiple teams that she's responsible for and she kind of moves around and spends a couple of days onsite with each and then, you know, will travel or go somewhere else to a different site. And when she's with the team, they do really well. She, she's all in on the principles. She's been teaching them. She listens to the podcast and she, she does understand them and she has done a really good job embracing them with her team. And when she's with her team, when she's onsite on these projects, the team is awesome. They're on time, they're delivering. And what

• 1:35Dave Berke?

  she's discovered is when she's gone, and so she's off to another project, that team, their performance goes down. And they kind of slack off a little bit, but she, the revisit rate is enough that she keeps them on track. Everything's fine, but it's clear in her mind now that when she's not around, leading the team directly, the team slacks off. So Dave, what do I do?

• 1:59Dave Berke?

  And as we were talking, you know, there was a, there was kind of a straightforward answer in my mind, like the, the kind of obvious answer that I had in my head, which was, well, listen, if you're a team lead and your team is not delivering when you're not around, give them, put them in charge, give them ownership. And sort of the straightforward thing was, let them be the lead. You don't need to be the PM if, as, as you're a PM, when you're gone, they underperform. That actually isn't helping them. So, part of it was, hey, you're actually not applying the principles as well as you think, if when you're gone, they underperform. So, we talked about looking for opportunities to put them in charge,

• 2:38Dave Berke?

  looking for chances to have them be the lead. So, your presence there really isn't as impactful as it has been. But I wanted to dig a little deeper with her on this and have her kind of think a little bit more too. And the first part, again, to me was kind of obvious is that this is, this is the idea of decentralized command. This idea of you can't be everywhere all the time. You can't be with all your teams all the time. So, you can't help them make decisions all the time on site. And so, you obviously need them to step up. You need to increase their decision-making authority. You need to give them a bigger box. You need to give them better explanation of why they're doing what they're doing. And there's a lot of things that we can do under the umbrella of decentralized command

• 3:18Dave Berke?

  to help her team do better and flourish and lead better without her being there. But the other part of it, I think that was really critical as we kind of dug into this, what was missing is that one of the things that she needed to understand is that that's actually what was best for them. Not what was best for her as a team leader, not even what was just best for the particular project or thing she was working on. It was what they needed. And the issue with them sort of underperforming in her absence was a concept that we talk about when we talk about decentralized command is this idea of working yourself out of a job.

• 3:58Dave Berke?

  When we're in charge and our team and our team performs well when we're around and it doesn't perform quite as well when we're not around, I think the natural tendency to think, I'm kind of the linchpin here. I'm kind of the critical component. I'm the piece that's making this happen.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  I'm kind of awesome.

• 4:18Dave Berke?

  I'm kind of awesome. Yeah. And it's something that is kind of validating and it reinforces what you want, which is to be a good leader and to be the reason why your team is successful. But there's a piece that was missing and the piece that was missing is the recognition that it's actually what your team needs is for you to not be that person, for you to be able to leave and have them not just deliver the same way, but maybe even outperform what you would do if you were here. This idea, when we talk about working yourself out of a job.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  By the way, can I interject something?

• 4:56Dave Berke?

  Please.

• 4:57Jocko Willink?

  I just noticed a trend I'm starting to get and maybe it's just I'm getting old and more honorary about things, but on the last podcast or the last debrief podcast that we did, I was saying that I didn't like someone. So I just had that same reaction. When someone comes to me and says, you know, the team, you know, they just don't do that well when I'm not around. I just don't think they have the skills. I just don't think they get it. But luckily I can go around and straighten them out. When I hear that, I don't like you. So why is that? Why is it? Because that is absolutely your ego talking and it's absolutely

• 5:41Jocko Willink?

  you stunting the growth of your subordinates and you don't even know it, but you're stunting your own growth too. Because as long as your team can't operate without you, you have to operate with your team. So you're not like you. I want you. You're looking down and in instead of up and out, which is not what a leader should be doing. Does a leader have to look down and in sometimes? Absolutely.

• 6:02Dave Berke?

  Sure.

• 6:03Jocko Willink?

  Should they be focused there most of the time? No. If they don't look down and in, should the team go off the rails or even slightly off course? No, absolutely not. So it's bad.

• 6:14Dave Berke?

