chuckle no bad teams only bad leaders and always the same relationship with
each boss yet you also staged a mutiny how do you reconcile them okay so what
are you talking about obviously no bad teams no bad leaders is from extreme
ownership and it's actually from before that Napoleon said the same thing
hackworth said the same thing we changed the words a little bit but so that's and
then the other thing he's talking about is that I always say or have the same
relationship with every boss I've ever had whether they were stupid or smart or
whether they were aggressive or passive whether they were big eagle or humble I
always had the same relationship with all of them that is they trust me and
they gave me what I needed you to do my job so how do i reconcile but then then
he's talking about staged a mutiny because we had a kind of a mutiny in one
of my platoon broken a dude when I was a young enlisted guy and so how can you do
that right if I had all these great relationships with all my bosses and no
one but I staged a mutiny interesting I actually had a decent relationship with
a guy that I staged a mutiny with now that I think about it so to go back to
the earlier question well talking about being a renegade and you know being a
rebel and and like I said you you have to rebel when it is necessary so and
also for the mutiny that is in question I I need to make it clear here
I didn't staged the meeting it wasn't me it was kind of a group effort that was
somewhat led by the leadership of our the enlisted leadership of our platoon
and it was a movement that I certainly supported and was on board with and we
were kind of the e5 mafia in a platoon sure yeah so we were kind of had the
voice of the people right me and a certain group of guys actually from my
buds class who were all kind of yeah kind of just fired up about things and
you know I it wasn't like the thing is it wasn't like the platoon commander had
a couple weaknesses right and maybe he wasn't the best of tactics or maybe it
wasn't that you know he wasn't the best shot or anything like wasn't the best to
have we know he was a good athlete he tactically he was like marginal but what
he didn't have talked about this all time what he didn't have has even have
any humility at all and so he wasn't listening to anyone that was giving him
any input including he had very experienced senior enlisted advisors so
the platoon chief and the platoon LPO were awesome guys very respected SEALs
one of them had been in the first Gulf War on the ground getting after it as
much as he could so these guys were experienced and the senior chief was a
really really smart guy and this guy wasn't listening to him and so you had
somebody that in a situation was it would have been bad for the platoon to
have this type of leader in there and now think about this if it's bad for the
platoon that it's bad for your mission hmm
if you don't have a good platoon you can't execute your mission well and
that's the bottom line to this question that is how I reconcile this how does
this situation affect the mission affect our ability to accomplish the mission
how does it do it if we have a bad leader and it makes us a bad platoon
then we're not gonna be able to accomplish our mission and therefore I
need to help get rid of this person because my number one thing that I'm
trying to do is be good at my mission mm-hmm and obviously a more unified team
is going to accomplish the mission more effectively and more efficiently period
so that you know that is why it is so important for people to understand the
mission and the goal and the commander's intent because all of your decisions are
based on and guided by that understanding of understanding what the
mission is so you need to put the mission first all the time to make the
right decision now as soon as I say that what pops in your head oh Jocko you care
about the mission more than you care about your men not true because
think about this if you are executing your mission effectively you are taking
care of your men that's in the business world and it's in the battlefield
because in the business world I found executing my my mission effectively
guess what we're doing we're making more money while being more profitable we're
gaining more clients we're growing and therefore I'm taking care of my
employees because I'm keeping them employed and making them more bonuses
and making them more money and offering them more leadership opportunities in
combat same thing if we are good and I execute my mission effectively guess
what we've mitigated risk in the best possible way the more we mitigate risk
the more people are alive the Blessed casualties we take so if I'm doing
everything geared towards the mission then then I am taking care of my men
because by the way if I'm running a mission with heavy casualties or what
about my next mission right so if you're my boss and you tell me to charge this
machine-gun nest with my guys and I say boss you know we shouldn't do that right
now you do you carry out the mission okay well who's gonna do the next
mission right there's not unlimited guys here so you can't do it you can't run a
mission after you've taken heavy casualties just like you can't if you as
