My first Platoon we were doing a training operation we get into this tactical situation
Everyone in my platoon is focused on one area. Everyone's looking down their weapons waiting for a threat to expose itself
Which means you got 16 guys looking down their weapons and I'm waiting for someone to make a call. I was a new guy
I'm waiting for someone above me in the chain of command to say hey move here
Or hey move forward or make some kind of a decision and as I'm waiting no one's doing it
So so I'm a new guy. I'm scared to say anything and I know I shouldn't say anything
So I'm just waiting and no one's giving an order no one's giving any direction. So I wait longer and this goes on for probably
30 seconds or a minute which is a really long time when you're trying to take down a target and
Finally I said to myself. All right, I'm gonna see what's going on
so I actually put my weapon at the
Ceiling and I take a step back and I just look around and and I see that every single person in my platoon
Including my platoon commander including the assistant between commander
Including the platoon leading petty officer
everyone has just focused on their weapons and no one's making a decision and I can see this and because I'm looking around and I'm
Detached from the scenario just by just by eight inches
I stepped back steps back to looking around I can see what decision needs to be made
and so I I summoned up as much courage as I could as a new guy because new guys don't make decisions and I said,
hold left clear, right which is a basic command that we had rehearsed and you would practice and I expected someone to say
You know, shut up. Shut up Jocko but instead they repeated the command. They all said hold left clear, right?
which means we were gonna execute it and sure enough the guys on the left held and the guys on the right cleared we got
Done and instead of someone saying hey you need to keep your mouth
Shut like one of the more senior guys I said hey good job up there way to make a call. I looked at it
I said wait a second
how could I have a new guy have made a decision in that situation that was better than what the
more senior more experienced guys were making and I realized it was because I took a step back and
Detached from so at that moment. I said to myself okay from now on when I get into these tactical scenarios
I'm gonna take a step back and I'm gonna try and look around and I'm gonna try and detach myself from
The chaos and the mayhem and I started doing it all time in every tactical situation in the land
warfare in the mountains and urban environments
I was doing it all the time and I was able to like see what was happening
It was like a superpower to be able to see what was happening and make decisions
Then I actually started doing it when I was
having conversations
And if you and I were in a disagreement, and you started getting an emotional instead of me getting emotional back at you
I would just take a step back and be like, oh, okay
He's really concerned about this. Why is he so concerned? What does he seem that?
I don't wanna see and I started to actually just D catching all the time and that became a very powerful tool that I used
To this day. There's a word that people bring up a lot and I think they're pretty interchangeable in its relationships in trust, right?
It's really trust is built on relationships relationships are built on trust
If you don't trust me
We don't really have a relationship the more deeply you trust me - the better relationship we have so how do I build trust with?
You if you're above me in the chain of command well this and this is one of those
Answers, that's so obvious
It's it's crazy
But people actually fail to do this which is if if you ask me to do something as my boss
I do it and I do it well and I do it consistently
I go above and beyond what you asked and if you want me to deliver this project by this date
I deliver it earlier and I deliver it to the best of my ability above and beyond what you expected and you say oh wow
When I ask Jocko to do something he actually does it and that's where it starts it starts with that right there with me
Performing me offering advice me
Taking what you ask me to do and doing it if we flip those roles and now I'm in charge of you
How do I build trust with you?
Well, what I do is I give you a project and instead of me giving you a project and then saying hey
Here's how I want you to do this and here's how I want you to the next part instead of say hey
Here's a project
Let me know how you want to do it and then you go figure out how you want to get done and I don't
Micromanage you and I don't ask you a million questions about and tell you no don't do it like that do it like this
I let you do it and what does that tell you that tells you that I trust you?
I trust you and when I trust you you start to trust me
and by the way
If something goes wrong
Instead of me jumping down your throat and hanging you out to dry and making you an example in front of everyone
I say hey, let's figure out what we're wrong
Did I not support you well enough then I not give you what you needed
And so you realize oh, he's not gonna hang me out to dry. He's gonna give me the support
He's gonna try and teach me if something goes wrong instead of drop the hammer on and in order to do this properly
Of course, let's say you just started working
For me the first thing I would hand you wouldn't be a massively strategic important project and say hey
Here's the here's the you know, here's a multi-million dollar project. You take and run with it
I'll be over here because I don't know you how can I trust you if I don't know you so I'm gonna give you a
Smaller project. I'm gonna give you something little to start on and then you do that you do that
Well, boom now
I may be something bigger and we continue to go in that direction until
Pretty much we get to a point where all I really have to tell you is. Hey, this is the vision
This is what we're trying to make happen run with it
If you need to pass this barrier of whatever kind let me know so I can let everyone else know
But it's on you run with it if I treat you like
You're a plebe like you don't matter. You're not gonna respect me at all
but if I treat you with respect and respect you when you try and talk to me, I
Listen, and I respect what you're saying and I try and understand it fully then
Your respect for me is gonna go up as well
So when you want to when you want to earn respect give respect when you want to earn influence give influence
We want to earn trust to give trust all those three are related
You