  If you look at the two scenarios as a leader, and scenario one is you're there with your team and they perform and they're awesome. When you're gone, there's a dip in that performance. And the other scenario is your team is so good that you being there is meaningless. They don't get better or worse when you're there. They are just awesome all the time with or without you. And your absence doesn't prevent them from doing a good job. Which scenario is actually better for you, for them, and for the organization?

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  And what's crazy about that is every single person, every single person on planet earth will answer that book textbook correctly. Everyone will say, well, obviously it's the team that can perform without me there. Every single human will answer that question correctly. And yet a vast, well, not a vast, but many, many of those people will be in that situation. And they will, they will cast out that correct answer in order to satisfy and gratify their own ego about feeling good and about feeling that the team just can't do anything without me.

• 7:23Dave Berke?

  Yeah, and what's kind of crazy about that is in every organization I've been a part of, if you as a leader get associated with every team you're a part of, performs that well without you, what do we do with those people in an organization? That they're so good at leading, we don't need them to show up on site anymore. That time, that team's got, what do we do? Do we fire those people? Hey, we don't need you anymore. You did such a good job mentoring and developing and evolving your team that if you show up or not, it really doesn't matter. They're good to go.

• 7:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we don't need you anymore.

• 7:58Dave Berke?

  We don't, yeah, goodbye.

• 7:59Jocko Willink?

  And that does not happen.

• 8:01Dave Berke?

  It doesn't happen. Those people are the people that get promoted. They get bigger responsibilities. They actually get the things that we all want. And if your ego is telling you as a leader, you're critical piece here, you are required for this to happen, change the perspective a little bit. And look, there is nothing wrong with wanting to advance in an organization. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be an influential leader, nothing. If you work yourself out of a job, you're never going to be without a job. Because what organizations across the world need is leaders that are that good. And there are always more problems and bigger problems and larger teams to lead. And it's not to say that this should be in your own self-interest, that's not why you're doing this. But the irony in that is that if you're that good as a leader, they will never,

• 8:46Dave Berke?

  you'll never be without a job. Working yourself out a job guarantees you that you will have a job because that leadership capacity is what teams will need more than anything.

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  So here's something that you said, you said, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get promoted inside of an organization. Which is an understandable statement. I wrote about this in Leadership Strategy and Tactics. When people say, oh, what's the best way for me to get promoted? The best way for me to get promoted is not worry about promotion. The best way for me to get promoted is actually just to do an awesome job. That's the best. Who am I going to promote? Jocko, who says, hey, boss, I just did this and it was all on me and I definitely want, you know, I definitely wanted to let you know that I did a great job and that the team, you know, we did the project exactly how you want. I wanted to let you know that. And I would play a big role. Or are they going to promote Dave who says, hey, boss, we got it done.

• 9:40Jocko Willink?

  Let me know what else I can do for you. Oh, hey, the team performed excellent. You know, I barely even did anything, but because my team is so solid that I can just kind of sit back. Let me know if you need anything else. Oh, wait a second. Which one of those two people are you going to promote? It's so obvious. It's so obvious, but man, that ego is a bastard. That thing is so powerful that it will crush what you, it will crush the obvious. Your ego is stronger than reality.

• 10:12Jocko Willink?

  Your ego is stronger than the reality of the situation.

• 10:16Dave Berke?

  And it's crazy. Yeah, that'll go down. It's crazy to see how easy that is to see from the outside. And what I was thinking as I was having this conversation is something you talk about all the time is the difference between leadership and manipulation. And when you're doing something. For your own best interest versus when you're doing something for the team's best interest. And how it sort of seems like maybe a little bit subtle because some of the actions are sort of the same. But from the outside, it is night and day. It's and you draw the distinction between those two is, hey, do I want to be in a leadership role? Yes, I do, because I think I can best influence the team to make the team successful. Which in some ways you can see the similarities between the people who are out for themselves because they just want to be in charge.

• 11:01Dave Berke?

  But if you change the viewpoint from yours to any other viewpoint, it is so easy to see and ego is stronger than reality. To be able to to miss the reality that other people are seeing like they're just seeing it in real time. And that's, that's something we're able to do and see it. And the thing that's crazy about it, it's not just us at Echelon Front that comes in and sees that. It's helping them recognize their entire, everybody else sees it, everybody.

• 11:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, when you think that people don't see your little maneuvers, you're just wrong and you're just so wrong. Everybody sees your little maneuvers. So, did we get this problem solved? What was the resolution here?

