when you're trying to take ownership of a mistake made by a fellow team member
what do you do if the team leader asked for a step by step step by step
breakdown of events I've said it was our mistake and not to n-not made excuses
but a step by step breakdown would expose the fact that he alone was
responsible for the error hmm interesting so he basically that's
interesting it is wait wait so he's been saying okay it's our mistake right I
don't want to individualize this guy or so you know make him stand out or
whatever it's our mistake and we're gonna fix it kind of thing and he's like
no I want to step by step by step step by step is gonna reveal ready the solo
actually bills fault and now what I did I tried so hard to take ownership but
here it was actually bill that was all Jack yeah actually not my it's exactly
not my fault is what we're saying it's it's the truth right you get that right
yeah I guess check it out who's responsible when you're taking ownership
of something when you're taking extreme ownership of something whose fault is it
yeah mine yeah sure does that include when someone else on your team makes a
mistake yes but how can that be good it's your team so let me ask you these
questions here's what I'd be thinking the teammate was in error why why did
the teammate make a mistake why didn't the teammate have backup why
didn't the rest of the members of the team why didn't I actually go through
with him and make sure that he knew how to do that procedure properly he's part
of my team we're responsible for this taking place I knew he was a little bit
shaky and I didn't do anything to fix it that's why it's our fault it's not our
fault because we say oh it's our fault but it's really bill that's not that's
not what we're talking about the point is the point is to actually own it so if
my coworker fails I'm literally saying to myself what
mistake did I make that my coworker dropped the ball what mistake did I make
my coworker dropped the ball what mistake did I make
did I not show it to him did I not ask him if he knew how to do
it did I not ask him if he needed some help did I not confirm that he knew the
procedures correctly all those things are my fault did I not do a good job of
identifying that bills a little bit slow on the uptake and therefore he needs a
little extra preparation for this and now now think about this what can I do
once I make those mistakes okay we're gonna do fix them and now think about
this from a leadership perspective you go down and you say hey guys you guys
messed up this thing why did it happen now think about the team wherever it
goes well you know it's our fault mostly bill right and I'll tell you when
I when when when I look at a platoon and bill made a mistake I don't look at bill
a good leader doesn't just look at bill a good leadership looks at everyone on
the team especially certainly the leadership but I think this guy's
talking about from a peer but it doesn't matter from a peer perspective if
there's a mistake that happens we are truly responsible and then from a
leadership perspective when I go down to the team and I say hey guys what
happened and they said well it was our fault but this is what Bill did I okay
so you just drop a dime on bill I'm not gonna say okay so it's all bills fault
cool I'll tell you what whereas if you say hey listen boss is what happened
here's the procedures we went I don't think we did a good job a briefing bill
cuz here's what bill did he did step three instead of step four my fault we
went through twice but why should have gone through it a couple more times and
confirmed he knew what was going on it's not gonna happen again we got this which
guy you want to work for which guy do you which which team do you want you
want the team where people are taking ownership of the problem not blaming
bill ownership is not just saying we own it ownership is actually owning it and
that's what makes it so powerful what makes it so powerful is if you actually
own it then you actually look at bill beforehand and you go look at our team
do we have any weaknesses yeah we did we got bill and bill doesn't bill can't get
this part of the procedure done right here's what we're gonna do we're gonna
put bill into this other position that's an easier part of the procedure we're to
make sure he knows how to do that meanwhile we're
Mike and Mike is gonna go down here and he nails this procedure and and he's
gonna spend by the way an extra 15 minutes a day during lunch he's gonna
get bill trained up so bill can eventually that's the kind of thing you
do on a team mmm yeah you made it pretty clear with juice which is kinda because
it's not that easy to understand or it wasn't for me anyway I mean it would put
it this way it was it was very valuable one I did understand this about extreme
ownership I said this before too by the way so there's there's essentially two
parts of it that make it extreme ownership well actually there's three
there's the dichotomy but aside from the dichotomy this is what it is you take
responsibility and then you say what you're gonna do to fix the problem and
then actually there's a third part which is you implement the solution yes yes
okay you identify it you own the problem you identify a solution for the problem