a business person if you expend all of your capital on one project well guess
what you can't do the next project so a good job you accomplish the one mission
but you can't accomplish anymore on the battlefield if you incur a bunch of
casualties for one mission you can't accomplish anymore so in both those
cases the more effectively you you handle the mission not just the one
mission but your broad mission your strategic mission the better you do that
the better you are taking care of your men and the better you're taking care of
your people in the business world so
and on top of that on top of that 99% of the time your mission is aligned with
the best thing for your people that's what I'm saying
99% of the time if we make more money as a company it helps all my people if we
if we accomplish missions in the most effective and efficient and take the
least casualties that's the best thing for my people hmm
so back to the question how do i reconcile these things I look at how I
can best accomplish the mission and if it best accomplish the mission to rebel
against what's happening there are some cases where I might not you might be my
boss and I might not like you but you've got a great relationship with the army
commander and we're working in their battle space mm-hmm would it make sense
for me to throw a mutiny and get you fired no it'd make no sense whatsoever
it's gonna be better for our mission if I say echo sucks but I'm gonna listen to
him and we're in a massage this thing or to make things work because he has such
a good relationship with this army commander that he's making things happen
mm-hmm so I might not do it I might not stage emit a mutiny not based on the
fact that you that your level of sucking but based on the fact that what's more
important to me is that we accomplish our mission and if you have a good
relationship with the army commander I'm gonna keep you around mmm
if you were if you were in a business situation and you had you were not doing
a good job and you're one of my subordinates you're not doing a good job
but you have this great relationships with all these clients and we're
accomplishing our mission well because you've built these great relationships
am I just gonna fire you because I think you're doing it figures I think you're a
crappy leader of your men no actually I'm not what is best for the mission hmm
now I might have secondary and tertiary plans to move you into position where
you don't have to handle the operational things that you suck at and I might put
you in a position where you've just gonna become you know a business dad a
biz dev guy well you're out there meeting greeting people because that's
what you're good at I might make that happen but I'm not
just gonna go echoes a bad leader fire him throw away the the skill that you do
have and now we're not accomplishing our mission here because I ruined all the
relationships because now you go all these all these other partners that
we have and you're going to yeah Jocko fired me he's pathetic
he doesn't realize what we're doing here I'm going over to this company come with
me bring your business over here with me so
you reconcile it by looking at the mission and the mission is almost always
aligned with taking care of your people and taking care of your people in the
sense of imposing discipline or not imposing discipline it is being
disciplined and making them work and giving them training them hard pushing
them that is generally what taking care of your people is yeah taking care of
your people isn't hey you know what echo uh you know don't worry about that video
that you owe to the client I know you I know what your daughter's birthday you
go ahead and go home for the day am I taking care of you if I do that no
am I taking care of you no I'm not I'm actually hurting you because now we got
a bad reputation we delivered the video late the company passes word to the next
company and says hey you know those guys are the video is okay but it doesn't
matter because it was late mm-hmm now that's the reputation we have now fast
forward six months we're downsizing I don't need you anymore I'm gonna make
them you know I don't need for video makers I only need one and you're not
the one use you know Sam so I'm not taking care of my people if I focus on
the mission which is hey echo I apologize I know at your daughter's
birthday but guess what we owe this video we got to get it done I mean you
gotta get in here and make it happen am i taking care of you then yes I am I
know it doesn't feel that way but yes I am yeah yeah
making sure they're equipped capable and treated fairly yeah yeah I said impose
discipline on them yeah and like that doesn't work yeah but what you have to
do is you have to impose this point make sure there's this icon isn't there's the
dichotomy yeah because you don't want to say echo you
will come in and make this video right I'm imposing this on your back echo we
owe this video we said we're gonna turn it in let me tell you the ramifications
if we don't do this here's what's gonna hurt it's gonna hurt this this this this
and this gonna eventually could end up with you not having a job and me not
having a business yeah do you like the sounds of that no you don't know