• 11:47Dave Berke?

  Yeah, I mean, most of these ones we're talking about, yeah, and this is a good leader. This is a leader who just struggling a little bit with some of the finer points. And there's a components of decentralized command that needed to get better. And and part of the reason why I was able to go kind of that next level of granularity as opposed to saying, okay, you're having a decentralized command problem was kind of high level, obvious answer or the ownership answer. Is that there was a genuine interest in wanting to figure out, hey, what am I doing wrong? What am I missing? How do I help my team get better? And with that mindset and that attitude, it makes helping solve these problems a lot easier. And it was really just that. I think the piece that was missing is recognizing when your team gets more of that and they perform,

• 12:31Dave Berke?

  that actually frees you up to do what you just described. Most people don't think their subordinates are going to come and say, "I've got more bandwidth for you. What do you need from me?" And you just, you just explain that to those, "Hey, my team made it all happen. They're good to go. As a matter of fact, I kind of didn't really do anything. I've got some white space on my calendar. What else?" How many times have you, do you have, those are not common conversations. Those don't happen all the time. And so, it was the recognition that it's in the best interest of you and in the best interest of your team. That's, I think, all that was needed there. In that sort of relatively easy fix, but there was, there's more to it than just, "You need to use decentralized command."

• 13:10Jocko Willink?

  Right. So what was your pragmatic, what did you give for pragmatic solutions? "Hey, here's what I want you to do."

• 13:16Dave Berke?

  Yeah, the solution to this one was, "Hey, on each of those teams," she's probably running four or five different projects simultaneously. On each of those teams, you have one or two folks that are kind of trusted agents that you could rely on them to do this. And she was able to name them immediately. Like, perfect. Have them develop what the plan's going to be for the time that you're not there, what some of those metrics are, and let them lead the project and run those metrics to be able to deliver to you when you come back to brief you up to speed on where they're going to be. And it was just basically putting them in charge and letting them know what they're going to do while she's gone, and what you're going, they're going to brief you on. So when she comes back, the next week was, "Hey, boss, these are the four things that you said we were tracking in the three days that you were gone. I'll brief you on Friday afternoon at two o'clock when you

• 13:58Dave Berke?

  get here. Brief those." And all three of those things were on track. And you know what she got to do?

• 14:04Jocko Willink?

  Cool. Look up and out?

• 14:05Dave Berke?

  Good work. I'm, totally. So, that was the pragmatic approach, which was identify the things that you see are the areas of weakness. Is someone there capable of leading and managing those and measuring those with the team in real time? And let them lead that team.

• 14:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. We wrote about, in the dichotomy of leadership, Big Walt, who was a dynamic SEAL Chief, and he would just run stuff. And so, during training operations, he would just run everything. And so, what would we do? We'd just kill him. We'd just put him down, you're down. And he would get so mad, but then you'd get to see the team start to step up and lead. Because the thing is here, you become the crutch for your team. And, and that's like, the thing I would say in a situation like that is, "Yep. Hey, hey, Dave, you know, I'm going to be gone." You come up with a plan and then when you come up with a plan, when I show up, I'm not going to interfere with anything. I'm going to say, it looks good, man. Looks good. Keep, keep rolling.

• 15:00Jocko Willink?

  I might ask you a couple of questions just to, just to get some facts that I might need, but I want to make it perfectly clear that you don't need me. And you don't need to rely on me. And I was thinking about this. It's another thing I wrote about in, I think it's in Leadership Strategy and Tactics is I had this operational readiness exercise when I was at SEAL Team Two, and it's when you're getting graded to see if you're ready for deployment and it's a big deal. And I put, I put my junior E5 as the platoon, as the patrol leader on that operation and it was cool and everything and he briefed it. But, and I talk about it in the book, how, you know, the, the guy was, the, the guy that was grading us was kind of like,

• 15:42Jocko Willink?

  wait a second, you're having your junior guy? And I said, yeah. I said, you know, I, I have confidence in my guys. They know what they're doing. They don't need me to run everything. Can you imagine what that seemed like to him? Yeah. Did you even imagine, I didn't even think of it until you just said that, what it must have seemed like to him to have somebody who was getting graded. So this is how they're going to prepare you for, or clear you to go on deployment. It's also, you know, there obviously the, your fitness report, your evaluation. Obviously this is a time where it's going to get looked at and people might say, you know, Jocko's, you know, didn't do very well in the operational readiness exercise or except, so I'm looking at that going, yeah, I'm going to have one of them. I'm going to have my junior guy.