and then you implement the solution yes that's what you do yeah so a lot of
times it'll be especially in the beginning like I would just as far as me
just kind of casually trying to understand it I would focus so much on
taking responsibility you know it's my fault you know kind of thing it's like
well the taking responsibility I mean is arguably more important than saying that
it's your fault kind of thing it's essentially you're taking responsibility
of the solution as well yeah so if not you cuz in a way in a lot of practical
cases you don't even have to identify whose fault it is
if you take responsibility of the solution like if I'm okay here so if
there's a football team right that's like the epitome of team not the epitome
but what a good example of teamwork never mind the SEAL Teams or whatever
but well football is please it'll be more simple because it's it so let's say
okay we got a pass or whatever and boom the play the play starts and a guy gets
through the front line let's say the guard missed a block obvious right he
missed it maybe he looked one way and he was supposed to look this way he was
supposed to not pull and he tried to pull something he just made a mistake he
just made a mistake he's not in company just made a mistake whose fault is it
guards fault okay but if the quarterback is gonna take extreme ownership he's
gonna be like hey no party hey this happened you know next time we're I'm
gonna remind them how this play that play you know this read
46 don't curve twist or whatever you like you don't pull and he probably be
like on man I know I know don't don't stall them just like hey you don't know
ain't no problem but we're just not gonna do that anymore and then next time
I call that play I'll be like you're good right I'm gonna check with them I
didn't check with him that first time you made a mistake my check with him he
won't make that mistake again I liked you when we were now we can whenever
driving need me you know yeah it's kind of one of those things the quarterback
took responsibility for solving the problem or so then he was like okay Lutz
that was my fault that making a big deal out of it being his fault no in his head
it is you know it's like okay this is my fault I should you know I should make
sure things are clear kind of thing like the weather too you know your weather
yeah well what bothers me the most about this question is I feel like I feel like
I don't do a good job of explaining this because what bums me out is someone
whoever wrote this question and it's a good question I get the question I get
scared that the person that's listening to the question goes no chuckle doesn't
quite get it he doesn't quite get the fact that there was this one guy who was
part of the team who made this mistake and no one you know we just we can't
hold his hand every time like that's it's not my fault it's not our team's
fault when bill drop completely drops the ball that's not my fault it's not
any one of the team's fault and my point is is exactly what you are saying echo
yes it is and if you look at it when bill makes the mistake himself he's
alone in a room and he's supposed to you know he's supposed to put part a on top
a Part B and bolt them together that's his part of the job he's alone in a room
doing that and he doesn't do it right that's 100% his fault the answer is no
actually who's in charge of training him who's in charge of checking who not even
in charge of who's responsible we are a team that means we work together
that means we confirm that we know how to do our individual parts of the job
that means we check in say hey bill are you good hey bill let
me check your first three that you do to make sure you understand what's
happening we do this together as a team and it makes me feel like a failure that
people have a hard time understanding this and and I know it's it can be a
stretch it can be a stretch and you know I give all those examples
hey the machine gunner shoots in the wrong direction whose fault is that it's
not the machine the machine gunner literally pointed the machine gun in the
wrong direction pulled the trigger and shot in the wrong direction whose fault
is it it's the squad leaders it's the fireteam
leaders it's the platoon leaders because they didn't make sure that he understood
his field of fire make sure he understood how to operate his weapon and
by the way there's a chance that the reason that bill screwed this up and
bill is incapable of putting these parts together correctly and if that is the
situation guess what is a responsibility of the team to either get him trained up
to where he can't do it or to tell the leadership that this guy cannot he's
incapable of doing the job and therefore he needs to not be here mm-hmm that's
what ownership is that's what extreme ownership is I think I know what it is
but what what makes it confusing or sometimes kind of kind of slippery like
to grasp you know because it depends on who you ask
so a lot of times the thing is when when it's the machine gunners fault the thing
is if I'm if I'm not even a human being I'm just the disembodied brain okay it's
the machine other's fault and the leaders fault and that it's everyone's