• 16:22Jocko Willink?

  A new guy, a new guy is going to run this operation. I'm going to sit, I stood up. I stood up like we, we, we, we were all prepared to give the patrol order, the PLO. We're all, we're all in there. The, the full commander comes in who's going to be like grading us. So he comes in, we know, we all stand at attention, attention on deck, sit down, everyone sits down. I stand up. I go, sir, thanks for coming here, platoon. We're good to go. Sir, the patrol, the patrol leader for this operation is going to be petty officer second class so and so.

• 16:55Jocko Willink?

  Um, go ahead. I sit down. Look on his face was like dang. So imagine that. Imagine how much confidence you have when an E, when your most junior guy is gonna run the operation.

• 17:07Dave Berke?

  Yeah. How much loyalty did you create and how willing is Petty Officer Second Class? How much work and how hard is he gonna work to make sure that there is zero chance he fails you? How much energy is he gonna put into making that happen? And if you, again, if you just see it from that and have somebody else tell the same story of the life that you're living and go, this is what I did and see that and go, oh my God, that's, that's the, that's what I should be doing.

• 17:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. By the way, I stole that, uh, because that's what Delta Charlie did to me. I don't think he did it with an, actually, I don't know. He gave, he put us in charge of so much, it was totally insane.

• 17:43Dave Berke?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Jocko Willink?

  He put us in charge of everything. So we, we were just, we got so much more experience because we were briefing. We were, we were coming up with plans and then confidence from his chain of command from, you know, from his boss, it's like through the roof. That's how you do it, man.

• 18:01Dave Berke?

  Well, just in case anybody's wondering out there.

• 18:05Dave Berke?

  I, everything I've ever done, I've stolen from somebody to include the things we're doing right now. Without a doubt.

• 18:13Jocko Willink?

  Check. Good. All right. Sounds like we got that one solved.

• 18:16Dave Berke?

  Yep.

• 18:17Jocko Willink?

  What's next?

• 18:18Dave Berke?

  Working with a company that, um, started working with their, their executive leadership team. So their, their senior management, you know, chiefs and, and vice presidents, key leaders. Working with them for a while. And they initially brought us in because they wanted us to just help, help deliver some of the principles to that team and help that team grow. And that team is doing really well. And what they've been doing is they, they, they're pushing down the things that they're learning down to the next layers of leadership. And the next layer of leadership they're working with is kind of a mid-level management. It's somewhere between them and the front lines. And that has gone pretty well. And what they're seeing is one level down now, the frontline supervisors, the frontline leadership.

• 19:03Dave Berke?

  There's friction, there's something going on. And they almost seen as it's moving down, it's stopping a little bit. The momentum that they've created and the movement or through the organization hasn't gone as fast as they like. And they're trying to figure out, how do we break through to that next level? So, we joined them on a call to kind of work through this particular problem. And again, as they're describing and as we're thinking about it, there's this kind of large, obvious answer, which was, hey, if you want them to sort of take ownership, if you want them to start to embrace these principles and do the things that you're doing, you have to give them ownership. You've got to give them, you set the example, but you have to give them ownership.

• 19:47Dave Berke?

  And of course, we know that's right. But this crew that we've been working with is a really sharp crew. They understand what we've been doing. And there's again, kind of another level here. And as we started looking at what the issue was from their level to the next level, to that third level they're trying to get through, is as they were describing what some of these problems are, they couldn't explain the problem quite as well as they could explain their own problems. Hey, here's the issues I was having with my management team. But as I was describing the problem the management team's having with the supervisory level, that next level down, they didn't quite understand the problem. They couldn't really diagnose what it was. You know, ops and maintenance working together, the schedulers on the frontline folks.

• 20:32Dave Berke?

  And what that allowed me to do is plagiarize you extensively and actually pull something we talked about on the podcast not too long ago, which was kind of pulling down more detail in the principles that we were talking about. And actually, what we talked about here was, sometimes when we teach the principles, they're almost viewed as like cover and move. That's what this, cover and move is its own thing. It's its own element, its own entity. But actually, inside of cover and move, there's smaller, more detailed components that are living inside of building relationships, working well as a team.

• 21:13Dave Berke?

  And if you actually want to understand what the problem is at that level, where the friction is at that lower level, you need to know, you have to know what their perspective is. You have to be able to see it through their eyes. And so what we talked about is the deeper piece of giving them ownership was actually before you can do that, you have to keep your ego in check. You have got to detach from what's going on. And the biggest thing is you have to see the issue through their eyes. You have to have that perspective. And there's a lot more to cover and move than just saying you want to have a good relationship with somebody and just building a strong relationship. Because the relationship on itself wasn't the issue. It was the ability to understand what problem they were dealing with. So we started talking about the impact of those three elements,

• 21:59Dave Berke?

  those three little components inside of cover and move, and how hard it is to have their perspective. And the perspective of a supervisor who's leading an individual team on site is they're dealing with real time, immediate time restrictions. We have to go replace a filter on this apparatus out in the field. This has to be done today by 2 o'clock. Because at 2:05, we're bringing in a whole new system that's going to run through that filter, that's going to infiltrate throughout the site. And that is a real time constraint. There is no sitting back for strategic, this has got to get done. This is a tactical thing right now. And the executive management team, the senior leadership team has been viewing a lot of these problems in this larger, broader lens

• 22:43Dave Berke?

  and don't really understand some of the issues and the frictions that they're having. And they kind of think that those problems really aren't as significant as they are. They kind of marginalize and downplay those time restrictions. And the supervisor is thinking, hey, all this stuff you're talking about is great, but if I don't get this filter change right now, right now, I'm not going to be able to get all these other things on that affect your bottom line. And the way that they're getting that done is they're being heavy handed in their leadership. They're just making their people, hey, I don't care what you think, just go make this happen. And there's a gap in the perspective of the senior leadership and this frontline leadership. And that gap in perspective has made a huge

• 23:25Dave Berke?

  Change in perspective of how to get them to understand how the principles still apply to them at their level.

• 23:30Jocko Willink?

  So when you say that they've got to get this filter changed by two o'clock, is that we're talking, are you talking about it's not a metaphor? It's, hey, I know that you want me to sit through this leadership training class, but I've got to get this thing changed by two o'clock.

• 23:46Dave Berke?

  No, it's so to offer a little more fidelity at our level, let's say we're down to the supervisor level where I'm now supervising the team that does physical work on site. You're a scheduler, I'm an operations guy. Together, we're supposed to build a plan that meets all the intent and I've got a work order for the day. I've got 13 different tasks I gotta get done. You help me schedule it. I do the work. You've got insight into some other things. I don't necessarily know this filter fits affects this team, but I've got a work order. You and I are supposed to work together. We're supposed to cover and move. We're supposed to build a relationship. You and I are supposed to have a good operating relationship so we can make these things happen. Our relationship at that level isn't like that. You show up as a scheduler and you say, you gotta do this, this and this.

• 24:29Dave Berke?

  And I say, I can't do this because I've got to do this and this. And then what happens is you and I have this a whole bunch of friction. And the senior leadership team is thinking, hey, you guys just need to build your relationship, improve your relationship, and that's going to solve your problems. And we're, we're, we're stuck with reality, which is the only way for me to get the schedule to see it my way. It's for me to arm wrestle you until see who wins.

• 24:55Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So here's a, here's a pragmatic tactical solution to what you're talking about.

• 25:04Jocko Willink?

  When, when I come to you, Dave, and I say, hey, you need to go and, you know, dig this trench. And you say, I can't because I've got to go change this filter. My immediate thought should be, okay, Dave is right. Like there's, Dave is legitimately right about what he's saying right now. And he, he cannot go dig that trench because the filter has to get changed. So then my next thing is, okay, Dave, what time are you going to do that? And also.

• 25:41Jocko Willink?

  Do you, what, what makes that a high priority for you? Because what you might not know is that if we don't dig that trench, we're not going to get the, the footing in place so that we can bring the truck in that actually will deliver you the filter.

• 25:55Dave Berke?

  Right.

• 25:55Jocko Willink?

  So what is happening? Why aren't we able to talk to each other and, and come to a conclusion that actually makes sense? So this means that the, the way that you do that, the pragmatic way that you do that. Cause sure, it's like, hey, I need, I need to build a better relationship with Dave. Well, what does that mean? What it means, I go into the situation with the mindset of, hey, you know what? If Dave gives me resistance, he's got a reason for it and I should actually listen to what he has to say. And then try and figure out how we can come to a conclusion on that.