fault if I'm you know but but if you ask the individual person because he has
some machine gunner Hey okay jockle you're the machine gunner you shot in
the wrong direction and I ask you whose fault is that what are you gonna say now
leaders well well if your fault well let me let me tell you right now there are
plenty of people and definitely plenty of machine gunners that when they shoot
that weapon in the wrong direction you know what they say I didn't get a clear
brief from what the fields of fire were no one to I didn't see the markers for
what the range limits were I didn't know where the other blue forces were no one
told me so they're looking at it like it actually isn't their fault now you get
some good machine and actually guess what when you have a guy that's a
machine gunner that says what wasn't my fault it was my leaders fault you know
what the leader says you know the leader says
you're a bad leader the the leader in this team the leader in this team you
know what he says no it was the machine gunner swap yeah that's right now guess
whose fault it was it was no one's fault yeah the machine gunner think is the
boss's fault the boss thinks it was a machine gunners fault now who's gonna
fix the problem the answer is no one no yeah when you get a good team the
machine gunner goes my fault I should have paid better attention that leaders
is my fault and now you have everyone taking
ownership of the problems yes yeah and that way it's supposed to be but that's
my point and that's why it makes it's never mind your disembodied brain that's
making decisions over here this is why it's hard for people to understand
that's why sometimes and I'm with them I'm like I was there it's kind of like
it's kind like you sure I'm trickin extreme ownership you know the typical
I'm taking extreme ownership but we also build for folk but the reason that it is
so hard because if I ask ok we have three guys one of those guys is a
machine gunner the other guy's a leader the other guy is just another team
member he's you know he's dead the sniper something if I say hey this
machine that I shot in the wrong direction individual meetings they all
take extreme ownership all of them are down there in the game yeah all of them
I asked you machine gunner whose fault is that what's he gonna say took my
fault ok next guy who's faulted that fireteam leader my fault I shouldn't
tell them and their squad leader my fault I should have told them right yes
so it the read now go back to the disembodied brain it's kind of like wait
wait wait wait so it's like he did it it's hard to grasp like that one guy it
is his fault thing is not just his fault apparently because everyone said it's
their fault right so he was obviously his fault but wait it's everyone's fault
kind of thing so when you're the guy and you're saying okay his fault in that
little thing creeps in your brain that's like yeah wait it is his fault yeah you
know any and you're wrong yeah yeah yeah and you're wrong and I need to do a
better job of explaining to Pete that to people because I see questions like this
on a fairly regular basis which is but hey really you know there's okay I get
ownership but really yeah that's what I mean it's the but really that you need
to check yourself on yeah because the reality is you're responsible
yeah you wait but if I'm responsible what about the machine he just said he's
responsible oisin gunner you're well I know but the machine gunner said seemed
saying though I think that's the feeling that that Jeff you like creep in yeah
and that's gonna be a problem Yeah right you ever seen office space so
really when you think about okay what's the big thing I don't see as the movie
remember yes you know yes you okay let me let me remind you kay so in the
beginning they were like hey Peter we're putting cover sheets on the TPS reports
from now on or we've been doing that you did you forgot to do that
right so first Lumbergh comes his boss force Lumbergh comes is like yeah you
know saying hey let me he didn't do it in a dick way annoying for sure but he
said hey this is basically a reminder did you get that memo we're putting
cover sheets on the TPS reports you sir I just forgot it was a one time thing no
problem it's like cool all you know so if you just do that do that that'd be
cool and he's like cool no problem so I'll even give you another copy of that
memo he almost like overdid it not almost he did overdo it so he left and
then the other boss boom who's like one level down he came same deal
hey we're putting did you get that memo TPS reports cover sheets now Poppa blah
he's like I got the memo I forgot one time thing is like yeah I'm just all
those bosses were do doing just making sure the problem got solved right doing
everything in their power even his father his friends were like hey what's
up I heard you guys you're having problems with your TPS so they were just
taking extreme ownership taking ownership of the problem trying to solve
it but we give them crap about it who doing it for the movie in a movie
somewhere yeah yeah because they're trying to make it funny dude yeah I know
I know but that's kind of chronic but yeah I know but it's ironic okay it is
you know so I'm not even mad at Lemberg for that this thing