• 26:30Jocko Willink?

  A lot of times people don't do that. And, and the other problem here is when you've got something that I don't understand,

• 26:43Jocko Willink?

  that's my fault that I don't understand it, but more important, more important, it's my fault that I haven't created a culture where you will raise your hand and say, hey, boss, we actually can't do that and here's why. And by the way, boss, if you can lay out the priorities, so I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, I might be able to support you because right now I'm trying to support this other objective that I heard about three days ago, which at the time was the biggest priority. So let's talk, let's, I know that sounds crazy, right? It sounds crazy to think that if you and I have a conversation about what it is we need to get done,

• 27:27Jocko Willink?

  that we might be able to actually come to a resolution together that makes sense.

• 27:31Dave Berke?

  Yeah. It, it doesn't sound crazy, maybe because we've been doing it, but I, I understand what, what you're saying. And actually the, the practical resolution that we applied to this, the thing that we did to help them, take the principles you know that work and help them be functional is.

• 27:48Dave Berke?

  The manager and the supervisor, that conversation, said, "Hey, what should I do?" I said, "Well, sit down with your supervisor and help prep him for the next meeting with the scheduler." "And when the scheduler comes in with the schedule and the plan and the flow that he thinks that you should do, you know what I want your operations lead to do?"

• 28:07Dave Berke?

  He said, "I said, "Say, 'Okay, we'll do that. We're gonna do it your way. I want to get a better understanding of why your flow is the way it is. I need a better understanding how the scheduling process works, and so let's go with your plan." I said, "Look, if you identify something that is going to be catastrophic for the team, let us know." But I said, "What's the likelihood, if you just did it the scheduler's way, something catastrophic would happen?" He kind of laughed. He's like, "Well, nothing catastrophic is gonna happen." I'm like, "Cool, then just do it his way. Just say, 'Okay, let's do that.'" And I said, "What do you think the scheduler is gonna say or do when your production guy says, 'Yeah, we'll do it your way.'" And he also laughed. He says, "He's not gonna know what's going on, because all we've ever done is argued with each other, and we've arm wrestled and fought over this and that."

• 28:50Dave Berke?

  I said, "So just do that. And don't do it just to kind of fold and just say, 'Fine, we'll do whatever you want.'" Do it and say, "Let's do it that way, and I'm gonna pay attention to why we're doing this, because I want to understand your priorities as a scheduler better." I said, "And let's do that for a couple of weeks and see what happens." And what happens is, the most obvious thing is, the scheduler no longer comes to that meeting waiting to fight. He doesn't think what's gonna happen is, you're gonna come in with your whole list of things and you're gonna go at it. He comes in expecting, for the first time, "Wow, I might not get as much resistance." And guess what he's gonna be willing to do when you finally push back? Go, "Hey, can we swap task two and seven here? I've got this thing that's getting delivered, but it's not gonna be until the afternoon,

• 29:31Dave Berke?

  and I could knock out three and four. Would you let me?" And he'll say, "Actually, we can do that." And it was, it's just cover and move. It's all it is. It's just cover and move. It's just relationships. And it was the inability to understand at that level what they're dealing with, but what they're dealing with is the same thing that the CEO is dealing with. And when you have your team walk into a relationship and say, sure, we can do it your way. And it hasn't been like that. The outcome of that, and it was such an easy fix to apply, but what was lacking is just the perspective of what they were dealing with. This scheduler's thinking, if I don't get this done at two, the whole thing falls apart. And the ops guy's thinking, if I don't get this done at two, the whole thing falls apart. In reality, nothing really falls apart. Maybe it's not optimal, maybe it is. But for me to get to the outcome that I now know

• 30:15Dave Berke?

  what optimal is, I can't do it all by myself. I actually need you. You're the scheduler. You can't do it by yourself. You need me because I'm doing the work. And the best relationship we can have is that we're working together. And the best way to get that is for me to walk in and go, Jocko, let's just do it your way, man. I've been resisting this the whole time. I don't even know what your priorities are. Walk me through it. I'm gonna bring my, my, my field team with me. We're gonna run through this whole day. Let's just do this task for the next couple of weeks and see how this plays out.

• 30:39Jocko Willink?

  I wonder how many fights were over six and one and a half dozen the other.

• 30:42Dave Berke?

  Totally.

• 30:43Jocko Willink?

  And, and how much time was spent arguing about six and one and a half dozen the other? We could have actually accomplished three of the tasks for the day, just making those things happen. I wonder how much things improve when we go in with a unified goal of doing things in the best possible order. Not my way or your way, but just in the best possible order that supports our mission and what we're trying to get done.

• 31:07Dave Berke?

  How often did the scheduler go back to tell his team, hey, how'd that meeting go? Same as it always gets, a total nightmare. And then came back the first time, how'd that meeting go? Actually, it went really well. And on this, on the production side, hey, how'd that meeting with the scheduler go? Thinking he's gonna say it was a total nightmare and this is stupid. He came back and was like, actually, it was really good. And we're gonna do this and that for these reasons. And how quickly the rest of the team goes, oh, oh, cool, that sounds awesome. Let's just go do that. And the ability to, to remove resistance by just letting someone else explain and show and do what they want to do, long enough for them to return the favor and actually do the same with you, to help you get to that optimal

• 31:47Dave Berke?

  outcome. And it was the same thing that we deal with every, when we talk about it's cover and move. It's just what cover and move, but having to figure out those little details of what is the real friction point there that you're not seeing.

• 32:00Jocko Willink?

  If you, if you think about what a disruptor.

• 32:06Jocko Willink?

  If you think about what a disruptor ego can be to cover and move, if you think about what a disruptor ego can be to cover and move, you will find that it is the primary disruptor of cover and move. Because the last thing that I think I should have to do is do these things in the order that Dave says. I'm the one that's doing work. Who the hell is Dave to come here and tell me what order to do them in? There you go. You're disrupted. Now we don't have a good relationship. Now we're fighting over something that is not worth fighting over. That's why we talk about relationships all the time when it comes to cover and move. And how well do we form relationships? If we let our ego get in the way, we don't form good relationships.

• 32:51Jocko Willink?

  I got asked this the other day. Hey, how did you form? How did you form good relationships when you got to the, to Ramadi? And you're working with the Army and the Marine Corps? Oh, how do we form relationships with them? We went and said, hey, what can we do to help you guys out? Not, hey, I'm the Navy SEAL where you guys need to give us support. No. It's like, hey, you guys, this is our capabilities. What can we do to help you out? Subordinate your ego is the first step to forming a good relationship. Who wants to hang around? Who wants to have a relationship with someone that's just thinking about themselves? Who is that? Who is that person? That person doesn't exist. Once again, let's play the game. If I walk into the, to the, to the new, to the, to the team leader, and I say, hey, I'm Jocko, this is what I run,

• 33:35Jocko Willink?

  and we're going to rely on you and you better be there to back us up when we need it. And then Dave walks in and goes, hey, this is what I run. Good to meet you. Here's the capabilities that I have. Let me know how we can help you out. Who are we going to have a relationship with? It's so freaking obvious. And yet, day after day, week after week, year after year, we have to show people a reflection of themselves in the mirror. And they get to see their ego. And they get to realize that that ego is an ugly thing.

• 34:13Jocko Willink?

  All right, we almost cut it under a half an hour. Good place to stop. And if you want to dig into these topics of leadership in any arena, you can join Dave and me and the rest of the Echelon Front team at efonline.com, where what we do is solve problems through leadership. If you have questions, you can come there and actually ask me. You can actually ask Dave. We're on there. In this new virtual world, this new lockdown world where everyone's in front of their computer screen communicating with each other, we're there. You can ask us. We also have a little bit deeper level of leadership guidance we can give you.

• 34:57Jocko Willink?

  Inside organizations, we have a leadership consultancy. Echelonfront.com, if you want us to come and work with your team, go and check that out. I've also written a bunch of books about leadership. Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership, Leadership Strategy and Tactics. You can check those out. Have some other podcasts where I talk. Jocko Podcast is the main one. Jocko Unraveling with Daryl Cooper. Grounded with Echo Charles. And the Warrior Kid Podcast with the almighty Uncle Jake. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can get some gear from jacostore.com or originmaine.com.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  Thanks for listening to us as we debrief. Now go lead. This is Dave and Jocko. Out.